Someone Else's Movie

To mark the launch of the second season of their charming infertility comedy How To Buy a Baby on CBC Gem, star  Meghan Heffern and creator/producer Wendy Litner  are here to talk about the retro pleasures and entirely contemporary consciousness of  To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before , the Netflix charmer that took the world by storm last year. Your genial host Norm Wilner checked his mailbox twice...

Chantel Riley — of Frankie Drake Mysteries ,  Wynonna Earp and the brand-new  Suits  spinoff Pearson — joins us to talk about Black Panther , Ryan Coogler’s revolutionary contribution to the Marvel Cinematic Universe … and the movie that made her believe she, too, can be a superhero. Your genial host Norm Wilner is more than happy to be her sidekick.

In advance of their new film Spice It Up opens in Toronto at the TIFF Bell Lightbox this Thursday, August 15th, filmmakers Lev Lewis, Yonah Thomas and Calvin Thomas assembled to make the case for Kidnap , Luis Prieto’s 2017 thriller starring Halle Berry as a mother who’ll stop at nothing to rescue her son from the couple who’ve snatched him. (Literally; it’s a car-chase picture.) Your genial host...

Filmmaker Kalina Bertin — whose powerful personal documentary Manic  is now available for rental and purchase on Vimeo on Demand — opens the mysterious box that is Mulholland Dr. to follow Naomi Watts and Laura Elena Harring down the rabbit hole that is David Lynch’s 2001 psychodrama. Your genial host Norm Wilner apologizes for that one line he had to loop.

With her first feature Astronaut  in theatres in Toronto and Vancouver and available on iTunes and Google Play Movies everywhere, actor turned filmmaker  Shelagh McLeod  makes the case for Duncan Jones’ 2009 debut  Moon , in which Sam Rockwell plays a lonely lunar engineer whose world is turned upside down by an unexpected visitor. Your genial host Norm Wilner reminds you to watch Jones’ movie bef...

With her award-winning first feature Roads in February screening in Toronto at the TIFF Bell Lightbox this week, writer-director Katherine Jerkovic sits down to talk about her admiration for, and awe of, the singular intensity of Claire Denis’ 2004 drama L’Intrus (The Intruder). Your genial host Norm Wilner apologizes for the HVAC noise.

As we make our debut on the Frequency Podcast Network, filmmaker  Larry Weinstein , whose new documentary  Propaganda: The Art of Selling Lies  opens at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema this Friday, July 19th, in Toronto, marks the occasion by celebrating the autobiographical fantasia of Federico Fellini’s  Amarcord  in all of its grand, grotesque splendor. Your genial host Norm Wilner only regrets...

Canadian Screen Award-winning director Jasmin Mozaffari, whose terrific first feature Firecrackers is streaming on Crave in Canada today in advance of its VOD debut on Friday, July 12th, stops in to talk about Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides and its dreamy portrait of young women on the verge of ... something. Your genial host Norm Wilner is still reeling over the fact that it was shot in Toro...

With Outside the March’s new location-specific theatrical experience The Tape Escape opening in Toronto this Thursday, July 4th, Dora-winning stage director Mitchell Cushman checks out High Fidelity, John Cusack and Stephen Frears’ 2000 adaptation of Nick Hornby’s novel about love, music and OCD. Your genial host Norm Wilner is intimately acquainted with all of those things.

In a slight deviation from protocol, Los Angeles immigration lawyer Judy Wood — whose precedent-setting work is the subject of the new drama Saint Judy — discusses Jean-Luc Godard’s monumental 1962 drama Vivre Sa Vie in the context of her own experience assisting refugees and asylum seekers. Your genial host Norm Wilner is, as always, happy to get political.

Actor, filmmaker and friend of the show Samora Smallwood (Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments, The Expanse, Star Trek: Discovery) returns for a deep dive into the symbolism, performances and nail-biting intensity of Jordan Peele’s eerie new thriller Us. Your genial host Norm Wilner made sure no one brought scissors into the studio.

With their new movie Mouthpiece playing in Toronto and Los Angeles right now, co-writers and co-stars Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava drop in to discuss another unforgettable double act: Big Edie and Little Edie, as preserved and examined in the 1976 documentary Grey Gardens. Your genial host Norm Wilner has some thoughts about the raccoons.

