Someone Else's Movie

With her new drama Marlene opening this Friday in Toronto, Guelph, Edmonton and Calgary, actor Kristin Booth ( Foolproof, Orphan Black, Workin' Moms , the Signed, Sealed, Delivered series and more) is here to declare her undying love for the self-aware magic of Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride , which made heartthrobs of Robin Wright and Cary Elwes, gave Mandy Patinkin one of his finest screen role...

Actor Alex Mallari Jr. -- whom you may remember from Dark Matter , Ginny & Georgia , Workin' Moms , The Adam Project , Transplant and as the star of the brand-new CBC Gem digital series Hello (Again) -- shares his love for Boaz Yakin's 2000 sports drama Remember the Titans . Your genial host Norm Wilner has never been much of a football guy, honestly, but -- wait, is that Ryan Gosling? Oh, and whi...

ANOTHER Friday bonus episode! Nathalie Younglai , co-creator, co-writer and executive producer of the new digital series Hello (Again) , is here to talk about Domee Shi's Turning Red , another story of an Asian-Canadian protagonist whose life is up-ended by supernatural events. Your genial host Norm Wilner just likes seeing his old building in CG. Hello (Again)  is now streaming across Canada on C...

With his debut feature Learn to Swim opening in Toronto and Vancouver on Friday,  filmmaker Thyrone Tommy trawls the surprising depths of Jerry Zucker's Ghost , the 1990 blockbuster that combined Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg in a story that functions as a slapstick farce, a swooning romantic tragedy and a supernatural action thriller, and sometimes does it all at once. Your genia...

It was David Cronenberg's birthday this week, and Halifax filmmaker Seth Smith 's creepy new movie Tin Can hits VOD today, so there's no better time for a Friday bonus episode tackling the grand romantic horror of The Fly -- Cronenberg's 1986 body-horror classic that paired Jeff Goldblum as a disintegrating genius and Geena Davis as the woman determined to love him no matter what he becomes. Your...

It's SEMcast's seventh anniversary, and filmmaker Igor Drljača -- whose new drama The White Fortress screens at TIFF Bell Lightbox as part of Canada's Top Ten tomorrow night, Wednesday March 16th, before hitting TIFF's streaming platform March 25th -- is here to take us on a trip to Punishment Park , Peter Watkins' distressingly perceptive 1971 thriller about America's slide towards fascism. Your...

Actor and filmmaker Agam Darshi -- whose first feature Donkeyhead is streaming on Netflix in most of the world, and opens in Toronto, Regina and Saskatoon today, is here to talk William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet , Baz Lurhmann's swoony 1996 adaptation of the classic romantic tragedy that minted Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in the hearts of young moviegoers everywhere ... even as it aliena...

With his remarkable new drama After Yang   in theatres across the US and opening in Canada this Friday, March 11th, writer-director Kogonada is here to discuss the delicate beauty and endless resonance of Hirokazu Kore-eda's After Life , the 1998 drama that wondered what memories we'd be willing to take with us into eternity. Your genial host Norm Wilner is just here to facilitate, really.

Lifelong pals and frequent co-stars Ennis Esmer and Aaron Abrams mark the end of the first season of Children Ruin Everything by arguing about the entire 007 franchise: The highs, the lows, the tonal shifts, the changing leading men, the quiet refusal to really embrace creative chances that could keep the series fresh. Your genial host Norm Wilner bought a fluffy white cat for this.

With his new Foo Fighters horror-comedy Studio 666 in theaters this Friday, February 25th, filmmaker BJ McDonnell throws his hat in the ring for George Lucas and Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark , the movie that cemented Harrison Ford's superstar status, revived a forgotten genre of action cinema, kicked off a franchise that is, incredibly enough, rolling into its fifth decade and took a...

This week, Josephine Decker -- director of Madeleine’s Madeleine, Shirley and the brand-new Apple TV+ drama The Sky Is Everywhere -- drops in to celebrate Babe , director Chris Noonan and producer George Miller’s 1995 live-action adaptation of Dick King-Smith’s children’s book The Sheep-Pig   and one of the sweetest, most deeply human films ever made about animals. Your genial host Norm Wilner thi...

Writer-director Jefferson Moneo , whose new drama Cosmic Dawn is in U.S. theaters and on VOD across North America this Friday, February 11th, is here to rescue Brian De Palma’s gloriously sleazy 1984 thriller Body Double from the memory hole, and celebrate both its hothouse Hitchcockian affect and the performance of a young Melanie Griffith. Your genial host Norm Wilner is excited to hear his argu...

Award-winning filmmaker Kelly Fyffe-Marshall , whose 2020 short film Black Bodies just premiered on Crave in Canada and on iTunes everywhere else, steps up for Ricky Staub's Concrete Cowboy , the contemporary Western starring Idris Elba as a Philadelphia horseman who reluctantly brings his teenage son (Caleb McLaughlin) into his world. Your genial host Norm Wilner always has time for a movie that...

