Out Takes

This week on Out Takes, we continue to celebrate our third year on air by looking back at some of the conversations that we have had with groundbreaking auteurs of modern queer cinema; film makers who have fundamentally altered the landscape of queer cinema and the shape of LGBT representation.

 

This retrospective includes conversations with:

 

LUCA GUADAGNINO, the director of Call Me By Your Name, Suspiria and A Bigger Splash.

 

BARRY JENKINS, whose Academy Award winning dissertation on modern identity politics, Moonlight, reinvented the boundaries of gay cinema.

 

DESIREE AKHAVAN, whose breakout film Appropriate Behaviour established her as a critical voice in LGBT cinema.

 

SEBASTIAN LELIO, the Academy Award winning director of Gloria, Disobedience and A Fantastic Woman.

 

JOHN CAMERON MITCHELL, who launched himself into stardom with Hedwig and the Angry Inch and has since directed films like Shortbus and Rabbit Hole.

Out Takes is celebrating our third year on air by looking back at some of the conversations that we have had with ground breaking Australian film makers who are dedicated to representing the lives of Australian LGBT people; film makers who have changed the shape of Australian cinema and particularly the way that LGBT Australians are represented on the screen. 

 

This retrospective includes conversations with:

 

Sue Maslin, the producer of iconic Australian films like The Dressmaker and A Japanese Story.

 

Ana Kokkinos, the ground breaking director of Head On, Blessed and Only the Brave.

 

Jill Billcock, one of the world’s most revered and respected film editors responsible for editing films like Moulin Rouge! and Elizabeth. 

 

Stephan Elliot, the director of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Swinging Safari.  

This week on OUT TAKES, we celebrated our 150th episode and 3 years as the home of queer cinema on JOY 94.9!

 

To celebrate, we spoke with the iconic director of WEEKEND and LOOKING, Andrew Haigh, about his new film LEAN ON PETE, his broader filmic legacy, and the importance of queer cinema.

 

We also took a look back at some of our best and worst and favourite moments on air, and ask our listeners what their favourite queer films are so that we can cover them over our next 150 episodes. 

 

Tune into this Out Takes podcast to celebrate our birthday with us!

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald has just hit cinema screens around the world. It coincides with Melbourne’s own Monster Fest, which spotlights the latest independent cinema about monsters.

 

So this week on Out Takes, we looked at queer monster cinema, and the way that monsters feature as an allegory for otherness or queer experience in mainstream cinema: think The Shape of Water or The Babadook.

 

Our guest was Monster Fest programmer and festival director, Grant Hardie. Hardie has worked in the Australian film industry for over twenty years and is also the co-founder of Monster Pictures.

 

Tune into this Out Takes podcast for your guide to queer monster cinema, this year’s Monster Fest and the latest instalment in JK Rowling’s Potterverse.

This week on Out Takes, we took an indepth look at some of the great queer offerings showing at this year’s Jewish International Film Festival (JIFF). Every year, JIFF plays home to the most comprehensive range of Jewish themed films in Australia.

 Our guests were Rubi Gat, the director of DEAR FREDY, and Shira Clara Winter, the director of CONVENTIONAL SINS. DEAR FREDY documents the life of Fredy Hirsch, an unsung queer hero who risked his life to save hundreds of minors in Auschwitz. CONVENTIONAL SINS is a brave and vital exploration of child sex abuse in a Jerusalem based Hasidic community. We also took a look at RED COW, the award winning new Lesbian romance from Tsivia Barkai, which screens at the Festival as well. For more information about JIFF and it’s line up of films from around the world head to jiff.com.au 

This week on Out Takes, we celebrated the sound of 2018 by looking at a mixtape of recent releases that pay homage to music and stardom.

Our guests were music icon Lukas Nelson, who recently hit screens with a role in A STAR IS BORN, and Jessica Leski, the director of I USED TO BE NORMAL: A BOYBAND FANGIRL STORY, which hits cinemas later this month. I USED TO BE NORMAL explores the complex emotions of passionate pop-music appreciation.

We also reviewed BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY, the controversial new Freddie Mercury biopic from director Bryan Singer. BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY has soared at the international box office, but it has received mixed reviews and has been lambasted for straight washing and queer erasure. So do we agree? What’s the OUT TAKES take? Tune into this podcast to find out.

Joel Edgerton is the star of Kinky Boots, Animal Kingdom, The Great Gatsby and now, Boy Erased, a poignant new look a gay conversion therapy.

This week on Out Takes, to celebrate the theatrical release of Boy Erased, we spoke with Edgerton (pictured) about his powerful new film. Based on Garrard Conley’s urgent memoir, Boy Erased follows the son of a Baptist preacher, who is forced to undergo a church-supported gay conversion program after being outed to his parents. It also stars Nicole Kidman, Lucas Hedges, Troye Sivan, Xaviar Dolan and Russell Crowe.

We also reviewed the film in depth and look at why Boy Erased is such an important and timely addition to the canon of queer cinema.

Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born has taken box offices around the world by storm and reaffirmed Lady Gaga as a true talent on and off the big screen. So to celebrate the theatrical release of A Star Is Born, we are looking at each Hollywood telling of this nearly 100 year old ode to stardom.

We’re also joined by our very special guest Lukas Nelson (pictured), son of legendary country music star Willie Nelson, who worked with Cooper and Gaga to write and produce many of the original songs for the latest version of A Star Is Born and also featured with his bandmates from his own band Promise of the Real who double as Jackson Maine’s band in the film. Lukas opens about the process of taking his musical talent to the big screen, what influenced (and in this case, what didn’t influence him) when writing songs for the amazing soundtrack and his own observations on fame, Gaga and more.

The Out Takes team also look at all four versions of this iconic story and decide once and for all which version is the best of the best (hint: it’s the one that came out this year).

This week on Out Takes, to celebrate the theatrical release of A STAR IS BORN starring Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga, we counted down our favourite original movie musicals: think MOULIN ROUGE, THE WIZARD OF OZ and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. We ranked our favourite movie musicals based on their LGBTI appeal, their cultural legacy, their critical reception and their box office success. Did your favourite make the cut? Tune into this Out Takes podcast to find out!

WESTWOOD: PUNK, ICON, ACTIVIST is the controversial new documentary from Lorna Tucker, which offers a glimpse into the organised chaos of punk fashion designer Vivienne Westwood.

To celebrate the theatrical release of WESTWOOD: PUNK, ICON, ACTIVIST, we spoke with Tucker about her new documentary, and took the opportunity to look at Queercore cinema – queer films that celebrate punk culture: think Bruce la Bruce’s controversial RASPBERRY REICH, Kenneth Anger’s SCORPIO RISING and the now canonical but then iconoclastic PINK FLAMINGOS.