Archive

People Places Things

Posted 1:47pm Sunday 27th September 2015 by Nita Sullivan

Rating: 3/5 People Places Things follows Will Henry (Jemaine Clement), a Kiwi man who teaches at a local university in New York. He is also a graphic novelist and spends his evenings writing his own semi-autobiographical novel. During their five-year-old twins’ birthday party, Will walks in Read more...

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...

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...

Singles in Review | Issue 21

Posted 1:48pm Sunday 30th August 2015 by Basti Menkes

Triumphs - “Beekeeper” and “Solid Bones” Triumphs are a heavy instrumental duo from Dunedin, consisting of guitarist John Bollen and drummer Mathew Anderson. The bearded beaus are about to release their debut album, Beekeeper/Bastardknocker, on Monkey Killer Read more...

Ghosts of Electricity - Trolls

Posted 1:44pm Sunday 30th August 2015 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 4/5 A punk band is a curious thing nowadays. Four decades ago, The Clash, The Sex Pistols and The Ramones were raging against the establishment and the decadence of mainstream rock with their lo-fi, hard-hitting, no-nonsense blasts of musical anger. Sure the music was Read more...

The Fish Ladder: A Journey Upstream

Posted 1:31pm Sunday 30th August 2015 by Bridget Vosburgh

The Fish Ladder: A Journey Upstream is a memoir by Katherine Norbury. After miscarrying a much-desired pregnancy, Norbury distracts herself from her grief with the writing of a man named Neil Gunn. One of Gunn’s novels, The Highland River, tells the story of a young man walking a river to its Read more...

Alison Embleton Presents The Merchant of Venice

Posted 1:29pm Sunday 30th August 2015 by Mandy Te

Mandy Te got the chance to talk to director, Alison Embleton, about her version of The Merchant of Venice and the process of adapting William Shakespeare for a modern audience. The Merchant of Venice will be showing from 2 to 5 September at St. Paul’s Cathedral Crypt. Student tickets are Read more...

Rebecca

Posted 1:24pm Sunday 30th August 2015 by Rosie Jensen

Classic Hollywood has made every flavour of brooding, handsome bachelor-zillionaire who loses his shit over the shy, boring heroine. So when a film like Gone Girl comes along, it’s refreshing and thrilling. Unbeknown to many people, before Gone Girl, there was Alfred Hitchcock’s Read more...

The Man from U.N.C.L.E

Posted 1:17pm Sunday 30th August 2015 by Siobon Inu

Rating: 3/5 Guy Ritchie’s ability to successfully revive iconic films — ones with sophisticated and mysterious plotlines — through a modern cinematic approach has given audiences high expectations of his directorial skills. However, although full of action and suspense, The Man Read more...

Fantastic Four

Posted 1:13pm Sunday 30th August 2015 by Maya Dodd

Rating: 2/5 A t best, the 2005 version of Fantastic Four was average. The acting was poor, the storyline was mediocre, and the flexible guy really freaked me out. But with Miles Teller now playing Reeds Richards (the flexible one), I had hope for the revival of Fantastic Four. Teller is Read more...

Trainwreck

Posted 1:10pm Sunday 30th August 2015 by Shaun Swain

Rating: 3/5 Judd Apatow’s rom-com, Trainwreck, is anything but a trainwreck — rather, it’s a tightened, secure and mostly enjoyable ride. Trainwreck is about magazine writer Amy (Amy Schumer), who is a heavily career- and goal-oriented woman who barely gives the concept of Read more...

Intersections: Ceramics from Ralph Hotere’s Personal Collection

Posted 1:01pm Sunday 30th August 2015 by Sue Nunn

As one of New Zealand’s most significant twentieth-century artists, the late Dunedin painter, Ralph Hotere (1931–2013), had a life intrinsically shaped by the connections he made with people and through art. These relationships are the focus of Intersections: Ceramics from Ralph Read more...

Massaman Roast Beef

Posted 12:57pm Sunday 30th August 2015 by Sophie Edmonds

I got really excited at Pak’nSave the other day. Every time I see a beef roast on the cheap, I buy it without really thinking.      I always slow cook my beef roasts, so this one has been sitting in my freezer for a few weeks now while I thought of ways to make it slightly Read more...

