Someone Else's Movie

Her lovely first feature What Lies West just landed on VOD in North America, so writer-director Jessica Ellis is here to stand up for Ridley Scott’s The Martian , the 2015 drama where Matt Damon gets marooned on the red planet and an all-star international cast rallies to save him … if he can keep himself alive long enough. Your genial host Norm Wilner worries that movies about space problems aren...

With his new film Drifting Snow arriving on VOD today, filmmaker Ryan Noth ( No Heart Feelings , The National Parks Project, Farm Crime ) is in the mood for another road-trip picture: Kelly Reichardt’s 2006 breakout Old Joy , a melancholy drama starring Daniel London and Will Oldham as old friends trying to reconnect with a drive to a hot spring. Your genial host Norm Wilner is more than happy to...

On this special Friday bonus episode, writer-director Scott Abramovitch — whose first feature Eat Wheaties!  just arrived on VOD platforms everywhere — tackles  The Apartment , Billy Wilder and Itzek Diamond’s Oscar-winning 1960 masterwork where Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray play out a timeless parable about the price of upward mobility. Your genial host Norm Wilner is really ha...

Actor and screenwriter Mary Holland (Veep, Homecoming, Happiest Season and the new-to-VOD comedy Golden Arm) steps up for the brave young women of the Sarah Rose Cosmetics Mount Rose American Teen Princess Pageant in Michael Patrick Jann’s beloved 1999 mockumentary Drop Dead Gorgeous. Your genial host Norm Wilner totally forgot Amy Adams was in this.

Now that Violation has arrived on Shudder Canada, filmmaker  Dusty Mancinelli (who wrote and directed the film with star Madeleine Sims-Fewer) is here to talk about Back to the Future II , the 1989 sequel in which Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale and company literally revisit their 1985 blockbuster to the delight of audiences everywhere. Your genial host Norm Wilner is good to go.

The multifaceted Brea Grant — who wrote and stars in Lucky , wrote and directed  12 Hour Shift  and co-stars in  The Stylist  — is here to celebrate the anarchic glories of Gremlins 2: The New Batch , the 1990 sequel where Joe Dante deconstructed his 1984 blockbuster with a sledgehammer. Your genial host Norm Wilner has been quoting the Brain Gremlin for thirty years now. (This is not a euphemism....

His first feature Honeydew arrives on VOD today, so it’s the perfect time for writer-director  Devereux Milburn to break down the revelation that was Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love  — the knockout 2002 romance that changed the way the world saw Adam Sandler. Your genial host Norm Wilner has some fairly profound feelings of his own about this one.

Writer, director and producer Saman Kesh — whose new project Doors just landed on VOD platforms everywhere — is here to explain how the fever dream of melancholy that is Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express changed the way he saw cinema. Your genial host Norm Wilner just hopes all those empty pineapple cans were properly recycled.

Writer-director Emma Seligman — whose first feature Shiva Baby is now available to rent on digital TIFF Bell Lightbox and goes into wider VOD release across North America on Friday — tackles another directorial debut: Edward Norton’s Keeping the Faith , in which Norton and Ben Stiller play a priest and a rabbi whose lifelong friendship is rocked by the reappearance of a childhood friend (Jenna Elf...

With her semiautobiographical web series The Communist’s Daughter newly streaming on CBC Gem, writer-director  Leah Cameron  is here to celebrate Don McKellar’s Last Night , the delicate 1998 drama about a handful of Torontonians — played by Sandra Oh, Sarah Polley, David Cronenberg, Tracy Wright and many more — facing the end of the world. Your genial host Norm Wilner is just happy we made it to...

It’s our anniversary week! Have a bonus episode! Here’s writer/director  BenDavid Grabinski , whose terrific first feature  Happily drops on VOD today, to discuss the indie miracle that is Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild , which pairs Jeff Daniels and Melanie Griffith for a screwball comedy that proves more than worthy of its title. Your genial host Norm Wilner thinks you should see Happily , by t...

It’s SEMcast’s sixth anniversary, and writer-director Anthony Scott Burns — whose eerie psychodrama Come True is now available on VOD — joins us to celebrate Michael Mann’s Manhunter , the 1986 cat-and-mouse thriller that first brought Thomas Harris’ characters to the screen. Your genial host Norm Wilner is always happy to talk about the magnificent pissiness of Brian Cox.

With his first feature Jump, Darling arriving on VOD today, writer-director Phil Connell is here to discuss the luxurious chaos of Luca Guadagnino’s A Bigger Splash , and how much pleasure there is to be had in watching Ralph Fiennes and Dakota Johnson invade Tilda Swinton and Matthias Schoenaerts’ Italian paradise. Your genial host Norm Wilner was just happy to think about something other than wi...

