Someone Else's Movie

The Before Trilogy. Sure, Richard Linklater’s decades-spanning walk-and-talk cycle is an ambitious pick, but filmmaker Maureen Judge is up to the challenge; with her new documentary  My Millennial Life  streaming on TVO.org, she tackles the love story of Jesse and Celine from a number of interesting angles. Your genial host Norm Wilner implores you not to listen to this episode if you haven’t seen...

With his new movie  Borealis  opening the Brooklyn Film Festival this Friday (and newly available for rental and purchase on iTunes Canada), actor-screenwriter-producer Jonas Chernick takes a moment to savor the joys of Swingers, the movie that made Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn indie idols and launched Doug Liman’s mostly magnificent directorial career. Your genial host Norm Wilner thinks this cho...

Actor-producer Carolina Bartczak, whom you’re about to see opposite Michael Fassbender in X-Men Apocalypse, brings Pedro Almodovar’s Volver into the basement to feast upon its swooning visuals, its complex script and Penelope Cruz’ unforgettable performance. Your genial host Norm Wilner has been there.

You’ve seen her on stage, you’ve heard her on  The Dork Forest  and  The Jackie and Laurie Show  and you’ll catch her on Netflix in  Lady Dynamite  this Friday, May 20th; now, Jackie Kashian sits down to celebrate Holiday Inn, Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby’s run through the calendar to the songs of Irving Berlin. Your genial host Norm Wilner has to be the one to bring up the blackface sequence.

As her new film  The People Garden opens for a limited run at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, actor and filmmaker Nadia Litz sinks deep into the world of Klute, Alan J. Pakula’s singular New York thriller starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland as two very different people united by an inexplicable disappearance. Your genial host Norm Wilner can’t get over the footage of New York in the early 70s.

His new movie Natasha  opens the Toronto JewishFilm Festival on Thursday and goes into theatrical release inToronto and Vancouver on Friday, so this seemed like the perfecttime to get author and filmmaker DavidBezmozgis into the basement to talk about the cinematicjoyride that is Leos Carax’ Holy Motors. Fun fact:Your genial host Norm Wilner did this entire episode ina leotard covered with dots.

With his new documentary How to Build a Time Machine about to make its world premiere at Hot Docs on May 2nd, filmmaker Jay Cheel distracts himself by talking about Richard Lester’s Superman III, which broke from the cosmic seriousness of its predecessors to let Christopher Reeve’s Man of Steel have a little fun. Your genial host Norm Wilner really needed this after  Batman V Superman: Death of Jo...

In a special Friday bonus episode, actor and photographer Kristine Cofsky — whose new film No Men Beyond This Point opens in Toronto tomorrow, and drops on iTunes next week — brings big love for Jonathan Demme’s 2008 drama Rachel Getting Married. Your genial host Norm Wilner always cries at fake weddings.

Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, star of John Carney’s new period musical Sing Street, crafts a love song to The Revenant, Alejandro G. Inarritu’s Oscar-winning tale of a fur trapper on an epic quest for vengeance against them what done him wrong. Your genial host Norm Wilner chokes it down like bison liver.

Filmmaker siblings Chris and Ben Blaine, creators of the remarkable new film Nina Forever, dive deep into Danny Boyle’s 1996 breakout Trainspotting in an extra-long, extra-great episode recorded on location in London, England. Your genial host Norm Wilner is delighted that you can hear birds chirping through the studio window.

With his new film  Borealis opening in Toronto on Friday, and rolling out across Canada in the weeks to come, director Sean Garrity brings us our first David Cronenberg joint, and it’s a good one: Naked Lunch, the surrealistic 1991 William S. Burroughs adaptation that launched the second act of Cronenberg’s career — and showed us Peter Weller had a damn fine deadpan. Your genial host Norm Wilner w...

With the 2016 baseball season starting up, screenwriter Matt Hansen (Zoom) brings Phil Alden Robinson’s Field of Dreams into the basement for a conversation about magic realism, mysterious voices and emotional honesty. Your genial host Norm Wilner might have teared up a little.

Journalist and filmmaker Aaron Hillis — who also runs Video Free Brooklyn, one of New York’s last surviving video stores — sits down to discuss the singular genius of Elaine May’s underrated 1987 comedy Ishtar, starring Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman as hack singer-songwriters who become embroiled in an elaborate Middle Eastern spy caper. Be warned that your genial host Norm Wilner sings a few b...

SEMcast is a year old! Holy crap, right? And to help us celebrate the occasion, filmmaker Jeremy LaLonde — whosenew comedy  How to Plan an Orgy in a Small Town  opens the Canadian Film Festival in Toronto March 30th — comes to the basement with a stone classic: Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, the 1977 comedy that captured a culture and defined a genre. Your genial host Norm Wilner has Marshall McLuhan w...

With his new Chet Baker biopic Born to Be Blue opening in Toronto this Friday and rolling out in the US later this month, writer-director Robert Budreau picks a hell of a bruiser: Raging Bull, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro’s 1980 study of self-destructive boxer Jake La Motta. Your genial host Norm Wilner keeps the ice bucket handy.

With his short film This Is Not What You Had Planned  just added to the National Screen Institute’s Online Short Film Festival, writer-director Christopher Warre Smets tackles Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight — the movie that saved George Clooney’s career, made people take Jennifer Lopez seriously and set a bar for cinematic Elmore Leonard adaptations that stands to this day. Your genial host Norm...

Before he takes his documentary Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah to the Academy Awards later this week, journalist and filmmaker Adam Benzine steals a moment to celebrate Shane Carruth's singular 2004 time-travel drama Primer. Your genial host Norm Wilner does his best not to meddle with the integrity of the conversational timeline.

With her new movie End of Days, Inc. opening in Toronto on Friday, director Jennifer Liao brings Edgar Wright's 2010 Scott Pilgrim vs. the World into the basement to celebrate its giddy spirit, its goofy romantic heart and its authentic Toronto locations. Your genial host Norm Wilner has garlic bread at the ready.

Fresh from the set of 11/22/63, actor and filmmaker Sarah Gadon brings some serious theory— and no small amount of personal perspective—to Agnès Varda's breakthrough 1962 drama Cléo from 5 to 7. Your genial host Norm Wilner is totally on board.

Actor, writer and director Ben Lewis (Zero Recognition) tackles the farce structure and thorny gender politics of Sydney Pollack's 1982 Tootsie, the comedy that put Dustin Hoffman in a dress to make him a better man. Your genial host Norm Wilner refrains from Michael Dorsey impressions.