Archive

Bait

Posted 9:03pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Sue Hui Ong

Author: Nick Brownlee Publisher: Piatkus (5/5) From the opening chapter of Bait, I knew that it was definitely a guy’s kind of book. There’s nothing like a gruesome killing and a colossal explosion to raise testosterone levels, and Nick Brownlee sure sets the pace in this, Read more...

Get Knotted

Posted 8:52pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Kathy Young

Author: Michelle Holman Publisher: HarperCollins (2/5) Get Knotted is the story of how Danny falls in love with her twin sister’s American partner’s brother. The twin is dead (she had breast cancer), and so is her partner, Patrick (he drowned). This leaves Danny trying to Read more...

James Bellaney - Natural Landscapes

Posted 8:42pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Hana Aoake

None Gallery James Bellaney’s performance-based art exhibition at None Gallery uncovered the unconscious element of Bellaney’s creative process. Bellaney is a fourth-year Painting student at the Dunedin School of Art and this was his first solo exhibition. This exhibition is Read more...

Ltt Review: Voyager VI

Posted 8:30pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Jen Aitken

Directed by Jimmy Currin Devised and starring THEA152 Semester One students (2/5)     This Voyager installation was ambitious and inventive. This stream of THEA 152 students – approximately 25 people, I am going to guess – staged the murder trial of the Read more...

Review: The 39 Steps

Posted 8:29pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Jen Aitken

Adapted by Patrick Barlow Directed by Hilary Norris Starring Patrick Davies, Anna Henare, Mark Neilson, and Danny Still Fortune Theatre Mainstage (4/5)     “They don’t give up, they damn well keep going.” – Richard Hannay  The 39 Read more...

The Outsiders - The Words Will Write Themselves

Posted 8:10pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by James Barlien

Wellington-based band The Outsiders have been touring relentlessly for their debut album, These Words Will Write Themselves. Live, these songs are fast paced, catchy, and more than anything, fantastic to listen to. Unfortunately, they do not have the same effect on the album. The album is Read more...

Fornax Chemica - Chemical Furnace

Posted 8:09pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Walker MacMurdo

Universal (1/5)   The phrase “strictly better” is used in some strategy games to describe when one move, choice, or play is better than another in any given circumstance. It isn’t often used in reviews. The notion of a book, movie, or song always being better Read more...

Fat Freddy's – fucking shit up.

Posted 8:08pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Simon Wallace

With a vibrancy befitting his cartoon alter ego, Hopepa warmed up the small alcove we were forced under by the rain in a way only someone living their dream can. Having been drawn into the fold of Fat Freddy's Drop only months after their inception, his bad ho jelly-roll dance moves and loose Read more...

Red Dead Redemption

Posted 8:02pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Ethan Khalsa

Platforms: PS3 and XBox 360     Red Dead Redemption is a game set in the Old West of the United States. It is a truly epic game produced by Rockstar, the same company that made the Grand Theft Auto games. The story takes place in an open world sandbox environment, and Read more...

Letters To Juliet

Posted 8:00pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Nicole Muriel

Directed by Gary Winnick (2.5/5) In Letters to Juliet, an interesting premise leads to a uninteresting rom-com. Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is an aspiring journalist. She and her fiancé, Viktor, travel to Verona together. But the trip isn’t as romantic as she’d hoped: Viktor Read more...

Paper Heart

Posted 7:59pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Sarah Baillie

Directed by Nick Jasenovic (4/5) Charlyne Li (comedienne/actress/musician) doesn’t believe in love. She has never been in love, and thinks she probably never will be. To see what she is missing out on, she sets out on a trip across the U.S. with director Nick Jasenovic to make a Read more...

The Rehearsal

Posted 7:47pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Henry Feltham

Author: Elanor Catton (4.5)     Victoria University Press does a strong line in novels written by photogenic dark-haired young women with fringes. The majority are graduates of Victoria University's creative writing program. I struggle to tell a lot of these woman apart, and Read more...

What Darwin Got Wrong

Posted 7:46pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Jonathan Jong

uthors: Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Parmarini Publisher: Profile (3/5)     Let’s get this straight: Fodor and Piattelli-Parmarini (F&PP) are not creationists; they are atheists through and through. They don’t deny that species are descended from Read more...