Singles in Review | Issue 20

Posted 2:13pm Sunday 16th August 2015 by Basti Menkes

Myrkur - “Hævnen” 2015 shall forever be remembered as the year women took over metal. Following fantastic releases from Chelsea Wolfe and Dorthia Cottrell in the last couple of months, we’re about to see Amalie Bruun’s one-woman black metal outfit, Myrkur, Read more...

Mac DeMarco - Another One

Posted 2:06pm Sunday 16th August 2015 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 3/5 Rejoice, everyone! Your favourite John Lennon-impersonating hipster doofus is back. No, I did not mean Kevin Parker. That esteemed title surely belongs to Mac DeMarco, the talented young singer-songwriter from Canada. Over the last three years, DeMarco’s been making waves Read more...

The Monogram Murders

Posted 2:02pm Sunday 16th August 2015 by Bridget Vosburgh

Sophie Hannah’s The Monogram Murders is a murder mystery starring Agatha Christie’s most famous detective, Hercule Poirot. Poirot is dining at a coffee house when a woman enters in an obvious state of panic. Poirot asks what is troubling her, and she tells him that she is about to be Read more...

Stealth Inc 2: A Game of Clones

Posted 1:59pm Sunday 16th August 2015 by Anonymous Bird

Rating: 4/5 Stealth Inc 2 is a sequel to Stealth Bastard Deluxe, a stealth-based 2D platformer. You play a clone who is attempting to escape his cloning facility and, in the process, discover the reason the clones exist. Cut scenes show a human working overtime monitoring the clones attempting to Read more...

Josh Hunter & Jessie Lee Robertson - As Bad As Me

Posted 1:47pm Sunday 16th August 2015 by Loulou Callister-Baker

“My mum knew I’d be fucked if I did anything else,” Josh said when I asked him why he went to art school. Enamoured of popular culture, Americana, comics and tattoos, Josh Hunter and Jessie Lee Robertson aren’t quite like the art school graduates I typically encounter, but Read more...

Skinny Soup

Posted 1:43pm Sunday 16th August 2015 by Sophie Edmonds

I make a lot of cakes. Pastries, slices, anything baked really. I even have a site called Sophie Likes Cake. You can probably guess that because of this I would also consume a lot of cake. In an attempt to counteract my calorific hobby, I also go to the gym. A lot. I also tend to eat a lot of Read more...

Theatre: The Hound of the Baskervilles

Posted 1:35pm Sunday 16th August 2015 by Kirsty Gordge

Rating: 4/5 With three actors playing several roles throughout the show, The Hound of the Baskervilles is a theatre production that provides a refreshingly unconventional take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s most well-known Sherlock Holmes mystery. Featuring Detective Sherlock Holmes (Nick Read more...

Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation

Posted 1:31pm Sunday 16th August 2015 by Maya Dodd

Rating: 3/5 I never used to be a fan of the Mission: Impossible franchise. Maybe I was too young to appreciate it — or maybe I was jealous of Katie Holmes — but with Tom Cruise’s love of Scientology and his overwhelming arrogance, I don’t know why I’d have ever Read more...

Les Combattants

Posted 1:28pm Sunday 16th August 2015 by Cameron Evans

Rating: 3/5 With nine nominations at the 40th César Awards, Les Combattants’ arrival on the big screen was much anticipated. While the film offers the audience an unconventional and interesting romantic comedy, it often teeters on the line between mediocre and good. With some Read more...

Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago

Posted 1:24pm Sunday 16th August 2015 by Shaun Swain

Rating: 4/5 As the old saying goes, “it’s not the destination that counts, it’s the journey” — in the case of the 1200-year-old Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, there really is no other way to put it. But while it is the journey that truly counts, it’s nothing Read more...

Arcee

Posted 1:53pm Sunday 9th August 2015 by Daniel Munro

Rona Wignall, aka Arcee, is a hip hop artist hailing from Dunedin. While studying a Bachelor of Music, Arcee also uses her talents on the mic as a rapper. Arcee is set to release her highly anticipated self-titled debut album this Friday, Lyrics so often come second to beats and adlibs with hip Read more...

