With her first feature Wild Goat Surf now playing in Toronto and Vancouver, actor and filmmaker Caitlyn Sponheimer is here to celebrate – and interrogate – Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-winning 2013 drama The Great Beauty, in which Toni Servillo’s aging Italian scenester finds himself pondering the limits of la dolce vita. Your genial host Norm Wilner just hopes he ages as well.

It’s our 500th episode, and actor Sara Canning – who’s got two films opening in Toronto this month, The Burning Season this Friday, May 10th, and Sweetland on May 17th – is here to plumb the psychological depths of Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May Marlene, the film that showed us all what Elizabeth Olsen could do, and left us on the edges of our seats. Your genial host Norm Wilner still hasn’t recovered, honestly.

Writer-director Ned Benson – whose new feature The Greatest Hits is now streaming on Hulu in the US and Disney+ everywhere else – is here for a sprint through Martin Scorsese’s 1985 Soho nightmare After Hours. Your genial host Norm Wilner always makes sure he has a spare twenty because of this picture.

Documentary filmmaker Ken Wardrop – whose new feature So This is Christmas makes its North American debut at Hot Docs next Tuesday, April 30th – saw David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago as a boy and has been swooning over it ever since. Your genial host Norm Wilner has tea and lemon at the ready.

Screenwriter Paul Laverty – whose decades-long collaboration with director Ken Loach culminates in The Old Oak, now in theaters across North America – is here to shine a light on Diego Quemada-Diez’ 2013 migrant drama The Golden Dream. Your genial host Norm Wilner is always happy to lend a hand.

Friday bonus episode! Actor and filmmaker Anna Maguire -- who literally gives her heart to Hamza Haq in Kim Albright’s With Love and a Major Organ, opening today in theaters across Canada -- salutes another oddball romance: Hal Ashby’s 1971 cult classic Harold and Maude. Your genial host Norm Wilner has the hearse all gassed up.

With his first feature In Flames opening in theaters across North America this Friday, April 12th, writer-director Zarrar Kahn is here to resurrect BeDevil, Tracey Moffatt's one-of-a-kind anthology of Australian ghost stories ... and the people who fail to learn from them. Your genial host Norm Wilner just survived an eclipse, so he's ready for anything.

Actor Sara Waisglass, who co-stars with Michaela Watkins and Charlie Gillespie in the mid-life comedy Suze -- now available on digital and on demand -- steps up for Emerald Fennell's Oscar-winning hot-button thriller Promising Young Woman. Your genial host Norm Wilner only mansplains a little of it.

He’s on screens across Canada right now in The Queen of My Dreams and he’ll be back April 12th in With Love and a Major Organ, but right now Hamza Haq is here, on this podcast, discussing his all-time favorite film: Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins. Your genial host Norm Wilner has the Tumbler gassed up and ready to roll.

With her creepy new thriller Lovely, Dark, and Deep newly avaialble on digital and on demand, writer-director Teresa Sutherland is here to drag the depths of Joel Anderson's 2008 chiller Lake Mungo, a mockumentary that continues to haunt everyone who's seen it. Your genial host Norm Wilner is ready to dive in.

With his new comedy Hey, Viktor! opening across Canada -- and sporting three shiny new Canadian Screen Award nominations! -- writer-director Cody Lightning is here to talk about the bizarre balancing act of sports picture and small-town drama that is Jay Roach's 1999 dramedy Mystery, Alaska. Your genial host Norm Wilner has his skates on.

With his delightful first feature Molli and Max in the Future rolling through U.S. theaters, writer-director Michael Lukk Litwak takes us back to Jurassic Park, Steven Spielberg’s glorious 1993 blockbuster about dinosaurs chasing people around an island. You remember it, right? Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum were in it? The dinosaurs looked fantastic? Your genial host Norm Wilner still has the T-shirt. 

With her new movie Suze now playing in theaters across Canada, the invaluable Michaela Watkins revisits Martha Coolidge's Valley Girl, the teen movie that paired Deborah Foreman and Nicolas Cage for a very '80s love story. Your genial host Norm Wilner hasn't seen this one in a while either.

With her award-winning first feature Seagrass opening across North America this Friday, writer-director Meredith Hama-Brown puts on her ballet flats to discuss The Red Shoes, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1948 masterwork about art, life, death, commitment, fear, rage and passion. Your genial host Norm Wilner apologizes for his bad ankles.

With his first feature Marmalade now available on digital and on demand, actor-turned-filmmaker Keir O'Donnell offers his heart to Tony Scott's 1993 pulp-fiction knockout True Romance ... just in time for Valentine's Day. Your genial host Norm Wilner didn't even buy flowers.

With her new film Sometimes I Think About Dying now playing in the US and opening across Canada on Friday, director Rachel Lambert brings up another study of an alienated person making an unlikely connection: John Schlesinger's Oscar-winning Midnight Cowboy, a film unique in American cinema for all sorts of reasons. Your genial host Norm Wilner is walking here.

The Canadian theatrical release of her second feature Tótem  gives writer-director Lila Avilés the chance to bend the format a little and talk about how her voracious, lifelong love of cinema -- from Disney to Cassavetes -- helped her find her own aesthetic as an artist. Your genial host Norm Wilner apologizes for his voice, which he blew out doing Canada's Top Ten events over the weekend.

Charles-Olivier Michaud,  whose adaptation of Kim Thuy's award-winning novel Ru opens across Canada this Friday, January 26th, is here to ride along with Sebastian Schipper's 2015 single-take thriller Victoria, starring Laia Costa as a Spanish pianist who meets the wrong group of dudes in a Berlin nightclub and has a hell of a night as a result. Your genial host Norm Wilner wouldn't even be up at 4 am these days, you know?

With a new restoration of her rediscovered film Household Saints opening at Toronto's Revue Cinema this Friday, writer-director Nancy Savoca shares her love of another long-lost picture: Euzhan Palcy's 1983 debut Sugar Cane Alley, which has been even harder to find in recent years. Your genial host Norm Wilner still regrets not buying the DVD when he had the chance.

With his new movie Who's Yer Father? now on digital and the third season of Run the Burbs premiering tonight on CBC and CBC Gem, actor and stand-up Chris Locke is here to celebrate The Wrong Guy, the deadpan 1997 farce where Dave Foley tries to be a fugitive even though no one is chasing him. Your genial host Norm Wilner has some history with this one.

Happy new year! Writer-director Orson Oblowitz -- whose retro-cinema charmer Showdown At the Grand just arrived on disc and digital -- is here to celebrate the earth-shaking impact of Katsuhiro Otomo's 1988 anime breakthrough Akira. Your genial host Norm Wilner is always happy to nerd out for a bit.

With his extremely '80s thriller Going In now available on digital, actor and filmmaker Evan Rissi is here to celebrate one of the films that inspired it: Road House, the 1989 action drama starring Patrick Swayze as the world's greatest bouncer and Ben Gazzara as the world's pettiest crimelord. Your genial host Norm Wilner would never leave you without an episode over the holidays.

Actors, writers and real-life pals Rosa Labordé and Anna Hardwick – whose new streaming series Nesting premieres on Crave in Canada this Friday, December 22nd -- make some noise for Joan Micklin Silver’s Crossing Delancey, the unassuming 1988 dramedy where Amy Irving plays a New York bookseller torn between a flashy European author and a nice pickle man. Your genial host Norm Wilner does enjoy an old dill.

With her latest feature Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret gaining momentum on the awards circuit, writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig takes a moment to celebrate the remarkable collaboration between Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater that gave us Before Sunrise and Before Sunset ... and that third one, too. Your genial host Norm Wilner apologizes for mixing up "seven" and "nine" early in the conversation.

With her debut feature My Animal in theaters across Canada (and available on digital in the US), director Jacqueline Castel shares her love for the landmark 1942 thriller Cat People -- the one where Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur kept the real horrors offscreen. Your genial host Norm Wilner swears he's never been afraid of shadows.

With his new film Dream Scenario spreading like a virus across the US and Canada, writer-director Kristoffer Borgli steps up for The Idiots, Lars Von Trier’s 1998 drama about a group of people who choose to embrace provocation to shatter the veneer of polite society. Your genial host Norm Wilner is just too genial to do that sort of thing. 

With her new short Cold making its world premiere at Toronto's Blood in the Snow film festival this Saturday, actor and filmmaker Liz Whitmere opens up Yorgos Lanthimos' absurdist 2017 tragedy The Killing of a Sacred Deer to see what makes it tick. Your genial host Norm Wilner knows better than to offend Barry Keoghan.

With her new feature We Will Be Brave playing the Regent Park Film Festival next Friday, November 24th, documentary filmmaker Chrisann Hessing celebrates the bloody good time that is Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi’s 2014 vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows. Your genial host Norm Wilner has never needed a chore wheel.

With his new film Hands That Bind freshly arrived in theaters and on digital in the US and Canada, writer-director Kyle Armstrong digs into Lodge Kerrigan's excruciating 2004 drama Keane, which stars Damian Lewis as a man in a profound state of crisis. Your genial host Norm Wilner is braced and ready.

Happy horny Halloween! With his first feature Verona opening theatrically in Toronto this Friday, November 3rd, and screening in Landmark theaters across Canada on Monday the 6th, writer-director Sebastian Back tackles Walerian Borowczyk's 1975 art-house erotic fantasy horror film La Bete. Your genial host Norm Wilner strongly advises listener discretion. 

Sure, Halloween is just around the corner but Dicks! The Musical co-creators and co-stars Joshua Sharp and Aaron Jackson are here to spread the joy of another season, celebrating the 2020 Netflix musical Dolly Parton's Christmas on the Square. Your genial host Norm Wilner is ... surprisingly into it. Dicks! The Musical is in theaters now from A24 and VVS, depending on whether you're in the US or Canada. You can find Aaron and Josh on Instagram at instagram.com/garbagetroll and instagram.com/cluckcluckjoshsharp, respectively. Dolly Parton's Christmas on the Square is currently streaming on Netflix.And hey, the podcast is on Bluesky now! Follow us at semcast.bsky.social 

Casting director turned writer-director Jennifer Cram, whose first feature Sick Girl is in theaters and on demand this Friday, October 20th, tackles Reality Bites, the 1994 comedy that asked Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Janeane Garofalo, Steve Zahn and director Ben Stiller to represent all of Generation X. Your genial host Norm Wilner was there too.

With her new web series How to Fail As a Popstar premiering on CBC Gem this Friday, October 13th, multimedia polymath Vivek Shraya is here to discuss the movie that had a profound impact on her younger self: The Bodyguard, Mick Jackson's 1992 thriller-slash-romance starring Whitney Houston as a megastar who hires Kevin Costner as her protection -- only for them to realize their relationship is much more than just professional. Your genial host Norm Wilner always wondered about that rule.

With her reality comedy I Have Nothing now streaming on Crave, Baroness Von Sketch Show's Carolyn Taylor is here to tackle Colin Higgins' 9 to 5, the 1980 workplace comedy smash that pitted office workers Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton against Dabney Coleman's swaggering jerk of a boss. Your genial host Norm Wilner really wanted to sing the song.

With their first feature Tenzin now streaming on CBC Gem and available on digital across North America, directors Michael LeBlanc and Josh Reichmann share their love for Adrian Lyne's 1990 thriller Jacob's Ladder -- you know, the one where Tim Robbins plays a Vietnam veteran who finds life back home even more hellish than it was in country. Your genial host Norm Wilner has some thoughts.

With his first feature Relax, I'm From the Future opening in the US this Friday, September 22nd -- and having a preview screening in Toronto at the Carlton Cinemas ahead of its official release October 6th -- filmmaker Luke Higginson takes 24 Hour Party People for a spin, celebrating the perfect casting of Steve Coogan as '70s TV presenter Tony Wilson, and pretty much everything else about Michael Winterbottom's 2002 dramedy. Your genial host Norm Wilner is still coming down from TIFF, to be honest.

With her new documentary Analogue Revolution: How Feminist Media Changed the World premiering Friday at the Atlantic International Film Festival (and playing the Toronto Independent Film Festival on Sunday), professor and filmmaker Marusya Bociurkiw salutes Laura Poitras' Nan Goldin documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed -- for obvious reasons. Your genial host Norm Wilner is glad she did.

Writer-director M.H. Murray -- whose first feature I Don’t Know Who You Are has its world premiere at TIFF this Thursday, September 7th -- salutes Three Colours: Blue, the first film in Krzysztof Kieślowski’s brilliant trilogy of dramas inspired by the themes of the French flag. Your genial host Norm Wilner is just here to be amazed by Juliette Binoche.

TIFF is coming, but you know what else is? Children Ruin Everything, the second season of which is about to air on The CW in the US for the very first time! And that lets your genial host Norm Wilner reissue the very second episode of this podcast, in which actor, screenwriter and future sitcom star Aaron Abrams attests to the comic perfection of Bill Murray and Howard Franklin's 1990 classic heist comedy Quick Change. Totally holds up.

Calgary filmmaker Berkley Brady, whose first feature Dark Nature is now streaming on Hollywood Suite, professes a lifelong love for Garry Marshall’s Beaches -- the beloved 1988 melodrama starring Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey as lifelong friends who are the wind beneath each other's wings. Your genial host Norm Wilner has something in his eye, okay?

With her first dramatic feature The Unknown Country now in U.S. theaters and dropping on digital next month, filmmaker Morrisa Maltz discusses Abbas Kiarostami's 1987 breakout Where Is the Friend's House?, the observational drama that introduced the Iranian director to the world -- even though he'd been making movies since the '70s. Your genial host Norm Wilner is moving this week, so please keep him in your prayers.

With his time-travel drama Aporia opening in theaters across North America this Friday, writer-director Jared Moshé is here to salute Peter Cattaneo’s The Full Monty –  the 1997 international smash that made Trainspottting's Robert Carlyle sexy instead of scary.  Your genial host Norm Wilner always knew the guy had it in him.

With his new thriller The Channel now available on digital and on demand, writer-director William Kaufman drops us into the urban nightmare of Michael Mann's Collateral, the one where Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise drive around Los Angeles in a murder cab. Your genial host Norm Wilner reminds you: Always tip your driver. Or else.

With her new film North of Normal opening across Canada this week, filmmaker Carly Stone is here to support another new release, Celine Song's stunning drama Past Lives. Your genial host Norm Wilner hopes he and Carly will see you at the 6:30pm screening of North of Normal this Friday, July 28th, at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. Sarah Gadon will be there too!

Actor and comedy dynamo Emma Hunter (The Beaverton, Mary Goes Round, Mr. D and now Moonshine, which returned to CBC this week and just reached the US via The CW) has loved Penny Marshall's 1992 grand slam A League of Their Own since she was a kid. Now she gets to love it on a podcast. Your genial host Norm Wilner is here to supply the stats.

This week, filmmaker Mel Eslyn -- whose first feature Biosphere, starring Mark Duplass and Sterling K. Brown, is now playing in the US and available to rent on digital across North America -- celebrates Todd Rohal's The Catechism Cataclysm, another weird comedy about two guys going through some stuff. Your genial host Norm Wilner has been waiting twelve years to talk about this movie with somebody. 

Veteran genre director Chuck Russell (Nightmare on Elm Street III: Dream Warriors, The Blob, The Mask, Eraser and the new Paradise City) picks Robert Clouse's martial-arts classic Enter the Dragon, leading to a conversation about how Bruce Lee changed action movies in general -- and Chuck's, specifically. Your genial host Norm Wilner has been sitting on this one since last fall, and he's so glad you finally get to hear it.

Author and actor Priya Guns -- who co-stars opposite Devery Jacobs in V.T. Nayani's This Place, returning to the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto next Friday, July 7th -- throws down for the genius of Boots Riley's 2018 debut Sorry to Bother You, a movie that doesn't get anywhere near the respect it deserves. Your genial host Norm Wilner has Priya's back on this one.

In advance of the special Pride screening of his New Romantics documentary Tramps! this Thursday, June 22nd, at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, filmmaker Kevin Hegge celebrates another music movie: Alek Keshishian's Madonna: Truth or Dare, the 1991 documentary about the controversial Blonde Ambition tour that nudged queer culture into the mainstream. Your genial host Norm Wilner never mastered voguing.

With his latest feature Enter the Drag Dragon now playing in Saskatoon and opening in Toronto next Friday, filmmaker and exhibitor Lee Demarbre is here to sing the praises of Sam Peckinpah's era-defining 1969 Western The Wild Bunch. Your genial host Norm Wilner is all ears.

Actor and filmmaker Dan Abramovici (Ben's At Home, Limnal) is here to celebrate Stanley Tong's 1992 action picture Police Story III, better known as Supercop -- you know, the one where Michelle Yeoh jumps a motorcycle onto a moving train, Jackie Chan hangs from a helicopter, and your genial host Norm Wilner can't watch it without anxiety.

