Actor Shayelin Martin, who stars as determined teen surfer Goat in Caitlyn Sponheimer’s first feature Wild Goat Surf, now available on digital and on demand, is here to celebrate the comfort – and singing! – of Mamma Mia!, the 2008 Abba jukebox musical and international smash. Your genial host Norm Wilner has always admired Pierce Brosnan in this o…

Now that his first feature Before I Change My Mind has arrived on digital and on demand, writer-director Trevor Anderson takes a little time to celebrate Pedro Almodovar’s madcap 1987 neo-noir Law of Desire. Your genial host Norm Wilner has been waiting a long time for somebody to pick another Almodovar movie.…

Before her first feature I Used to Be Funny rolls out to theaters across North America this Friday, June 7th, writer and director Ally Pankiw (Schitt's Creek, Black Mirror, Terrific Women, Feel Good) takes a moment to celebrate the candy-colored act of subversion that is Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont's Josie and the Pussycats. Your genial host No…

As his radical slasher film In a Violent Nature lumbers its way into theaters across North America, writer-director Chris Nash steps up for the very specific chills of The Eclipse, Conor Mcpherson’s 2009 ghost story starring Ciaran Hinds as an Irish widower who finds himself drawn to a writer at his village’s annual literary festival despite being …

With her new documentary Wilfred Buck rolling into theaters across Canada, filmmaker Lisa Jackson is here to lose herself in the forests of Spirited Away, Hayao Miyazaki’s Oscar-winning 2001 fantasy about a little girl who braves a supernatural world to rescue her parents. Your genial host Norm Wilner makes sure he never eats at an enchanted buffet…

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 j…

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 seat…

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.By Norm Wilner/Frequency Podcast Network

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.By Norm Wilner/Frequency Podcast Network

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 any…

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.By Norm Wilner/Frequency Podcast Network

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 looke…

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.By Norm Wilner/Frequency Podcast Network

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.By Norm Wilner/Frequency Podcast Network

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 …

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 …

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. You…

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 …

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 …

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.By Norm Wilner/Frequency Podcast Network

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 wit…

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 pickl…

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 Wilne…

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 disc…

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 a…

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 -- …

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 t…

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 ge…

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 Wil…

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 reason…

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 Bin…

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 B…

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, o…

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 hos…

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…

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.…