It took almost eleven years and 595 episodes of Someone Else’s Movie for someone to bring Night of the Living Dead to the podcast. None of George A. Romero’s other Dead films has made it onto the show, either, despite plenty of opportunity. Maybe it’s just that the series looms too large in people’s minds, and no one wants to come up short when discussing such a landmark.

Fortunately, Jon Blair — one of the sharpest comic minds I know, and who’s bringing his one-man sketch show A Comedy at the End of the World to TO Sketchfest this Friday, March 13th (8pm at the Theatre Centre, tickets should still be available) — was more than happy to wade in. And there’s plenty to talk about, since with this one movie Romero gave us the zombie as we know it, redefined what was permissible on American movie screens and — not for nothing — spawned an entire subgenre of nightmares that’s still going strong after six decades.

I didn’t think of this until after we’d wrapped, but Night of the Living Dead is nearly as old as Star Trek, and maybe even more culturally important. The buy-in is much lower; it just takes a bite.

So jump in! Subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts or your podcatcher of choice, or just download the episode directly from the web and listen to it while you board up those doors and windows. Don’t forget the upper floors!

And then you can get caught up on Shiny Things, where last week I spun up the new releases of Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet and Edgar Wright’s The Running Man … and reviewed André Is an Idiot,  Sweetness and Hair of the Bear in Friday’s What’s Worth Watching column for paid subscribers. Are you a paid subscriber? Would you like to be? It’s not hard!

Finally, if you’ve been following the trades you might have read that the Toronto Film Critics Association lost a number of members last week over the editing of Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers’ acceptance speech to remove statements supporting Palestine. I was indeed one of the cohort that resigned, and while I’m not really discussing it publicly I will allow that being referred to as a “former Toronto fest film picker” by the Hollywood Reporter was a highlight in this whole sorry mess. Top of the world, Ma. Top of the world.

As Someone Else’s Movie approaches its eleventh anniversary — with its 600th episode not far behind! — the choices are getting more eclectic, and guests are showing a willigness to bring out the big guns. It’s really fun! People don’t seem to be intimidated by the classics any more; I’ve got some episodes coming up on movies you’ll be shocked to learn hadn’t been covered a decade ago.

For example! This week, Toronto comedian and sketch performer Tiyawnda, who’s performing her new show One Butthole After Another at TO Sketchfest this Saturday and next Thursday,  picked Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs, easily one of the most influential thrillers ever made. We wouldn’t have Seven without it, or literally hundreds of television procedurals, including The X-Files and everything that followed in its genre-bending wake*.

I’ve been waiting a really long time for someone to pick this, and it’s a fun conversation that starts with Tiyawnda’s entirely inappropriate discovery of the film and spirals out to the various other adaptations of Harris’ books, up to and including Bryan Fuller‘s brilliant Hannibal series. We also throw around our picks for a new Starling, should someone decide to take another run at the property.

You don’t want  to miss it, so dive right in! Subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts or your podcatcher of choice, or just download the episode directly from the web and listen to it in your memory palace while awaiting an interesting conversation. It’s a good one.

And feel free to revisit our sixth anniversary episode, where Come True director Anthony Scott Burns tackled the first film to bring Hannibal the Cannibal to the big screen: Michael Mann’s Manhunter. It’s a pandemic episode, but weirdly enough that suits the vibe.

Over at Shiny Things, I’m back to full strength with reviews of  new releases Song Sung Blue and Deathstalker and Warner’s 4K upgrades of All the President’s Men and Ben-Hur, as well as shout-outs to three new Warner Archive collections. And subscribers to the paid tier can look forward to Friday’s What’s Worth Watching recommendations, so don’t forget to upgrade!

Also, welcome to March! It gets warmer now, right?

*Yes, I know Chris Carter was mostly ripping off The Night Stalker, but Dana Scully wouldn’t exist without Clarice Starling; he even gave her an episode where she interviewed an incarcerated serial killer!**

**Yes, it was technically a mash-up of Lambs and William Peter Blatty’s Exorcist III. Chris Carter has never had an original idea in his life.

If my intro to this week’s Someone Else’s Movie sounds a little rough, that’s because I’m  recovering from a wicked head cold — but don’t worry, I’m fine now. Even rode a bike yesterday! Look at me, all healthy!

You’ll find my voice at full strength in the episode as well, though it might crack a little here and there because it’s a pretty emotional conversation.

My guest, the very talented writer and director Sophie Hyde — whose new film Jimpa opens this Friday at the Lightbox, and whose last movie, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, was covered on the podcast not too long ago by Vanessa Matsui –picked Andrew Haigh’s devastating All of Us Strangers … and it turned out that neither of us was quite ready to talk about that one just yet.