Singles in Review | Issue 19

Posted 1:51pm Sunday 9th August 2015 by Basti Menkes

Alice Glass - “Stillborn” After releasing a trilogy of stunning records together as Crystal Castles, musicians Alice Glass and Ethan Kath parted ways late last year. The immediate (and sexist) assumption was that Ethan was the true creative brawn while Alice’s role was Read more...

On Immunity: An Inoculation

Posted 1:37pm Sunday 9th August 2015 by Bridget Vosburgh

On Immunity: An Inoculation, by Eula Biss, is the author’s personal meditation on  vaccinations and the web of subjects she connects to them, including disease, safety, motherhood and social responsibility. Biss looks at the metaphors and legends of immunity, the social ramifications of Read more...

Gaming World Grieves Loss of Icon

Posted 1:30pm Sunday 9th August 2015 by Brandon Johnstone

In mid-July, gaming (and arguably wider pop culture) lost an icon and a hero. Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo, passed away, on to the great Rainbow Road in the sky. Although corporate leaders die all the time, Iwata was an exemplary president, and his life and death warrant conversations about Read more...

The Mafia Kills Only in Summer (La mafia uccide solo d’estate)

Posted 1:26pm Sunday 9th August 2015 by Greta Melvin

Rating: 4/5 In The Mafia Kills Only in Summer, Pierfrancesco “Pif” Diliberto portrays Sicilian life from the 1970s to the 90s — a time when the Mafia, known as the Cosa Nostra, were fighting for supremacy against government officials. Despite this serious subject matter, this Read more...

Mr Holmes

Posted 1:23pm Sunday 9th August 2015 by Maya Dodd

Rating: 4/5 In my mind, Benedict Cumberbatch will always be Sherlock Holmes. My utter love for Benedict Cumberbatch in this role made me a little sceptical of Ian McKellen’s portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in Mr. Holmes, but his performance is worthy of recognition and, perhaps, even an Read more...

Self/less

Posted 1:20pm Sunday 9th August 2015 by Andrew Kwiatkowski

Rating: 1/5 Disappointingly, it turns out that everything good in this movie was packed into the trailer. Diagnosed with terminal cancer, Damian Hayes (Ben Kingsley) is directed to Professor Albright (Matthew Goode) who tells him about “shedding” — a medical procedure where Read more...

The Guest

Posted 1:15pm Sunday 9th August 2015 by Jaxon Langley

Rating: 4/5 In 2011, director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett debuted their slasher film, You’re Next. The pair have now returned with The Guest — a thriller film with gore and pitch-black humour that offers the audience a slightly different take on home invasions. Following Read more...

Pho Ga (Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup)

Posted 1:06pm Sunday 9th August 2015 by Sophie Edmonds

Pho, pronounced “fa” is a clear broth soup full of noodles, herbs, chilli and the meat of your choice. It is really healthy and has flavour enough to knock your socks off. The broth is the most important part of this whole dish. Making your own really makes a difference but if you Read more...

LSD Lovin’ with Jim Cooper

Posted 1:00pm Sunday 9th August 2015 by Jess Taylor

On spotting the unassuming Brett McDowell Gallery on Dunedin’s Dowling Street, there is no trace of the trippy wonders bursting behind the gallery’s old wooden doors. The works beyond were crafted by a homegrown artistic hero, Jim Cooper, and come together in an exciting exhibition Read more...

Diaz Grimm

Posted 2:57pm Sunday 2nd August 2015 by Daniel Munro

Diaz Grimm. You may not know the name yet, but you should. Diaz Grimm has just dropped his debut album Osiris and is now headed on his first New Zealand tour. Following a sold-out show in Hamilton, Grimm is heading our way for the second show of the tour this Thursday. Critic: First up, tell us a Read more...

Chelsea Wolfe - Abyss

Posted 2:54pm Sunday 2nd August 2015 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 4/5 Chelsea Wolfe is an experimental singer-songwriter from Sacramento, California. Since her 2010 debut, The Grime and the Glow, she has incorporated sounds from the spheres of folk, electronica and heavy metal into her music. Drenched in gothic imagery and hinged upon her haunting Read more...

