Archive

Lone Survivor

Posted 5:30pm Sunday 23rd March 2014 by Baz Macdonald

Rating: B- A war movie has to have something to say to warrant its creation. It shouldn’t be all right for moviemakers to exploit war, and especially true stories of it, as a way of filling an hour and a half blockbuster with explosions and loud noises. Lone Survivor sits right on the line Read more...

Le Weekend

Posted 5:30pm Sunday 23rd March 2014 by Andrew Kwiatkowski

Rating: A+ Le Weekend is about an aging couple, Nick and Meg, played by Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan, taking a long-overdue second honeymoon to Paris, trying to recreate a time in their lives when they were happy, in love, and blissfully unconcerned with the future. The cast are Read more...

Cloud Atlas

Posted 5:30pm Sunday 23rd March 2014 by Julia Gilchrist

Cloud Atlas is David Mitchell’s third novel. His first won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, and his second – along with Cloud Atlas itself – was short listed for the Man Booker Prize. So I was expecting great things when I first picked this book up. I was not disappointed. The novel is Read more...

Zine of the Week

Posted 5:30pm Sunday 23rd March 2014 by Staff Reporter

By Valerie Morse 15 A5 Pages - Cartoons and Text AVAILABLE AT BLACKSTAR BOOKS Viewing Copy at Critic Office Can’t Hear Me Scream holds a special place in New Zealand for anarchist-inspired librarians and would-be activists, so it seems a fitting place to start this column. While Read more...

Random Reproductions

Posted 5:30pm Sunday 23rd March 2014 by Zane Pocock

Brett McDowell Gallery Exhibited until 27 March 2014 Since the start of the month, the Brett McDowell Gallery on Dowling Street has exhibited the latest in an on going series of digital archival reproductions from Richard Killeen. Killeen is perhaps one of the country’s foremost modernist Read more...

Interview: Deborah Lambie

Posted 3:19pm Monday 17th March 2014 by Josie Adams

Deborah Lambie is a stereotype-smasher. She’s a medical student here at Otago, a beauty queen, and an award-winning speaker. Josie Adams sat down to talk to her about the jet-setting life of a pageant pro: talents, inner beauty, and demilitarised zones. Why did you enter Miss New Zealand? Read more...

Download of the week: Eskimo Eyes - I Can't Think (NZ)

Posted 2:59pm Sunday 16th March 2014 by Adrian Ng

My friend Daniel told me some sad news the other day. Ike Zwanikken’s house recently caught fire and a large portion of his possesions were destroyed. Ike Zwanikken creates beautiful, lo-fi electonic music under the moniker Eskimo Eyes. His amazing EP I Can’t Think is available as a name-your-price Read more...

New this week

Posted 2:59pm Sunday 16th March 2014 by Adrian Ng

Hey! Do you like free stuff? This week we are giving away Clap Clap Riot’s new album, titled Nobody/Everybody. We’ve got it on compact disc and apart from a very small coffee stain, it’s in pretty fine condition. So how do you win? Just email music@critic.co.nz with your name and you will be entered Read more...

Speedy Ortiz - Real Hair

Posted 2:59pm Sunday 16th March 2014 by Peter McCall

Grade: A- On Real Hair, the follow-up EP to their excellent 2013 LP Major Arcana, Speedy Ortiz once again prove that they’re not just rehashing ‘90s indie rock, but taking all the irony, angular guitar lines and fuzz that characterised that decade, and making it their own. Yes, they sound Read more...

Profile: Ian Henderson

Posted 2:59pm Sunday 16th March 2014 by Adrian Ng

The Dunedin music scene is currently undergoing quite a resurgence; at the forefront of that is Ian Henderson. Owner of Fishrider Records, he has over the past few years released a slew of local talent, helping Dunedin music find a more international audience. Ian talks to Adrian Ng about the Read more...

Thief

Posted 2:59pm Sunday 16th March 2014 by Baz Macdonald

Grade: B Over the last couple of weeks the video game industry has been overwhelmed by mass layoffs. Eidos Montreal laid off a large number of their staff, Irrational Games laid off over 100 people and Disney Interactive laid off 700 people. Understandably, these lay offs have concerned Read more...

Mexican Meatball Soup

Posted 2:59pm Sunday 16th March 2014 by Sophie Edmonds

Who needs a man to warm you on these increasingly chilly Dunners nights when you have Mexican meatballs? It seems to be every Thursday that the girls of 5C have a romantic dinner together, with smooth jazz for lovers, wine, and balls of meat. The consumption of dinner was punctuated with comments Read more...

Non-Stop

Posted 2:59pm Sunday 16th March 2014 by Simon Broadbent

Grade: B- Almost the first shot of Non-Stop is Neeson’s grizzled Air Marshal pouring whisky into his morning coffee, so you know you’re dealing with gritty Neeson, not Love Actually Neeson. But then he sentimentally touches the picture of his daughter taped to the roof of his car, so you know Read more...

Classic Film | Misery (1990)

Posted 2:59pm Sunday 16th March 2014 by Rosie Howells

Despite having over 30 of his novels adapted for the big screen, only one Stephen King movie has ever won an Oscar, and that is Misery. Misery invites the audience into the home and mind of perhaps King’s most perplexing creation: Annie Wilkes. Annie is a clean-living, conservative nurse, whose Read more...

Winter's Tale

Posted 2:59pm Sunday 16th March 2014 by Andrew Kwiatkowski

Grade: E I have limited space for this review, so I’ll just go ahead and start my list of “A Thousand Things Wrong with Winter’s Tale,” and we’ll see how far we get. Big number one: cast. Colin Farrell couldn’t sell the main character, a thief named Peter Lake, for a moment. With only his two Read more...

Blue Is the Warmest Colour

Posted 2:59pm Sunday 16th March 2014 by Nick Ainge-Roy

Grade: A+ Blue Is the Warmest Colour, directed by Abdellatif Kechiche, has been praised by some as the best movie of 2013, as well as unanimously winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes and being nominated for a BAFTA and Golden Globe. After watching the film myself, it was easy to see why. Read more...

Captain America: Winter Soldier

Posted 2:59pm Sunday 16th March 2014 by Brandon Johnstone

Ed Brubaker’s first two comic book-arcs of Captain America tell the story of the Winter Soldier, a Soviet assassin and super-spy tied to Steve Rogers’ past. Published in 2006, this book was the subject of much controversy, as it became clear within a few issues that there was a very real possibility Read more...

Pearler

Posted 2:59pm Sunday 16th March 2014 by Hannah Collier

“I am an Expressionist painter. I rarely plan a painting or do preparatory drawing. I commence the work with a quick wash of strong, primary colour and then begin to hurriedly paint figures of people, animals and hybrid creatures. I add crude marks for volcanoes, hills, sea, buildings, boats, Read more...

Interview: Charlotte Blake

Posted 4:35pm Sunday 9th March 2014 by Jessica Thompson Carr

23-year-old Charlotte (Char) Blake is a young family woman and student who will be shaving her hair off at the University of Otago’s Pacific Island Research Student Support Unit on March 18. Jessica Thompson Carr caught up with her for a chat. What was your inspiration for taking part in Read more...

Interview: Rupert Smiles

Posted 4:35pm Sunday 9th March 2014 by Hannah Collier

I have kind of been in this polygamous relationship with art and fashion for a few years now, so naturally I try to merge the two whenever I can. This week, I’ve had a really new and major obsession with handbags … as art. I simply can’t get past that moment when Kanye gave Kim a Hermes Birkin with Read more...