COLIN MCCAHON

Posted 7:44pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Hana Aoake

Brett McDowell Gallery     The Colin McCahon exhibition at the Brett McDowell Gallery is a visually startling and emotionally evocative experience. Colin McCahon is regarded as one of New Zealand's greatest painters of the 20th century and he continues to have influence over a Read more...

LTT Review: Mind Under

Posted 4:22pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Jen Aitken

Written by Kiri Beeching Directed by Richard Huber Staring Kiri Beeching and Richard Huber (3/5) This debut performance (a debut for both the play and the playwright) of Mind Under was bold and exciting, the exact kind of experimentation Lunchtime Theatre should be used Read more...

Preview: The 39 Steps

Posted 4:21pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Jen Aitken

Adapted by Patrick Barlow Original concept by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon Directed by Hilary Norris Starring Patrick Davies, Anna Henare, Mark Neilson and Danny Still Fortune Theatre Mainstage May 21 – June 12 A supremely funny spoof of Alfred Hitchcock's classic movie, Read more...

DUDSTOWN RUN THIS

Posted 4:07pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Simon Wallace

Booof speaks with Beau about, like, MCing and shit. Your role in the nightlife and musical culture of Dunedin is long and involved – how did you get started? Damn, you're making me feel like an oldie! I first got into free-styling by mucking around and having fun. I listened to Read more...

The Outsiders - The Words Will Write Themselves

Posted 4:07pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Simon Wallace

Universal Wellington-based band The Outsiders have been touring relentlessly for their debut album, These Words Will Write Themselves. Live, these songs are fast paced, catchy, and more than anything, fantastic to listen to. Unfortunately, they do not have the same effect on the album. Read more...

MMORPGs

Posted 4:01pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Ethan Khalsa

Platform: PC     There are a great many MMORGS around these days. For those of you who don’t psoeak nerd, that’s ‘Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games’. These are games like Ever Quest, Dark Age of Camelot, and World of Warcraft. It’s that Read more...

Every Jack Has a Jill

Posted 3:57pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Sarah Baillie

Directed by Jennifer Devoldere (3/5)   Starring the beautiful Mélanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds) and Justin Bartha (The Hangover), Every Jack Has a Jill (Jusqu’à Toi) is a sweet, better-than- -average romantic comedy. Chloé (Laurent) is a slightly Read more...

The Choir

Posted 3:56pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Sarah Baillie

Directed Michael Davie (5/5) Filmed at one of South Africa’s most dangerous prisons, The Choir is a documentary that gives incredible insight into the lives of prisoners. The main subject of the film is 19-year-old Jabulani, who has been sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment Read more...

Up in the Air.

Posted 3:47pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Sue Hui Ong

Author: Walter Kirn Publisher: John Murray Rating: 3/5 Up in the Air. Now a major motion picture. What a great way to get someone to read your book. From the trailers, I envisaged the book would be about some hot-shot sweet talker whose entire job consisted of travelling the vastness of Read more...

The Wives of Henry Oades.

Posted 3:46pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Sue Hui Ong

Author: Johanna Moran Publisher: Harper Press (5/5) The Wives of Henry Oades is Johanna Moran’s debut novel, and not a bad one to kick off a writing career either. Set in the 1890s, it follows the tale of Henry Oades as he uproots his family from England to Wellington, New Read more...

King Lear.

Posted 3:45pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Sarah Maessen

Author: Gareth Hinds Publisher: Candlewick Press (4/5) Gareth Hinds’ graphic novel adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear bridges the gap between prose and performance with seductive, original artwork. The famous tragedy follows King Lear’s descent into madness after his Read more...

Dead White Men & Other Important People: Sociology’s Big Ideas.

Posted 3:45pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Jonathan Jong

uthors: Ralph Fevre and Angus Bancroft Publisher: Palgrave (3.5/5) Dead White Men is sociology’s answer to Jostein Gaardner’s Sophie’s World, but it’s not quite as good. As in Sophie’s World, Fevre and Bancroft attempt to introduce the big ideas of their Read more...

Beloved: Works from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.