Foreign Gods, Inc.

Posted 2:47pm Sunday 2nd August 2015 by Bridget Vosburgh

The protagonist of Foreign Gods, Inc. — a novel of magical realism by Okey Ndibe — is Ike Uzondu, a Nigerian living in New York who is unable to get the high-paying work he is qualified for, due to his accent. Instead, he works as a taxi driver. When his green-card-driven marriage ends Read more...

Sichuan Dan Dan Noodles

Posted 2:40pm Sunday 2nd August 2015 by Sophie Edmonds

O nce you have all the ingredients, assembling this noodle dish couldn’t be simpler. In fact, it is a really cheap and easy mid-week dinner option. Once you have your chilli oil, it lasts for yonks in your cupboard, and the sauce is a couple of ingredients simmered together. I recommend Read more...

Kerbal Space Program

Posted 2:33pm Sunday 2nd August 2015 by Carl Dingwall

Rating: 5/5 In space, no one can hear you scream … Or laugh uncontrollably as your space capsule spins in a similarly uncontrollable fashion towards the planet Kerbin. Welcome to Kerbal Space Program. Half physics sandbox, half management simulator, you play this game as what appears to be Read more...

Zina Swanson - For Luck

Posted 2:24pm Sunday 2nd August 2015 by Ruby Heyward

Inside the Dunedin Public Art Gallery is an aesthetically pleasing corner that contains all the luck you need. Covered in white tiles and created with a heavenly balanced composition, sits Zina Swanson’s exhibition, For Luck. It is meticulous and precise, a goldmine for those with Read more...

Ant-Man

Posted 2:19pm Sunday 2nd August 2015 by Maya Dodd

Rating: 3/5 While I’m a huge fan of the Marvel films, and the concept of a universe teeming with superheroes is my wildest dream come true, my expectations of Ant-Man were incredibly low. Ants, while known for their strength, are not something that I would rave about. They aren’t Read more...

La Chambre bleue/The Blue Room

Posted 2:16pm Sunday 2nd August 2015 by Greta Melvin

Rating: 4/5 Based on George Simenon’s novel of the same name, Mathieu Amalric’s film adaptation of La Chambre bleue is an erotic psychological thriller with an element of crime. However, La Chambre bleue doesn’t position itself as a whodunnit but, instead, invites the audience Read more...

Little Big Planet 3

Posted 2:30pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Anonymous Bird

Little Big Planet 3 arrived late last year, and is the third instalment in Sumo Digital’s super fun and silly trilogy. The Little Big Planet franchise is known for being fun, cute and particularly creative. The games are all about promoting creativity. The playable characters are Read more...

Interview with Gabriel Griffin

Posted 2:26pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Basti Menkes

Gabriel Griffin is a local musician and the drummer of the experimental jazz trio, Sewage. His playing style is eclectic, calling to mind percussionists like Zach Hill, Noah Lennox and Brian Chippendale. Critic caught up with Gabriel to discuss drumming, sci-fi and his latest musical Read more...

The Chemical Brothers - Born in the Echoes

Posted 2:23pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 4/5 Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons occupy a place of honour in the museum of electronic dance music. Alongside acts like Fatboy Slim and The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers defined the rave scene of Europe in the ’90s. Their kaleidoscopic music saw big beats and druggy, euphoric pop Read more...

A Vision of Fire: Book One of the Earthend Saga

Posted 2:15pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Bridget Vosburgh

AVision of Fire: Book One of the Earthend Saga is a science-fiction thriller by Gillian Anderson and Jeff Rovin. As a sticker on the front aggressively proclaims, Gillian Anderson is the actor who played Dana Scully in The X-Files. After an attempt is made on India’s ambassador to the United Read more...

Interview with Virginia Heath

Posted 2:12pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Mandy Te

Critic: When going through all the Scottish film archives, did you have specific things in mind when choosing what you would use, and how did you know which footage to pick? It was a fluid process. I wanted an overall theme of love and loss, which relates to a lot of things such as war, Read more...