It's our 450th episode. and actor Sean Gunn -- fresh from playing both Kraglin the Ravager and Rocket the raccoon in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 -- is here to run through Robert Altman's epic 1975 masterpiece Nashville in just under half an hour while your genial host Norm Wilner makes the most of every minute. Who wouldn't, really?

With his latest film Blueback now available on digital and on demand across North America, director Robert Connolly (The Bank, Paper Planes, The Dry) is here to discuss how Vincent Ward's genre-bending 1988 fantasy The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey changed the trajectory of his life and career. Your genial host Norm Wilner can see how that could happen.

With his second feature Retrograde opening across Canada this Friday, writer-director Adrian Murray celebrates the 30th anniversary of Richard Linklater’s cult classic Dazed and Confused -- the one about some teenagers in Austin, Texas on the last day of school in 1976. Your genial host Norm Wilner loves this one, man: He gets older, but the movie stays the same. 

Writer and producer Ian Carpenter (Shudder's Slasher: Ripper, Tubi's Marry, F***, Kill) brings Harmony Korine's 1997 directorial debut Gummo onto the podcast ... and finds himself re-evalluating the movie that rocked his world a quarter-century ago. Your genial host Norm Wilner has totally been there, just not with Gummo.

With his new drama Acidman now available on VOD in North America, filmmaker Alex Lehmann (Blue Jay, Paddleton, Meet Cute) salutes Nine Days, Edson Oda's metaphysical masterwork starring Winston Duke as a man who spends his afterlife auditioning souls to be born into the world. It sounds heavy, but it's light as air ... and just as essential. Your genial host Norm Wilner is all in on this one.

Before she starts pursuing Emily Hampshire and annoying Jonas Chernick in Sean Garrity’s The End of Sex, opening across Canada this Friday, actor and occasional director Melanie Scrofano fulfills a promise made years ago and shares her love for Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 WWII extravaganza Inglourious Basterds. Your genial host Norm Wilner has been waiting seven years for this.

Actor and filmmaker Vanessa Matsui (Ghost BFF, The Girlfriend Experience, The Hot Zone, Letterkenny) celebrates the Toronto premiere of her directorial debut, Midnight at the Paradise, by digging into the remarkable chemistry of Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack in Sophie Hyde's Good Luck to You, Leo Grande. Your genial host Norm Wilner apologizes for calling Daryl "David" that one time.Midnight at the Paradise premieres this Friday, April 21st, at the Paradise Cinema (of course). Tickets are still available right here.

With her directorial debut Emily arriving on digital, actor-turned-filmmaker Frances O'Connor shares her love for Alejandro González Iñárritu's 2010 drama Biutiful, and Iñárritu's fascination with finding emotion in the most extreme circumstances. Your genial host Norm Wilner is listening.

Film teacher and filmmaker Joseph Amenta, whose first feature Soft launches its Canadian run at Toronto's Revue Cinema on Friday April 7th, is here to talk about the way Sean Baker's Tangerine introduced them to an entirely new way of making movies -- and one that feels even more important today. Your genial host Norm Wilner is excited to hear about it.

Montreal filmmaker Sarah Watts -- whose first feature You Can Live Forever, co-directed with Mark Slutsky, is now playing in theaters across Canada -- celebrates Bound, the 1996 debut that introduced the world to the Wachowskis, and to the sight of Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly as film-noir lovers. Your genial host Norm Wilner was wondering when someone would choose this.

With his prizewinning second feature Riceboy Sleeps playing in theaters across Canada in advance of next month's Canadian Screen Awards, actor and filmmaker Anthony Shim shares his love for a formative South Korean classic: Lee Chang-dong's unforgiving drama Peppermint Candy. Your genial host Norm Wilner has been looking forward to sharing this for a very long time.

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 that.

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 very exclusive, very committed fine-dining establishment. Could Ralph Fiennes really build a cult? Is Anya Taylor-Joy supposed to look so much like Anna Kendrick? Should we be encouraging people to harm Nicholas Hoult? Your genial host Norm Wilner is plated and ready.

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 genial host Norm Wilner has his own baggage to unpack on this one.

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 happy to go back in.

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-age tale starring Craig Roberts as a misfit kid in 1980s Wales trying to keep his parents from drifting apart and lose his virginity before he turns sixteen ... not necessarily in that order. Your genial host Norm Wilner thinks he can keep up.

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 are appearing at the Hot Docs Cinema with journalist and author Tanya Talaga after the 8 pm screening of Ever Deadly on Saturday, January 21st . Tickets still available! Don't miss out!And don't forget to subscribe to Norm's newsletter, Shiny Things! SIgn up for a 14-day free trial right here. It's good for you, probably.

 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 Alan Howard play four people whose lives intersect at a very fancy London restaurant, with spectacularly tragic results. Your genial host Norm Wilner has a napkin round his neck already.

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 in.  

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. Your genial host Norm Wilner has always been a secret Seymour.

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 feelings about this one too.

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 this one.

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 life at home. Your genial host Norm Wilner still loves the opera scene.

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 little busy this week.

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 connection in a Tokyo hotel. Your genial host Norm Wilner has never been to Tokyo, by the way.

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 waiting forever for this one. (Also, Sarah's a friend of the show too and you can find her episode, on Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line, right here!)

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 have won Michael Stuhlbarg an Oscar -- or at least gotten him nominated for one. Your genial host Norm Wilner apologizes for the background noise, and the whole Armie Hammer thing. 

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 Norm Wilner has fond memories of the fish fountain.

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' thrillerGod'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 host Norm Wilner can't wait to tell John Patrick Shanley about this one.

Filmmaker Julian Higgins, whose latest feature God’s Country stars Thandiwe Newton as a retired academic drawn into a confrontation with trespassers on her remote Montana property, delves into the darkness of Andrei Zvyagintsev’s 2017 drama Loveless – and Zvyagintsev’s cinema as a whole. Your genial host Norm Wilner will be chatting with Julian and co-star Joris Jarsky after the 7:15pm screening of God's Country this Friday, September 23rd, at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. Just putting that out there.

In 2015, emerging filmmaker Chandler Levack joined your genial host Norm Wilner to talk about her love for Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont’s 1998 coming-of-age film Can’t Hardly Wait. Seven years later, Chandler's first feature I Like Movies is making its world premiere at TIFF -- and Norm has joined the festival as a programmer. Enjoy the flashback -- and if you want to see I Like Movies, it's screening again at 6:30 pm Wednesday September 14th at the TIFF Bell Lightbox 3, and at 9:45 pm Friday September 16th at the TIFF Bell Lightbox 2. 

It's a special TIFF bonus episode, and Vancouver filmmaker Sophie Jarvis -- whose unnerving first feature Until Branches Bend makes its world premiere this Saturday, September 10th, at 8 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox 2 -- is here to discuss Another Year, the 2010 Mike Leigh dramedy starring Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen as an unassuming English couple who are always inviting friends and family to come out for a meal or a chat, and escape their miserable lives for a little bit. Your genial host Norm Wilner wonders what they're really up to.

Toronto filmmaker V.T. Nayani, whose first feature This Place premieres at TIFF this Friday (September 9th) at 8:45 pm at the Scotiabank 3 and is available to stream in the Festival @ Home digital series next Wednesday September 14th on digital.tiff.net, steps up for 10 Things I Hate About You,  the Disney high-school update of The Taming of the Shrew  that made Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger into legit heartthrobs -- and kinda made Shakespeare cool again, too. Your genial host Norm Wilner is happy he still has those Save Ferris CDs.

Actor and filmmaker Valerie Buhagiar, who broke out in Bruce McDonald’s Roadkill and Highway 61  and went on to direct her own features -- like The Anniversary, It’s Hard to Be Human and her latest, Carmen, which is now playing in theatres across Canada -- tackles the religious and emotional undercurrents of Pawel Pawlikowski's Oscar-winning 2013 drama Ida, which stars Agata Trzebuchowska as a novitiate in early-60s Poland whose life is changed when she learns the secrets of her own past ... and her country's. Your genial host Norm Wilner is always up for a little soul-searching.

Writer-director Perry Blackshear, whose new thriller When I Consume You is now on digital and on demand, reaches back to the darkness of Absentia, the feature that put genre filmmaker Mike Flanagan on track to make Oculus, Ouija: Origin of Evil, Doctor Sleep and all those Netflix projects. Your genial host Norm Wilner just wants to be able to use pedestrian tunnels again someday.

Actor and filmmaker Jude Klassen, whose new film Stupid for You -- about a teenager who decides to reunite her mother's old punk band to impress a girl -- hits VOD today, is here to celebrate John Waters' 1988 breakthrough Hairspray, the movie about Ricki Lake and Divine accidentally enabling a civil-rights revolution in 1962 Baltimore ... and pissing off Sonny Bono and Debbie Harry in the process. It's a movie about teenage exuberance in the face of grown-up confusion, and also about seeing what Josh Charles looked like as a kid. Your genial host Norm Wilner is just happy for the chance to do The Roach.

Becky Shrimpton, producer and host of Hollywood Suite's A Year in Film podcast and one of the dozen or so critics and programmers who appear in the new HS documentary series Cinema A to Z, is here to celebrate NFB filmmaker Robert Fortier's mesmerizing 1981 documentary The Devil At Your Heels, a chronicle of stunt driver Ken Carter's obsession with jumping a rocket car across the St. Lawrence River. Your genial host Norm Wilner (who also appears in the show!) just knows this won't end well.

Stage and screen veteran Graham Abbey (Defendor, Take This Waltz, Degrassi: The Next Generation, Under the Banner of Heaven), who's also the artistic director of Prince Edward County’s Festival Players, takes a run at Hugh Hudson's Chariots of Fire, the film about the unlikely friendship between British Olympians Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson) and Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) that went on to triumph over Atlantic CIty, On Golden Pond, Reds and Raiders of the Lost Ark at the 54th annual Academy Awards. Your genial host Norm Wilner is still a little sore about that, if we're being honest.

BAFTA-winning actor Adeel Akhtar (Four Lions, Stranger Things, Enola Holmes and Sweet Tooth, among others), who co-stars with Clare Rushbrook in Clio Barnard's Ali & Ava -- opening across Canada Friday -- is here to talk about how important it was to see himself reflected in Gurinder Chadha's 1993 breakout drama Bhaji on the Beach, and what real representation means for everyone who's watching. Your genial host Norm Wilner just wants to ask about making Four Lions, really.

Award-winning actor turned author Tracy Dawson -- whose first book Let Me Be Frank: A Book About Women Who Dressed Like Men to Do Shit They Weren’t Supposed To Do was published in May by Harper Collins -- is here to celebrate James L. Brooks' eerily prophetic Broadcast News, the 1987 dramedy starring Holly Hunter, Albert Brooks and William Hurt that showed us exactly where America media, and the world, was heading. Your genial host Norm Wilner is worried he buried the lede. 

South African filmmaker Jenna Cato Bass -- director of High Fantasy and Flatland , co-writer of Rafiki and whose crafty new thriller Good Madam drops on Shudder this Thursday, July 14th -- found her early aesthetic in Homicide: Life on the Street, the revolutionary NBC series which explored policing and morality in 1990s Baltimore  over seven seasons and a feature-length finale. Your genial host Norm Wilner is happy to tweak the mission statement for this episode. Who wouldn't?

Filmmaker Gigi Saul Guerrero -- whose Into the Dark episode Culture Shock just landed on Hollywood Suite in Canada -- discusses the impact of William Friedkin's The Exorcist on her young psyche, and the creative path she's been on ever since. Your genial host Norm Wilner wonders why everyone wants to talk about horror movies lately ... not that he minds, of course.

Memories of seeing A Nightmare on Elm Street as a child send filmmaker Albert Birney on a reverie through the films that walk between the conscious and unconscious. Your genial host Norm Wilner works Cronenberg in there somehow, too. Strawberry Mansion, which Birney co-wrote and co-directed with his pal Kentucker Audley, is now on digital and on disc, and you should see it; Norm liked it so much he even featured the Blu-ray in the latest edition of his Shiny Things newsletter!

Actor Jordan Gavaris, whom you knew and loved on Orphan Black, The Sea of Trees, Take Two  and Love in the Time of Corona -- and who's now showing off his comic and dramatic chops in the Prime Video series The Lake -- shares his enduring love for Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria, the Italian auteur's 2018 reinterpretation of Dario Argento's 1977 classic about an American student uncovering witchy workings in a German dance academy. Your genial host Norm Wilner is skeptical, but he trusts Jordan to make a decent case because it's our 400th episode and all.

In our 399th episode, Alanna Bale of Cardinal, Killjoys and Blaine Thurier’s Kicking Blood -- which arrives on digital next week -- braves the bleak, woodsy horrors of Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez' game-changing 1999 found-footage classic The Blair Witch Project. Your genial host Norm Wilner is standing in the corner, don't mind him ... although he would feel a lot less lonely if you subscribed to his Shiny Things newsletter. He's just saying.

Sibling filmmakers Yoav and Doron Paz (The Golem, JeruZalem), whose new film Plan A opens the Toronto Jewish Film Festival this Thursday, June 9th, at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, are here to tackle Christopher Nolan's genre-twisting thriller Inception, which blew their minds when they first experienced it in 2010. Your genial host Norm Wilner is willing to take his eyes off that damn top long enough to tell you to subscribe to Shiny Things, his weekly newsletter about film, culture and physical media -- wait, did the top wobble just then?

Hello (Again) director Melanie Chung plumbs the psychological depths of Denis Villeneuve's all-star 2013 thriller Prisoners -- the one where Hugh Jackman holds Paul Dano hostage in a basement to solve his daughter's disappearance, while Jake Gyllenhaal's obsessive detective conducts his own equally fevered investigation. Your genial host Norm Wilner warns you: We talk about the ending almost immediately, so if you haven't seen Prisoners you're probably going to want to do that first.  And maybe subscribe to Norm's newsletter, Shiny Things, while you're online.

In an episode almost seven years in the making, actor Tim Rozon (Lost Girl, Schitt’s Creek, Wynonna Earp, Vagrant Queen, Surreal Estate and the new family film Dakota) shares his love for My Own Private Idaho, and the incandescent, indelible performance of River Phoenix within Gus Van Sant's masterful 1991 indie drama. Your genial host Norm Wilner is really just an enabler here, but also  feels he really underestimated what Keanu Reeves was doing the first time around. (Also, have you subscribed to Norm's Shiny Things newsletter yet? You really should!)

Filmmaker Nathalie Bibeau (The Walrus and the Whistleblower, and the new Prime Video miniseriesThe Unsolved Murder of Beverly Lynn Smith) saw Into the Wild, Sean Penn's 2007 film about the life and death of Chris McCandless, at exactly the right moment in her development as an artist. Your genial host Norm Wilner wants to hear all about that ... and he also wants you to know his Shiny Things newsletter – a weekly dispatch about physical media, culture and maybe even the odd streaming show – is now up and running. Subscribe right here! You'll like it!

Actor Rong Fu  -- whom you might know from Pretty Hard Cases and Hello (Again), and who's now a member of the Enterprise bridge crew in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds -- is here to talk about discovering Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, Vol. 1 in her teens, and the rush that came with discovering Lucy Liu's O-Ren Ishii and realizing badass villains could be more than just one-dimensional antagonists. Your genial host Norm Wilner gets it, he really does. (And check out Norm's new newsletter project Shiny Things, a weekly look at physical media, culture and probably some streaming titles as well, because that's how we all live now.)

Filmmaker Chase Joynt -- whose metatextual documentary Framing Agnes makes its Canadian premiere at Hot Docs this week -- unpacks the layers of Cheryl Dunye's 1996 indie breakout The Watermelon Woman, a film that was easily 25 years ahead of its time in its exploration of race, representation, privilege and sexuality. Your genial host Norm Wilner can't believe what he missed the first time around, although he's glad we've left VHS behind.  And don't forget, the entire first year of this podcast is still available for purchase for only $20 (!) at payhip.com/semcast. That's 52 episodes! Days of listening pleasure!

Writer, producer and performer Stephanie Kaliner -- whose delightful new series Pinecone & Pony just dropped on Apple TV+ -- is here to share her love of Disney's 2016 animated smash Moana, another fantastical tale of a young woman who learns that being a hero and saving the world can be ... complicated. Your genial host Norm Wilner is Team Hei Hei all the way, and would also like to remind you that the entire first year of this podcast is still available for purchase (and only $20!) at payhip.com/semcast. You're welcome.

