Someone Else's Movie

Actor and podcaster  Lara Jean Chorostecki ( Hannibal ,  X Company ,  Designated Survivor ) co-stars with Aaron Abrams in the indie Nose to Tail , which opens in Toronto, Winnipeg and Calgary this Friday, February 14th. Which makes it the perfect time to discuss the subtle perfection of Elsie Fisher’s performance — and writer/director Bo Burnham’s piercing attention to detail — in Eighth Grade . Y...

With the Oscars just days away, Toronto filmmaker Sami Khan — whose St. Louis Superman is up for Best Documentary Short — takes a break from the awards circuit to talk about the landmark American drama Daughters of the Dust , and how writer-director Julie Dash’s evocative study of people dealing with a shared trauma influenced his own work (and Beyoncé’s). Your genial host Norm Wilner was delighte...

Actor JC MacKenzie — currently battling monsters in October Faction  and corruption in  The Irishman , both of which are streaming on Netflix right now — takes a run at Sam Mendes’ 1917 , the single-take WWI drama that’s muscled its way to the head of the Oscar pack. Your genial host Norm Wilner, being a big fan of editing, might need some convincing.

Actor and filmmaker  Sofia Banzhaf — whom you may know from Closet Monster , Bitten , Carter and Black Conflux , and whose short film I Am In The World As Free And Slender As A Deer On A Plain screens at the TIFF Bell Lightbox this Sunday, January 26th, at 4 pm in the Canada’s Top Ten shorts program — is here to make sure The Canyons , Paul Schrader’s 2013 Hollywood scenester drama starring Lindsa...

Actor  Dan Beirne  ( Great Great Great, Workin’ Moms, White Lie ) just won the Vancouver Film Critics Circle award for his performance as William Lyon Mackenzie King in Matthew Rankin’s absurdist history  The Twentieth Century . He’s here to talk about Monrovia, Indiana and the observational documentary cinema of Frederick Wiseman. Your genial host Norm Wilner is keen to see how that goes.

Actors  Vladimir Jon Cubrt  ( Hannibal ,  Stockholm ) and  Nicole Maroon  ( Meet the Family , The Boys ) are partners in both life and work, and their new film Luba  — which Vlad wrote and produced, and which stars Nicole as a young mother trying to get her life on an even keel while dealing with her disintegrating ex — opens in Calgary and Toronto this Friday, January 10th. (It’ll also be availab...

Krysty Wilson-Cairns , co-writer of Edgar Wright’s upcoming  Last Night in Soho  and Sam Mendes’ WWI drama  1917 , takes a break from a marathon press tour to share her pure and lasting love for Shallow Grave , the scrappy little thriller that put Danny Boyle, John Hodge and Andrew Macdonald on the cinematic map 25 years ago. Your genial host Norm Wilner wishes everyone a happy holiday, and really...

On this week’s episode, Cameron Maitland — the co-host of the Royal Canadian Movie Podcast and a film and content specialist for Hollywood Suite — drops by to talk about the deep-dive retrospective series he’s written for the service, A Year in Film , and one movie in particular: Reginald Hudlin’s Boomerang , the 1992 romantic comedy that gave Eddie Murphy a chance to do something radically differ...

Her new project Things I Do For Money just had its world premiere at Whistler, so now we can release producer (and actor, and podcaster) Jen Pogue ‘s very fun episode on Michael Dowse’s The F Word — the delightful 2013 romantic comedy (released in the US as What If ) where Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan try to be friends despite an obvious attraction. Your genial host Norm Wilner is just happy to...

Writer, activist and actor Audra Williams  drops by to share her love and admiration for Judy Holliday’s Oscar-winning performance in George Cukor’s Born Yesterday — and to discuss how the ethical awakening of Billie Dawn worked as an anchor in her own life. Your genial host Norm Wilner is always up for a comedy with a philosophical core.

Writer, producer and director  Erin Berry — whose second feature  Majic just had its Canadian premiere at the Blood in the Snow festival in Toronto — celebrates the 35th anniversary of Dune , the David Lynch epic that was supposed to be Universal’s big Christmas event picture of 1984, and decidedly was not. Your genial host Norm Wilner double-checked the correct pronunciation of “Arrakis” for this...

Filmmaker Matt Gallagher  — whose award-winning documentary Prey makes its network and streaming premiere on TVOntario and TVO.org tonight, Tuesday November 19th, at 9 pm — chooses Bennett Miller’s 2011 sports drama  Moneyball , the one where Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill reinvent baseball with statistics. Your genial host Norm Wilner is not a sports guy, which may explain the preceding synopsis.