That’s because All of Us Strangers — while ostensibly a cautious love story — is really about the ghosts we carry with us, and the things we need from the past to get to the future. Maybe it’s not a love story at all, or not the one you think it is. Whatever it is, it’s got Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Jamie Bell and Claire Foy doing things I’ve never seen them do, and it’s one of the most profound and moving experiences I’ve had in a movie theater for years. Sophie feels the same way, and it leads to a really special conversation about a really special picture. One note: You’re definitely going to want to watch the movie before you listen, because the episode will be incomprehensible otherwise. 

So get on board! Subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts or your podcatcher of choice, or just download the episode directly from the web and listen to it on the train to … wherever it is you’re going. It’s probably a beautiful ride.

And then you can get into this week’s Shiny Things — I was off sick last week, though I did manage to get a What’s Worth Watching column out to paid subscribers on Friday, but I’m back on the horse now, having just published a piece on Warner’s splendid  4K upgrades of All the President’s Men and Ben-Hur, with a further tip of the hat to three excellent new Warner Archive Collection … collections. And there’s another edition coming later this week, complete  with a giveaway, so if you’re not a subscriber you should really get that taken care of. And then I’ll be in your inbox before you know it.

This week on Someone Else’s Movie, I’m joined by veteran television director Paris Barclay, who chose what some might see as an especially antiquated title for the episode: Stanley Kramer’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, the 1967 dramedy of manners  about white liberal parents struggling with their daughter’s engagement to an upstanding Black doctor.

Sidney Poitier plays that character, and the joke of the film that that Poitier is the world’s most charismatic and considerate person, so of course racism is the only reason people couldn’t like him. And the context in which Kramer made his movie is essential to understand why it needed to be made — which Paris is more than happy to explain in the time we have together.

Another, far more challenging Black entertainer was emerging around the same time: Billy Preston, whose life Paris explores in his documentary Billy Preston: That’s the Way God Planned It, which kicks off its theatrical run in New York on Friday and is technically the reason he’s on the podcast this week. Keep an eye out for that one, it’s good.

Wanna hear the conversation? Subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts or your podcatcher of choice, or just download the episode directly from the web and listen to it while you sit nervously in your study, trying to figure out if your kid is the problem, or you are.

And then get on to Shiny Things, where you’ll find my review of Criterion’s exquisite 4K edition of the visual feast that is Jacques Tati’s PlayTime. There’s a lot more coming this week, including two very different views of American journalism and a surprisingly deep drama about a Neil Diamond interpreter. And there’s Friday’s What’s Worth Watching newsletter for subscribers to the paid tier. Not a paid subscriber? Would you like to be? It’s easy! Just sign up for the free trial, and I’ll see you there.

This week’s episode of Someone Else’s Movie feels a little rushed, because I only had half an hour with Joan Chen and we were talking about a movie we both love, throwing ideas and feelings back and forth, each of us really listening to what the other was saying.

That’s the sort of engagement  this show often invites, and it’s wonderful. But there was also a slight delay on the Zoom, which made the conversation a little more careful than I think either of us wanted it to be. I’ve tried to edit out the stops and starts for a more natural rhythm, but if you sense some hesitation, that’s what it was.

Hopefully, though, you’ll be as swept up in our conversation about The Diving Bell and the Butterfly as we were, because while the film has faded from memory in the decades since its Cannes premiere, it deserves your attention. Julian Schnabel has made a lot of movies about artists — I think Miral is the sole exception? — but this is by far his most empathetic and immediate work, and one that lays me out every time I watch it. Joan hadn’t seen it in a while, but key moments came flooding back to her as we spoke. That’s always fun too.

Anyway, give it a listen. Subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts or your podcatcher of choice, or just download the episode directly from the web and listen to it somewhere peaceful. And go see Montreal, My Beautiful when it opens across Canada on Friday; Joan is incredible in it, and the movie’s pretty damn good as well.

There was only one edition of Shiny Things last week, covering the new Blu-ray of Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon and the 4K edition of Oz Perkins’ Keeper, but I think you’ll find it worth your time; there’s also the Friday What’s Worth Watching newsletter for the paid tier, and if you’re curious about that the 14-day free trial is right there waiting to be, um, tried. C’mon! I’m good at this, you should be reading me.

On this week’s episode of Someone Else’s Movie, I’m joined by filmmaker Blake Rice Edwards, who’s followed his charming short film Tea with a somewhat more intense work, Disc, that premiered at TIFF last year and is currently at Clermont-Ferrand. If you enjoy watching Jim Cummings panic — and truly, who doesn’t? — you’ll want to keep an eye out for this one.

Blake picked Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, the Shakespearean drama that’s been pulling all the Oscar buzz basically since it was announced — and that’s not surprising, because Zhao has pulled out all the stops to make her adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel as immediate and emotional as possible. And it mostly works, if you can ignore the machinery.

