Someone Else's Movie

This week, writer-director Alex Noyer – whose folk-horror creepshow Love Is the Monster is newly available on VOD – asks whether Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead is a faithful remake of the George A. Romero classic, or something entirely new. Your genial host Norm Wilner is very interested in the answer.

With her novel This Is Not a Test now a movie streaming on Shudder in the US and available on VOD in Canada, author Courtney Summers is here to howl about The Wolf of Snow Hollow, in which writer-director Jim Cummings plays a small-town deputy trying to solve a spate of violent murders while also dealing with his chaotic personal life. Your genial host Norm Wilner strongly suggests you watch the movie before listening to this episode.

With her first feature Forastera opening at Film Forum in New York this Friday, writer-director Lucía Aleñar Iglesias is here to explore the hidden depths of Celine Sciamma’s Petite Maman, the 2021 drama about a little girl who copes with her grandmother’s death by making a new friend: Her own mother, when she was also eight years old. Your genial host Norm Wilner wants you to know it’s simpler than it sounds.

With their charming indie The Travel Companion rolling through its US release, directors and co-writers Travis Wood and Alex Mallis are here to ponder the paradoxes and metaphors of Hong Sang-soo’s 2011 drama The Day He Arrives. Your genial host Norm Wilner is really happy he could drop this one right after the Tropical Malady episode, for reasons that will become apparent.

With his new film Two Pianos now playing in New York and Los Angeles, award-winning French writer-director Arnaud Desplechin is here to discuss a film he loves with his whole heart: Judd Apatow’s Funny People, the one where Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen play comedians grappling with life, death and jokes. Your genial host Norm Wilner truly did not see this coming.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.