Veteran writer/producer Ali LeRoi — whose body of work includes writing Down to Earth and  Head of State , creating and producing the television series Everybody Hates Chris and Are We There Yet , and whose powerful first feature The Obituary of Tunde Johnson just dropped on VOD in North America — loves heist movies, and he especially loves Ben Affleck’s 2010 thriller The Town , accents and all. Y...

Writer-director Shatara Michelle Ford , whose powerful first feature Test Pattern  is now streaming on the Kino Marquee virtual cinema platform, has loved Nora Ephron’s 1998 rom-com You’ve Got Mail  since she was a tween, and is more than happy to talk about how Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan make it awfully easy to excuse some very problematic material. Your genial host Norm Wilner is sorry he sounds lik...

Guled Abdi, Vance Banzo, Tim Blair and Franco Nguyen — who are collectively known as  Tallboyz , and whose sketch show returns for a second season tonight, Tuesday September 16th, on CBC and CBC Gem — assemble to talk about Hook , Steven Spielberg’s 1991 fantasy adventure starring Robin Williams as a grown-up Peter Pan, Dustin Hoffman as his arch-enemy Captain Hook and Julia Roberts as Tinkerbell....

Writer-director Nicole Dorsey , whose powerful first feature  Black Conflux will finally be arriving later this spring after being named to TIFF Canada’s Top Ten in 2019, breaks down the power and influence of Joyce Chopra’s unnerving 1985 drama Smooth Talk and the devastating performance of Laura Dern and Treat Williams. Your genial host Norm Wilner is awfully nostalgic for the days when he recor...

Film critics  Haley Mlotek  and  Adam Nayman  were among a dozen experts interviewed by Jeffrey McHale for his 2019 documentary You Don’t Nomi , about the reclamation of Paul Verhoeven’s  Showgirls — received on its release in 1995 as an unmitigated disaster — as both a camp classic and legitimately good movie. So of course they’re here to talk about Verhoeven’s film, and why it’s time to take it...

Steven Kostanski — writer-director of Manborg, The Void and the brand-new splatterfest Psycho Goreman, just released on VOD — steps up and throws down for Paul W.S. Anderson’s Mortal Kombat, the 1995 hit that turned a videogame series into a remarkably satisfying cinematic experience. Your genial host Norm Wilner is happy to battle alongside him.

Michael Angelo Covino and  Kyle Marvin , who spun their friendship into bittersweet, chaotic comedy in The Climb (debuting on VOD today) are here to discuss the allure of Matteo Garrone’s 2012 Cannes Grand Prix winner Reality , and the curious ways in which it meshes with their own festival favorite. Your genial host Norm Wilner is rooting for them.

Never give up, never surrender! Actor, writer and director  Sugith Varughese  — whom you may know from  Kim’s Convenience  and  Transplant , and who just turned up on  The Expanse  — is here to share his love for Galaxy Quest , the ingenious sci-fi comedy where Tim Allen, Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver are washed-up TV stars recruited by actual aliens to save the universe. You have no idea how...

It’s 2021! We made it! And writer-director  Quinn Armstrong , whose fascinating found-footage psychodrama  Survival Skills is now available on VOD, is here to talk about the seemingly incongruent Brief Encounter , the Celia Johnson-Trevor Howard romance (written by Noel Coward, and directed by David Lean) that hasn’t lost an ounce of its power after three-quarters of a century. Your genial host No...

Surprise! We have an episode this week after all! John Patrick Shanley  — the Oscar-winning screenwriter of  Moonstruck , and most recently the writer-director of  Wild Mountain Thyme , in theatres and on demand now — is here to talk about Portrait of a Lady on Fire , and how Celine Sciamma’s 2019 masterpiece clobbered him with its art and its passion. Your genial host Norm Wilner knows how he fee...

What better way to mark the holiday season than to welcome back Phillip Iscove — creator of  Sleepy Hollow , co-host of the delightful Podcast Like It’s 1999 and friend of the show — to celebrate his very favorite Christmas movie: Batman Returns . You know, the one where Tim Burton got to do literally anything he wanted after the success of 1989’s Batman , and made one of the weirdest damn things...

With his new feature film The Stand In freshly arrived on VOD, screenwriter and producer Sam Bain (Peep Show, Ill Behaviour, Four Lions) is here to talk about Joe Versus the Volcano, the Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan fantasy comedy that marked John Patrick Shanley’s 1990 directorial debut. Your genial host Norm Wilner brought plenty of orange soda.