So give it a listen! Subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts or your podcatcher of choice, or just download the episode directly from the web and listen to it as you wander the fields waiting for someone to understand the exquisite beauty and singular nature of your suffering.

And then go catch up on Shiny Things, where you’ll find me catching up to Roofman, Wicked: For Good, Afterburn, Fackham Hall, Shelby Oaks and A24’s edition of The Smashing Machine, which has one of the niftiest extras I’ve seen in a while.

I also wrote a little about Catherine O’Hara’s incredible career in the wake of her untimely death. That sounds like something you’d want to read, right? Well, if you were a subscriber  you’d have read it already … so go subscribe! Jeez!

This week on Someone Else’s Movie, I’m joined by Emmanuel Kabongo, an actor who’s been a near-constant presence in Toronto productions for a decade and a half, turning up in everything from Ingrid Veninger’s The Animal Project and Joey Klein’s The Other Half to episodes of Frankie Drake Mysteries, Hudson & Rex and Star Trek: Discovery.

Emmanuel gets a starring role in the microbudget thriller Sway, which opens this week and also marks his first outing as a producer, and that seemed like a great reason to have him on the podcast — especially since he wanted to talk about Training Day, which features Denzel Washington in that Oscar-winning performance — but also got Ethan Hawke his first Oscar nomination, and 25 years later he’s looking like the favorite for his own Best Actor win. So that’s nice for everybody.

Want to check out the conversation? Subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts or your podcatcher of choice, or just download the episode directly from the web and listen to it while you sit very still and try to figure out what was in the joint you just smoked. That might be important.

And then go get caught up on your Shiny Things columns! Just yesterday, I wrote about Criterion’s exquisite new special edition of John Huston’s The Dead, and last week I tackled Warner’s 4K releases of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights and One Battle After Another. All good stuff, and there’s more on the way; all you need to do to read it is be a subscriber! So go do that, why dontcha?

Last week’s episode fell apart at the very last second — sorry to leave you all hanging, by the way — but Someone Else’s Movie is up and running today with a really fun conversation.

That’s because my guest is Oscar and Emmy nominee Hubert Davis, who’s releasing two dramatic features this year: This Friday,  his dystopian drama The Well opens in Toronto and Montreal before rolling out across the country, and this spring we’ll it’ll be followed by his remake of Youngblood, which premiered at TIFF last fall. Hubert’s a lovely guy with a wide range of interests, and he wanted to talk about Tony Scott’s Top Gun.

Yep, Top Gun. The super-slick, magic-hour Reagan-era blockbuster that defined American commercial cinema for the next decade, and Tom Cruise for a lot longer than that; the movie that reimagines An Officer and a Gentleman through a John Hughes lens, sort of, and somehow managed to launch the careers of a dozen young actors. The one that brings the MTV sensibility of Flashdance and Footloose to the Navy. Forty years after its arrival, it still has a pretty massive footprint, and Hubert was excited to explore its themes, its legacy and what it did for — and to — Tom Cruise.

So suit up! Subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts or your podcatcher of choice, or just download the episode directly from the web and listen while you sit in the ready room, waiting for the green light to engage The Enemy.

And then you can get caught up on Shiny Things, which also got off to a slow start this year due to everyone else’s release schedules. Last week I covered Lionsgate’s 4K release of Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse, speaking of war movies, and Sony’s new 4K edition of Thunderheart, which of course stars Top Gun‘s Iceman, Val Kilmer. And there’s a slew of new releases to dig into this week, so if you’re not already a subscriber you should get on board right away. Membership has its privileges, after all.

It’s a new year, but I’m reaching back to 2015 for this week’s Someone Else’s Movie in honor of Alan Zweig‘s new podcast Tubby being named one of last year’s best podcasts by Apple and Amazon. Album titles to the contrary, we love it when our friends become successful, and I’ve been really glad to see Tubby find its audience.

And Alan recorded one of the best episodes of SEMcast’s first year, tackling Peter Yates’ 1973 crime drama The Friends of Eddie Coyle — the one starring Robert Mitchum as an aging gangster being pressured to flip on his much more powerful associates. It’s one of the great character studies of the ’70s, which is really saying something, and it’s a pleasure to revisit it this week. I also promise I’ll have a fresh new episode next Tuesday; it’s just the way things shook out, man.

You know how this works: Subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts or your podcatcher of choice, or just download the episode directly from the web and listen to it surreptitiously at the Bruins game. Your friends will never notice.

And then check out the newest editions of Shiny Things, because I’ve been catching up to a bunch of December releases, specifically Black Phone 2, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, I’m Still Here, Seeds, The Smashing Machine and Timestalker. All good stuff, and there’s more on the way! Just sign up and it’ll come straight to your inbox, and you can skip this part of the post with a clean conscience. If you go for the paid tier, you’ll also get my weekly Friday roundup of recommendations! That’s worth five bucks a month, right? Of course it is.