‘I shall never forget the weekend Laura died.’ The film begins with a detective, Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) being called in to investigate the murder of Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney), who has been brutally shot in the face at close range in the doorway of her apartment. McPherson must piece together Laura’s past by…
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For Joss Whedon fans, this year’s release of Much Ado About Nothing was a long time coming. Whedon, the director of classic sci-fi shows Buffy, Angel, Firefly and more recently Marvel’s blockbuster The Avengers, has a devoted following. His latest production was shot over a weekend at his own home on a tiny budget and…
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It’s the first day of Year 8, and the students are forced to introduce themselves in a new-class routine that never loses its awkwardness. In an effort to tell us what he loves, the maths teacher hands around a picture taken during a body-building competition: he is bizarrely brown and shiny. His face is a…
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Maybe it was the surrealism of policemen lying on their bellies, guns ready, between cafe tables; of shattered glass framing a deserted fast food complex; of a terrified family creeping past empty chairs to safety; of extreme violence erupting in a place identical to one we visit weekly. The world watched last week as a…
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Pocahontas costumes appropriate racial stereotypes. Humour is a tool of oppression. Often, the only fat people on screen are villains. And Lizzie Maguire is still really fun to watch. Mari Rogers has been running her Feminist Disney blog since 2011, and covers these topics and much more. Through the lens of intersectional feminism, she examines…
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There is a ‘war on unborn women’, declares Kurt Kondrich, an American father and anti-abortion campaigner. ‘Rapid advances in prenatal testing,’ he declares, ‘Will soon allow this broken culture to wage war on any person deemed ‘flawed’ or ‘substandard’.’ Kondrich is referring to prenatal testing that identifies sex, as well as disabilities such as Down…
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It was a young art teacher. Or was it a student teacher in geography class? It could have been his biceps half-hidden by navy t-shirt sleeves, or those tight skirts she paraded around in (did she even wear underwear?), or maybe it was something about his stubble that made you imagine it grazing across your…
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Emmy season is coming. It’s almost the time of year when the American television industry rewards ingenious storytelling and immortalises actors and actresses as they sweep the red carpet, demigods in evening gowns and designer tuxedo. Prompted by fever for the September 22 event, US writer Cory Barker decided to crunch some numbers regarding the…
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Upon discovering that Kevin Spacey and David Fincher are working on a new production, it would be natural to assume the project from the director of Fight Club is a big budget film. Wrong. House of Cards explores betrayal in US politics within 13 one-hour episodes: it’s a television show. Spacey and Fincher aren’t the…
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Apparently we’re at the cusp of the fourth wave of feminism, with formidable ladies like Amanda Palmer and Malala Yousafzai at the battle front. It’s all a bit tiring, really—to think that after an ocean of feminist thought, we have not yet toppled the old-age patriarchal values which restrict equality. Unfortunately, it’s true: in many…
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The morning of July 24, hundreds of paparazzi and thousands of fans wait outside St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, after hearing confirmation that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will soon introduce their new baby to the world. At 7.15am, one of the largest doorstop press conferences in the world begins when Prince William and…
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The sun refuses to shine. The skies are bleak. The grey clouds empty rain onto the drowning populace below. Wintertime brings days that evoke the clichéd metaphors of a teenage break-up poem. If you’re anything like me*, during the colder months life becomes flat and uninspiring, and motivation hides somewhere amongst the summer clothes. It’s…
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‘…hardcore pornography is now the primary form of sex education in the Western world. This is where teenage boys and girls are “learning” what to do to each other and what to expect when they take each other’s clothes off.’ – Caitlin Moran That’s a pity. Besides finding out what goes where, what use has…
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Picture an open sea. Dark, angry waves. Tightly-packed passengers on a rickety vessel – people who are hopeful for a new life, whose present danger is surpassed by the torture and death that is behind them. The raging ocean proved too much for a boat containing asylum seekers last week; it capsized and at least 55…
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