Archive

Singles in Review | Issue 23

Posted 1:46pm Sunday 13th September 2015 by Basti Menkes

Battles - “The Yabba” and “FF Bada” “Robot Rock” may be a Daft Punk song, but no band fits that description quite like Battles do. Since their 2007 debut album Mirrored, Battles have been blurring human and machine together in synth-infused blasts of Read more...

Ghosts of Electricity

Posted 1:43pm Sunday 13th September 2015 by Basti Menkes

Ghosts of Electricity are a white-collar punk trio from Auckland. Critic caught up with frontman and principle songwriter Tim Fowler recently to discuss their great new album Trolls, the current New Zealand music climate, and trying to sound like Lana Del Rey. Tell me a little about the Read more...

We Are Your Friends

Posted 1:36pm Sunday 13th September 2015 by Kirsty Gordge

Max Joseph’s music drama, We Are Your Friends, successfully captures the struggles of four young adults who have opted out of student loans and, instead, are attempting the get-rich-quick route. Following their attempts at wealth, aspiring DJ Cole (Zac Efron) and his friends, Ollie (Shiloh Read more...

Ricki and the Flash

Posted 1:34pm Sunday 13th September 2015 by Maya Dodd

Rating: 4/5 Meryl Streep is not only an incredible actor with a great set of pipes, there is also just something unique about her that leaves me in awe. But, for me, nothing will ever top her performance as the stylishly cold Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada. However, with impressive Read more...

Last Cab to Darwin

Posted 1:31pm Sunday 13th September 2015 by Valu Maka

Rating: 3/5 Last Cab to Darwin is one of those circling-the-drain films that makes you reflect on your life and keeps you up at night with deep questions such as “what makes life worth living?”. Directed by Jeremy Sims, Last Cab to Darwin  follows Rex McRae (Michael Read more...

Ever the Land

Posted 1:27pm Sunday 13th September 2015 by Ngarangi Haerewa

Rating: 2/5 Part of the quintessential cinematic experience is going into the cinema knowing next to nothing about the film. With such logic, I was halfway toward the ultimate cinema experience. While it was initially thrilling, Ever the Land was also disappointing. Directed by Sarah Grohnert, Read more...

Savoury Muffins

Posted 1:16pm Sunday 13th September 2015 by Sophie Edmonds

My best friend Sophie M loves savoury muffins. Like crazy loves. She will buy one almost every day to have for morning tea. In her muffin quests, she has come to be quite the connoisseur. I always get really nervous when I make them for her for fear they will not live up to her high standards. For Read more...

Tully Arnot - Grey Goo

Posted 1:10pm Sunday 13th September 2015 by James Thomson-Bache

"It’s an experimental space,” curator Chloe Geoghegan remarked on my arrival to the Blue Oyster’s most recently installed exhibition, Grey Goo. It certainly did feel that way as I stood there, an ominous hum playing around me and a McDonald’s burger shaking vigorously at Read more...

This War of Mine

Posted 2:53pm Sunday 6th September 2015 by George Elliott

Rating: 4/5 In the past decade, the video game industry has been disrupted by a revolution of sorts: the medium is being reclaimed from the potent forces of commercialisation. The rise of the independent developer, propelled by advances in digital distribution, the democratisation of software and Read more...

Singles in Review | Issue 22

Posted 2:46pm Sunday 6th September 2015 by Basti Menkes

The Dead Weather - “I Feel Love (Every Million Miles)” The most experimental of all of Jack White’s bands is arguably The Dead Weather, in which he shares vocal responsibilities with Alison Mosshart of The Kills. The quartet makes scuzzy, psychedelic blues rock drenched Read more...

Legacy Music Group

Posted 2:41pm Sunday 6th September 2015 by Daniel Munro

Dunedin has birthed some huge names in music, with acts like Six60 and The Chills enjoying not only national but international success. While certain acts have made it big outside our wee student city, hip-hop has not been among them. Lucas “Big Sima” Gunn asked us to “name a Read more...

Southpaw

Posted 2:36pm Sunday 6th September 2015 by Alastair Reith

Rating: 3/5 Do we really need Southpaw? Do we really need a microwave reheat of another boxing film?  Despite the influx of Eastern European titans in recent years on the world stage, boxing in the United States remains a Black- and Latino-dominated sport, as it has been for decades.With Read more...

Women He’s Undressed

Posted 2:30pm Sunday 6th September 2015 by Cameron Evans

Rating: 4/5 In Women He’s Undressed, director Gillian Armstrong goes beyond fashion and offers the audience a comprehensive insight into the life, motivations and tribulations of Australian, Orry Kelly — a costume designer whose success is unknown to most of Australia. Using an Read more...

She’s Funny That Way

Posted 2:25pm Sunday 6th September 2015 by Ngarangi Haerewa

Rating: 0/5 She’s Funny That Way may have a clever turn of phrase (“squirrels to the nuts”), but that is not enough to save it from the depths of its own depravity. Set in the world of Broadway, She’s Funny That Way follows the love triangle between Read more...

Amy

Posted 2:21pm Sunday 6th September 2015 by Nita Sullivan

Rating: 4/5 From the very beginning, Amy Winehouse was a true artist with a palpable talent. During the noughties, however, it was hard to miss Winehouse’s infamous rise and tragic decline. What we didn’t really see though, and what the documentary Amy strongly captures, is the Read more...

Alex Lovell-Smith … Travelling Alone, Sir …

Posted 2:14pm Sunday 6th September 2015 by Loulou Callister-Baker

The theme of travel appropriately moves beyond the Dunedin Public Art Gallery down the road to the Alternative Space Gallery on Lower Stuart Street, where Alex Lovell-Smith’s … Travelling Alone, Sir … is currently on display. Alternative Space Gallery is an initiative where Read more...

Wanderings Works from the Collection

Posted 2:06pm Sunday 6th September 2015 by Loulou Callister-Baker

Collection exhibitions can sometimes feel like a cop out, but if you have a collection why not play with it and put it on show? Following a theme of travel, the works in Wanderings shake off any gathered dust with their depictions of afar, of the other-worldly and of returning home after the Read more...

Banana Pancakes

Posted 2:02pm Sunday 6th September 2015 by Sophie Edmonds

I stumbled across this trend of banana pancakes on the interwebs last week while procrastinating something chronic. I think I ate them for dinner three nights in a row, each one smothered in lush peanut butter, of course. I enjoyed mine this morning with some quick blueberry compote and some Read more...

Rich Man Road

Posted 1:55pm Sunday 6th September 2015 by Bridget Vosburgh

Rich Man Road,by Ann Glamuzina, tells the separate stories of two immigrants to New Zealand. One morning the novice nun, Pualele Sina Auva’a, awakes to find that her friend and fellow nun, the elderly Olga Mastrovic, has died in the night. She has left behind a letter to Pualele, confessing Read more...

Bloodborne

Posted 1:55pm Sunday 30th August 2015 by Campbell Calverley

Rating: 5/5 Anyone familiar with From Software’s action-adventure Souls games will know how much of a commitment they are. Rushing into them unawares will lead to frustration and despair, while patience, exploration and a level head will be well rewarded. Speaking as someone who clawed his Read more...