Clute and Edwards are pleased to announce that the Out of the Past podcasts are being broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ABC Radio National, as part of their new "Top of the Pods" programming —their selection of the world's best podcasts. (http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/topofthepods/) 

It is truly an honor to be included in this program, and a pleasure to hear the podcasts introduced by ABC host Robbie Buck.  The ABC episode show descriptions will be posted on the NOIRCAST website as the programs are broadcast in Australia, and go live on the ABC Radio National website for streaming.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/topofthepods/ootp-the-killing-26-brain-7/4019376

 26 June 2012: 

Film Noir duo Clute and Edwards Out of the Past take a deep and meaningful look at The Killing, directed by Stanley Kubrick - and it's compared with Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs – in the filming techniques, plot and narrative construction. Kubrick's careful composition of every shot shows his deep sympathy for noir tradition but to it he adds a non-linear narrative and omniscient voice-over and inventive sound design which guide the viewer through the non-linear tale. Is the most powerful force in this noir universe one of self-determination or fate?

And our cognitive abilities are further stimulated with the BBC's History of the Brain, Episode 7 is subtitled Mind the Gap and focuses on how the microscope allowed neurologists to detail the structure of brain cells. Sigmund Freud had hoped his gold chloride staining method would revolutionise brain research but in fact Camillo Golgi's La Reazione Nero ilver nitrate technique enabled brain scientists to see the cell composition more clearly.

And ending with a nice trip out on the boat - and doesn't she look great! Libby Purves from Yachting Monthly tells us how not to fret about mishaps.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/topofthepods/noir2c-museum-and-shorts/3945740

24 April 2012:

Out of the Past film Noir reviewers Clute and Edwards discuss The Killers. Hemingway's 1927 short story is little more than a pretext and the film really asks the fundamental post-WWII question: in a world where every man bears scars from the fight, how and why does he keep fighting? Director Robert Siodmak's answer is seemingly the one given by Albert Camus in his essay The Myth of Sisyphus: At the moment a man accepts the burden of his existence ... he is greater than his destiny. Hear how Out of the Past relate this classic film noir to Greek philosophy and myth.

After which we pay a visit to the busy cabinets of Museum Victoria, as Dr Andi Horvath goes to watch an assortment of bees doing their thing around the comb.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/topofthepods/ootp2bbooks2btrees/3900878

27 March 2012:

Our favourite purveyors of film Noir - Clute and Edwards from Out of the Past - get to work on the underpinnings to Billy Wilder's 1950 masterwork Sunset Boulevard. There are mysterious deaths; a doomed male protagonist, and a femme fatale. Actually, it's more than noir - it's a self-conscious staging of the crime that is Hollywood.

After which we're off to Museum Victoria for a guided look at their rare books collection - and branching out to carefully tended apple trees - many varieties in one - with Radio New Zealand's This Way Up.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/topofthepods/21/3816384

21 February 2012:

We're with the beguiling film genre of Noir, and one of the most prestigious of the genre - The Maltese Falcon. Noir reviewers Clute and Edwards discuss its literary genesis and plot development, as well as characterisation and innovative camera work. Also today we venture inside The Memory Palace with Nate DiMeo, who sets stories to music - and then we're at The Melbourne Planetarium, for a chat about the moon.

In June and July, Clute and Edwards will publish two new "Noircast Special" podcasts: a "video essay" that presents the central argument of Clute and Edwards' new book, The Maltese Touch of Evil: Film Noir and Potential Criticism, as a 6-minute film noir remix composed of clips investigated in the book; a conversation on noir between Shannon Clute and Jared Case (Head of Cataloguing and Research Center, George Eastman House). 

Beginning in August, 2011, Clute and Edwards will publish a new episode of Out of the Past: Investigating Film Noir each month!  Long overdue, these episodes will investigate several truly classic films noir and neo-noir that have often been requested by fans of the podcast, such as Night of the Hunter, Night and the City and L.A. Confidential.  Some of these episodes will include conversations with guest investigators, such as authors Christa Faust and Jonathan Santlofer.  Clute and Edwards will kick things off in August with a discussion of the hard-boiled literary, and film noir visual roots of L.A. Noire—the new video game from Rockstar Games.

Reserve a copy of Clute and Edwards' new noir book today at Amazon.com: http://amzn.to/jCePwG

In December 2011, Dartmouth College Press (University Press of New England) will release Clute and Edwards' new study of film noir, The Maltese Touch of Evil: Film Noir and Potential Criticism.  This exciting book builds on crucial insights from the Out of the Past: Investigating Film Noir podcasts, and draws on the work of the experimental literary group Oulipo (an acronym for "Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle," or "Workshop of Potential Literature") to investigate the extreme self-consciousness and high degree of visual punning exhibited by noir.  In the process, the book proposes—and serves as a sustained demonstration of—an OuFiNoPo, or Workshop of Potential Film Noir.  Part thinking-man’s fan crush, part crazily inspired remix of the most beloved of film genres, this study will help scholars and film fans alike to view film noir afresh, and achieve new insights into even the best known movies.  

Clute and Edwards have never solicited donations for their podcasts, for like all good things these podcasts are a labor of love.  But they would ask you to…

PLEASE GRAB A COPY of The Maltese Touch of Evil: Film Noir and Potential Criticism, and consider picking up other copies for all your movie-loving friends.