Archive

13 Minutes

Posted 1:45pm Sunday 27th September 2015 by Greta Melvin

Rating: 4/5 Underdogs and people who fight for the greater good are often portrayed as wholesome characters whose only flaw is that they care too much. Based on the true story of Georg Elser, a German man who attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler, 13 Minutes is a carefully composed film that Read more...

6 Years

Posted 1:40pm Sunday 27th September 2015 by Mandy Te

Rating: 3/5 Hannah Fidell’s 6 Years takes a beautiful and authentic approach to the demise of a young couple’s six-year relationship. However, it falls just short of capturing the same empathy from its audience. Melanie “Mel” Clarke (Taissa Farmiga) and Dan Mercer (Ben Read more...

DeadCore

Posted 1:35pm Sunday 27th September 2015 by Campbell Calverley

Rating: 5/5 The first-person platformer is a very unstable genre. First person makes it disorienting — you can’t see your feet and the camera is often shaking. Games like Portal and Mirror’s Edge are examples of such first-person platforming where experimentation has paid off Read more...

Murder That Wasn’t: The Case of George Gwaze

Posted 1:31pm Sunday 27th September 2015 by Bridget Vosburgh

Unusually for true crime, Goodyear-Smith takes the position that no crime actually happened. Charlene contracted HIV at birth from her mother. Both her birth parents died, and Charlene and her older sister Charmaine were adopted by their mother’s sister Sifso and her husband George. For Read more...

Art in Law XIV, Bare With

Posted 1:28pm Sunday 27th September 2015 by Susan Nunn

The Dunedin School of Art and the University of Otago Law Faculty have collaborated to bring a twice yearly art exhibition to the corridors of the Richardson Building on the Otago campus. Initiated originally by Peter Stupples, the exhibitions are curated by Marion Wassenaar and have been running Read more...

Cinnamon Churros with Salted Caramel

Posted 1:24pm Sunday 27th September 2015 by Sophie Edmonds

In my opinion, churros are some of the best doughnuts ever. Why, you ask? They have the greatest surface area to volume ratio, meaning more crispy, sweet, cinnamon bang for your buck. I recently (aka yesterday morning) came back from a trip to South America. Over there they make these slightly Read more...

Best and Worst Lyrics

Posted 1:09pm Sunday 27th September 2015 by Basti Menkes

The poetic addition of lyrics to our music over time has resulted in some truly stunning lines of verse, as well as a few crimes against the human intellect. Basti Menkes shares some of the greatest and the most cringeworthy moments in our lyrical history. The Good Pink Floyd, Read more...

Etherwood - Blue Leaves

Posted 1:00pm Sunday 27th September 2015 by Veronika Bell

Rating: 4/5 Drum and bass is a genre of electronic music with heavy basslines and fast breakbeats, usually around the 160–180 bpm margin. Over the years, drum and bass has developed an unfair stigma in society that really pisses me off. There’s an unflattering conception of Read more...

Myrkur - M

Posted 2:16pm Sunday 20th September 2015 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 3/5 In a genre of stylistic sameness and poor gender diversity, one-woman black metal outfit Myrkur is a welcome breath of fresh air. Danish muse Amalie Bruun has emerged at long last with M, her debut LP as Myrkur. After a promising EP last year, Myrkur’s first full-length album Read more...

Kadington - Don’t Kick the Cat, EP

Posted 2:09pm Sunday 20th September 2015 by Veronika Bell

Rating: 4/5 The world of visual arts gave us Banksy, a mysterious graffiti artist who uses a distinctive stencilling technique and dark humour to critique modern life. Banksy’s iconic political and social commentary has appeared on walls and buildings around the world.  The music Read more...

Tales from the Borderlands

Posted 2:05pm Sunday 20th September 2015 by Brandon Johnstone

Rating: 5/5 A Telltale Games masterpiece has almost become a cliché. Tackling some of pop culture’s largest franchises, from Back to the Future to The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, Telltale Games crafts surprisingly captivating stories while avoiding covering old ground or Read more...

The Mountain Story

Posted 2:00pm Sunday 20th September 2015 by Bridget Vosburgh

Thr Mountain Story, by Lori Lansens, is a survival novel. On his 18th birthday, Wolf Truly takes a tram up the mountain he spent much of his adolescence exploring with his best friend Byrd. A year before, Byrd was in an accident on the mountain that Wolf feels responsible for. This, along with the Read more...

Z

Posted 1:53pm Sunday 20th September 2015 by Simon Kingsley-Holmes

Classic "Any similarity to real persons or events is not coincidental. It is INTENTIONAL.” With one of film’s most baldly provocative opening statements, Costa-Gavras offers a thriller that hits the ground running. The audience is thrown full force into a poorly veiled Read more...

Straight Outta Compton

Posted 1:49pm Sunday 20th September 2015 by Siobon Inu

Rating: 4/5 Before the film’s release, Straight Outta Compton was gaining traction and hype — with suggestions of Oscar nominations, and also criticism of the film’s erasure of domestic violence and abuse. Despite the main cast being unknown talents, the hype concerning Straight Read more...

A Walk in the Woods

Posted 1:46pm Sunday 20th September 2015 by Nita Sullivan

Rating: 2/5 On this occasion, audience attendance was sadly indicative of the film’s quality. Based on travel writer Bill Bryson’s 1998 book, A Walk in the Woods recounts some of his 3500-kilometre tramp through the Appalachian Trail. Living a comfortable life in New Hampshire with Read more...

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Posted 1:42pm Sunday 20th September 2015 by Mandy Te

Rating: 4/5 Based on the young adult novel of the same name, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl offers the audience a refreshing take on the on-screen adolescent journey — one that is amusing, self-aware and skillfully made. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is shown through the eyes of Greg Read more...

Coconut Chole Curry

Posted 1:39pm Sunday 20th September 2015 by Kirsten Garcia

I'm blessed to live with an authentic Indian who teaches the Indian cooking classes at OUSA. I get one-on-one lessons when we flat cook, so I’ve come to master this curry business. As my first appearance in Critic, I’m going to share with you my ultimate crowd-pleaser meal. I Read more...

The (Un)happiest Place on Earth

Posted 1:32pm Sunday 20th September 2015 by Jess Taylor

As negative as it sounds, I’ve never been to the self-proclaimed “happiest place on earth”. But chances are, neither have you. As touristy and overrun as Disneyland sounds (in all of its five locations), the internationally known amusement park is a staple on almost all bucket Read more...

Rocket League

Posted 2:00pm Sunday 13th September 2015 by Carl Dingwall

Rating: 4/5 You may remember a segment from Top Gear involving cars, a large soccer ball and an attempt to play soccer. Entertaining in its own right, it wasn’t enough for the developers over at Psyonix, who figured it would make a more entertaining game if you added rockets. Welcome to Read more...

Paying with their Bodies: American War and the Problem of the Disabled Veteran

Posted 1:55pm Sunday 13th September 2015 by Bridget Vosburgh

Paying with their Bodies: American War and the Problem of the Disabled Veteran, by John M Kinder, takes on the subject of disabilities caused by warfare and the treatment of disabled veterans throughout American history. Kinder begins with the treatment of disabled war veterans and chiefly focuses Read more...