Someone Else's Movie

This week, director Chloe Robichaud – whose charming, spiky new comedy Two Women is now playing in Toronto and Montreal, and expandng to Vancouver on Friday – celebrates Jean-Marc Vallee’s 2011 masterwork Cafe de Flore, in which the late director shuffled and remixed two different love stories in two different time periods like the brilliant DJ he was. Your genial host Norm Wilner got a little choked up on this one.

This week, director Kourtney Roy – whose creepy first feature Kryptic is now available on digital and on demand – shares her thoughts on District 9, Neill Blomkamp’s breakout 2009 sci-fi action social satire starring Sharlto Copley as a spineless government functionary who gets dragged into an alien uprising in Johannesburg. Your genial host Norm Wilner is willing to get a little messy on this.

This week, director Daniel Robbins – whose new comedy Bad Shabbos is now playing in the US and opening this Thursday in Toronto and Vancouver – steps up for Ernst Lubitsch’s To Be or Not to Be, the pitch-black 1942 farce starring Jack Benny and Carole Lombard as married actors in occupied Warsaw who take on the Nazis … and still manage to get laughs. Your genial host Norm Wilner has been waiting forever talk about this one.

This week, actor Keeya King – currently starring in the new thriller Guess Who, on Hollywood Suite in Canada and Tubi in the US – shares her love for Greta Gerwig’s solo directorial debut Lady Bird, which found comedy and pathos in the everyday drama of Saoirse Ronan’s Sacramento teenager. Your genial host Norm Wilner knows a thing or two about being an obnoxious teen, so this should be fun.

This week, Sharp Corner writer-director Jason Buxton steps up for the aching sadness of The Ice Storm, Ang Lee’s all-star 1997 adaptation of Rick Moody’s novel about parents and children struggling with the cultural upheavals of Nixon’s America over the 1973 Thanksgiving weekend. Your genial host Norm Wilner was five at the time, so don’t expect any deep insights.

This week, writer-directors Austin Andrews and Andrew Holmes – whose new film The Island Between Tides is playing at the Carlton Cinemas in Toronto and the Mayfair in Ottawa through May 1st – are here to talk about their fascination with The Sixth Sense, and how M. Night Shyamalan’s 1999 breakthrough is still a great picture even after you know the twist. Your genial host Norm Wilner has been saying this forever.

This week, editor Sam Rice-Edwards – who cut and co-directed the new documentary One to One: John & Yoko, in theaters now – unpacks the entangled structure and mounting dread of Don’t Look Now, Nicolas Roeg’s 1973 masterwork starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie as an English couple, haunted by the loss of a child, who encounter something even more awful in Venice. Your genial host Norm Wilner definitely saw this one at too early an age.

Ten years after writer-director Ingrid Veninger brought A Woman Under the Influence to the podcast, she’s back with a new movie - Crocodile Eyes, screening this Thursday at Vancouver’s VIFF Centre for Canadian Film Week - and talking about Inland Empire, David Lynch’s three-hour 2006 digital experiment with Laura Dern as “a woman in trouble” that now stands as his last feature. Your genial host Norm Wilner has a great story about this one.

With his stranger-than-fiction drama The Luckiest Man in America now in theaters across North America, director Samir Oliveros is here to celebrate a film most of you won’t have seen: Ildikó Enyedi’s On Body and Soul, a magic-realist tale of two Hungarian slaughterhouse workers connected by inexplicable circumstances. Your genial host Norm Wilner never thought he’d have the chance to talk about this one here, so that’s a nice surprise.

With her first feature Bob Trevino Likes It now in theaters across North America, writer-director Tracie Laymon is here to discuss Tim Burton’s 1990 suburban fable Edward Scissorhands, and how its earnest weirdness went straight to her heart. Your genial host Norm Wilner had forgotten how much he still loves this one.

With her second feature Darkest Miriam having just kicked off the Canadian Film Fest and opening in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Sudbury on Friday the 28th, with more theatres to come, writer-director Naomi Jaye joins us to celebrate Three Colors: Red, which now stands as Krzysztof Kieślowski’s defining artistic work. Your genial host Norm Wilner is so glad to be diving back into the trilogy a year and a half after M.H. Murray’s episode on Blue.

With her documentary Your Tomorrow streaming across Canada on Friday March 21st and making its broadcast premiere on TVOntario Sunday the 23rd, filmmaker Ali Weinstein picks up the torch for another Norman Jewison musical: His 1971 adaptation of the Broadway smash Fiddler on the Roof. Your genial host Norm Wilner knows the entire songbook for this one.

It’s our 10th anniversary! And award-winning actor Felix-Antoine Duval – star of Sophie Deraspe’s wonderful Shepherds, now playing at the TIFF Lightbox and elsewhere – is here to explore the darkest corners of Pascale Plante’s 2023 thriller Red Rooms. Your genial host Norm Wilner is fighting the urge to do the Jeremy Piven thing from Grosse Pointe Blank.

This week, Oscar-nominated writer and director Atom Egoyan – whose latest drama Seven Veils opens in theatres across Canada this Friday – joins the chorus for Norman Jewison’s 1973 screen adaptation of Jesus Christ Superstar … a film, and a musical, with which Atom has a very personal connection. Your genial host Norm Wilner is more of a Little Shop guy, honestly.

This week, actor and filmmaker Jeremy Schuetze – whose first feature Anacoreta is now available on digital and on demand – digs into American Movie, Chris Smith’s beloved documentary about Wisconsin auteur Mark Borchardt’s attempts to make a horror short with the help of his eccentric friends and family. Your genial host Norm Wilner sees more of himself in this movie than he’d probably want to admit.

This week, Moritz Binder – the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of September 5 – joins us to celebrate Sergio Leone’s landmark Western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, from the magnificently sweaty cast to the sun-blasted locations to Ennio Morricone’s iconic score. Your genial host Norm Wilner is still a Tuco guy, despite everything.

He broods magnificently in HBO’s Interview with the Vampire, but actor Jacob Anderson shows his looser side in Alice Lowe’s romantic comedy Timestalker, landing in US theaters and on demand this Valentine’s Day. And he’s here to share the gospel of Hot Rod, the 2007 comedy that brought Andy Samberg and his pals in The Lonely Island to the big screen a bit before the big screen was ready for them. Your genial host Norm Wilner, though? He was ready.

As Sook-Yin Lee’s dramedy Paying for It rolls into Canadian theaters, the film’s editor Anna Catley – whose other credits include Things I Do for Money and We Forgot to Break Up – stops in to talk about the allure of Todd Haynes’ glam-rock reverie Velvet Goldmine, which introduced her to new methods of storytelling at exactly the right point in her creative development. Your genial host Norm Wilner was shocked to realize he still hasn’t seen the original cut of this one.

Writer-director Lowell Dean has two movies coming out this year; the first, Dark Match, hits Canadian theatres and lands on Shudder in the US this Friday, January 31st. And to celebrate its arrival, he’s here to talk about Richard Donner’s 1978 blockbuster Superman: The Movie -- which defined superhero cinema, made instant stars out of Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder, and got a generation to believe a man can fly. Your genial host Norm Wilner always knew, of course.

To honor the life of David Lynch, whose death last week left a hole in world cinema, here's an episode from September 2017 featuring actor Rick Roberts on discovering the director’s first feature, the undefinable Eraserhead, and becoming a lifelong fan. Your genial host Norm Wilner just wants to lose himself in art right about now, you know?