Someone Else's Movie

With her new film  Wander arriving on VOD, producer-director April Mullen — whose credits include episodes of Wynonna Earp  and  DC’s Legends of Tomorrow  and the features 88 and Below Her Mouth — shares her love of Run Lola Run , the high-concept 1998 thriller that made Tom Tykwer and Franka Potente international sensations. Your genial host Norm Wilner is happy to take this ride again.

Writer-director  Francis Lee , whose new drama Ammonite (on VOD this Friday, December 4th) pairs Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan as 19th-century lovers, is here to talk about another tale of unexpected empowerment: Now, Voyager , the Warner Bros. melodrama where Bette Davis takes hold of her destiny after meeting the right psychiatrist. Your genial host Norm Wilner is very happy to stay in 1942 for...

To celebrate the publication of This Is Not My Memoir , legendary theater director and occasional screen actor Andre Gregory is here to talk about a film he’s loved as long as he can remember:  Casablanca , the little Michael Curtiz picture where Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman talk about Paris and letters of transit. Your genial host Norm Wilner will remember this just fine, don’t you worry.

It’s been a rough week, you deserve a bonus episode … so here’s filmmaker Sonia Boileau, whose new drama Rustic Oracle arrived on VOD this week, talking about her pure and radiant love for the unapologetic Swayze worship of Emile Ardolino’s Dirty Dancing. Your genial host Norm Wilner is not … not a fan.

Filmmaker  Cavan Campbell , whose new short  Receiver just shared the Air Canada Best Short Film award at the Reel Asian film festival, will never tire of watching Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal destroy San Francisco in What’s Up, Doc? , Peter Bogdanovich’s 1972 salute to classic screwball comedies. Your genial host Norm Wilner can’t help but notice he has the exact same bag as Cavan.

Actor and producer  Adam Brody ( The O.C , Ready Or Not , Promising Young Woman and now Evan Morgan’s The Kid Detective ) embraces the hand-crafted nightmares of Henry Selick’s 2009 adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline , mostly because he really loves watching it with his daughter. Your genial host Norm Wilner thinks that’s a wonderful reason to talk about a movie.

With his holiday-movie parody Cup of Cheer arriving on digital and on demand this Friday, November 6th, writer-director Jake Horowitz  goes to bat for They Came Together , David Wain’s 2014 deconstruction of prefab romantic comedies with Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler leading a murderer’s row of very funny people. Your genial host Norm Wilner can say that again. Tell him about it.

With his new film  Spell coming out on demand this Friday, director  Mark Tonderai ( Hush, House at the End of the Street ) is here to talk about David Lynch’s radically conventional 1999 drama, the one where Richard Farnsworth drives a riding mower across the American heartland and meets a lot of really nice people. Your genial host Norm Wilner is all revved up for this one.

With his new film  Coming Home Again arriving in virtual release today, director  Wayne Wang muses on the debt he owes to Chantal Akerman’s  Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai des Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles  — a singular experiment in location and duration built around a deliberately opaque Delphine Seyrig performance. Your genial host Norm Wilner can’t wait to peel back the layers on this one.

Rage! Rebellion! Hormones! Actor and writer Jessica Reynolds, who stars opposite Jared Abrahamson and Don McKellar in The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw — just released on VOD — tackles the emotional storm that is Catherine Hardwicke’s 2003 Sundance breakout Thirteen. Your genial host Norm Wilner is sure this will go fine.

Filmmaker Jennifer Abbott has two documentaries playing (virtually) at the Planet in Focus festival this week: The Magnitude of All Things and The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel . But she still made the time to talk about They Live , the subversive John Carpenter masterwork that only grows more prescient with every election cycle. Your genial host Norm Wilner packed extra bubb...

Kodi Smit-McPhee — whom you may remember from  The Road , Let Me In , Slow West and a few  X-Men  movies, and who stars in the new time-travel thriller  2067 — dials in from Australia to ponder the many lives of Jared Leto in Jaco Van Dormael’s reality-scrambling Mr. Nobody . Your genial host Norm Wilner did not see this in his future.

BAFTA-winning filmmaker Neasa Hardiman ( Happy Valley , Jessica Jones ) — whose first feature Sea Fever is available on disc and digital, and unnervingly relevant to 2020 — is here to talk about Fritz Lang’s seminal 1931 thriller M and its impact on her own artistic development. Your genial host Norm Wilner apologizes in advance for that bleep, but some secrets demand to be kept.

