Someone Else's Movie

With her award-winning first feature Blue Heron rolling into theatrical release, writer-director Sophy Romvari returns to the podcast to unpack Martha Coolidge’s devastating 1975 documentary Not a Pretty Picture, in which Coolidge enlisted a group of actors to re-create her own sexual assault and explored the effect the project has on her cast, and herself. Your genial host Norm Wilner has never seen anything like it.

With the East Coast drama Little Lorraine starting its Canadian theatrical run this Friday, April 17th, actor Auden Thornton is here to discuss Sarah Polley’s first feature Away from Her, and unpack the layers of emotion and loss running through it. Your genial host Norm Wilner had to brace himself for this one.

With his goopy, giddy contagion thriller Cold Storage now available on digital and on demand, director Jonny Campbell takes a swing at Mike Hodges’ stylish crime classic Get Carter – you know, the one where Michael Caine rampages through the Newcastle underworld. Your genial host Norm Wilner is bloody delighted to have this as our 600th episode.

Now that his new creeper The Mortuary Assistant is streaming on Shudder, director Jeremiah Kipp ventures into the sinister funeral home of Don Coscarelli’s midnight horror classic Phantasm. Your genial host Norm Wilner isn’t worried about those silver spheres at all.

With her new drama Maya and Samar now in theaters across Canada, director Anita Doron invites us to fall under the spell of Tsai Ming-Liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn, about the last screening at a grand old Taipei movie house. Your genial host Norm Wilner takes this one very personally.

It’s our 11th anniversary, and critic and author Alexandra Heller-Nicholas – whose 2020 book 1000 Women in Horror is now a documentary, and streaming on Shudder this Friday – is here to discuss Abel Ferrara and Zoe Tamerlis Lund’s unforgettable Ms. 45, which rewrote the rules of the rape-revenge thriller. Your genial host Norm Wilner has been looking forward to this one for a while.

The Oscars are tomorrow night, and Montreal filmmaker Alison McAlpine will be there with perfectly a strangeness, which is nominated for Best Documentary Short Film. But first, she wanted to talk about Maren Ade’s epic father-daughter dramedy Toni Erdmann. Your genial host Norm Wilner put his false teeth aside for this one.

It’s kind of weird that no one’s brought George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead onto the show in eleven years, right? Writer, actor and comedian Jon Blair thought so too, so in advance of premiering A Comedy Show at the End of the World at TO Sketchfest on Friday, he’s here to really sink his teeth into the zombie picture that changed movies forever. Your genial host Norm Wilner can't wait.

Before her new show One Butthole After Another premieres at TO Sketchfest, Toronto comic Tiyawnda stops in to talk about her fervent love for Jonathan Demme’s Oscar-winning horror procedural The Silence of the Lambs, starting with her first, entirely inappropriate experience of it. Your genial host Norm Wilner promises there is not a single Chianti joke in this entire episode.

With her semiautobiographical family study Jimpa rolling through theaters in the US and Canada, writer-director Sophie Hyde is here to plumb the depths of Andrew Haigh’s moody masterpiece All of Us Strangers. Your genial host Norm Wilner has been hoping someone would pick this one.

With his new documentary Billy Preston: That’s the Way God Planned It opening in New York on Friday, veteran director Paris Barclay is here to unpack Stanley Kramer’s 1967 hot-button love story Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner – a picture he knows inside and out. Your genial host Norm Wilner is here to take it in.

Actor and filmmaker Joan Chen has been racking up awards for her performance in Xiaodan He’s Montreal, My Beautiful; now that it’s opening across Canada on Friday, February 13th, she’s here to talk about how much she loves Julian Schnabel’s 2007 drama The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Your genial host Norm Wilner regrets that we only had half an hour for this one.

Writer-director Blake Winston Rice – whose latest short film Disc is playing this week in the Clemont-Ferrand Short Film Festival – is so enraptured by Chloe Zhao’s swooning historical drama Hamnet that he had to bring it onto the show. Your genial host Norm Wilner can see how that could happen.

Rising actor Emmanuel Kabongo – who both produces and stars in the new thriller Sway, opening in Toronto on Friday – counts Denzel Washington’s Oscar-winning performance in Training Day as one of the formative experiences of his young life, so Antoine Fuqua’s 2001 thriller was his first choice for the podcast. Your genial host Norm Wilner can see how that could happen.

With his first dramatic feature The Well opening across Canada on Friday, Oscar- and Emmy-nominated director Hubert Davis is here to talk about Top Gun, the 1986 blockbuster that defined commercial American moviemaking for a decade – and made Tom Cruise a movie star for a lot longer. Your genial host Norm Wilner has never felt the need for speed, but he can see the appeal.

Toronto filmmaker Alan Zweig has his own show these days, and in honor of Tubby being named one of Apple and Amazon’s Podcasts of 2025, here's his episode on Peter Yates’ masterful 1973 crime drama The Friends of Eddie Coyle, starring Robert Mitchum as a low-level Boston mobster contemplating flipping on his associates to avoid a jail sentence. Jeez, your genial host Norm Wilner sounded so much younger in 2015 …

In memory of the late Rob Reiner, we’re revisiting two of his best-beloved films: This week, it’s Allana Harkin’s 2017 celebration of When Harry Met Sally, the romantic comedy that gave us Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan and Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby at their most effortlessly charming – and minted Nora Ephron as a genre-defining screenwriter. Your genial host Norm Wilner had forgotten all about the massive rainstorm halfway through the episode.

To honor the late Rob Reiner, we’re revisiting two of his best-beloved films: This week, from early 2022, actor Kristin Booth celebrates the wide-open heart of his magical, impossibly entertaining The Princess Bride. We need this, folks. Your genial host Norm Wilner is really getting tired of the Pit of Despair.

With her latest movie Code 3 on digital and on demand this Friday, December 19th, actor Aimee Carrero is here to celebrate Mike Nichols’ (and Elaine May’s) 1996 version of The Birdcage, with Robin Williams and Nathan Lane as a gay couple trying to trick the conservative parents of their son’s fiancee into thinking they’re a nice, normal couple – which, of course, they are. Your genial host Norm Wilner wishes Gene Hackman had done more comedies.

With his critically beloved debut drama Eephus now on VOD and streaming on Mubi, writer-director Carson Lund stops in to share his love of Monte Hellman’s Two-Lane Blacktop, the existential cross-country race drama with James Taylor, Dennis Wilson and Warren Oates that confounded and enthralled audiences in 1971. Your genial host Norm Wilner is all about the momentum, man.