Scream Season 1 (Episode 1)

Posted 2:07pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Mandy Te

TV With slasher films being seen as a fad of the 1980s, the Scream franchise was said to have revitalised the horror genre in a way that was both satirical and enjoyable for teenagers in the 1990s. MTV’s Scream: TV Series is the television adaptation of the popular franchise and, in several Read more...

Paper Towns

Posted 2:03pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Mandy Te

Rating 3/5 Like all things John Green, Paper Towns is a metaphor. With last year’s release of The Fault in Our Stars, comparisons will inevitably be made between these two films. However, Paper Towns — while similarly containing teenage characters who speak unnaturally — takes Read more...

Magic Mike XXL

Posted 2:01pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Shaun Swain

Rating: 4/5 Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike was a low-budget arthouse tragicomedy about male strippers that surprised audiences with its narrative depth. Now removing the “tragedy” and substituting the “arthouse” with “road trip”, Gregory Jacobs’ Read more...

Aliens

Posted 1:59pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Alex Campbell-Hunt

Classic From a time when quality sequels were probably even rarer than they are now, Aliens is a mind-blowing second instalment to the 1979 Alien. After surviving the events of the first movie, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) returns to civilisation after being in stasis for 57 years. Read more...

Slow Cooker Roast Beef Bowls

Posted 1:53pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Sophie Edmonds

I first tried out this recipe with a lamb roast. Awkwardly,  though, my flatmate unplugged my slow cooker so she could use the coffee grinder (very understandable) but forgot to plug it back in (the caffeine had not yet been consumed, brain function was low). This meant that it did not Read more...

Neil Dawson - Negative Space

Posted 1:42pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by James Thomson-Bache

As someone whose major interest and study of art lies in painting, specifically in the safety and comfort of a wall-fixed picture that orders me to stand still and “read” what I’m seeing, I initially walked straight past the front-end exhibition Negative Space at the Milford Read more...

Interview with Bill Gosden

Posted 2:09pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Mandy Te

From 30 July to 16 August, the New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF) will be screening almost 100 films from 25 countries. Critic interviewed Bill Gosden, the director of NZIFF, to learn more about the event. What does your role as director of NZIFF entail? I’m responsible for Read more...

Ted 2

Posted 2:05pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Shaun Swain

Rating: 1/5 If I described Seth MacFarlane’s sequel to Ted as incredibly masturbatory, I would only be lowering myself to the level of MacFarlane’s tasteless sense of humour. But it doesn’t matter. Ted 2, despite its painfully large budget, provides no inspiration for good Read more...

The Falling

Posted 2:02pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Jaxon Langley

Rating: 3/5 Following her heartbreaking docu-drama, Dreams of a Life, Carol Morley brings us The Falling — a bewitching, deadpan period portrait of female adolescence that explores the subject of mass psychogenic illness and treads into other dark territory. Although it is well-written and 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...

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...

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...

High On Fire - Luminiferous

Posted 1:44pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 3/5 High On Fire is a heavy metal trio from Oakland, California. The band was formed in 1998 by Matt Pike, the once and future guitarist of pioneering doom metal group, Sleep. High On Fire has since earned itself a reputation for its genre-straddling style and vehement live shows. On its Read more...

Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward

Posted 1:37pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Cheyanne Intemann

Rating: 4/5 Heavensward is the recent expansion to the Square Enix massively multiplayer online (MMO) game, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Final Fantasy XIV had a particularly bad 1.0 launch, with daily experience gain limits, huge empty maps, shockingly poor optimisation and clunky combat. Read more...

The Goddess of Buttercups and Daisies

Posted 1:31pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Bridget Vosburgh

Martin Millar’s novel, The Goddess of Buttercups and Daisies, is set in Athens, 421 BC. During this time, the city-state of Athens is at war with Sparta, and has been for ten years. The playwright Aristophanes wants to put on a comedy called Peace for the Dionysia Festival, as his entry in a Read more...

Spicy Roasted Winter Vegetable Lentil Salad

Posted 1:23pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Sophie Edmonds

You know when you eat one thing so many times until that one day when it makes you feel sick and you can’t face it ever again? That is how I feel about soups in general at the moment. I had been scouting for new ideas for cheap winter vegetables when I came across this recipe for a winter Read more...