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.