To celebrate the publication of his book Damn Shame: A Memoir of Desire, Defiance and Show Tunes , actor and activist David Pevsner ( Naked Boys Singing, Criminal Minds, Modern Family, Gray's Anatomy ) is here to talk about his love for John Hughes' landmark 1984 comedy Sixteen Candles ... a problematic fave if ever there was one. Your genial host Norm Wilner has some notes.

Actor Patrice Goodman of Slasher , The Umbrella Academy and the  sci-fi sitcom Overlord and the Underwoods -- which drops 10 new episodes on CBC Gem this Friday, January 21st -- is here to remind you that Steven Spielberg's 1985 adaptation of Alice Walker's Pulitzer-prizewinning novel The Color Purple is a really good movie. Your genial host Norm Wilner is surprised to find out just how much he ag...

Writer and producer Daniel Grant -- who also co-hosts the podcasts Spoiled Rotten and Uncolonized -- is here to tackle Life , Ted Demme's 1999 comedy in which Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence play New Yorkers in the deep South who are convicted of murder in the 1930s and sentenced to life in prison. It's a comedy about lives destroyed by systemic racism. Your genial host Norm Wilner just wants you...

Actor and filmmaker Larry Fessenden -- who's currently voicing the Prophet of Doom in the animated fantasy epic The Spine of Night , now on VOD -- stands up for Frank Darabont’s 2007 adaptation of Stephen King’s The Mist , the pervasive nihilism of which feels awfully  prescient fifteen years later. Even so, your genial host Norm Wilner has some issues with that ending.  Follow Larry at @glasseyep...

See out the year with actor and singer Bronagh Gallagher -- who can currently be seen starring in Shelly Love's spiky pregnancy comedy A Bump Along the Way -- as she celebrates the eventful life and remarkable art of Yayoi Kusama as captured in Heather Lenz' 2018 documentary Kusama Infinity . Your genial host Norm Wilner is happy for the distraction.

It's the holidays, so actor and filmmaker PJ McCabe , who co-wrote, co-directed and co-stars with Jim Cummings in the very funny, very strange erotic thriller The Beta Test , tackles Eyes Wide Shut , the 1999 Cruise-and-Kidman holiday psychodrama that stands as Stanley Kubrick’s final statement on human frailty. Your genial host Norm WIlner has to admit it: He's never been a fan.

Director Mike Rianda , whose delightful first feature The Mitchells vs. the Machines just dropped in a souped-up Blu-ray special edition from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, takes time out to salute We Are the Best! , Lukas Moodysson’s raucous tale of two Swedish kids who decide to launch a rebellious punk band in the early '80s despite a distinct lack of anything worth rebelling about. Your gen...

Actor and producer Molly Quinn  -- of Castle , Welcome to Happiness and Mickey Reece's new film  Agnes , which hits theatres and VOD Friday -- is here to discuss the entrancing world of Song of the Sea , and how Tomm Moore's Oscar-nominated animated fable helped her understand which sort of stories she wanted to be telling. Your genial host Norm Wilner has the Cartoon Saloon boxed set on his holid...

Actor and filmmaker Brooke Nevin ( Infestation, Call Me Fitz , Scorpion , and the new holiday movie It Takes a Christmas VIllage , available on Super Channel On Demand Wednesday December 1st  and premiering on Super Channel Heart & Home Saturday December 4th) helps us roll towards the holidays with a conversation about the candy-coated charms of Jon Favreau's Elf , the movie that helped make Will...

Journalist and author (and friend of the podcast) Corey Mintz has a new book out -- The Next Supper: The End of Restaurants As We Knew Them, and What Comes After -- and he's here for a record-setting third episode to talk about The Big Short , Adam McKay's searing 2015 study of the global economic meltdown of 2008. (It's the one where Christian Bale has a glass eye, Steve Carell has rage issues, R...

Filmmaker Kaveh Nabatian , whose new drama Sin La Habana just dropped on Apple TV and is still playing in Toronto at the Carlton Cinema, is here to celebrate the exquisite melancholy of Wong Kar-wai's 1997 breakup drama Happy Together , in which Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung bring their disintegrating relationship to Argentina in search of a miracle, and wind up even further apart. Your genial host...

Actor and filmmaker Jim Cummings -- who's taken apart fragile alpha males in Thunder Road , The Wolf of Snow Hollow and the brand-new thriller The Beta Test -- is more than happy to lose himself in the labyrinth of David Fincher's Zodiac , the director's 2007 epic dramatization about the hunt for the serial killer who terrorized San Francisco in the late '60s and early '70s. It's no mystery: Your...