It's National Canadian Film Day on Wednesday, and filmmaker Michael McGowan -- director of Saint Ralph, One Week, Still Mine and now All My Puny Sorrows , which opened in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal last weekend and reaches Winnipeg this Friday, April 22nd -- is here to celebrate Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting, the secretly Canadian 1997 drama that won Robin Williams  his only Oscar and catapulted screenwriters Matt Damon and Ben Affleck to superstardom. Your genial host Norm Wilner is a little uneasy about the Harvey Weinstein of it all, but he offers a distraction by reminding you that the Someone Else's Movie: Year One collection is still just $20 at payhip.com/semcast . Hours of listening fun! Packed with Canadian talent! How do you like them apples?

Toronto filmmaker Martin Edralin, whose award-winning first feature Islands plays the TIFF Bell Lightbox tonight (April 12th) through Thursday (April 14th), unpacks the tensions at play in Korean master Lee Chang-dong's almost unbearably empathetic Secret Sunshine, a study of a woman carrying the weight of unimaginable loss that earned star Jeon Do-yeon the Best Actress prize at Cannes in 2007. Your genial host Norm Wilner is braced for impact, and reminds you the first year of the podcast can be yours at payhip.com/semcast for just twenty dollars. That's 52 episodes, 46 of which are unavailable to stream anywhere, including gems like Scott Thompson on Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Chandler Levack on Can't Hardly Wait. Just saying.

With her new drama Marlene opening this Friday in Toronto, Guelph, Edmonton and Calgary, actor Kristin Booth (Foolproof, Orphan Black, Workin' Moms, the Signed, Sealed, Delivered series and more) is here to declare her undying love for the self-aware magic of Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride, which made heartthrobs of Robin Wright and Cary Elwes, gave Mandy Patinkin one of his finest screen roles and taught kids of all ages to appreciate the occasional kissing book. Your genial host Norm Wilner remains just as smitten, honestly, and would like to remind you that the first year of the podcast can be yours at payhip.com/semcast for just twenty dollars. Hours of listening pleasure, including episodes with Kristin's Young People Fucking co-stars Aaron Abrams and Ennis Esmer! It's either this or join the Brute Squad, and really who wants that.

Actor Alex Mallari Jr. -- whom you may remember from Dark Matter, Ginny & Georgia, Workin' Moms, The Adam Project, Transplant and as the star of the brand-new CBC Gem digital series Hello (Again) -- shares his love for Boaz Yakin's 2000 sports drama Remember the Titans. Your genial host Norm Wilner has never been much of a football guy, honestly, but -- wait, is that Ryan Gosling? Oh, and while we're remembering things, the first year of Someone Else's Movie is available to download -- ad-free, in glorious mono! -- for just $20 at payhip.com/semcast . That's 52 episodes, 46 of which aren't available anywhere else. Go check that out.

ANOTHER Friday bonus episode! Nathalie Younglai, co-creator, co-writer and executive producer of the new digital series Hello (Again), is here to talk about Domee Shi's Turning Red, another story of an Asian-Canadian protagonist whose life is up-ended by supernatural events. Your genial host Norm Wilner just likes seeing his old building in CG.Hello (Again)  is now streaming across Canada on CBC Gem. And don't forget, the first year of Someone Else's Movie  is now available  to own at payhip.com/semcast . Hours of ad-free podcast gold for just $20! Really, it's a bargain for the ages.

With his debut feature Learn to Swim opening in Toronto and Vancouver on Friday,  filmmaker Thyrone Tommy trawls the surprising depths of Jerry Zucker's Ghost, the 1990 blockbuster that combined Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg in a story that functions as a slapstick farce, a swooning romantic tragedy and a supernatural action thriller, and sometimes does it all at once. Your genial host Norm Wilner says: Ditto. And don't forget, the first year of SEMcast can (and should) be yours for just $20 at payhip.com/semcast!

It was David Cronenberg's birthday this week, and Halifax filmmaker Seth Smith's creepy new movie Tin Can hits VOD today, so there's no better time for a Friday bonus episode tackling the grand romantic horror of The Fly -- Cronenberg's 1986 body-horror classic that paired Jeff Goldblum as a disintegrating genius and Geena Davis as the woman determined to love him no matter what he becomes. Your genial host Norm Wilner politely reminds you that Year One of the podcast can still be yours for just $20 at payhip.com/semcast . 

It's SEMcast's seventh anniversary, and filmmaker Igor Drljača -- whose new drama The White Fortress screens at TIFF Bell Lightbox as part of Canada's Top Ten tomorrow night, Wednesday March 16th, before hitting TIFF's streaming platform March 25th -- is here to take us on a trip to Punishment Park, Peter Watkins' distressingly perceptive 1971 thriller about America's slide towards fascism. Your genial host Norm Wilner wants you to know that the first year of this podcast is now available to own for just $20 at payhip.com/semcast . That's 52 episodes of SEMcast goodness, 46 of them no longer available to stream, with guests like Aaron Abrams, Katie Boland, Kristian Bruun, Ennis Esmer, Nelson George, John Maclean, Natalie Merchant, Scott Thompson, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead and many, many more. Full track listing at payhip.com/semcast. Support the podcast! Get hours and hours of entertainment! Everybody wins!

Actor and filmmaker Agam Darshi -- whose first feature Donkeyhead is streaming on Netflix in most of the world, and opens in Toronto, Regina and Saskatoon today, is here to talk William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, Baz Lurhmann's swoony 1996 adaptation of the classic romantic tragedy that minted Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in the hearts of young moviegoers everywhere ... even as it alienated some older critics. Your genial host Norm Wilner has oft felt like fortune's fool, if he's being honest.

With his remarkable new drama After Yang  in theatres across the US and opening in Canada this Friday, March 11th, writer-director Kogonada is here to discuss the delicate beauty and endless resonance of Hirokazu Kore-eda's After Life, the 1998 drama that wondered what memories we'd be willing to take with us into eternity. Your genial host Norm Wilner is just here to facilitate, really.

Lifelong pals and frequent co-stars Ennis Esmer and Aaron Abrams mark the end of the first season of Children Ruin Everything by arguing about the entire 007 franchise: The highs, the lows, the tonal shifts, the changing leading men, the quiet refusal to really embrace creative chances that could keep the series fresh. Your genial host Norm Wilner bought a fluffy white cat for this.

With his new Foo Fighters horror-comedy Studio 666 in theaters this Friday, February 25th, filmmaker BJ McDonnell throws his hat in the ring for George Lucas and Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark, the movie that cemented Harrison Ford's superstar status, revived a forgotten genre of action cinema, kicked off a franchise that is, incredibly enough, rolling into its fifth decade and took an unambiguous stance on punching Nazis . Your genial host Norm Wilner is okay with that.

This week, Josephine Decker -- director of Madeleine’s Madeleine, Shirley and the brand-new Apple TV+ drama The Sky Is Everywhere -- drops in to celebrate Babe, director Chris Noonan and producer George Miller’s 1995 live-action adaptation of Dick King-Smith’s children’s book The Sheep-Pig  and one of the sweetest, most deeply human films ever made about animals. Your genial host Norm Wilner thinks James Cromwell was robbed, by the way.

Writer-director Jefferson Moneo, whose new drama Cosmic Dawn is in U.S. theaters and on VOD across North America this Friday, February 11th, is here to rescue Brian De Palma’s gloriously sleazy 1984 thriller Body Double from the memory hole, and celebrate both its hothouse Hitchcockian affect and the performance of a young Melanie Griffith. Your genial host Norm Wilner is excited to hear his arguments.

Award-winning filmmaker Kelly Fyffe-Marshall, whose 2020 short film Black Bodies just premiered on Crave in Canada and on iTunes everywhere else, steps up for Ricky Staub's Concrete Cowboy, the contemporary Western starring Idris Elba as a Philadelphia horseman who reluctantly brings his teenage son (Caleb McLaughlin) into his world. Your genial host Norm Wilner always has time for a movie that puts Idris Elba on horseback.

To celebrate the publication of his book Damn Shame: A Memoir of Desire, Defiance and Show Tunes, actor and activist David Pevsner (Naked Boys Singing, Criminal Minds, Modern Family, Gray's Anatomy) is here to talk about his love for John Hughes' landmark 1984 comedy Sixteen Candles ... a problematic fave if ever there was one. Your genial host Norm Wilner has some notes.

Actor Patrice Goodman of Slasher, The Umbrella Academy and the  sci-fi sitcom Overlord and the Underwoods -- which drops 10 new episodes on CBC Gem this Friday, January 21st -- is here to remind you that Steven Spielberg's 1985 adaptation of Alice Walker's Pulitzer-prizewinning novel The Color Purple is a really good movie. Your genial host Norm Wilner is surprised to find out just how much he agrees with this.

Writer and producer Daniel Grant -- who also co-hosts the podcasts Spoiled Rotten and Uncolonized -- is here to tackle Life, Ted Demme's 1999 comedy in which Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence play New Yorkers in the deep South who are convicted of murder in the 1930s and sentenced to life in prison. It's a comedy about lives destroyed by systemic racism. Your genial host Norm Wilner just wants you to remember that 1999 was a different time.

Actor and filmmaker Larry Fessenden -- who's currently voicing the Prophet of Doom in the animated fantasy epic The Spine of Night, now on VOD -- stands up for Frank Darabont’s 2007 adaptation of Stephen King’s The Mist, the pervasive nihilism of which feels awfully  prescient fifteen years later. Even so, your genial host Norm Wilner has some issues with that ending.  Follow Larry at @glasseyepix! And happy new year!

See out the year with actor and singer Bronagh Gallagher -- who can currently be seen starring in Shelly Love's spiky pregnancy comedy A Bump Along the Way -- as she celebrates the eventful life and remarkable art of Yayoi Kusama as captured in Heather Lenz' 2018 documentary Kusama Infinity. Your genial host Norm Wilner is happy for the distraction.

It's the holidays, so actor and filmmaker PJ McCabe, who co-wrote, co-directed and co-stars with Jim Cummings in the very funny, very strange erotic thriller The Beta Test, tackles Eyes Wide Shut, the 1999 Cruise-and-Kidman holiday psychodrama that stands as Stanley Kubrick’s final statement on human frailty. Your genial host Norm WIlner has to admit it: He's never been a fan.

Director Mike Rianda, whose delightful first featureThe Mitchells vs. the Machines just dropped in a souped-up Blu-ray special edition from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, takes time out to salute We Are the Best!, Lukas Moodysson’s raucous tale of two Swedish kids who decide to launch a rebellious punk band in the early '80s despite a distinct lack of anything worth rebelling about. Your genial host Norm Wilner just wants to know how this inspired the Dog Cop saga.

Actor and producer Molly Quinn -- of Castle, Welcome to Happiness and Mickey Reece's new film Agnes, which hits theatres and VOD Friday -- is here to discuss the entrancing world of Song of the Sea, and how Tomm Moore's Oscar-nominated animated fable helped her understand which sort of stories she wanted to be telling. Your genial host Norm Wilner has the Cartoon Saloon boxed set on his holiday wish list.

Actor and filmmaker Brooke Nevin (Infestation, Call Me Fitz, Scorpion, and the new holiday movie It Takes a Christmas VIllage, available on Super Channel On Demand Wednesday December 1st  and premiering on Super Channel Heart & Home Saturday December 4th) helps us roll towards the holidays with a conversation about the candy-coated charms of Jon Favreau's Elf, the movie that helped make Will Ferrell a star, introduced Bob Newhart and Ed Asner to a whole new generation of fans, and opened the door for Zooey Deschanel's career in romantic  comedy. Your genial host Norm Wilner isn't afraid to say James Caan singing gets him every damn time.

Journalist and author (and friend of the podcast) Corey Mintz has a new book out -- The Next Supper: The End of Restaurants As We Knew Them, and What Comes After -- and he's here for a record-setting third episode to talk about The Big Short, Adam McKay's searing 2015 study of the global economic meltdown of 2008. (It's the one where Christian Bale has a glass eye, Steve Carell has rage issues, Ryan Gosling is a weenie and Brad Pitt is a prepper.) Your genial host Norm Wilner is just happy to be able to discuss a past disaster rather than a current one.

Filmmaker Kaveh Nabatian, whose new drama Sin La Habana just dropped on Apple TV and is still playing in Toronto at the Carlton Cinema, is here to celebrate the exquisite melancholy of Wong Kar-wai's 1997 breakup drama Happy Together, in which Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung bring their disintegrating relationship to Argentina in search of a miracle, and wind up even further apart. Your genial host Norm Wilner remains dazzled by the cinematography, and amazed that Tony Leung is in Marvel movies now.

Actor and filmmaker Jim Cummings -- who's taken apart fragile alpha males in Thunder Road, The Wolf of Snow Hollow and the brand-new thrillerThe Beta Test -- is more than happy to lose himself in the labyrinth of David Fincher's Zodiac, the director's 2007 epic dramatization about the hunt for the serial killer who terrorized San Francisco in the late '60s and early '70s. It's no mystery: Your genial host Norm Wilner is really happy with this episode.

Actor and filmmaker Michelle Nolden (Saving Hope, October Faction and currently CBC's Heartland) is also the artistic director of the Lakeshorts International Short Film Festival, which is marking its 10th anniversary with a special Grand River Shorts edition at the Dominion Telegraph Centre in Paris, Ontario, on November 12th. And she's here to talk about one of her very favourite movies: Mike Leigh's 1996 Palme d'Or winner Secrets and Lies, which paired Brenda Blethyn and Marianne Jean-Baptiste as long-lost relatives whose reconnection shakes up both of their lives. Your genial host Norm Wilner has a story for this one.

 Filmmaker and festival programmer Scott Miller Berry -- whose Rendezvous with Madness film festival gets underway this Thursday, October 28th --  celebrates the intersectional future shock of Born in Flames, Lizzie Borden's 1983 DIY classic starring Adele Bertei and Honey as two feminist broadcasters pulled into the resistance in a totalitarian America. Your genial host Norm Wilner is shocked that Criterion hasn't released this yet.

Writer and producer Aaron Martin -- creator of the inventive horror series Slasher, now in its fourth season, and the delirious sci-fi series Another Life, which just dropped its second season on Netflix last week -- would like you to consider the similarly chaotic joys of The Out-of-Towners, the Neil Simon-scripted, Arthur Hiller-directed 1970 comedy starring Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis as a nice couple from Ohio whose plans to hit New York City for a night out and an important morning meeting are met with a maelstrom of delays, diversions and disasters designed to test the limits of their patience, their character and possibly even their immune systems. Your genial host Norm Wilner knows better than to fly into JFK after noon.

Fran Kranz, whom you may know as an actor from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dollhouse, The Cabin in the Woods and You Might Be the Killer, makes his debut as a writer-director this year with the quietly shattering Mass, now playing in US theatres and opening in Canada this Friday, October 15th. He couldn't decide between Michael Haneke’s 2003 survival drama Time Of The Wolf and Wong Kar-wai’s  melancholy 2004 fantasia 2046, so we let him tackle both. Your genial host Norm Wilner is not a monster, after all.

Actor Lyndsy Fonseca -- of Nikita, the Kick-Ass movies, Marvel’s Agent Carter and now the Disney+ series Turner and Hooch, which drops its season finale this Wednesday, October 6th -- is here to celebrate the cracked magnificence of Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow in David Mirkin's 1997 cult comedy Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion. Your genial host Norm Wilner never got an invitation to his own high-school reunion. That's weird, right? It feels weird.

With his creepy new film Nightbooks freshly landed on Netflix, director David Yarovesky (The Hive, Brightburn) is here to discuss John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness, the 1994 mind-bender starring Sam Neill as an insurance investigator on the trail of a vanished author whose books may be driving readers insane. Your genial host Norm Wilner does not read Sutter Cane, because it's safer for everyone that way.

Writer, producer and director Virginia Abramovich -- whose eerie first feature Between Waves arrives on VOD today -- digs into Memento, the corkscrewing Christopher Nolan thriller starring  Guy Pearce as Leonard Shelby, a relentless investigator driven by Polaroids, tattoos and a bone-deep desire for revenge, with former Matrix co-stars Carrie-Anne Moss and Joe Pantoliano as people working with Leonard (or are they?) to further very different agendas. Your genial host Norm Wilner knows this movie backwards and forwards, which is helpful.

Lina Roessler, an actor and filmmaker whose first feature Best Sellers is in theatres and on VOD this Friday, September 17th, tackles Ali Abbasi's unquantifiable mystery Border, which stars Eva Melander as a Swedish border guard and discovers an entirely new side of herself when she meets a man as strange as she is. Your genial host Norm Wilner strongly advises you watch the movie before you listen to this one.

Documentary filmmaker Jeremy Workman -- whose new documentary Lily Topples the World is now streaming on Discovery+ in the US and coming to Canada next Tuesday, September 14th -- is here to sing the praises of The Heiress, William Wyler's 1949 adaptation of Henry James' Washington Square starring Olivia de Havilland (in the role that won her a second Oscar), Montgomery Clift and Ralph Richardson. Your genial host Norm Wilner is on the edge of his seat. 

