Someone Else's Movie

With The Amazing Gayl Pile launching its fourth season on CBC Digital this Thursday, co-star Andy King -- actor of Fargo, director of Filth City -- stops in to talk about the seminal comedic experience that was Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker's Airplane! Your genial host Norm Wilner just wants to say good luck; we're all counting on you.

Peter Kuplowsky's What The Film Festival returns to Toronto this weekend, and alumnus Zak Tatham -- who screened Space Breakers there back in 2016 -- drops by to talk about his love for William Friedkin's Sorcerer, the gripping, intense remake of Clouzot's The Wages of Fear that had the misfortune to arrive in the summer of Star Wars. Your genial host Norm Wilner has seen it in theatres! Twice!

The podcast is three years old today, and to celebrate here's actor and improv god Andrew Phung -- now a two-time Canadian Screen Award winner for Kim's Convenience -- to talk about the 1989 martial-arts movie Best of the Best, as well as pretty much every action franchise over the last few decades. Your genial host Norm Wilner wants to see where this goes.

He just shared a Best Picture Oscar win with Guillermo Del Toro, and now you can hear veteran Toronto producer J. Miles Dale celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Big Lebowski, the beloved Coen Brothers comedy that reimagines classic film-noir tropes through a very hazy filter. Your genial host Norm Wilner just wants to know about the stranger in the Alps.

The Academy Awards are upon us, which works out nicely because Samora Smallwood — whom you may know from Amazon’s The Shelter, and who’ll you’ll be seeing in the new seasons of The Expanse and Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments — wants to discuss Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Your genial host Norm Wilner is up for that.

Actor, playwright and musician Charlie Kerr (Lost Solace, After Wrestling) comes by the studio to celebrate the bittersweet charms of Boy, the 2010 breakout of some weirdo from New Zealand called Taika Waititi. Your genial host Norm Wilner just wants to see how this leads to Thor fighting the Hulk.

With his second feature Great Great Great newly available on iTunes, director Adam Garnet Jones digs into the lasting impact of Jane Campion’s The Piano, which made a massive impression on him when he needed it most. Your genial host Norm Wilner is happy to hear him out.

Actor Eric Johnson takes a break from menacing Dakota Johnson in Fifty Shades Freed (in theaters Friday!) for a deep dive into the ever-more-relevant dystopian masterpiece that is Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men. Your genial host Norm Wilner is fully on board.

Producer and distributor Avi Federgreen -- whose Indiecan Entertainment just released its 100th feature, Monolith -- settles in for a conversation about an unlikely inspiration: Some Kind of Wonderful, the John Hughes-scripted reversal of his own Pretty in Pink that locked Eric Stoltz, Lea Thompson and Mary Stuart Masterson in a classically '80s love triangle. Your genial host Norm Wilner regrets...

Stephen McHattie has appeared in everything from Hill Street Blues to Pontypool to Watchmen to Orphan Black; his latest picture is Peter Lynch’s Birdland, available Friday on VOD in the US and Canada. He wanted to talk about John Ford’s landmark Western The Searchers. Your genial host Norm Wilner was delighted to ride along.

Carsten Knox — critic, screenwriter and host of the Flaw in the Iris and Lens Me Your Ears podcasts — pops by to talk about the emotional wallop of Anthony Minghella’s Truly Madly Deeply, and the complex magic of Juliet Stevenson and Alan Rickman’s emotional duet. Your genial host Norm Wilner promised himself he wouldn’t cry.

As Workin' Moms returns for a second season Tuesdays at 9:30 pm on CBC, creator and star Catherine Reitman brings some love for Lindsay Lohan, Tina Fey, Mark Waters and everyone else associated with the hit 2004 comedy Mean Girls. Your genial host Norm Wilner was not wearing pink, because we recorded this on a Monday and pink is for Wednesdays, duh.