Journalist turned writer ( Seinfeld ‘s “The Fusilli Jerry”), producer ( First Round Down ) and distributor (Unobstructed View) Jonathan Gross drops in to discuss his very personal connection to Garry Marshall’s 1984 dramedy The Flamingo Kid , the one where Matt Dillon is a Brooklyn kid who takes a summer job as a Long Island cabana boy. Your genial host Norm Wilner is willing to hear the spiel.

Producer and director Roland Emmerich — you know, the guy who made  Stargate , Independence Day  and  The Day After Tomorrow , and whose new WWII picture Midway opens everywhere this Friday, November 8th — takes some time out of the  Midway press tour to talk about Steven Spielberg’s 1977 first-contact epic Close Encounters of the Third Kind , which literally changed the course of his life and car...

Hello, listeners! You’ve heard Norm complain about politics often enough that he thought you might appreciate the new Frequency podcast The Gravy Train . It’s an eight-part series hosted by The Big Story ‘s Jordan Heath-Rawlings, considering the career and legacy of Toronto mayor Rob Ford: His rise, his disastrous reign, and the proof-of-concept he provided for global populism. This is episode one...

It’s our 250th episode, and it’s Halloween, so what better time for sibling filmmakers Brett and Drew Pierce — in town to screen their new chiller The Wretched at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival — to celebrate Tom Holland’s delightful 1985 creature feature  Fright Night , the one where poor Charley Brewster can’t get anyone to believe his suave new neighbor is a bloodsucking fiend. Your genia...

Writer/director  Patrick Wang (In the Family , The Grief of Others ) is one of the best American filmmakers working today; with his brilliant two-part drama A Bread Factory newly available on digital and coming to disc next month, he’s here to praise the unique beauty of Electra Glide in Blue , James William Guercio’s 1973 procedural starring Robert Blake as a motorcycle cop with an unbending mora...

Munro Chambers has two movies out right now: Jovanka Vuckovic’s Riot Girls , which dropped on VOD earlier this month, and Rob Grant’s Harpoon , now playing at the Carlton Cinemas in Toronto and also newly on iTunes. Munro would also like to share his love for what Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks accomplished with their 2000 survival drama Cast Away . Your genial host Norm Wilner is on the same page.

Actor and filmmaker Deragh Campbell — who is devastatingly good in Kazik Radwanski’s Anne at 13,000 Ft. , and whose latest collaboration with Sofia Bohdanowicz, MS Slavic 7 , opens this Thursday in Toronto at the TIFF Bell Lightbox — ponders the intimate ambiguities of Les Rendez-vous d’Anna , Chantal Akerman’s 1978 film about a Belgian director traveling around Europe with her latest picture. You...

Her first feature Riot Girls just arrived on VOD in the US and Canada today, so filmmaker Jovanka Vuckovic is here to throw down for the scrappy splatterpunk brilliance of Kathryn Bigelow’s 1987 horror Western Near Dark. Your genial host Norm Wilner is more than happy to ride shotgun.

Her new novel Watching You Without Me is released today, so Giller Prize-winning author Lynn Coady  — who’s also worked as a writer and producer on Orphan Black , Burden of Truth and Diggstown  — is here to talk about the very specific pleasures of Wait Until Dark , the 1967 thriller that pits Audrey Hepburn against Alan Arkin in a battle of wits, and also acting styles. Your genial host Norm Wiln...

ICYMI: Earlier this week, your genial host Norm Wilner appeared on The Big Story to take Jordan Heath-Rawlings through the themes of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival … and, inevitably, talk about that new Joker movie. Listen and enjoy, and subscribe to The Big Story and other Frequency shows wherever you get your podcasts!

With her first dramatic feature Honey Bee opening in Toronto this Friday before rolling out across Canada in the next few weeks, director Rama Rau  dives into Fish Tank , Andrea Arnold’s 2009 drama starring Katie Jarvis as a rebellious English teenager looking to escape her suffocating life in Essex. Your genial host Norm Wilner was too wrung out from TIFF to do any of the dance stuff.

With his second feature The Last Porno Show making its world premiere tonight at TIFF, writer-director Kire Paputts wants to talk about Sicilian Vampire , the 2015 genre mash-up from Toronto auteur Frank D’Angelo, with whom he’s worked on a few pictures — and who plays a small but crucial role in Kire’s latest. Your genial host Norm Wilner did not see this coming, that’s for sure.

It’s TIFF time, so we brought in actor and filmmaker Aaron Poole — who’ll be at the festival this week for the world premieres of Clifton Hill on Thursday and his own short film Oracle on Sunday — to do what he does best: talk about Michael Mann’s 1995 epic cops-and-robbers drama Heat . Your genial host Norm Wilner is here to keep him sharp, on the edge, where he’s gotta be.