Posted 3:43pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by April Dell

DPAG Until October 30 2011 So Critic finally got around to seeing Beloved at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, a large and diverse exhibition commemorating the gallery’s 125th anniversary. The show flaunts the gallery’s permanent collection and celebrates six centuries of art from Read more...

Review: The Capping Show 2010, Alice in Cappingland.

Posted 3:29pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Erica Newlands

Directed by: Thom Adams, Alex Wilson, and Dianne Pulham (3/5) I am always in awe of the people who commit to a performance event of this scale in conjunction with full-time study. As a ‘Capping Show’ Alice in Cappingland ticked all the right boxes; however, I personally Read more...

LTT Review: Cicadas.

Posted 3:28pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Jen Aitken

Written by Rick Han Performed by Simon O’Connor Co-directed by Clare Adams and Hilary Halba (5/5) As a reviewer, I feel responsible to respond to this show with the same poetic quality that Theatre Studies student Rick Han presents in his script. This, however, is an unattainable Read more...

Caribou - Swim

Posted 3:11pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Simon Wallace

Merge 2010 (4/5)     Diving headfirst into a wash of haze and colour, Caribou's new album Swim envelops the listener instantly. Dan Snaith seems more focused musically than he has since his debut as Manitoba at the turn of the century, as he steers the opening track Read more...

Supermodel

Posted 3:10pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Ellis Bell May

“I'm definitely at one with myself when I'm singing,” says Mark Hanify, the lead singer of orthodox Wellington rock band Supermodel. “I'm in the moment, it's like when you're in deep meditation; it's the same kind of feeling. You're in that higher level of awareness, and because I'm Read more...

Motion Controller Movement

Posted 3:05pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Ethan Khalsa

Platforms: Wii (coming out for PS3 and Xbox 360) The Wii Remote catalysed the development of motion controllers for all major console manufacturers. While swinging the remote around is fun, the question remains: is this a good move for the gaming community? Currently, the Wii and PS3 Read more...

Robin Hood

Posted 3:04pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Alecks Vuckovic

Directed by Ridley Scott Rating: 3/5 Forget everything you might know about the original Robin Hood. There are no men prancing merrily around in a forest sporting tights to match the trees or stealing gold from the rich and giving it to the poor. Robin Hood no longer looks like a grown-up Read more...

The Blind Side

Posted 3:03pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Max Segal

Directed by John Lee Hancock (1/5) The Blind Side is the latest instalment in the long-running narrative that is the myth of white supremacy. Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock) is a wealthy, conservative mother of two who takes black teenager Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron) into her Read more...

The Secret In Their Eyes

Posted 3:03pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Sarah Baillie

Directed by Juan Jose Campanella (3.5/5) The Secret In Their Eyes (El Secreto de sus Ojos) is a riveting murder mystery of the highest order. The film follows Benjamin Esposito, a recently retired federal justice agent. Benjamin is still kept awake at night by an investigation he was Read more...

New York, I Love You

Posted 3:02pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Nicole Muriel

Directors: Multiple (2/5)     Emmanuel Benbihy, who produced Paris, Je T’aime, has again arranged an anthology of love stories with ten different directors. Each short was made in just over a week. This film has a stellar cast, including Natalie Portman and Shia Read more...

The Most Beautiful Man in the World

Posted 2:52pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Katie Hayes

Author: Jill Marshall Publisher: Penguin ( 4/5)     The blurb on the back of this book promised me a “pole dancer from Taranaki,” a beautiful man to be found “floating face-down in [a] Hollywood pool,” and “a tangled web of lies, sex and Read more...

Solar

Posted 2:52pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Kathy Young

Author: Ian McEwan Publisher: Jonathan Cape Rating: 3/5 Fans of Ian McEwan, prepare to be disappointed. Solar may be the closest McEwan has gotten to a rush job. Indeed, I was dismayed, and about halfway through I kept wondering if McEwan had actually written the book himself. Read more...

Eternal Life: A New Vision

Posted 2:50pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Deane Galbraith

Author: John Shelby Spong Publisher: HarperCollins (0/5) Bishop John Spong is Christianity’s version of the Dalai Lama: a purveyor of an earnestly inoffensive spirituality, which possesses all the substance and fibre of lukewarm parsnip juice. Spong dismisses fundamentalist Read more...