John Ross Bowie is back, and to celebrate the launch of his new podcast Household Faces, where he interviews Hollywood’s most recognizable and iconic character actors about their lives and work, he's here to throw down for Once Upon a Time ... In Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino's epic 2019 drama that casts Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie as three Los Angelinos on a collision course with the Manson Family. Your genial host Norm Wilner hates that movie like Cliff Booth hates hippies, which is really saying something.

Actor, writer and producer Carly Pope (Popular, Young People Fucking, Suits, Textuality, Arrow and now Neill Blomkamp’s Demonic, currently in theatres and on VOD) is here to celebrate Boogie Nights, the epic 1997  dramedy that put Paul Thomas Anderson on the map, got Burt Reynolds his only Oscar nomination, assembled an all-time great supporting cast (Julianne Moore! John C. Reilly! Heather Graham! Don Cheadle! Nicole Ari Parker! William H. Macy! Philip Seymour Hoffman! Melora Walters!  Luis Guzman! Philip Baker Hall!) and made people take Mark Wahlberg seriously. Your genial host Norm Wilner is still surprised about that last one.

With his miniseries Nine Perfect Strangers premiering on Hulu and Amazon Prime Video Canada this week, director Jonathan Levine (All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, 50/50, Warm Bodies, The Night Before, Long Shot and more) is here to talk about his undying love for Billy Madison, the film that solidified Adam Sandler's screen persona for a decade or more. Your genial host Norm Wilner is more than happy to leverage this into a larger look at the actor's whole overgrown-kid thing, and how Sandler is a much more interesting performer when he's not allowed to wear cargo pants.

Documentary filmmaker Heather Ross , whose new project For Madmen Only: The Stories Of Del Close is newly available on VOD, celebrates Christopher Guest's  1996 feature Waiting For Guffman -- in which the actor and filmmaker recruited Fred Willard, Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Parker Posey, Bob Balaban and another half-dozen very funny people to make up a story about some amateur theater performers celebrating the sesquicentennial of a small Missouri town.  And once you've listened to this episode, you might want to check out Andy Kindler on Guest's earlier comedy The Big Picture.

What happens on a movie podcast when the guest picks a movie the host hasn't seen? Well, usually the host goes out and watches said movie before the recording. That's not what happened here, as actor and writer David Dastmalchian -- currently starring alongside Idris Elba and Margot Robbie in James Gunn's The Suicide Squad  -- brings Joko Anwar's 2019 supernatural thriller Impetigore to the show, and your genial host Norm Wilner has to  roll with it. But it all works out, because two horror fans can always find common ground.

For our 350th episode, Cameron Gibson -- one of the lead magicians at Jamie Allan's Illusionarium, which opens in Toronto this Thursday, June 29th -- tackles Christopher Nolan's 2006 drama The Prestige. Your genial host Norm Wilner has nothing up his sleeves.

With his remarkable Nicolas Cage drama Pig making its way into theatres across North America, we grab director and co-writer Michael Sarnoski for a few minutes to talk about his love for Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, the 2002 blockbuster that cast Tobey Maguire as everyone’s favorite wall-crawler and laid the template for comic-book movies going forward … though no one knew that at the time. Your genial host Norm Wilner thinks you should see Pig, by the way.

Award-winning horror author and screenwriter Gemma Files (Experimental Film, the new collection In That Endlessness, Our End) burrows deep into the theological inquiry of Elliot Goldner’s 2013 found-footage creeper The Borderlands, which was released in North America as Final Prayer. Your genial host Norm Wilner is a little worried about the implications of all this Lovecraftian horror, but let’s see where this goes.

Writer and performer Katherine Cullen — who’s spending this month with Britta Johnson remounting their 2017 play Stupidhead! as a series of live audio broadcasts from July 7th to 16th, and then as in-person performances on porches and backyards from July 20th to August 1st — is here to celebrate Bottle Rocket, the 1996 indie that brought Wes Anderson, Owen Wilson and Luke Wilson onto the film scene. Your genial host Norm Wilner is trying to process the fact that Bottle Rocket is 25 years old now.

Actor and filmmaker Josh Ruben — whose new horror-comedy Werewolves Within is in theaters now and coming to IFC Films Unlimited this Friday, July 2nd — has been haunted by Clive Barker’s Nightbreed for a very long time … too long, perhaps. But now he’s ready to unpack the effect Barker’s 1990 monster mash had on his developing imagination. Your genial host Norm Wilner is here to guide him.

Director Ilya Naishuller — who followed his 2015 breakout Hardcore Henry by turning Bob Odenkirk into an action star in the immensely satisfying Nobody, now available on disc and digital — takes a break from his next production to salute the swaggering mayhem of The Way of the Gun, the 2000 directorial debut of Oscar-winning screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie. Your genial host Norm Wilner had forgotten all about that one.

Author, actor, poet and hip-hop pioneer Saul Williams — who stars in and scores Charles Officer’s Akilla’s Escape, now available on VOD across North America — takes the mic for Lovers Rock, the second and best feature in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe film cycle. Your genial host Norm Wilner thinks you’ll enjoy this one.

With his directorial debut Queen of Spades arriving on VOD next week, writer and producer Patrick White (Jack Brooks, Monster Slayer) is here to spread the love for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the Oscar-winning animated experience from directors Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman that brought Miles Morales to the big screen and expanded our conception of what comic-book movies can do. Your genial host Norm Wilner is still team Spider-Ham, though.

Singer and songwriter Lowell turns screenwriter and composer with the horror movie Bloodthirsty, which earned her two Canadian Screen Awards nominations for best score and best original song; now that it’s available on VOD, she’s here to talk about another kind of monster movie: The Host, Bong Joon-ho’s delirious 2006 thriller about a dysfunctional Seoul family brought together by the rampage of an angry fish monster. Your genial host Norm Wilner knows how it feels.

Toronto screenwriter and producer Alyson Richards — whose latest project, the queer survival thriller The Retreat, is freshly available on VOD — is here to celebrate Richard Donner’s beloved 1985 adventure comedy The Goonies in all of its messy, frenetic glory. Your genial host Norm Wilner has some questions.

Award-winning actor, producer and all-around great person Karine Vanasse — star of Emporte-Moi, Polytechnique, Cardinal and the brand-new animated adventure Felix and the Treasure of Morgaa — discusses the intimate power of Eliza Hittman’s 2020 drama Never Rarely Sometimes Always, and the sad reality that stories like this still need to be told at all. Your genial host Norm Wilner is just sorry this episode isn’t three hours long.

Her lovely first feature What Lies West just landed on VOD in North America, so writer-director Jessica Ellis is here to stand up for Ridley Scott’s The Martian, the 2015 drama where Matt Damon gets marooned on the red planet and an all-star international cast rallies to save him … if he can keep himself alive long enough. Your genial host Norm Wilner worries that movies about space problems aren’t supposed to be this much fun.

With his new film Drifting Snow arriving on VOD today, filmmaker Ryan Noth (No Heart Feelings, The National Parks Project, Farm Crime) is in the mood for another road-trip picture: Kelly Reichardt’s 2006 breakout Old Joy, a melancholy drama starring Daniel London and Will Oldham as old friends trying to reconnect with a drive to a hot spring. Your genial host Norm Wilner is more than happy to go along for the ride.

On this special Friday bonus episode, writer-director Scott Abramovitch — whose first feature Eat Wheaties! just arrived on VOD platforms everywhere — tackles The Apartment, Billy Wilder and Itzek Diamond’s Oscar-winning 1960 masterwork where Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray play out a timeless parable about the price of upward mobility. Your genial host Norm Wilner is really happy with this one, insight-wise.

Actor and screenwriter Mary Holland (Veep, Homecoming, Happiest Season and the new-to-VOD comedy Golden Arm) steps up for the brave young women of the Sarah Rose Cosmetics Mount Rose American Teen Princess Pageant in Michael Patrick Jann’s beloved 1999 mockumentary Drop Dead Gorgeous. Your genial host Norm Wilner totally forgot Amy Adams was in this.

Now that Violation has arrived on Shudder Canada, filmmaker Dusty Mancinelli (who wrote and directed the film with star Madeleine Sims-Fewer) is here to talk about Back to the Future II, the 1989 sequel in which Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale and company literally revisit their 1985 blockbuster to the delight of audiences everywhere. Your genial host Norm Wilner is good to go.

The multifaceted Brea Grant — who wrote and stars in Lucky, wrote and directed 12 Hour Shift  and co-stars in The Stylist — is here to celebrate the anarchic glories of Gremlins 2: The New Batch, the 1990 sequel where Joe Dante deconstructed his 1984 blockbuster with a sledgehammer. Your genial host Norm Wilner has been quoting the Brain Gremlin for thirty years now. (This is not a euphemism.)

His first feature Honeydew arrives on VOD today, so it’s the perfect time for writer-director Devereux Milburn to break down the revelation that was Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love — the knockout 2002 romance that changed the way the world saw Adam Sandler. Your genial host Norm Wilner has some fairly profound feelings of his own about this one.

Writer, director and producer Saman Kesh — whose new project Doors just landed on VOD platforms everywhere — is here to explain how the fever dream of melancholy that is Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express changed the way he saw cinema. Your genial host Norm Wilner just hopes all those empty pineapple cans were properly recycled.

Writer-director Emma Seligman — whose first feature Shiva Baby is now available to rent on digital TIFF Bell Lightbox and goes into wider VOD release across North America on Friday — tackles another directorial debut: Edward Norton’s Keeping the Faith, in which Norton and Ben Stiller play a priest and a rabbi whose lifelong friendship is rocked by the reappearance of a childhood friend (Jenna Elfman). Your genial host Norm Wilner knew those nine years of Hebrew school would come in handy eventually.

With her semiautobiographical web series The Communist’s Daughter newly streaming on CBC Gem, writer-director Leah Cameron is here to celebrate Don McKellar’s Last Night, the delicate 1998 drama about a handful of Torontonians — played by Sandra Oh, Sarah Polley, David Cronenberg, Tracy Wright and many more — facing the end of the world. Your genial host Norm Wilner is just happy we made it to the other side.

It’s our anniversary week! Have a bonus episode! Here’s writer/director BenDavid Grabinski, whose terrific first feature Happily drops on VOD today, to discuss the indie miracle that is Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild, which pairs Jeff Daniels and Melanie Griffith for a screwball comedy that proves more than worthy of its title. Your genial host Norm Wilner thinks you should see Happily, by the way.

It’s SEMcast’s sixth anniversary, and writer-director Anthony Scott Burns — whose eerie psychodrama Come True is now available on VOD — joins us to celebrate Michael Mann’s Manhunter, the 1986 cat-and-mouse thriller that first brought Thomas Harris’ characters to the screen. Your genial host Norm Wilner is always happy to talk about the magnificent pissiness of Brian Cox.

With his first feature Jump, Darling arriving on VOD today, writer-director Phil Connell is here to discuss the luxurious chaos of Luca Guadagnino’s A Bigger Splash, and how much pleasure there is to be had in watching Ralph Fiennes and Dakota Johnson invade Tilda Swinton and Matthias Schoenaerts’ Italian paradise. Your genial host Norm Wilner was just happy to think about something other than winter for an hour.

Veteran writer/producer Ali LeRoi — whose body of work includes writing Down to Earth and Head of State, creating and producing the television series Everybody Hates Chris and Are We There Yet, and whose powerful first feature The Obituary of Tunde Johnson just dropped on VOD in North America — loves heist movies, and he especially loves Ben Affleck’s 2010 thriller The Town, accents and all. Your genial host Norm Wilner is really curious to see how these things all line up.

Writer-director Shatara Michelle Ford, whose powerful first feature Test Pattern is now streaming on the Kino Marquee virtual cinema platform, has loved Nora Ephron’s 1998 rom-com You’ve Got Mail since she was a tween, and is more than happy to talk about how Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan make it awfully easy to excuse some very problematic material. Your genial host Norm Wilner is sorry he sounds like he’s stuck in a fishtank this week.

Guled Abdi, Vance Banzo, Tim Blair and Franco Nguyen — who are collectively known as Tallboyz, and whose sketch show returns for a second season tonight, Tuesday September 16th, on CBC and CBC Gem — assemble to talk about Hook, Steven Spielberg’s 1991 fantasy adventure starring Robin Williams as a grown-up Peter Pan, Dustin Hoffman as his arch-enemy Captain Hook and Julia Roberts as Tinkerbell. Your genial host Norm Wilner is a little nervous about this one.

Writer-director Nicole Dorsey, whose powerful first feature Black Conflux will finally be arriving later this spring after being named to TIFF Canada’s Top Ten in 2019, breaks down the power and influence of Joyce Chopra’s unnerving 1985 drama Smooth Talk and the devastating performance of Laura Dern and Treat Williams. Your genial host Norm Wilner is awfully nostalgic for the days when he recorded this show in person.

Film critics Haley Mlotek and Adam Nayman were among a dozen experts interviewed by Jeffrey McHale for his 2019 documentary You Don’t Nomi, about the reclamation of Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls — received on its release in 1995 as an unmitigated disaster — as both a camp classic and legitimately good movie. So of course they’re here to talk about Verhoeven’s film, and why it’s time to take it seriously. Your genial host Norm Wilner learned a whole dance routine for this.

Steven Kostanski — writer-director of Manborg, The Void and the brand-new splatterfest Psycho Goreman, just released on VOD — steps up and throws down for Paul W.S. Anderson’s Mortal Kombat, the 1995 hit that turned a videogame series into a remarkably satisfying cinematic experience. Your genial host Norm Wilner is happy to battle alongside him.

Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin, who spun their friendship into bittersweet, chaotic comedy in The Climb (debuting on VOD today) are here to discuss the allure of Matteo Garrone’s 2012 Cannes Grand Prix winner Reality, and the curious ways in which it meshes with their own festival favorite. Your genial host Norm Wilner is rooting for them.

Never give up, never surrender! Actor, writer and director Sugith Varughese — whom you may know from Kim’s Convenience and Transplant, and who just turned up on The Expanse — is here to share his love for Galaxy Quest, the ingenious sci-fi comedy where Tim Allen, Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver are washed-up TV stars recruited by actual aliens to save the universe. You have no idea how long your genial host Norm Wilner has been waiting for someone to pick this movie.

It’s 2021! We made it! And writer-director Quinn Armstrong, whose fascinating found-footage psychodrama Survival Skills is now available on VOD, is here to talk about the seemingly incongruent Brief Encounter, the Celia Johnson-Trevor Howard romance (written by Noel Coward, and directed by David Lean) that hasn’t lost an ounce of its power after three-quarters of a century. Your genial host Norm Wilner is eager to see how that all lines up.

Surprise! We have an episode this week after all! John Patrick Shanley — the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Moonstruck, and most recently the writer-director of Wild Mountain Thyme, in theatres and on demand now — is here to talk about Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and how Celine Sciamma’s 2019 masterpiece clobbered him with its art and its passion. Your genial host Norm Wilner knows how he feels.

What better way to mark the holiday season than to welcome back Phillip Iscove — creator of Sleepy Hollow, co-host of the delightful Podcast Like It’s 1999 and friend of the show — to celebrate his very favorite Christmas movie: Batman Returns. You know, the one where Tim Burton got to do literally anything he wanted after the success of 1989’s Batman, and made one of the weirdest damn things ever produced by a major studio. Your genial host Norm Wilner is here to help Phil unpack it.

With his new feature film The Stand In freshly arrived on VOD, screenwriter and producer Sam Bain (Peep Show, Ill Behaviour, Four Lions) is here to talk about Joe Versus the Volcano, the Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan fantasy comedy that marked John Patrick Shanley’s 1990 directorial debut. Your genial host Norm Wilner brought plenty of orange soda.

With her new film Wander arriving on VOD, producer-director April Mullen — whose credits include episodes of Wynonna Earp and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow and the features 88 and Below Her Mouth — shares her love of Run Lola Run, the high-concept 1998 thriller that made Tom Tykwer and Franka Potente international sensations. Your genial host Norm Wilner is happy to take this ride again.

Writer-director Francis Lee, whose new drama Ammonite (on VOD this Friday, December 4th) pairs Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan as 19th-century lovers, is here to talk about another tale of unexpected empowerment: Now, Voyager, the Warner Bros. melodrama where Bette Davis takes hold of her destiny after meeting the right psychiatrist. Your genial host Norm Wilner is very happy to stay in 1942 for another week. They have ice cream!

To celebrate the publication of This Is Not My Memoir, legendary theater director and occasional screen actor Andre Gregory is here to talk about a film he’s loved as long as he can remember: Casablanca, the little Michael Curtiz picture where Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman talk about Paris and letters of transit. Your genial host Norm Wilner will remember this just fine, don’t you worry.

