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Larry Richman has posted an older interview that he had with The Twilight Saga: Eclipse's Xavier Samuel last year. Says Richman, In this exclusive interview after the World Premiere of Newcastle in New York last year, I sat down with the cast and crew to discuss the film. Writer/director Dan Castle was present along with Xavier Samuel and castmates Lachlan Buchanan, Israel Cannan, Kirk Jenkins, and Debra Ades. The audio interview is 45 minutes long and is spoiler-free. I w...

Xavier Samuels is the latest addition to the unstoppable The Twilight Saga, picking up the role of "Riley" in the soon-to-shoot Eclipse threequel. His character is all evil-y, coming under the sway of supper-baddy Victoria, who's out to kill our fair Bella.

Samuels has been bouncing around the Australian indie scene for a while. Gay audiences recognize him from Newcastle, Dan Castle's 2008 Australian coming-off-age surfer movie. His character, Fergus, is the fraternal twin of lead Jesse (Lachlan Buchanan), goth, punky, and gay amongst a group of blond, tanned surf buddies. Fergus falls for one of the statuesque surfer-boys and hilarity ensues.

Actually, no. The film is gritty and emotional. Dark themes. Angst between Fergus and Jessie and their other families. Economic dispair. Earned Mixed reviews, but Samuels has gotten great, great notices. His acting chops no doubt means that his The Twilight Saga: Eclipse role is going to give...

A couple of years ago there was an Australian film called Tan Lines. It was a fairly dreadful look at homosexuality and Aussie surf culture, a thoroughly interesting topic I might like to add, that treated its queer topic with a strange pitched level of surprising earnestness and poor execution and unrealistic storytelling. It was further hampered by amateur acting and bad writing. It did, however, provide endless opportunities for queer audiences to fawn over shirtless male bodies (although their age sure was cringe-worthy at times) and that seems to be about the maximum depth you will find in many Glbt-themed movies.

Another Australian film that wades through similar territory, released late in 2008, was Dan Castle's Newcastle, which is a far more successful - and yet, at times, just as frustrating - attempt at the surfer-via-homos theme. While the queer angle is clearly not the film's prime reason for existing,...