Thinking of Answers – Questions in the Philosophy of Everyday Life

Posted 2:49pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Jonathan Jong

Author: A. C. Grayling Publisher: Bloomsbury (4/5) I must admit to not being A. C. Grayling’s biggest fan: we’re in opposing camps on many issues. However, I do appreciate his role as a public intellectual, bringing philosophy (or critical thinking, if you prefer) to the Read more...

Dick Frizzell: Works on Paper

Posted 2:47pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Hana Aoake

Milford Gallery Until May 19 Dick Frizzell is a prominent and highly successful New Zealand artist, based in Hawke's Bay, whose notorious artistic appropriations have become ‘Kiwi’ pop-culture icons. His work is characterised as being incredibly adaptive from one style mode to Read more...

Preview: Alice in Cappingland

Posted 2:37pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Lady Kathryn Schrader

Directed by Thom Adams, Alex Wilson and Dianne Pulham Written and acted by an ensemble cast Teachers College Auditorium, Union St May 12-22, 7.30 pm $15 Student $20 public – onlineshop.ousa.org.nz The Capping Show, notorious for its painful puns and topical sketch comedy, as well as a Read more...

LTT Review: Shared Agendas Thursday 6-5-2010

Posted 2:36pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Jen Aitken

Co-ordinated by Ali East and Martyn Roberts (3/5) This performance was the fourteenth Shared Agendas event. Shared Agendas provides an annual forum for a cross-disciplinary, improvised exchange between musicians, dancers, actors, performers, and techies. James Reedy explains that the work Read more...

The Return of the Super Sharp Shooter

Posted 2:18pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Martyn Pepperell

In 2006, DJ Zinc (Government name: Benjamin Pettit), one of the true legends of jump-up jungle drum and bass, found himself heading towards a crossroads of sorts. “With drum and bass, around 2006, it became hard to find music that sounded cutting edge,” he says, speaking down the Read more...

The Chills (Live at the Empire)

Posted 2:17pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Sarah Baillie

he recently reopened Empire tavern on Princes Street has “special memories” for Martin Phillips of The Chills, as it is one of the regular venues the band played at during the heyday of Flying Nun bands in Dunedin. The only remaining member of The Chills’ original line-up, Martin Read more...

The Evolution of the Side-Scroller

Posted 2:12pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Damien Khalsa

Platforms: All Some of the very first role-playing and action games were side-scrollers – well, the first ones that weren't entirely text-based, at least. They became popular ith both game developers and gamers. The developers liked side-scrollers because they allowed them to Read more...

The Hedgehog

Posted 2:09pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Sarah Baillie

Directed by Mona Achache (4/5) The Hedgehog is an endearing film about the unlikely friendship which develops between three neighbours living in a luxury apartment building in Paris: Paloma, an 11-year-old girl; Renée, the concierge; and Mr. Ozu, an intriguing, friendly Japanese Read more...

A Single Man

Posted 2:08pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Kavi Chetty

Directed by Tom Ford (4.5/5) Tom Ford’s directorial debut A Single Man is, above all else, an aesthetic splendour. Based on the Christopher Isherwood novel of the same name, the story follows a day in the life of George Falconer (Colin Firth), a gay English professor, coping Read more...

Dear John

Posted 2:07pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Jane Adcroft

Directed by Lasse Halström (2.5 /5) Okay, confession time: I own The Notebook on DVD, I cry every time I watch A Walk to Remember, and I didn’t think Nights in Rodanthe was that bad. So when I heard that yet another Nicholas Sparks’ novel, Dear John, was being adapted for Read more...

Anything For Her

Posted 2:06pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Marissa Liu

Directed by Fred Cayaye (4.5/5) Anything For Her grips you from the very beginning. The film opens with a middle-aged man, Julien (Vincent Lindon), sitting in his car in the middle of the night, panting and covered in blood, staring panic-stricken at the back seat. The story then jumps Read more...

Press Pass: 40 Years of Award-Winning New Zealand Photography

Posted 1:54pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Georgie Fenwicke

By Geoff Dale Publisher: HarperCollins (3/5) At first glance, Press Pass appears to be a book that would reside comfortably on a coffee table. However, primary assumptions, as Elizabeth Bennet and George W. Bush can attest, oft deceive. Here instead is a book of substance and history Read more...