It’s been a rough week, you deserve a bonus episode … so here’s filmmaker Sonia Boileau, whose new drama Rustic Oracle arrived on VOD this week, talking about her pure and radiant love for the unapologetic Swayze worship of Emile Ardolino’s Dirty Dancing. Your genial host Norm Wilner is not … not a fan.

Filmmaker Cavan Campbell, whose new short Receiver just shared the Air Canada Best Short Film award at the Reel Asian film festival, will never tire of watching Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal destroy San Francisco in What’s Up, Doc?, Peter Bogdanovich’s 1972 salute to classic screwball comedies. Your genial host Norm Wilner can’t help but notice he has the exact same bag as Cavan.

Actor and producer Adam Brody (The O.C,Ready Or Not, Promising Young Woman and now Evan Morgan’s The Kid Detective) embraces the hand-crafted nightmares of Henry Selick’s 2009 adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, mostly because he really loves watching it with his daughter. Your genial host Norm Wilner thinks that’s a wonderful reason to talk about a movie.

With his holiday-movie parody Cup of Cheer arriving on digital and on demand this Friday, November 6th, writer-director Jake Horowitz goes to bat for They Came Together, David Wain’s 2014 deconstruction of prefab romantic comedies with Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler leading a murderer’s row of very funny people. Your genial host Norm Wilner can say that again. Tell him about it.

With his new film Spell coming out on demand this Friday, director Mark Tonderai (Hush, House at the End of the Street) is here to talk about David Lynch’s radically conventional 1999 drama, the one where Richard Farnsworth drives a riding mower across the American heartland and meets a lot of really nice people. Your genial host Norm Wilner is all revved up for this one.

With his new film Coming Home Again arriving in virtual release today, director Wayne Wang muses on the debt he owes to Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai des Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles — a singular experiment in location and duration built around a deliberately opaque Delphine Seyrig performance. Your genial host Norm Wilner can’t wait to peel back the layers on this one.

Rage! Rebellion! Hormones! Actor and writer Jessica Reynolds, who stars opposite Jared Abrahamson and Don McKellar in The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw — just released on VOD — tackles the emotional storm that is Catherine Hardwicke’s 2003 Sundance breakout Thirteen. Your genial host Norm Wilner is sure this will go fine.

Filmmaker Jennifer Abbott has two documentaries playing (virtually) at the Planet in Focus festival this week: The Magnitude of All Things and The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel. But she still made the time to talk about They Live, the subversive John Carpenter masterwork that only grows more prescient with every election cycle. Your genial host Norm Wilner packed extra bubblegum for this.

Kodi Smit-McPhee — whom you may remember from The Road, Let Me In, Slow West and a few X-Men movies, and who stars in the new time-travel thriller 2067 — dials in from Australia to ponder the many lives of Jared Leto in Jaco Van Dormael’s reality-scrambling Mr. Nobody. Your genial host Norm Wilner did not see this in his future.

BAFTA-winning filmmaker Neasa Hardiman (Happy Valley, Jessica Jones) — whose first feature Sea Fever is available on disc and digital, and unnervingly relevant to 2020 — is here to talk about Fritz Lang’s seminal 1931 thriller M and its impact on her own artistic development. Your genial host Norm Wilner apologizes in advance for that bleep, but some secrets demand to be kept.

Actor and filmmaker Sarah Polley credits one film with launching her on the path that led to Away from Her, Take This Waltz, Stories We Tell and Alias Grace: Terrence Malick’s 1998 war epic The Thin Red Line. Your genial host Norm Wilner has been looking forward to this conversation for years.

It’s our 300th episode (which, wow) and filmmaker Michelle Latimer — who’s premiering her new CBC series Trickster at TIFF this afternoon, and whose documentary Inconvenient Indian has its second screening this Thursday, September 17th — is here to sing the praises of Girlhood, and the complexity with which Céline Sciamma’s 2014 coming-of-age story explores female empowerment. Your genial host Norm Wilner is still trying to process this whole “300th episode” deal.

Actor and filmmaker Madeleine Sims-Fewer — whose first feature Violation, which she co-wrote and co-directed with Dusty Mancinelli, premieres at TIFF Monday, September 14th — is here to discuss the extreme emotions of Possession, Andrzej Zulawski’s 1981 masterwork that finds Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill living a nightmare of obsession, betrayal and body horror. Your genial host Norm Wilner still twitches at the thought of the subway scene.

TIFF 2020 is upon us, and writer-director Charles Officer — whose gangland drama Akilla’s Escape makes its world premiere at the festival on Saturday, September 12th, and who also narrates The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel — is here to talk about Carlito’s Way, the 1993 thriller that reunited the Scarface team of producer Martin Bregman, director Brian De Palma and star Al Pacino for a rather more thoughtful take on gangster pictures. Your genial host Norm Wilner has some thoughts on Sean Penn’s hair.

Writer-director Christian Sparkes (Cast No Shadow, Hammer) explores the chilly, creepy questions of Jonathan Glazer’s Birth — you know, the one where Nicole Kidman meets a child who claims to be her dead husband. Your genial host Norm Wilner keeps holy water around for this very eventuality.

Writer, producer and righteous dude Ed Solomon — of It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, Men in Black, Now You See Me and of course the Bill & Ted movies, the newest of which lands in theatres and on demand this Friday, August 28th — steps up for Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and discusses the profound impact of its revolutionary comedy on his own career. Your genial host Norm Wilner cannot believe there was a time when he got to do this podcast sitting right across from the guests.

You’ve seen actor Julian Richings in everything from Hard Core Logo and Cube to Supernatural and Man of Steel, and you’re about to see him opposite Sheila McCarthy in the Fantasia world premiere Anything For Jackson; now listen to him discuss the Gothic delights of Charles Laughton’s 1955 masterpiece The Night of the Hunter. Your genial host Norm Wilner has been thinking about getting some knuckle tattoos.

Actor and filmmaker Jemaine Clement — who co-stars with Gillian Jacobs in the new comedy I Used to Go Here — zooms in from New Zealand to talk about his love of Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 breakout action satire-slash-cultural prophecy RoboCop. Your genial host Norm Wilner guarantees this episode serves the public trust.

With his new film The Cuban making the rounds of theatres and drive-ins, director Sergio Navarretta joins us to share his love for Federico Fellini’s enduring 1960 drama La Dolce Vita — you know, the one that coined the term “paparazzi” while giving audiences a glimpse of a future defined and dominated by vapid celebrity culture. Your genial host Norm Wilner has a story about that.

With his second feature Random Acts of Violence now available on digital in Canada — and coming to the US and UK later this month — actor, writer, producer and director Jay Baruchel brings Paddy Considine’s knotty, ugly, deeply personal Tyrannosaur to the podcast. It’s not an easy movie to watch, and this isn’t an easy conversation. But your genial host Norm Wilner thinks you’ll be better for the experience.

It’s another Friday bonus episode! Beloved actor and gleeful raconteur John Rhys-Davies joins us to discuss Dome Karukoski’s literary origin story Tolkien, which stars Nicholas Hoult as the young J.R.R. and Lily Collins as his lifelong love Edith. Your genial host Norm Wilner apologizes for the lack of Elvish ballads.

Brace yourself for the mega madness, because writer, producer and podcaster Ben Blacker (Supernatural, The Thrilling Adventure Hour, The Writers Panel, Dead Pilots Society) is here for a super-sized episode on Gremlins, Steven Spielberg and Joe Dante’s unclassifiable, relentlessly weird creature-feature Christmas movie. Your genial host Norm Wilner has his blender at the ready.

With her new movie White Lie arriving on digital and on demand today, actor Kacey Rohl (Hannibal, Arrow, The Magicians) is here to discuss Bob Fosse’s autobiographical 1979 dazzler All That Jazz. Your genial host Norm Wilner did the whole “Showtime, folks!” thing before the podcast.

One of the key figures of the New Greek Cinema and now working on the charming new British series Trigonometry, Athina Rachel Tsangari (Attenberg,Chevalier) is here to share her love for Mati Diop’s first feature Atlantics, the haunting love story that beguiled festival audiences around the world. Your genial host Norm Wilner is eager to find out what it has to do with the Netflix crime show Ozark.

With his new drama From the Vine arriving on digital and on demand this Friday, July 10th, filmmaker Sean Cisterna is here to discuss his love for Life Is Beautiful, the Oscar-winning Holocaust fable that made a household name of its director-star Roberto Benigni … and makes your genial host Norm Wilner break out in hives.

Time for another Friday bonus episode, as actor and producer Peter Sarsgaard — currently on your screens in Agnieszka Holland’s Mr. Jones and the Netflix anthology series Homemade — discusses his lifelong fascination with Giulietta Masina’s performance in Federico Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria. Your genial host Norm Wilner is honored to lead the parade.

Emmy-nominated, Gemini-winning writer-producer Semi Chellas — whose directorial debut American Woman arrives on digital and on demand today — saddles up for a discussion of The Rider, Chloé Zhao’s hybrid 2017 drama about a young horseman trying to figure out his future. Your genial host Norm Wilner still isn’t sure how this led to a Marvel movie.

Hey, everybody! It’s a bonus Friday minisode featuring Oscar-nominated filmmaker Agnieszka Holland — director of Europa Europa, The Secret Garden, Washington Square and the newly released historical drama Mr. Jones — on the alluring, enduring mysteries of Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 odyssey Stalker. Your genial host Norm Wilner is happy to be in the Zone with her.

His first feature Stealing School just landed on digital and on demand, and writer-director Li Dong is here to talk about Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven, in which the recent Oscar winner and his very famous friends respun the Rat Pack caper picture into cinematic cotton candy. Your genial host Norm Wilner hopes you’ll buy in.

With her feature debut The Rest of Us arriving on digital and on demand today, producer-director Aisling Chin-Yee is here to explore the life-changing impact of Spike Lee’s masterpiece Do the Right Thing — a film that’s sadly just as relevant now as it was 31 years ago. Your genial host Norm Wilner is here to listen.

With the new 4K restoration of their 1991 drama Thousand Pieces of Gold finally available on disc and digital, filmmakers Nancy Kelly and Kenji Yamamoto have some free time to discuss the simplicity and intensity of L’Enfant, the 2005 drama from Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne starring Jeremie Renier as a young father trying to correct a terrible mistake. Your genial host Norm Wilner is here to help them through it.

Actor Keir Gilchrist (United States of Tara, It Follows, Atypical, the new drama Castle in the Ground) indulges his love of archaeology with Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams, a 3D look at French cave paintings that is, at its heart, still a Werner Herzog project. Your genial host Norm Wilner is happy to explore its depths.

With his new feature Dreamland premiering on digital and on demand in Canada this Friday, May 29th — and in the US on June 5th — filmmaker Bruce McDonald joins us to talk about Quadrophenia, and how The Who’s kitchen-sink midnight movie set him on a course to create his own cinema. Your genial host Norm Wilner still doesn’t understand why those scooters need so many side mirrors.

Actor, writer and producer Brendan Gall (Blindspot, The Go-Getters, Friday’s new Netflix comedy The Lovebirds) is here to stand up for Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, the 1999 ensemble drama that remains unmatched in its scope — and its emotional intensity. Your genial host Norm Wilner is mostly here to talk about the frogs.

With his charming new film Red Rover landing on digital and on demand in the US and Canada today, director Shane Belcourt is here to talk about Spike Jonze’s Her, a movie that more or less predicted our present moment back in 2013 — and is still, somehow, ahead of its time. Your genial host Norm Wilner believes this was the performance that should have got Joaquin Phoenix his Oscar, by the way.

Writer-director Jeff Barnaby — whose Mi’kmaq zombie thriller Blood Quantum is now available on demand in Canada and streaming on Shudder in the rest of the world — embraces the pulpy Victorian horror of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 spectacle Bram Stoker’s Dracula with the pure heart of a fan. Your genial host Norm Wilner did not see this one coming.

Actor turned filmmaker Amy Jo Johnson — whose spiky second feature Tammy’s Always Dying debuts on VOD this Friday, May 1st — joins us to discuss Matt Ross’ Captain Fantastic, the 2016 road movie-slash-family drama that earned Viggo Mortensen his second Oscar nomination, introduced American audiences to a lad named George MacKay and started Amy Jo on the path to making her own stuff. Your genial host Norm Wilner is ready to take the ride.

For our first isolation episode, Barry Sonnenfeld — cinematographer (Raising Arizona, When Harry Met Sally …), director (Get Shorty, Men in Black) and now author (Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother: Memoirs of a Neurotic Filmmaker) — joins us from Telluride to talk about The Long Goodbye, Robert Altman’s woozy 1973 spin on Raymond Chandler’s hard-boiled detective novel. Your genial host Norm Wilner was surprised at how well the whole remote-recording thing turned out.

What We Do in the Shadows breakout star Harvey Guillen celebrates the show’s return (this Wednesday! 9 pm! On FX!) with a tribute to James Cameron’s Titanic, the monster hit that paired Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as young lovers trying to survive the greatest nautical disaster of their time. Your genial host Norm Wilner had no idea he’d be dropping this episode on the 108th anniversary of the sinking, truly.

Actor and filmmaker Jessica Hinkson (Another Wolfcop, Jessica Jessica) is here to celebrate one of the oddest musicals ever made: Romance and Cigarettes, John Turturro’s wild attempt at infusing a working-class love triangle with the spirit of a jukebox musical — and starring James Gandolfini as a guy named Nick Murder. Your genial host Norm Wilner never thought anyone would pick this movie … and he’s so there for it.

Feel nostalgic for cans of 35mm film and eating in restaurants as comedian and actor Andy Kindler (Raising Dad, Bob’s Burgers, the Thought Spiral podcast) steps up for The Big Picture, Christopher Guest’s 1989 comedy starring Kevin Bacon as a promising young director who discovers the last thing Hollywood wants him to do is make art. Your genial host Norm Wilner still wishes the Pez People had released an album.

This week, actor and writer Jess Salgueiro — of Letterkenny, Workin’ Moms, The Boys, Mouthpiece, I’ll Take Your Dead and most recently Canadian Strain, now available on digital in Canada — drops in to talk about One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the 1975 Milos Forman drama where Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher faced off in a mental institution, and everybody won Oscars for their trouble. Your genial host Norm Wilner hopes everyone is safe and sound this week, by the way.

Canadian-born, London-based standup Mae Martin is the co-creator and star of the terrific new Channel 4 series Feel Good, which premieres in the UK tomorrow and lands on Netflix everyhere else on Thursday. And she’s here to celebrate the weird, wonderful world of The Rocky Horror Picture Show … and to reveal a personal connection to Jim Sharman’s 1975 midnight classic. As it turns out, your genial host Norm Wilner remembers the sequel a lot more clearly.

For our fifth anniversary, we’re in London with writer-director-producer Marie Clements (The Road Forward, Looking at Edward Curtis), whose new film Red Snow opens in Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa this Friday, March 13th. And she’s there to stand up for Paul Haggis’ Crash, the 2004 ensemble drama about race and class in America that became the Oscar winner everyone loved to hate. Your genial host Norm Wilner is happy to help her correct this injustice.

With his first feature Run This Town opening across the US and Canada this Friday, March 5th, writer-director Ricky Tollman drops in to discuss the existential questions — and unexpected belly laughs — lurking within Ruben Ostlund’s Force Majeure. Your genial host Norm Wilner is braced for the avalanche.

Writer-director Albert Shin, whose new thriller Disappearance at Clifton Hill opens in theatres this Friday in the US and Canada, would like to direct your attention to Memories of Murder, the 2003 South Korean procedural that established Bong Joon-ho as one of the most interesting and versatile filmmakers of the new millennium. Your genial host Norm Wilner is not kidding about that assessment.

His debut feature Nose to Tail is now playing in Toronto, Winnipeg and Calgary, so writer-director Jesse Zigelstein is here to raise a glass to Sideways, Alexander Payne’s 2004 drama about two friends on a trip to wine country — and who, before it’s over, will face their own personal spit buckets. Your genial host Norm Wilner is fine with merlot, just for the record.

Actor and podcaster Lara Jean Chorostecki (Hannibal, X Company, Designated Survivor) co-stars with Aaron Abrams in the indie Nose to Tail, which opens in Toronto, Winnipeg and Calgary this Friday, February 14th. Which makes it the perfect time to discuss the subtle perfection of Elsie Fisher’s performance — and writer/director Bo Burnham’s piercing attention to detail — in Eighth Grade. Your genial host Norm Wilner was so sure he was ready for this.

With the Oscars just days away, Toronto filmmaker Sami Khan — whose St. Louis Superman is up for Best Documentary Short — takes a break from the awards circuit to talk about the landmark American drama Daughters of the Dust, and how writer-director Julie Dash’s evocative study of people dealing with a shared trauma influenced his own work (and Beyoncé’s). Your genial host Norm Wilner was delighted for the opportunity to revisit the film.