He created Less Than Kind and Hit On Me, he plays the Burly Russian in Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water and now actor-writer-producer Marvin Kaye rings in the new year with a conversation about Bruce Beresford’s devastating 1980 war drama Breaker Morant. Your genial host Norm Wilner read up on the Boer War for this.

Happy dystopian holidays! Your genial host Norm Wilner welcomes old friend and top set decoration buyer Alexandra Hooper -- whose work is showcased this month in Guillermo Del Toro's The Shape of Water and Alexander Payne's Downsizing -- to talk about Brazil, and how Terry Gilliam's 1985 masterpiece set her on the path to becoming the artist she is.

You didn’t think we were going to miss the opportunity to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Alien 3, did you? Elsewhere, NY director Jeffrey P. Nesker is looking to rehabilitate David Fincher’s moody monster movie, and your genial host Norm Wilner is willing to hear him out.

Dim the Fluorescents is finally opening in Toronto, so here’s co-star Claire Armstrong on the subtle, potent notes of Never Let Me Go, Mark Romanek’s eerily calm adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s disquieting novel about lifelong friends with a very specific destiny. Your genial host Norm Wilner is glad to bring this one back into circulation.

It's the 150th episode of the show, and this week's guest is very special indeed: it's Paul Scheer, of Human Giant and The League and How Did This Get Made and James Franco's instant cult movie The Disaster Artist! And he's here to talk about his love of another cult object: Bowfinger, the 1999 satire that brought Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy and Frank Oz together and set them loose on Hollywood han...

His new movie Sweet Virginia is in theatres and on VOD in the U.S., and coming to Canada on December 1st, so it’s the perfect time for director Jamie M. Dagg to discuss the way Ron Fricke’s large-format documentary Baraka changed his understanding of cinema. Your genial host Norm Wilner has many questions.

Documentarian Jennifer Baichwal, whose new documentary Long Time Running captures the Tragically Hip on their heart-rending final tour, dives into The Dead Zone to unpack the philosophy and psychology of David Cronenberg’s terrific Stephen King adaptation. Your genial host Norm Wilner shows great restraint in only busting out his Christopher Walken impression once.

Filmmaker Brendan Prost (Spaces and Reservations, Sensitive Parts) brings the love for Nights and Weekends, the 2008 collaboration between Greta Gerwig and Joe Swanberg that really ought to be better remembered. Your genial host Norm Wilner gets all personal on this one. (Also, see Gerwig’s solo directorial debut Lady Bird in theatres this month! It’s good too!)

It’s a special Friday bonus episode with Lauren Lee Smith, whose new series Frankie Drake Mysteries premieres Monday November 6th on CBC! And she wants to talk about Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream! And we only have 20 minutes! Your genial host Norm Wilner is in no way intimidated by any of this.

In anticipation of FUBAR: Age of Computer‘s premiere on Viceland this Friday, November 3rd, director Michael Dowse (It’s All Gone Pete Tong, Goon, The F Word) celebrates Michael Cimino’s magnum opus Heaven’s Gate. Your genial host Norm Wilner apologizes for the abbreviated running time.

Actor and producer Paula Brancati — currently running for her life in Slasher: Guilty Party — embraces her Sicilian heritage by settling in with Francis Ford Coppola’s genre-defining blockbuster The Godfather. Your genial host Norm Wilner is happy to serve as consigliere.

French-born, Toronto-based actor, writer and producer Florian François -- whose new series Rencontres is available now on Bell Fibe TV1 -- drops in to discuss Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano's 2011 smash Intouchables, which paired François Cluzet and Omar Sy for a crowd-pleasing buddy comedy. (Sort of.) Your genial host Norm Wilner tries his best to get the accent right.

With Denis Villeneuve's sequel bringing it all back up again, writer-director Vincenzo Natali (Cube, Splice, the best episodes of Hannibal) settles in with Blade Runner, the 1982 thriller that redefined science-fiction cinema for a generation -- and started Ridley Scott on decades of obsessive re-editing. Your genial host Norm Wilner would like you to know there was a fan spinning for the entirety...