Someone Else's Movie

For our eighth anniversary, actor Romina D'Ugo ( I Like Movies , now playing in theatres across Canada) is here to honor Michael Radford's 1994 heartbreaker Il Postino -- a film that stands as testament to both Pablo Neruida's poetry, and star Massimo Troisi, who spent a decade trying to make this movie and died the day after it wrapped. Your genial host Norm Wilner is in awe of ... well, all of t...

With Women Talking heading to the Oscars this Sunday (where it's up for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay) and newly available on Blu-ray and DVD, actor Michelle McLeod puts her driving goggles on to celebrate Chitty Chitty Bang Bang , the 1968 family musical extravaganza starring Dick Van Dyke and a flying car. Your genial host Norm Wilner still has nightmares about the Child Catcher.

With her first dramatic feature Joyride newly available on digital and on demand across Canada, award-winning editor and documentary filmmaker Emer Reynolds ( Cuba Was Here, The Farthest ) explores the inner and outer spaces of Denis Villeneuve’s acclaimed genre drama Arrival . Your genial host Norm Wilner still can't believe Amy Adams didn't get an Oscar for this one.

With her latest film Jethica freshly streaming on Fandor, Callie Hernandez ( Blair Witch , La La Land, Under the Silver Lake , Shotgun Wedding ) traps us in a room with Catherine Breillat's Anatomy of Hell , the 2004 chamber piece starring Amira Casar and Rocco Siffredi as two people confronting one another's bodies. Your genial host Norm Wilner is braced for provocation.

Actor, writer, producer and now director Murry Peeters ( See, Transplant, The Parker Andersons / Amelia Parker) , whose short film Woman Meets Girl premieres Saturday, February 18th at both the Toronto Black Film Festival and Queer Screen’s 30th Mardi Gras Film Festival in Sydney, Australia, takes a bite out of The Menu , Mark Mylod's recent satirical thriller about the last dinner service at a ve...

Toronto filmmaker Julianna Notten , whose first feature Erin’s Guide to Kissing Girls is now playing at the Carlton in Toronto and available across Canada on digital and on demand, digs into the ecstatic melancholy of Charlotte Wells’ devastating debut feature Aftersun , in which Frankie Corio and Oscar nominee Paul Mescal play out a father-daughter drama through a tragic film of memory. Your geni...

Belgian director Lukas Dhont , whose powerful new drama Close was just nominated for the Best International Feature Oscar, celebrates Chantal Akerman's revolutionary Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles being named the greatest film of all time by Sight & Sound last year. And while your genial host Norm Wilner did tackle Akerman's movie with Wayne Wang back in Episode 306, he's happ...

As he makes his debut as a writer and director with When You Finish Saving the World -- now playing in the US and opening in Canada this Friday, January 27th -- Oscar-nominated actor Jesse Eisenberg ( The Squid and the Whale , Adventureland , The Social Network , Night Moves and many, many more) shares his love for another actor's first feature: Richard Ayoade's 2010 debut Submarine , a coming-of-...

Documentary filmmaker Chelsea McMullan celebrates the Canadian theatrical release of Ever Deadly , their collaboration with Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq, by diving into the swamp of Lucrecia Martel's 2001 breakout La Cienaga, the class-conscious drama which ushered in the New Argentine Cinema. Your genial host Norm Wilner is prepared to wade in carefully. If you're in Toronto, Chelsea and Tanya...

 Actor and filmmaker Karen Knox -- whom you may know from Slo Pitch , Barbelle and Homeschooled , among others, and whose first feature Adult Adoption opens in Toronto this Saturday and in London and Vancouver next week, is here to make a meal of Peter Greenaway's baroque 1989 breakthrough The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover , in which  Richard Bohringer, Michael Gambon, Helen Mirren and A...

Happy new year, everybody! Vancouver filmmaker Scooter Corkle, whose new thriller The Friendship Game is available on digital and on demand today, is here to tackle the cannibal chaos of Ravenous, the unique 1999 horror comedy starring Guy Pearce and Robert Carlyle as military rivals in 1840s California who disagree on matters of culinary etiquette. Your genial host Norm Wilner can't wait to dig i...

We need something joyous to close out the year, so here's musician and filmmaker Amanda Kramer ( Paris Window , Ladyworld   and the gender-bending new comedy Please Baby Please , now available on digital and on demand) to celebrate the practical magic of Frank Oz and David Geffen’s  delightful big-screen adaptation of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s off-Broadway masterpiece Little Shop of Horrors...