Actor JC MacKenzie — currently battling monsters in October Faction and corruption in The Irishman, both of which are streaming on Netflix right now — takes a run at Sam Mendes’ 1917, the single-take WWI drama that’s muscled its way to the head of the Oscar pack. Your genial host Norm Wilner, being a big fan of editing, might need some convincing.

Actor and filmmaker Sofia Banzhaf — whom you may know from Closet Monster, Bitten, Carter and Black Conflux, and whose short film I Am In The World As Free And Slender As A Deer On A Plain screens at the TIFF Bell Lightbox this Sunday, January 26th, at 4 pm in the Canada’s Top Ten shorts program — is here to make sure The Canyons, Paul Schrader’s 2013 Hollywood scenester drama starring Lindsay Lohan and James Deen, gets the love it deserves. Your genial host Norm Wilner is not entirely sure he accepts this premise.

Actor Dan Beirne (Great Great Great, Workin’ Moms, White Lie) just won the Vancouver Film Critics Circle award for his performance as William Lyon Mackenzie King in Matthew Rankin’s absurdist history The Twentieth Century. He’s here to talk about Monrovia, Indiana and the observational documentary cinema of Frederick Wiseman. Your genial host Norm Wilner is keen to see how that goes.

Actors Vladimir Jon Cubrt (Hannibal, Stockholm) and Nicole Maroon (Meet the Family, The Boys) are partners in both life and work, and their new film Luba — which Vlad wrote and produced, and which stars Nicole as a young mother trying to get her life on an even keel while dealing with her disintegrating ex — opens in Calgary and Toronto this Friday, January 10th. (It’ll also be available for purchase on HighballTV.com.) They wanted to talk about A Fish Called Wanda, the 1988 comedy in which John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline and Michael Palin chase each other around London over some stolen jewels. Your genial host Norm Wilner was awfully curious to see how these things are connected.

Krysty Wilson-Cairns, co-writer of Edgar Wright’s upcoming Last Night in Soho and Sam Mendes’ WWI drama 1917, takes a break from a marathon press tour to share her pure and lasting love for Shallow Grave, the scrappy little thriller that put Danny Boyle, John Hodge and Andrew Macdonald on the cinematic map 25 years ago. Your genial host Norm Wilner wishes everyone a happy holiday, and really hopes Krysty pitches that sequel sometime.

On this week’s episode, Cameron Maitland — the co-host of the Royal Canadian Movie Podcast and a film and content specialist for Hollywood Suite — drops by to talk about the deep-dive retrospective series he’s written for the service, A Year in Film, and one movie in particular: Reginald Hudlin’s Boomerang, the 1992 romantic comedy that gave Eddie Murphy a chance to do something radically different with his persona … and which became a blockbuster most people remember as a failure. Your genial host Norm Wilner would like to remind you that Hollywood Suite’s free preview is on until January 5, 2020. Go watch something!

Her new project Things I Do For Money just had its world premiere at Whistler, so now we can release producer (and actor, and podcaster) Jen Pogue‘s very fun episode on Michael Dowse’s The F Word — the delightful 2013 romantic comedy (released in the US as What If) where Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan try to be friends despite an obvious attraction. Your genial host Norm Wilner is just happy to be celebrating a movie where Toronto plays itself.

Writer, activist and actor Audra Williams drops by to share her love and admiration for Judy Holliday’s Oscar-winning performance in George Cukor’s Born Yesterday — and to discuss how the ethical awakening of Billie Dawn worked as an anchor in her own life. Your genial host Norm Wilner is always up for a comedy with a philosophical core.

Writer, producer and director Erin Berry — whose second feature Majic just had its Canadian premiere at the Blood in the Snow festival in Toronto — celebrates the 35th anniversary of Dune, the David Lynch epic that was supposed to be Universal’s big Christmas event picture of 1984, and decidedly was not. Your genial host Norm Wilner double-checked the correct pronunciation of “Arrakis” for this.

Filmmaker Matt Gallagher — whose award-winning documentary Prey makes its network and streaming premiere on TVOntario and TVO.org tonight, Tuesday November 19th, at 9 pm — chooses Bennett Miller’s 2011 sports drama Moneyball, the one where Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill reinvent baseball with statistics. Your genial host Norm Wilner is not a sports guy, which may explain the preceding synopsis.

Journalist turned writer (Seinfeld‘s “The Fusilli Jerry”), producer (First Round Down) and distributor (Unobstructed View) Jonathan Gross drops in to discuss his very personal connection to Garry Marshall’s 1984 dramedy The Flamingo Kid, the one where Matt Dillon is a Brooklyn kid who takes a summer job as a Long Island cabana boy. Your genial host Norm Wilner is willing to hear the spiel.

Producer and director Roland Emmerich — you know, the guy who made Stargate, Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, and whose new WWII picture Midway opens everywhere this Friday, November 8th — takes some time out of the Midway press tour to talk about Steven Spielberg’s 1977 first-contact epic Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which literally changed the course of his life and career. Fun fact: Your genial host Norm Wilner had the same experience.

Hello, listeners! You’ve heard Norm complain about politics often enough that he thought you might appreciate the new Frequency podcast The Gravy Train. It’s an eight-part series hosted by The Big Story‘s Jordan Heath-Rawlings, considering the career and legacy of Toronto mayor Rob Ford: His rise, his disastrous reign, and the proof-of-concept he provided for global populism. This is episode one, “Suburbs”, in which Jordan charts Rob’s path to political office. If you like it, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to hear the whole miserable story.

It’s our 250th episode, and it’s Halloween, so what better time for sibling filmmakers Brett and Drew Pierce — in town to screen their new chiller The Wretched at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival — to celebrate Tom Holland’s delightful 1985 creature feature Fright Night, the one where poor Charley Brewster can’t get anyone to believe his suave new neighbor is a bloodsucking fiend. Your genial host Norm Wilner hopes you like the new theme song. And also horror movies.

Writer/director Patrick Wang (In the Family, The Grief of Others) is one of the best American filmmakers working today; with his brilliant two-part drama A Bread Factory newly available on digital and coming to disc next month, he’s here to praise the unique beauty of Electra Glide in Blue, James William Guercio’s 1973 procedural starring Robert Blake as a motorcycle cop with an unbending moral code. Your genial host Norm Wilner did not see this one coming.

Munro Chambers has two movies out right now: Jovanka Vuckovic’s Riot Girls, which dropped on VOD earlier this month, and Rob Grant’s Harpoon, now playing at the Carlton Cinemas in Toronto and also newly on iTunes. Munro would also like to share his love for what Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks accomplished with their 2000 survival drama Cast Away. Your genial host Norm Wilner is on the same page.

Actor and filmmaker Deragh Campbell — who is devastatingly good in Kazik Radwanski’s Anne at 13,000 Ft., and whose latest collaboration with Sofia Bohdanowicz, MS Slavic 7, opens this Thursday in Toronto at the TIFF Bell Lightbox — ponders the intimate ambiguities of Les Rendez-vous d’Anna, Chantal Akerman’s 1978 film about a Belgian director traveling around Europe with her latest picture. Your genial host Norm Wilner is eager to see where this goes.

Her first feature Riot Girls just arrived on VOD in the US and Canada today, so filmmaker Jovanka Vuckovic is here to throw down for the scrappy splatterpunk brilliance of Kathryn Bigelow’s 1987 horror Western Near Dark. Your genial host Norm Wilner is more than happy to ride shotgun.

Her new novel Watching You Without Me is released today, so Giller Prize-winning author Lynn Coady — who’s also worked as a writer and producer on Orphan Black, Burden of Truth and Diggstown — is here to talk about the very specific pleasures of Wait Until Dark, the 1967 thriller that pits Audrey Hepburn against Alan Arkin in a battle of wits, and also acting styles. Your genial host Norm Wilner always makes sure his freezer is defrosted.

ICYMI: Earlier this week, your genial host Norm Wilner appeared on The Big Story to take Jordan Heath-Rawlings through the themes of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival … and, inevitably, talk about that new Joker movie. Listen and enjoy, and subscribe to The Big Story and other Frequency shows wherever you get your podcasts!

With her first dramatic feature Honey Bee opening in Toronto this Friday before rolling out across Canada in the next few weeks, director Rama Rau dives into Fish Tank, Andrea Arnold’s 2009 drama starring Katie Jarvis as a rebellious English teenager looking to escape her suffocating life in Essex. Your genial host Norm Wilner was too wrung out from TIFF to do any of the dance stuff.

With his second feature The Last Porno Show making its world premiere tonight at TIFF, writer-director Kire Paputts wants to talk about Sicilian Vampire, the 2015 genre mash-up from Toronto auteur Frank D’Angelo, with whom he’s worked on a few pictures — and who plays a small but crucial role in Kire’s latest. Your genial host Norm Wilner did not see this coming, that’s for sure.

It’s TIFF time, so we brought in actor and filmmaker Aaron Poole — who’ll be at the festival this week for the world premieres of Clifton Hill on Thursday and his own short film Oracle on Sunday — to do what he does best: talk about Michael Mann’s 1995 epic cops-and-robbers drama Heat. Your genial host Norm Wilner is here to keep him sharp, on the edge, where he’s gotta be.

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 before recording this.

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 Norm Wilner did not expect this choice, but he’s open to it. And don’t forget that Norm and friend of the show Paul Sun-Hyung Lee will be introducing a very special screening of Jaws this Thursday night, at the Revue Cinema! Details at the @semcast Twitter account.

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 before listening to this episode.

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 not having antipasti on hand for this conversation.

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 Toronto.

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 the way this one turned out.

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 Lyne — 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.

Actor, playwright and now filmmaker Gord Rand -- whose feature debut Pond Life makes its world premiere in Toronto at the Canadian Film Fest later this month, and who co-stars opposite Carolina Bartczak in the upcoming drama An Audience of Chairs -- is here to tackle The Shining, Stanley Kubrick's famously contentious 1980 adaptation of Stephen King's novel. Which is handy, because your genial host Norm Wilner just finished trimming the hedge maze.

Writer, producer and director Adriana Maggs -- whose new drama Goalie opens in Toronto and Vancouver this Friday, March 1st -- steps up for a lost Canadian classic: The Adventure of Faustus Bidgood, Mark and Andy Jones' 1986 satire about the fantasy life of a Newfoundland bureaucrat. Your genial host Norm Wilner is just glad to know he's not the only person who saw it.

Documentary filmmaker Christy Garland -- whose new film What Walaa Wants screens in Toronto February 20th at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema before beginning a Canada's Top Ten run at the TIFF Bell Lightbox March 1st -- goes deep into Alexander Payne's distressingly prophetic high-school satire Election. (You know, it's the one where Matthew Broderick declares Reese Witherspoon his mortal enemy.) Your genial host Norm Wilner regrets not having cupcakes on hand.

Writer, producer and critic Ashlee Blackwell, founder of GraveyardShiftSisters.com and an essential part of the new Shudder documentary Horror Noire: The History of Black Horror, tackles the allure and repulsion of Ganja & Hess, Bill Gunn's radical 1973 study starring Duane Jones and Marlene Clark as two very different people who share an infernal thirst. Your genial host Norm Wilner is all in.

Writer, producer and director Jeremy Larter -- whose first feature Pogey Beach is now available for rental and purchase on iTunes -- settles in for a conversation about Don Shebib's Goin' Down the Road, the 1970 drama that more or less created English Canadian cinema. Your genial host Norm Wilner is trying very hard not to think about how much he hated the sequel.

Actor, producer and now screenwriter Jennifer Dale — whose new movie Into Invisible Light opens in Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver this Friday, February 1st — drops in to celebrate the vivid environments and shattering emotional arcs of Luca Guadagnino’s 2009 breakout I Am Love. Your genial host Norm Wilner tries not to bring up the Suspiria remake. (And fails.)

Author and screenwriter Linwood Barclay — who adapted his own novel Never Saw It Coming for a movie that’s newly available on iTunes — welcomes SEMcast into his home to talk about Rear Window, Alfred Hitchcock’s masterful 1954 examination of voyeurism, paranoia and gardening. Your genial host Norm Wilner is happy to pull up a chair.

Actor, author and producer Greg Sestero (The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room), whose new project Best F(r)iends reunites him with The Room's Tommy Wiseau, drops by to talk about Ed Wood ... both Tim Burton's 1994 biopic, and the actual director of Plan 9 from Outer Space and Bride of the Monster. Your genial host Norm Wilner has no idea why Greg picked a movie about a famously terrible filmmaker. No idea at all.

We’re still stuck in the ’80s, as Oscar-shortlisted filmmaker Charlie Tyrell (My Dead Dad’s Porno Tapes) brings the love for Heavy Metal, the 1981 anthology feature that was supposed to bring sexy sci-fi animation into the mainstream. Your genial host Norm Wilner has some thoughts on why it didn’t.

Welcome 2019 by going back to 1988, as writer and producer James Hurst (Degrassi: The Next Generation, Flashpoint, Wynonna Earp, Frankie Drake Mysteries and more) unpacks the mysteries of Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko — both versions! — in an epic conversation. Your genial host Norm Wilner recommends listening while lying very still.

It's Christmas Day, and writer-director Justin McConnell -- whose new movie Lifechanger opens in Toronto, Ottawa and Calgary this Friday, December 28th before coming to VOD on New Year's Day -- is here to jingle the bells for Christmas Evil (aka You Better Watch Out), Lewis Jackson's 1980 Yuletide psychodrama. Your genial host Norm Wilner knows if he's been bad or good.

Programmer, producer and occasional actor Peter Kuplowsky has long been a champion of outsider cinema, and that's why he's flying the flag for Charles Roxburgh and Matt Farley's 2012 creature feature Don't Let the Riverbeast Get You! Also, he's presenting Dial Code Santa Claus with Justin Decloux this Thursday, December 20th, at The Royal in Toronto, so your genial host Norm Wilner thought this was a nice excuse to get him on the show.

Actor Stuart Hughes, whom you may have seen in Orphan Black, Murdoch Mysteries, Republic of Doyle and It, and whom you should see in The Drawer Boy, now streaming on Highball.tv, celebrates the 40th anniversary of Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven by delving into its impressionistic depths. Your genial host Norm Wilner has been looking forward to this one for a while.

Prem Singh and Michael Pugliese -- who co-wrote and co-star in the true-life boxing drama Tiger, in theatres now -- throw down for Rocky, the movie that made Sylvester Stallone a star, won a few Oscars and launched a franchise that continues to this very day. Your genial host Norm Wilner, on the other hand, is famous for his glass jaw.

This episode isn't really about The Swimmer, Frank and Eleanor Perry's 1968 drama about the death of the American dream. It's just the hook for singer-songwriter Ensign Broderick -- whose new album Bloodcrush is in stores and online, and whose song "Accidence" powers the new short by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson -- to talk about the film music he finds most meaningful. And it turns out your genial host Norm Wilner is just fine with that.

Actor Richard Clarkin of Great Great Great, Ordinary Days, Murdoch Mysteries and The Drawer Boy, which opens in Toronto this week, settles in to talk about The Pledge, Sean Penn's searing 2001 drama starring Jack Nicholson as a retired police detective obsessed with finding a killer of young girls. Your genial host Norm Wilner is always up for a wallow in the heart of darkness.

It's our 200th episode, and actor, writer, funny person and insightful podcaster Naomi Snieckus is here to help us celebrate it -- which makes perfect sense, since her choice of Judd Apatow's The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling is all about self-knowledge as a conduit to comedy. Your genial host Norm Wilner apologizes in advance for all of the personal material.

Actor, writer and killer stand-up Mark Little has been a superfan of Fred Dekker's 1987 horror comedy The Monster Squad for his entire goddamn life, and now that Mark's new movie Room For Rent is available on iTunes -- and still playing theatrically in Winnipeg and Ottawa! -- he has an excuse to talk about it for an hour. Your genial host Norm Wilner has some questions about nards.

In town to close the Toronto After Dark Film Festival with his slasher comedy You Might Be the Killer, writer-director Brett Simmons tackles Rick Rosenthal's Halloween II ... the first sequel to John Carpenter's horror masterpiece, but by no means the last. Your genial host Norm Wilner is all in, even though he totally knows this won't be the end of Michael Myers.

Actor, writer and producer Ruth Goodwin -- who's finishing up a run of The Wolves at Streetcar Crowsnest in Toronto this week -- steps up for Bend It Like Beckham, Gurinder Chadha's 2002 sleeper starring Parminder Nagra, Keira Knightley and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers in a culture-clash comedy. Your genial host Norm Wilner doesn't know a striker from a winger, but whatever.

