It is only a week till the Melbourne Writers Festival and I can’t wait!! I’m excited not only because I will be close to bakeries that make delicious cupcakes but also because I am going to see Germaine Greer. I find her fascinating not only as a person but also because no matter what anyone…
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This fortnight it’s another instalment of awesome characters. I’m hitting up film, and just like the TV version, this could have been 100 names long. I’ve tried to cover a few genres, so hopefully at least one name on here will tickle your fancy. 1. Vivian Sternwood Rutledge (The Big Sleep, 1946) There was no…
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I’ve mentioned before that I don’t read print magazines much anymore. Nowadays, I will usually only read if I’m bored, or if I’m at the airport and need to kill time. There’s too much in “women’s” magazines that raise my blood pressure and I like to keep it low. Caffeine addiction already does the damage,…
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There has always been a division between feminists over whether men can really call themselves “feminists” or not. I have always been on the “the more feminists the better” side of the fence, and have never really been able to understand why so many women are against men joining the fight for women’s rights. Luckily,…
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Murder, as a cinematic experience, is something to which the film watching collective no longer particularly objects to. Snuff films aside, today on-screen murder orchestrated to varying degrees of gore and sadism is tolerated, even enjoyed. It excites, thrills and grants access to an activity that the majority of society will hopefully never engage with,…
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Before you delve into my article, first watch this fantastic book trailer Australian author Max Barry created for his novel Machine Man at the end of last year: This is far and away the best book trailer I’ve ever seen, simply because it blatantly makes the point: what is the point of this? This is…
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Have you ever felt like there are some serious gaps in your sexual education? Like maybe you don’t know as much as you should? Do you find yourself sometimes nodding along during a bawdy conversation with friends while actually secretly panicking about what they mean when they say ‘tea-bagging’? I’m going to put this out…
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It goes like this: A glossy lifestyle mag interviews a swish “It” girl. She’s at the top of her field. She’s worked hard to get there, and has plenty of tips for goal setting, confidence and “keeping calm, carrying on”. The journalist fawns over this success, and asks if maybe the equal rights movement had…
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The Bourne Legacy (directed by Tony Gilroy), is an expansion of the universe from Robert Ludlum’s novels. It follows Aaron Cross (played by Jeremy Renner) – one of the agents of ’Operation Outcome’ who has been instructed to take a performance-enhancing drug. When a potential risk threatens the secrecy of the operation – the CIA decide…
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Supported by ASPS and The UV Race, Bitch Prefect kicked off their Big Time album tour in that very confusing maze of a Liberty Social Club basement. What a strange place. Sure, it has played to a few good bands since opening (kudos to the booker!), it definitely can’t shake off the inner city vibe,…
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Lately I have discovered a new passion of mine. One that I really shouldn’t be admitting to in public, but what can I say, I have no shame. And that passion is terrible B-Grade television shows. The cheesier the better. You know the type – bad acting, bad storylines, and even worse, fake tans. But…
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The debut EP of Sydney duo The Falls (Melinda Kirwin and Simon Rudson-Brown) was created at a time when most people would be screaming the house down and dividing up custody of the pet dog. Yep, that’s right, this duo broke up and made sweet, sweet music about their journey from coupledom to singledom and…
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Apparently humans as a group are a gas. Not so much in the 1950s tea party oh-my-goodness-he’s-so-funny kind of way, but in the way we will spread out to fill whatever space we’re given – equidistantly. People just hate sitting next to strangers. We’ve all seen it – at the doctor’s, in a lecture, on…
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Sylvia Plath is a bit of a feminist icon. In her book The Bell Jar, there are plenty of hints as to why that might be. Set in the 1950s, Esther Greenwood, the narrator, is an ambitious character, smart and well-educated. She professes to never wanting to marry because she didn’t much like the idea…
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