Out Takes Recommendations and Reviews: Will & Harper, My Old Ass, The Other Film Festival and The Critic

With so much content coming our way on our small and big screens, we took this opportunity to put together a mixed bag of reviews and recommendations for some new releases and welcomes the return of a film festival that is all about accessibility and celebrating people with a disability. We started off with ‘Will & Harper’, a new Netflix documentary that has received a lot of attention due to the involvement of Will Ferrell and the subject matter, specifically looking at the friendship between him and Harper Steele and what happens after her transition which is explored on camera as they go on a road trip across the U.S. Then we took a trip back to the future with ‘My Old Ass’, a queer coming-of-age story that is in cinemas now about free-spirited Elliott (played by Maisy Stella) who after an 18th birthday experience with her besties on a mushroom trip, brings her face-to-face with her wisecracking 39-year-old self (played by Aubrey Plaza). But when Elliott’s “old ass” starts handing out warnings about what her younger self should and shouldn’t do, Elliott realises she has to rethink everything about family, love, and what’s becoming a transformative summer. Next up, we celebrated the return of The Other Film Festival which is back in 2024 with a fantastic selection of shorts and features that celebrates 20 years of disability-led storytelling. Their free program of international and Australian films is screening via ACMI Cinema 3 from October 3 – 16. All films are made by Deaf and Disabled people either as key creatives, collaborators, and/or performers and all films are free to watch, audio described and captioned. From the festival program, we highlighted ‘Leilani’s Fortune’, a documentary feature film that follows Witch Prophet, a queer, immigrant Ethiopian-Eritrean musician, as she navigates newfound momentum in Canada and stands true to her unique voice while on the verge of a major international breakthrough. Finally, with the release of ‘The Critic’ in cinemas from October 3, we took the opportunity to celebrate the incredible professional career and advocacy work of Sir Ian McKellen and look at his latest film that sees him tackle the role of Jimmy Erskine, an extravagantly malicious theatre critic who strikes fear into the thespians of 1930s London.

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