Sarina Murray
bechdel taser: at least we aren’t the victims (conciliatory notes from the avengers)
The Avengers was released on my 21st Birthday. Joss Whedon’s impact on my childhood and adolescence has been recorded everywhere, from the essays I submit to real-life university subjects, to the airwaves as I stumble for words at 6am, to this very column. It felt like no mere coinkydink that Wednesday of all days was [...]
bechdel taser: and this one time at bechdel camp…
My report on American Reunion comes replete with hazy memories and vague descriptors. I saw the production over a month ago, in one of those fancy pants media screenings because I was interviewing the writer and director for Melbourne’s Student Youth Network (SYN). I saw it at a silly hour of the morning while under-slept [...]
bechdel taser: hungry for some YA movie-time, hold the sap-and-fangs?
With the exception of Harry Potter and His Dark Materials, I have remained ignorant of young adult literature. I spent my formative years developing a collection of Buffy serial novels more substantial than nerd-mecca Minotaur’s. But I knew I should read The Hunger Games before the film was released. I’ve had enough conversations about Rowling [...]
bechdel taser: it’s called like crazy, but this is one romance that won’t send you up the walls
I love Hollywood films. I don’t love Hollywood romances. At some point, the tale of love became subject not only to an inevitable conclusion, but the journey stopped veering away from one strict path. It’s not knowing that you’re going to land in New York, it’s knowing that you’ll stop in Thailand, Abu Dhabi and [...]
bechdel taser: young adult…arrested development or depressed regression?
It’s not that I don’t know how I feel about Charlize Theron’s Mavis in Young Adult, it’s that I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel. The cinema-going audience for the film seems to be divided; there are those who loathe the character and applaud Diablo Cody for putting such an abrasive figure on screen, [...]
bechdel taser: down the trigger-hole of sexual abuse on screen
TRIGGER WARNING! The catch-cry of this column is ‘finding the fun in fail’, but there’s one kind of film-fail (and life-fail) which is never fun. Rape. Not funny when people misappropriate the term to say their facebook was ‘fraped’, not funny when it’s the (bizarrely) critically acclaimed American remake of The Girl With the Dragon [...]
bechdel taser: taking the oscar bait
The first time I remember taking the bait was 2001. But I suppose what I really did was eat a bunch of bread, then find out later that fish will also eat that. Moulin Rouge was everything a barely ten-year-old with big dreams and a big stereo could ask for: bright colours, pop music, video [...]
bechdel taser: the muppets
My friend was super psyched to see The Muppets, simply because she really likes The Muppets. My own reasoning is more complicated. I can draw everything in my life back to Buffy. Often in writing these columns I will wonder whether I should bring up the connection to Buffy which I noticed in a nanosecond. [...]
bechdel taser: brett ratner walks into a bar. a steel one. i wish.
Publicly, I state my religion as Stephen Fry. Privately, however, 2011 tipped him into my ‘over-exposed’ bin. I really don’t understand how Christians do it. Their saviour is everywhere, all the time – and I don’t just mean in the spiritual omniscience regard. Even when I can’t buy marked down Cadbury Yule Logs next to [...]
bechdel taser: it’s not santa claus vs the martians, but 2011 has timed you some festive sci-fi
I love science fiction. From Plan 9 schlock to Moon’s sophisticated speculation on the future of us and our probing, shiny, phallic toys. I also love the SBS Friday Night cousin to sci-fi’s behind-the-beaded-curtain hardcore, speculative fiction. I take it dead seriously, though my commitment to two-minute showers (made every time I see The Road) [...]
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