You know her from Pontypool, The L.A. Complex and Murdoch Mysteries, and now you can hear Georgina Reilly -- whose latest movie Goalie drops on iTunes Canada this Friday, June 7th -- stand up for The Sound of Music, Robert Wise's Oscar-winning musical about a family that sang its way out of Nazi-occupied Austria. Your genial host Norm Wilner is willing to see where this is going.

Writer, producer, actor and podcaster Kulap Vilaysack -- whose moving personal documentary Origin Story is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video -- throws down for the retro delights of Joe Cornish's Attack the Block, the 2011 SF thriller that pitted John Boyega, Jodie Whitaker, Franz Drameh and Nick Frost against an invasion of gorilla-wolf aliens. Your genial host Norm Wilner thinks you'll like th...

Filmmaker Robin McKenna, whose new documentary Gift is playing at the Carlton Cinema in Toronto right now, rides for the dreamy landscapes and flowing score of Jim Jarmusch’s entrancing alt-Western Dead Man. Your genial host Norm Wilner is happy to saddle up for this one.

Writer and producer Ramona Barckert -- whose new film Ordinary Days is now playing in Toronto, Halifax and Edmonton -- stops by on a rainy day to discuss Marielle Heller's Can You Ever Forgive Me? and the spiky pleasure to be had in watching Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant engage in petty larceny. Not that your genial host Norm Wilner would ever condone such behavior, of course.

Writer, performer and future podcast prom queen Jocelyn Geddie (The Beaverton, I Hate It But I Love It) throws down for the queasy high-school horror movie that is Brian de Palma's Carrie -- the first big-screen Stephen King adaptation, and one that still packs a hell of a punch. Your genial host Norm Wilner wasn't expecting to laugh quite so hard for this one.

Recorded in his London edit suite, filmmaker Charlie Shackleton — director of Beyond Clueless , Fear Itself and the newly released Lasting Marks — breaks our format with The Clock , Christian Marclay’s 2010 gallery installation that uses the entirety of cinema and television to tell you the current time. Your genial host Norm Wilner wandered into it once at the Southbank Centre.

Actor and musician Ricardo Hoyos — most recently seen beachside in Travis Knight’s Bumblebee — tackles the Farrelly brothers’ Dumb and Dumber and the manic delight that is the young, hungry Jim Carrey. Your genial host Norm Wilner popped out the cap in his tooth for this one.

In town for the opening of Four Chords and a Gun, his new play about Phil Spector and The Ramones, actor and author John Ross Bowie finds a strange connection to his own work in Topsy-Turvy, Mike Leigh’s layered 1999 drama about Gilbert, Sullivan and The Mikado. Your genial host Norm Wilner is all ears.

Writer-director Natty Zavitz, whose new film Acquainted just opened in Toronto and Vancouver, tackles the last of Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales: Love in the Afternoon, the 1972 drama starring Bernard Verley as a happily married man drawn to the possibility of a new lover. Your genial host Norm Wilner dedicates this episode to the launch of the Criterion Channel.

Fun fact: While Shazam! was shooting in Toronto last year, screenwriter Henry Gayden dropped by the studio late one night to talk about the eccentric, romantic miracle that is Steve Martin and Mick Jackson’s 1991 comedy L.A. Story. Your genial host Norm Wilner has the complete works of John Lillison right there on the coffee table.

With the big Canadian Screen Awards gala this Sunday night, The Drawer Boy co-director Arturo Perez Torres — who’s nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay — is here to talk about Alfonso Cuarón’s 2001 road movie Y Tu Mamá También, and how it influenced both his documentary and dramatic filmmaking. Your genial host Norm Wilner brought sunscreen and everything.

Author, academic and filmmaker Tananarive Due stops in to discuss a film she knows backwards and forwards: Get Out, Jordan Peele’s Oscar-winning creeper about … well, you know what it’s about. With Peele’s follow-up Us opening this Friday, your genial host Norm Wilner feels it’s the perfect time to put this into your brain.

Katie Douglas — whom you might know from Mary Kills People and Every Day, and who stars in Danishka Esterhazy’s creepy new thriller Level 16 — bears witness to the piercing humanity of Clio Barnard’s 2013 drama The Selfish Giant. Your genial host Norm Wilner is right there with her.