Son Lux - Bones

Posted 1:48pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Basti Menkes

Son Lux is the stage name of American composer, Ryan Lott. Appearing in 2008 with his spine-tingling debut album At War with Walls & Mazes, Son Lux quickly established himself as a force to be reckoned with.  Son Lux’s songs have the deliberate architecture of a classical composer, Read more...

Madame Bovary

Posted 1:56pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Mandy Te

Rating: 3/5 As a writer, Gustave Flaubert spent his career chasing after “le mot juste” — “the right word” — and, for many people, Madame Bovary truly captures his perfectionist style. However, film adaptations of Madame Bovary have yet to embody that Read more...

NZIFF Programme Launch Film: Mavis!

Posted 1:59pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Mandy Te

Rating: 3/5 This year’s New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF) is Dunedin’s biggest film festival to date. With almost 100 films from 25 countries, the 39th Dunedin International Film Festival celebrated the launch of its programme with a delicious array of macarons, dips, Read more...

Theatre Review: Punk Rock

Posted 1:49pm Sunday 12th July 2015 by Clementine Flatley

Rating: 5/5 Teenagers are fascinating. As a “teacher’s pet” teenager myself, I was always engrossed in the tumultuous adventures of my peers. The lives of the adolescents portrayed in Punk Rock gave me an enjoyable glimpse back at those old adventures. One minute I would find Read more...

Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids

Posted 2:25pm Sunday 12th July 2015 by Bridget Vosburgh

Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids is a collection of sixteen personal essays written by professional writers about one particular decision that perfect strangers often feel they have a say in: choosing not to have children. This choice should not Read more...

Muse Drones

Posted 1:20pm Sunday 5th July 2015 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 2/5 Regardless of whether we asked for one, Muse are back with a new album. Believe it or not, Drones is the seventh full-length LP from the English trio. When Muse first emerged in the late nineties, they were just another Radiohead clone. Over the next few years they forged an identity Read more...

Blur - The Magic Whip

Posted 1:29pm Sunday 24th May 2015 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 4/5 Well folks, it actually happened. Six years after reforming, and twelve since their last studio outing, Blur are back. There are several reasons why this is great news. For one, Blur always represented the more irreverent and artful side of the Britpop era. Though Blur penned some of Read more...

The Gunman

Posted 1:33pm Sunday 17th May 2015 by Anonymous Bird

Rating: 1/5 Basing this film on the novel The Prone Gunman by Jean-Patrick Manchette, Morel attempts to execute a gritty, regretful hero story but falls incredibly short. Instead, we are given an unsuccessful, drawn-out action film with an annoying love triangle that permeates the entire Read more...

Stay Tuned

Posted 1:37pm Sunday 17th May 2015 by Alex Campbell-Hunt

Cult Stay Tuned is an imaginative, entertaining and weirdly under-appreciated family comedy that answers the question we all pondered as kids: “What would happen if I could go inside my TV and participate in all of the shows?” Turns out it wouldn’t be so great, especially if Read more...

The Kraken King

Posted 1:40pm Sunday 17th May 2015 by Bridget Vosburgh

For those hiding under a rock, steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates steam-powered devices with Victorian design. The Kraken King, by Meljean Brooks, is a steampunk romance novel, and for once it had all the fun adventure, cool technology and body horror that people always Read more...