Actor and soprano Shayla Brown , (Apple TV's See , the Toronto production of George F. Walker’s Orphans for the Czar , and Sarah Polley's Women Talking ) tackles the moral complexity and human drama of Chinonye Chukwu's 2019 Clemency , the 2019 drama starring Alfre Woodard as a prison warden cracking under the strain of running a death-row penitentiary. Your genial host Norm Wilner has some feelin...

With her episode "Mr. Song" kicking off the second season of Apple TV+'s Little America , Canadian Screen Award winner and Oscar nominee Deepa Mehta is here to talk about the sun-dappled dread of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis , Vittorio Di Sica's 1970 drama about a privileged Jewish famliy living obliviously in Italy as World War II draws near. Your genial host Norm Wilner still gets hives from...

Writer-director Elegance Bratton -- whose autobiographical debut The Inspection is in theaters now, and opening at the TIFF Bell Lightbox this Friday -- examines the tangled themes of race, class and belonging in Douglas Sirk's 1959 remake of Imitation of Life , and how they resonate with his own work. Your genial host Norm Wilner prefers Sirk's version too.

With her new drama Ashgrove in theaters and on digital Friday, the invaluable Amanda Brugel -- a veteran of everything from Kim’s Convenience, Workin' Moms and Pretty Hard Cases to The Handmaid’s Tale ,  Snowpiercer and Orphan Black -- is here to share her love for The Shawshank Redemption , Frank Darabont’s 1994 adaptation of a Stephen King prison story that tanked in theaters but found eternal l...

Reposted with corrected audio! Writer-director Faran Moradi , whose first feature Tehranto opens in Toronto this Friday, November 25th, is here to declare Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight the best Batman movie -- and a crucial film in his own development as a storyteller. Your genial host Norm Wilner has some stories from the press junket he's been waiting to share. 

With her first feature Stay the Night opening in Toronto and Vancouver on Friday, writer-director Renuka Jeyapalan salutes Paul Newman's greatest screen performance in Sidney Lumet's 1982 drama The Verdict -- the one backed by the David Mamet script, the powerhouse supporting cast and the appropriately grim Boston locations. Your genial host Norm Wilner happens to share this opinion.

With their found-family dramedy Rosie opening across Canada on Friday, writer-director Gail Maurice and star Melanie Bray take a minute to celebrate Jojo Rabbit, Taika Waititi’s Oscar-winning satire of hero worship in Nazi Germany. Your genial host Norm Wilner never had an imaginary friend.

With their new film Something in the Dirt opening in New York and Los Angeles on Friday (and coming to VOD in Canada November 22nd), this feels like the perfect time to go back to 2015, when indie genre masters Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead took time out from launching Spring  to celebrate Cameron Crowe's autobiographical 2000 masterwork Almost Famous . Your genial host Norm Wilner has been a l...

Actor, writer and producer Kate Hewlett ( Stargate Atlantis, Degrassi , Murdoch Mysteries and more), who's just adapted her 2008 stage musical The Swearing Jar into a feature film with director Lindsay Mackay, sinks into the beguiling mysteries of Sofia Coppola's 2003 Oscar-winner Lost in Translation , that delicate little drama where Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson forge an unexpected connecti...

With her first feature We're All In This Together now playing in Toronto and Vancouver, actor, filmmaker and friend of the show Katie Boland -- whose episode on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one worth chasing down, by the way -- returns to explore the exquisite structure and shattering truths of Sarah Polley's 2012 documentary Stories We Tell . Your genial host Norm Wilner has been wait...

Actor ( Mood Indigo , The Hundred-Foot Journey , The Walk, Fresh ) turned filmmaker ( Falcon Lake ) Charlotte Le Bon  celebrates the Canadian theatrical release of her charmingly creepy coming-of-age romance this Friday, October 14th, by praising one of its inspirations: Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name , the sun-dappled European romance that cemented Timothee Chalamet's stardom and should h...

Winnipeg filmmaker  Deco Dawson , whose first feature Diaspora premieres this Saturday, October 8th, at 7:30 pm in Montreal’s Festival du Nouveau Cinema, steps up for Jacques Tati's charming 1958 comedy Mon Oncle , the one where Tati's befuddled M. Hulot ventures from his ramshackle Paris neighborhood to stay with his upwardly mobile sister and her family in a modernized suburb. Your genial host N...

Actor Joris Jarsky ( Wynonna Earp, Saw V, Bad Blood and dozens of other credits), who's now on-screen opposite Thandiwe Newton in Julian Higgins' thriller God's Country , reveals himself to be a closet romantic with his love for Norman Jewison's beloved 1987 comedy Moonstruck -- you know, the one where Nicolas Cage takes Cher to the opera and Olivia Dukakis flirts with John Mahoney. Your genial ho...