Actor and filmmaker Sarah Polley credits one film with launching her on the path that led to Away from Her, Take This Waltz, Stories We Tell and Alias Grace: Terrence Malick’s 1998 war epic The Thin Red Line. Your genial host Norm Wilner has been looking forward to this conversation for years.

It’s our 300th episode (which, wow) and filmmaker Michelle Latimer  — who’s premiering her new CBC series Trickster  at TIFF this afternoon, and whose documentary  Inconvenient Indian has its second screening this Thursday, September 17th — is here to sing the praises of Girlhood , and the complexity with which Céline Sciamma’s 2014 coming-of-age story explores female empowerment. Your genial host...

Actor and filmmaker  Madeleine Sims-Fewer — whose first feature Violation , which she co-wrote and co-directed with Dusty Mancinelli, premieres at TIFF Monday, September 14th — is here to discuss the extreme emotions of Possession , Andrzej Zulawski’s 1981 masterwork that finds Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill living a nightmare of obsession, betrayal and body horror. Your genial host Norm Wilner sti...

TIFF 2020 is upon us, and writer-director Charles Officer — whose gangland drama Akilla’s Escape makes its world premiere at the festival on Saturday, September 12th, and who also narrates The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel  — is here to talk about Carlito’s Way , the 1993 thriller that reunited the Scarface team of producer Martin Bregman, director Brian De Palma and star Al...

Writer-director Christian Sparkes (Cast No Shadow, Hammer) explores the chilly, creepy questions of Jonathan Glazer’s Birth — you know, the one where Nicole Kidman meets a child who claims to be her dead husband. Your genial host Norm Wilner keeps holy water around for this very eventuality.

Writer, producer and righteous dude Ed Solomon — of It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, Men in Black , Now You See Me and of course the Bill & Ted movies, the newest of which lands in theatres and on demand this Friday, August 28th — steps up for Monty Python and the Holy Grail , and discusses the profound impact of its revolutionary comedy on his own career. Your genial host Norm Wilner cannot believe t...

You’ve seen actor Julian Richings  in everything from Hard Core Logo and  Cube to Supernatural and Man of Steel , and you’re about to see him opposite Sheila McCarthy in the Fantasia world premiere  Anything For Jackson ; now listen to him discuss the Gothic delights of Charles Laughton’s 1955 masterpiece The Night of the Hunter . Your genial host Norm Wilner has been thinking about getting some k...

Actor and filmmaker Jemaine Clement — who co-stars with Gillian Jacobs in the new comedy I Used to Go Here — zooms in from New Zealand to talk about his love of Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 breakout action satire-slash-cultural prophecy RoboCop. Your genial host Norm Wilner guarantees this episode serves the public trust.

With his new film The Cuban making the rounds of theatres and drive-ins, director Sergio Navarretta  joins us to share his love for Federico Fellini’s enduring 1960 drama  La Dolce Vita — you know, the one that coined the term “paparazzi” while giving audiences a glimpse of a future defined and dominated by vapid celebrity culture. Your genial host Norm Wilner has a story about that.

With his second feature  Random Acts of Violence now available on digital in Canada — and coming to the US and UK later this month — actor, writer, producer and director  Jay Baruchel brings Paddy Considine’s knotty, ugly, deeply personal Tyrannosaur to the podcast. It’s not an easy movie to watch, and this isn’t an easy conversation. But your genial host Norm Wilner thinks you’ll be better for th...

It’s another Friday bonus episode! Beloved actor and gleeful raconteur John Rhys-Davies joins us to discuss Dome Karukoski’s literary origin story Tolkien, which stars Nicholas Hoult as the young J.R.R. and Lily Collins as his lifelong love Edith. Your genial host Norm Wilner apologizes for the lack of Elvish ballads.

Brace yourself for the mega madness, because writer, producer and podcaster Ben Blacker (Supernatural, The Thrilling Adventure Hour, The Writers Panel, Dead Pilots Society) is here for a super-sized episode on Gremlins, Steven Spielberg and Joe Dante’s unclassifiable, relentlessly weird creature-feature Christmas movie. Your genial host Norm Wilner has his blender at the ready.