Filmmaker and podcaster Justin Decloux -- who celebrates the Blu-ray debut of his new feature Impossible Horror next Tuesday, October 23rd, with a release party and screening at The Royal in Toronto -- steps up for Army of Darkness, Sam Raimi's goofy 1993 adventure that wrapped up his Evil Dead trilogy with a lot more comedy than people were expecting. Your genial host Norm Wilner has his boomstick at the ready.

Author, critic and occasional actor Adam Nayman — whose shiny new book The Coen Brothers: This Book Really Ties the Films Together is available now from Abrams — steps up for Fargo, their Oscar-winning 1996 dramedy about people making very bad decisions in Minnesota. Your genial host Norm Wilner agrees with him one hundred percent.

Actor, writer and director Anna Hopkins -- whom you'll be seeing in Bad Blood when its second season starts up on Thursday, October 11th, and who's making the festival rounds with her short film The Give & Take -- stops in to share her love for E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Steven Spielberg's 1982 classic about a boy and his alien. Your genial host Norm Wilner feels exactly the same way about it, which is nice.

Artist and filmmaker Ross Sutherland — who’s bringing his Imaginary Advice podcast to The Fest in Chicago this Monday, October 1st — makes the case for Sidney Lumet’s Network as a movie that was both utterly of its moment and somehow ahead of its time. Your genial host Norm Wilner is constitutionally incapable of being mad as hell.

TIFF 18 is over, so let’s flash back to TIFF 17, when writer-director Clio Barnard premiered her new drama Dark River in the Platform program … and slipped away from the press cycle to talk about Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg’s groundbreaking 1970 psychodrama Performance. Your genial host Norm Wilner reminds you that drugs are bad, mmkay.

What? An episode dropping on a Monday? That’s because writer-director Akash Sherman’s first feature Clara is making its world premiere at TIFF this very day, and we mark the occasion by talking about the Star Wars saga. Yup. All of it. Prepared for this, your genial host Norm Wilner is.

As his first feature Trench 11 arrives on iTunes in the US and Canada today, writer-director Leo Scherman finds an unexpected connection to George Sluizer’s The Vanishing, the 1988 thriller with the ending that just won’t let go. Your genial host Norm Wilner has some thoughts about that.

Grace Glowicki -- who co-stars in Cardinals this Friday at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto, and who'll be back at TIFF in September with Roney's short film Glitter's Wild Women -- sits down to talk about Love, and how its graphic sex scenes are Gaspar Noe's gateway to honesty. Your genial host Norm Wilner would like you to know that this episode features explicit discussions of sexual content, but we're all adults here.

Documentary filmmaker Barry Stevens is in the studio to mark the 50th anniversary of 2001: A Space Odyssey just as Stanley Kubrick’s visionary masterwork about humanity’s place in the universe makes its IMAX 70mm debut. Your genial host Norm Wilner has a theory about the monolith he’s been sitting on for quite some time.

Tamara Podemski, currently starring in the new thriller Never Saw It Coming, is here to confess her love for The Band’s Visit, Eran Kolirin’s 2007 charmer that somehow became a Broadway smash. Your genial host Norm Wilner has to be honest: He loves it too.

Now that friend of the show Corey Mintz is a podcaster himself -- check out his new series Taste Buds on the Canadaland network! -- he makes a triumphant return to celebrate Big Night, Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott's wonderful 1996 movie about brothers, business, art, food and Louis Prima. Your genial host Norm Wilner bought a red-and-white checkered tablecloth just for the occasion.

Filmmaker Randall Okita — whose first feature The Lockpicker arrives on iTunes later this month following screenings across Canada — is in the studio to talk about Kids, Larry Clark’s 1995 indie about oversexed youth that Harvey Weinstein turned into an artistic cause celebre. Your genial host Norm Wilner has some thoughts about this.

The show returns to London so journalist and filmmaker Neville Pierce — whose latest short, Promise, just arrived on Vimeo — can discuss the life-changing impact and technical virtuosity of David Fincher’s Seven. Your genial host Norm Wilner believes in the second part.

It's construction season, but that won't stop Brent Hodge, director of I Am Chris Farley, The Pistol Shrimps and the brand-new Freaks and Geeks: The Documentary, from discussing Superbad, the 2007 comedy that legitimized writer-producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg as a creative force all their own. Your genial host Norm Wilner identifies more with McLovin, much as it pains him to admit this.

With her new novel Give Me Your Hand arriving this week, author and television writer Megan Abbott celebrates on the 1944 noir masterpiece that is Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity. Fred MacMurray as kind of a heel! Barbara Stanwyck as a seductress in a bad wig! Edward G. Robinson as the world's saddest detective! Your genial host Norm Wilner even included authentic Manhattan traffic noises for atmosphere.

With his remarkable drama The Unseen newly available on iTunes, Geoff Redknap settles in for a conversation about Joel and Ethan Coen’s Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men, the film that made bowl cuts scary again. Your genial host Norm Wilner just wants to point out he’s never won a coin toss in his life.

You’ve seen her in Saw 3D, Flashpoint and Workin’ Moms, and she currently plays the ferocious Kali in the new feature film Darken. Now listen to actress Olunike Adeliyi discuss Boyz N the Hood, and how John Singleton’s Oscar-nominated breakout changed her life. Your genial host Norm Wilner had the Criterion laserdisc at the ready.

With her first feature Paper Year playing theatrically in Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver (and available across Canada on iTunes and Google Play), writer-director Rebecca Addelman drops in to talk about The Graduate, Mike Nichols' indelible 1967 satire of American upper class and lower morals. Your genial host Norm Wilner has never sat at the bottom of a swimming pool, because he's allergic to chlorine.

Her second feature Octavio Is Dead! opens in Toronto and Regina this Friday, so broadcaster and filmmaker Sook-Yin Lee is here to dive into the simple, stark power -- and, regrettably, the present-day relevance -- of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1973 drama Ali: Fear Eats the Soul. Your genial host Norm Wilner is pretty sure he didn't confuse Munich for Berlin again.

Do you like scary movies? Emily Gagne and Danita Steinberg, hosts of the new podcast We Really Like Her!, bring the love for Wes Craven's Scream, the 1996 movie that taught us all to be afraid of crank calls and department-store ghost costumes. Your genial host Norm Wilner made sure to record this during the day in a room with plenty of windows. It's just safer for everybody.

Before writer-director Antoine Bourges brings his first feature Fail to Appear to Toronto's TIFF Bell Lightbox this week, he stops into the studio to discuss the austere allure of Chantal Akerman's 2000 Proust adaptation La Captive -- a choice that lines up very nicely with his own aesthetic. Your genial host Norm Wilner exerts only the smallest amount of control on the conversation.

For our 175th episode, we welcome author, actor and fake Internet judge John Hodgman — whose lovely book Vacationland is out in paperback today! — to the studio to talk about Murder on the Orient Express, Kenneth Branagh’s opulent Agatha Christie adaptation starring all those actors you like. Your genial host Norm Wilner is delighted to play conductor.

With his new film Adventures in Public School is on iTunes and Amazon Video in the US, and available for pre-order on iTunes in Canada, Kyle Rideout drops in to talk about the lush, digitally enhanced beauty of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie. Which explains why your genial host Norm Wilner has been receiving photos of a gnome for the last few weeks.

As his new film The Child Remains expands across Canada, writer-director Michael Melski turns his thoughts to Peter Medak’s 1980 chiller The Changeling, and how effective a horror film can be with one great actor and a few carefully calibrated scares. Your genial host Norm Wilner still prefers not to think about the wheelchair.

Birdland director Peter Lynch digs deep into The Conversation, Francis Ford Coppola’s note-perfect 1974 thriller about surveillance, paranoia and the strange watchability of Gene Hackman in an ugly plastic raincoat. Your genial host Norm Wilner strongly recommends you watch the movie before listening to this episode. Like, really strongly.

Oscar-winning documentary producer Frederic Bohbot — whose first dramatic film Boost is now available on iTunes — does his best to unpack the tangled conspiracies and complex filmmaking of Oliver Stone’s JFK. Your genial host Norm Wilner resists the urge to say “back and to the left” every six seconds.

Her new short Pumpkin Movie has its Canadian premiere at Hot Docs this Thursday, April 26th, so filmmaker Sophy Romvari is here to discuss Kirsten Johnson’s masterful 2016 essay film Cameraperson. Never seen it? Your genial host Norm Wilner thinks you should rectify that as soon as possible.

With his new film Kodachrome arriving on Netflix this Friday — and opening theatrically in major U.S. cities — filmmaker Mark Raso digs deep into the mysteries of The Talented Mr. Ripley, Anthony Minghella’s 1999 adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s seductive chiller. Your genial host Norm Wilner is totally not getting into that rowboat.

As far back as he can remember, actor Ajuawak Kapashesit has always loved GoodFellas. And with his new movie Indian Horse opening across Canada this Friday, it seemed like the perfect time for him to tell us about that. Your genial host Norm Wilner brought his shinebox and everything.

This week, the podcast goes to London so director Saul Dibb -- whose striking WWI drama Journey's End expands across Canada this Friday -- can share his love for A Prophet, Jacques Audiard's knockout drama starring Tahar Rahim as a young man trying to survive six years in a French prison. Your genial host Norm Wilner wouldn't make it six hours.

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 recording this on such a rainy day.

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 hangers-on. Your genial host Norm Wilner renewed his MindHead membership for this.

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 of the episode.

Sarah Kolasky, star of the new drama Great Great Great -- which she co-wrote and co-produced with director Adam Garnet Jones, and which opens this Friday after Wednesday night screenings at Landmark theaters across Canada -- digs into the emotional puzzle box that is Lynne Ramsay's Morvern Callar. Your genial host Norm Wilner has his Walkman at the ready.

Actor Rick Roberts snuck away from rehearsals for the Soulpepper production of Waiting For Godot — playing at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto through Saturday October 7th — to dig deep into the industrial and philosophical muck of David Lynch’s Eraserhead. Your genial host Norm Wilner has been looking forward to this one.

Just days after Joseph Kahn's Bodied won the Grolsch Midnight Madness People's Choice Award at TIFF, here's screenwriter Alex Larsen -- who based the script on his own life as battle rapper Kid Twist -- to celebrate the wonders of Hayao Miyazaki's luxurious mythical adventure Princess Mononoke. Your genial host Norm Wilner can't believe it's taken this long for someone to pick a Studio Ghibli movie.

He's the star of the new film Black Cop, which has its world premiere at TIFF tonight (Tuesday September 12th) and screens twice more over the course of the week, and Ronnie Rowe, Jr. is on the podcast to talk about Mathieu Kassovitz' 1995 breakout La Haine, a thriller whose themes have only grown more relevant in the decades since it arrived. Your genial host Norm Wilner lives a life without hate; just don't mention the Transformers movies.

Her first feature Mary Goes Round premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival tomorrow -- that's Saturday, September 9th -- so there's no better time for writer-director Molly McGlynn to drop in and talk about her love for American Beauty, which put Sam Mendes and Alan Ball on the map when it bowed at TIFF in 1999. Your genial host Norm Wilner is willing to look closer.

In advance of The Lowest of the Low's new album Do The Right Now dropping this Friday, September 8th -- and the Low launching said album with a concert at the Danforth Music Hall on Saturday September 9th -- occasional soundtrack composer and full-time musician Ron Hawkins stops in to talk about The Third Man, that all-time great Carol Reed thriller where Orson Welles rides a Ferris wheel. Your genial host Norm Wilner brought his cuckoo clock.

There’s no better guest to take us into Fan Expo than actor Jason Deline, who brings his profound love for Batman: The Movie — and its star, the late Adam West — into the studio. Your genial host Norm Wilner has Bat-Shark-Repellent standing by, because he’s considerate like that.

Musician Luke Lalonde makes his acting debut in Pavan Moondi's Sundowners (opening in Toronto this Friday, August 25th, at TIFF Bell Lightbox), so he drops in to discuss Spike Jonze's amazing Adaptation., the one where Charlie Kaufman writes himself into a movie about Charlie Kaufman writing himself into a movie. Your genial host Norm Wilner was pretty psyched about this one.

With his first feature O, Brazen Age! arriving on iTunes today, writer-director Alexander Carson stops in to discuss Terence Davies’ autobiographical 1988 drama Distant Voices, Still Lives and its profound impact on his own artistic development. Your genial host Norm Wilner made sure to put the kettle on.

Actor, writer and producer Kelly McCormack — currently killing it as Zeph on Killjoys and Eloida on The Neddeaus of Duquesne Island — brings big love for Brian de Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise, the 1974 cult classic that reimagines Faust for the club age. Your genial host Norm Wilner spends the episode wondering if they’ve both been dosed.

With  his first feature Lady Macbeth in theaters in the U.S. and Canada, it's the perfect time for director William Oldroyd to drop in and talk about his fascination with Michael Haneke's Cache, the 2005 thriller in which Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche are tormented by an unknown stalker with a very patient camcorder. Your genial host Norm Wilner has never owned a video camera, honest.

Filmmaker, illustrator, author and performer Dave McKean shines a light on Street of Crocodiles, a stop-motion short by the Brothers Quay that he counts as a key discovery on his own artistic evolution. Your genial host Norm Wilner is delighted that someone’s finally brought an animated work to the show.

Buzzfeed Canada senior staff writer and co-host of the I Hate It But I Love It podcast Kat Angus throws down for John Carpenter’s The Thing — the 1982 remake-cum-reinvention that stands as one of the genre’s greatest, and features Kurt Russell with a really big beard. Your genial host Norm Wilner is only eating out of cans for this one.

Author, documentarian and occasional screenwriter Jon Ronson — co-writer of the brilliant Okja, now streaming everywhere on Netflix — steps up for Tomas Alfredson’s masterful 2008 drama Let the Right One In, in which a bullied little boy is befriended by a little girl who is much more complicated than she seems. Your genial host Norm Wilner doesn’t understand why there were quite so many cats outside.

With Broken Social Scene’s new album Hug of Thunder coming out on Friday, it seemed like the perfect time to bring Brendan Canning on for a chat about Melancholia, Lars Von Trier’s 2011 allegory about clinical depression and the end of the world. Your genial host Norm Wilner would like to point out that he planned his own wedding, and it went just fine.

Following up on Adam Barken’s look at The Ninth Configuration earlier this week, actor and comedian Matt Braunger sneaks away from a set at Comedy Bar to talk about William Peter Blatty’s other directorial effort, 1990’s The Exorcist III. Following George C. Scott’s Lt. Kinderman on a murder case that turns into an inquiry into the nature of good and evil, it’s the least scary Exorcist movie ever made … right up until it pounces. Your genial host Norm Wilner did his best to keep the noise down.

As Killjoys returns for its third season this Friday on Syfy and Space, writer-producer Adam Barken takes a deep dive into the murky depths of The Ninth Configuration, the first directorial effort from William Peter Blatty, creator of The Exorcist. Your genial host Norm Wilner advises you that this is but one of two Blatty-centric episodes this week, and asks that you come back Friday to see who he got for The Exorcist III.

This week, Jonny Sun — playwright, Twitter cult leader and author of the new book Everyone’s A Aliebn When Ur An Aliebn Too, available June 27th — drops by in advance of his North American tour to chat about Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World’s End, the majestic genre mash-ups collectively known as The Cornetto Trilogy. Never heard of them? Your genial host Norm Wilner is very disappointed. (Find Jonny in your town this summer! Check http://jomnysun.com/events for his schedule!)

How does Allana Harkin, correspondent and producer on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, unwind? She immerses herself in the pleasures of When Harry Met Sally …, the 1989 comedy in which Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Nora Ephron and Rob Reiner came together to create one of the greatest romantic comedies ever made. Your genial host Norm Wilner can see the appeal, though he’s really more of a Bruno Kirby type.

Actor Varun Saranga — who joins the Western weirdoes of Wynonna Earp when that show starts its second season this Friday on Space and SyFy — spends a rainy day discussing his love for The Royal Tenenbaums, the 2001 family drama that cemented Wes Anderson’s distinctive style after Rushmore. Your genial host Norm Wilner regrets never having been a child prodigy.

As his unsettling first feature The Transfiguration rolls through theatres in the U.S. and Canada, writer-director Michael O’Shea drops by to discuss Peter Jackson’s piercing Heavenly Creatures, the unforgettable 1994 psychodrama that put Jackson and Fran Walsh on the world-cinema map and introduced audiences to Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey. Your genial host Norm Wilner is awfully happy about this choice, even if he knows it won’t end well.

Is Up the perfect Pixar movie? Comedian and actor Ryan Dillon thinks so, and he’s here this week to make his case for Pete Docter’s spectacular tale of unlikely adventure. Your genial host Norm Wilner finds it hard to argue against any movie with a talking dog.

As the world prepares to mark the 30th anniversary of Predator next month, actor Tom Bennett — who delighted audiences as Sir James Martin in Whit Stillman’s Love & Friendship — gets to the chopper to celebrate John McTiernan’s first perfect action movie. Your genial host Norm Wilner recorded this one high above London, which may explain the echo.

With his latest feature Tommy’s Honour set to open in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal on Friday, actor-turned-filmmaker Jason Connery girds himself to explore the mystery of

It’s a special Friday bonus episode! Director Lewis Bennett — whose documentary The Sandwich Nazi opens today in Toronto — stops by to share his love for Ross Sutherland’s remarkable Stand By for Tape Back-Up, which you can stream for free at standbyfortapebackup.com . Your genial host Norm Wilner encourages you to do this.

Rachel Wilson, who stars opposite Dylan Bruce and Kristian Bruun in First Round Down (opening theatrically in Toronto this Friday), shares her love for James L. Brooks’ Oscar-winning 1983 dramedy Terms of Endearment. You know the one. Your genial host Norm Wilner promises to keep it together.

Tammy Gillis, who stars in the new drama Menorca — now playing theatrically in Toronto and Winnipeg, and coming to iTunes May 9th — takes some time to celebrate the chaotic joy of Bridesmaids, the 2011 comedy that vaulted Kristen Wiig from scene-stealer to A-lister (and Oscar-nominated screenwriter), gave director Paul Feig his first commercial hit and made Melissa McCarthy a household name. Your genial host Norm Wilner is all in.

With The Girl With All the Gifts now available on demand and coming to disc next week — and his new novel The Boy on the Bridge in stores next month — screenwriter and author Mike Carey digs into the muck of Curtis Hanson’s L.A. Confidential, which marks its 20th anniversary this year. Your genial host Norm Wilner recorded this episode in London, surrounded by crisps.

With his new documentary Black Code opening in Toronto and Vancouver on Friday, Nick de Pencier shines a light on another non-fiction narrative, Donald Brittain’s Oscar-nominated Volcano: An Inquiry Into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry. Your genial host Norm Wilner is feeling extra philosophical this week.

Recorded in a very high flat in London, actor, writer and producer Reece Shearsmith takes a break from shooting series four of Inside No. 9 to celebrate the delicious cruelties of Theatre of Blood, Douglas Hickox’ 1973 revenge picture starring Vincent Price as an actor who finds an ingenious way to strike back at his critics. Your genial host Norm Wilner assures you he’s never written an ill word about Reece Shearsmith.

He just dropped his comedy special Different Times and plays Mayor Tom Hogg in Filth City, so it’s the perfect time for Pat Thornton to sit down and discuss the existential and literal chaos of Joel and Ethan Coen’s 2009 comedy masterpiece A Serious Man. That’s right, your genial host Norm Wilner calls it a masterpiece. What, you’re going to argue?

With her first feature Never Eat Alone making its Toronto premiere at the TIFF Bell Lightbox this Saturday, March 25th, writer-director Sofia Bohdanowicz discusses the undeniable pull of Lars Von Trier’s 2000 misery musical Dancer in the Dark — yes, the one where Bjork goes to prison. Your genial host Norm Wilner is … conflicted.

Writer-director Kevan Funk, whose first feature Hello Destroyer is now playing in Toronto and Ottawa before rolling out across Canada in the coming weeks, digs into the context and commentary of Todd Haynes’ devastating 1995 drama Safe. Your genial host Norm Wilner had an immunity suit on hand in the studio.

With their powerhouse drama The Other Half arriving on VOD in Canada today and in American theatrical release this Friday, March 10th, co-stars Tatiana Maslany and Tom Cullen discuss a mutual favorite, Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 American epic There Will Be Blood. Your genial host Norm Wilner is the first to do the Daniel Plainview voice … but don’t worry, everyone gets a turn.

Revered Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin (Brand Upon the Brain!, My Winnipeg and most recently The Forbidden Room) dives into the muck and grime of Sam Peckinpah’s Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, the 1974 movie where Warren Oates drives around Mexico with a head in a sack and a thirst for bloody vengeance. Your genial host Norm Wilner is as surprised by this choice as you are.

Veteran stand-up comic and script supervisor (and nascent screenwriter) Daniela Saioni takes up the cause for Grosse Pointe Blank, the perpetually underrated 1997 action-comedy that may actually be John Cusack’s finest hour. Your genial host Norm Wilner will take any opportunity to put George Armitage’s name back into circulation, so that works out nicely.

You’ve seen her in everything from Sophie to The Strain, and now Natalie Brown — starring in The Box, Jovanka Vuckovic’s contribution to the horror anthology XX — puts on her dancing shoes for a spin through Baz Lurhmann’s 1992 debut Strictly Ballroom. Your genial host Norm Wilner just wants to learn the Bogo Pogo.

As Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival rolls onto Blu-ray and DVD — and rolls towards the Oscars later this month — actor Mark O’Brien drops in to talk about another tale of seductive, impenetrable mystery: David Fincher’s 1997 thriller The Game. Your genial host Norm Wilner may or may not be in on this.

As their charming comedy Almost Adults goes live on VOD platforms worldwide, writer Adrianna DiLonardo and director Sarah Rotella settle in to talk about Peter Jackson’s gargantuan adaptation of The Lord of the Rings and the whole Middle-Earth thing. Your genial host Norm Wilner recorded this between second breakfast and elevenses.

She’s in theaters in Miss Sloane and on TV screen in Mary Kills People, and now Grace Lynn Kung is in your ears to talk about Steven Spielberg’s 1989 blockbuster Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which turns out to be awfully relevant to the current political moment. Or maybe it’s just one of those movies that will always be relevant. Your genial host Norm Wilner is open to either interpretation.

As Dim the Fluorescents has its second screening at Slamdance, co-star Naomi Skwarna stands up for the complex, messy humanity of Kenneth Lonergan’s Margaret — and all of Lonergan’s work, really, which is why this episode includes sweves into You Can Count on Me and Manchester By the Sea. Your genial host Norm Wilner is up for it.

You’ve been good and you deserve a special Friday episode, so here’s Dim the Fluorescents director Daniel Warth — who’ll be in Park City for its Slamdance world premiere tomorrow night — on John Cassavetes’ 1984 swan song Love Streams. Your genial host Norm Wilner can’t believe this is the show’s 100th episode. Where did the time go?

His new documentary The Skyjacker’s Tale opens in Toronto on Friday, January 20th, so what better excuse for filmmaker Jamie Kastner to spend an hour talking about Mel Brooks’ 1968 bad-taste masterpiece The Producers? That’s right! None better! Your genial host Norm Wilner promises not to sing “Prisoners of Love”, even though he knows the whole song by heart.

With Michael: Every Day returning to CBC this Sunday, January 15th, actor and writer Matt Watts sits down to talk about his love for — and fascination with — Elaine May’s excruciating 1972 comedy The Heartbreak Kid. Your genial host Norm Wilner still has the scars from the Farrelly Brothers remake.

As Sleepy Hollow starts up its fourth season this Friday on Fox, co-creator and executive producer Phillip Iscove drops in to burnish the reputation of Curtis Hanson’s underrated character comedy Wonder Boys. Your genial host Norm Wilner wishes you all a happy 2017.

It’s the last episode of 2016, and actor Aaron Costa Ganis — who co-stars in the new drama Lazy Eye — sees this grim year out with Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King, which remains distressingly relevant a quarter-century after its release. Your genial host Norm Wilner is always up for a Gilliam picture.

As Antoine Fuqua’s remake arrives on disc, writer and CaseFiles of Columbo co-host Kevin Seccia reminds us why John Sturges’ first run at The Magnificent Seven remains so satisfying — and it’s not just because Steve McQueen is so damn magnetic. Your genial host Norm Wilner apologizes for telling the “Gus Van Sant’s Psycho” story again.

Oscar-nominated screenwriter and director Whit Stillman reaches across the decades to program an RKO Studios double feature: Mark Sandrich’s 1934 Astaire-Rogers musical The Gay Divorcee and John Ford’s 1950 Western Wagon Master. Your genial host Norm Wilner went all the way to the Upper East Side to secure this holiday treat.

He shares the screen in Miss Sloane with Jessica Chastain, Michael Stuhlbarg and Sam Waterston, but right now Raoul Bhaneja just wants to gaze at the majesty of David Lean’s essential 1962 epic Lawrence of Arabia. Your genial host Norm Wilner cannot blame him.

Before his new drama The Other Half opens in Toronto and Vancouver this Friday, writer-director Joey Klein drops in to talk about his admiration for James White, Josh Mond’s harrowing 2015 character study starring Christopher Abbott as a disintegrating New Yorker doing his best to care for his dying mother. Your genial host Norm Wilner is ready to go deep on this one.

Actor and improviser Becky Johnson, currently onstage in Toronto’s Second City revue Come What Mayhem, celebrates the seductive pull of Terrence Malick’s Badlands in an episode that winds through philosophy, grace and the human fascination of violence. Your genial host Norm Wilner couldn’t be happier with that.

What’s this? A special Friday bonus episode? And it features living legend Douglas Trumbull on how the experience of seeing How the West Was Won in glorious Cinerama led him to dedicate his life to expanding our conception of cinema? Your genial host Norm Wilner hopes you don’t mind.

She stars in CBC’s family drama This Life and can be seen this Friday in the theatrical release The History of Love, but right now actor Torri Higginson wants to share her love for Wim Wenders’ compassionate masterwork Wings of Desire. And you should listen to her, because your genial host Norm Wilner is feeling like love and compassion are in pretty short supply these days.

You saw him under several pounds of makeup in Star Trek Beyond as Enterprise security guard Wadjet, but this week actor Dan Payne is just his ordinary, enthusiastic self as he discusses Martin McDonagh’s 2012 caper comedy Seven Psychopaths. Your genial host Norm Wilner really hopes there’s an America left to enjoy this episode.

The U.S. election is just a week away, so it’s the ideal time for actor Lucas Neff (Fear, Inc., I Love You Both, ABC’s upcoming Downward Dog) to discuss the still sadly relevant All the President’s Men. And if you’re in Toronto on Thursday November 3rd, come see your genial host Norm Wilner introduce a screening of Alan J. Pakula’s perfect political procedural at the Revue Cinema with Brendan Canning!

Recorded live in New York City, actor Mark Gagliardi — whom you may know as Croach the Tracker on The Thrilling Adventure Hour, or as himself on Drunk History and We Got This With Mark and Hal — shares his entirely genuine love for Nicholas Hytner’s 2000 theater-kid melodrama Center Stage. Your genial host Norm Wilner can see the appeal.

In the first of two episodes recorded earlier this month in New York City, Jean Grae drops by the show to discuss Fight Club, and how she finds inspiration from David Fincher’s rebellious counterculture comedy, which really puts the “cult” in “cult cinema”. Your genial host Norm Wilner is Jack’s intense curiosity.

Somebody finally picked Jaws! And it’s actor Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, who stars in the new CBC comedy Kim’s Convenience! The result is a journey through Steven Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster — you know, the one with the shark — with a full appreciation for its thrilling energy, thoughtful character work and timeless power. This is the episode your genial host Norm Wilner has been waiting for.

His excellent new documentary The Stairs opens this Friday at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto, and Hugh Gibson marks the occasion by talking about Nicholas Meyer’s Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the last big-screen adventure of the original series cast. No, Generations doesn’t count. Your genial host Norm Wilner will explain why.

At TIFF for the North American premiere of his new film BrOTHERHOOD, actor, screenwriter and director Noel Clarke goes deep on Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 indie blockbuster Pulp Fiction – the film that changed the face of American cinema, made Samuel L. Jackson a movie star and made John Travolta great again. Your genial host Norm Wilner has no complaints about this.

Actor-writer-producer Kristin Wallace — whose new film Moments of Clarity opens theatrically in Toronto this Friday — takes advantage of the post-TIFF lull to revisit Ridley Scott’s 1991 buddy movie Thelma & Louise. Your genial host Norm Wilner is riding shotgun.

She’s bringing her directorial debut Prevenge from Venice to TIFF, but Alice Lowe will always have a special place in her heart for Jim Henson’s Labyrinth — and for David Bowie’s weirdly sexy Goblin King. In an episode recorded earlier this year in London, she discusses all of that and more as your genial host Norm Wilner tries to distract a cranky baby.

As he prepares for the world premiere of his new movie Weirdos at TIFF this Friday, screenwriter (and actor, and director, and playwright, and living legend) Daniel MacIvor stops in to talk about Sunday Bloody Sunday, John Schlesinger’s quietly searing 1971 drama starring Peter Finch, Glenda Jackson and Murray Head as a man, a woman and the lover they share. Your genial host Norm Wilner actually made tea for this one.

Fan Expo is coming to Toronto, so author Sam Maggs — who’ll be there Friday through Sunday, signing copies of The Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy and promoting her new book Wonder Women: 25 Innovators, Inventors and Trailblazers Who Changed History — brings some true Browncoat love for Serenity, Joss Whedon’s 2005 big-screen sequel to his beloved space western Firefly. Your genial host Norm Wilner aims to misbehave.

Writer-director John Magary, whose film The Mend was one of the best pictures you didn’t see last year, celebrates the curious hybrid of horror and social satire that is Mike Nichols’ 1994 Wolf — you know, the one where Jack Nicholson and James Spader have a literal pissing contest over Michelle Pfeiffer. Your genial host Norm Wilner cannot help but encourage him.

As his new film Edge of Winter makes its way into North American theatres, director Rob Connolly takes the podcast to Toontown for a conversation about Robert Zemeckis’ delightful 1988 blockbuster Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Your genial host Norm Wilner doesn’t see a single weasel in the room, no sir.

With his new feature How Heavy This Hammer opening in Toronto and Vancouver this week, filmmaker Kazik Radwanski drops by the studio to talk about Stroszek, Werner Herzog’s singular 1977 tale of alienation, despair and dancing chickens. Your genial host Norm Wilner keeps the impression to a respectful minimum.

New York chef Andrew Carmellini — who designed the dishes in Simply Irresistible before setting off on the path that led to Locanda Verde, The Dutch, Lafayette, Bar Primi, Little Park and the soon-to-be-opening Leuca — celebrates The Blues Brothers the only way he can: Through the music, man. Your genial host Norm Wilner regrets not wearing sunglasses.

Beloved actor Enrico Colantoni — of Galaxy Quest, Veronica Mars, Flashpoint, Remedy and the new psychological thriller The Dark Stranger, available today on DVD and on demand — brings the love for Martin Brest’s 1988 action comedy Midnight Run and the perfection of a still-youthful Robert De Niro. Your genial host Norm Wilner wants to know where he gets his sunglasses.

With his wilderness thriller The Interior newly available on demand and on disc, filmmaker Trevor Juras sits down to discuss another study of creeping dread in the great outdoors: Werner Herzog’s 2005 documentary Grizzly Man. Honestly, your genial host Norm Wilner would have just stayed home.

Actor-filmmaker Connor Jessup, who stars in Blackbird, American Crime and the upcoming Closet Monster, stands up for Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Still Walking, a 2008 drama about a very specific day in the lives of a Japanese family. Your genial host Norm Wilner is really happy about this, because more people should know about this movie.

Writer and comedian Ian MacIntyre (Degrassi: Next Class, Inspector Gadget, George of the Jungle) has been a fan of Ghostbusters almost all of his life, so what better time to bring him into the basement for an appreciation of Ivan Reitman’s 1984 comedy? Incidentally, you’ll be happy to hear your genial host Norm Wilner has mostly recovered from his cold.

With her awesome space adventure series Killjoys kicking off its second season on Syfy and Space this Friday, writer-producer Michelle Lovretta pulls herself away from the edit bay to talk about another space adventure: James Cameron’s Aliens, the 1986 sequel that rewrote the rules for an entire franchise. Your genial host Norm Wilner apologizes for his terrible cold.

This episode is a goodie for a couple of reasons: First, the guest is comedian and writer Dana Gould, who’s worked on two of the greatest sitcoms ever produced, The Simpsons and Parks and Recreation. Second, the movie is Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, which remains as vital a cinematic satire now as it was five decades ago. Your genial host Norm Wilner just tries not to get in the way.

His retro action thriller Gridlocked arrives on Blu-ray, DVD and VOD today, but director Allan Ungar is taking a moment to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Michael Bay’s The Rock — the movie where Nicolas Cage yells at Sean Connery and lives to tell the tale. Your genial host Norm Wilner was surprised to realize there’s a Michael Bay movie he can discuss non-sarcastically.

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 the movies.

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 choice is so money.

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 Machineabout 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 Joy.

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 went easy on the bug powder for this episode.

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 bars of “Dangerous Business”.

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 waiting in the wings.

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 Wilner can’t believe neither of us could remember the film was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing.

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.