TIFF is still rolling along, but I am pivoting to physical media for this week’s episode of Someone Else’s Movie, now resuming its regular schedule because “every other day” is basically a full-time job.

As it happens, physical media is the full-time job of this week’s guest, David Gregory. He’s the co-founder and president of Severin Films, a truly excellent producer and distributor of 4K and Blu-ray special editions. I’ve reviewed a bunch of them over at Shiny Things, most recently The War Game and Threads, but to boil it down? Severin does God’s work for genre cinema.

Want another example? Check out their special edition for Delicatessen, which is the movie David wanted to bring onto the podcast. And I was delighted, because somehow no one had ever chosen Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro’s delirious dystopian reverie about post-apocalyptic apartment dwellers grudgingly indebted to the local butcher. Also it’s a comedy. And a love story. And a horror movie, from a certain angle. And who doesn’t want to hear about that?

Not you, surely. So go find  the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts or your podcatcher of choice, or download the episode directly from the web and listen to it to pass the time while you carve up the latest … package … for your customers.

After that, you might as well catch up on your Shiny Things. And if you’ve already read about my visit to the brand-new Cinema Cellar store, there’s a review of Warner Archive’s glorious 4K edition of Out of the Past coming up later today. So don’t miss out! And if you haven’t joined the paid tier already, upgrade that subscription so as not to miss Friday’s What’s Worth Watching, which this week returns to its original “only good stuff, I promise” form factor.  See you there?

Turns out releasing three episodes of Someone Else’s Movie in five days isn’t that much of a challenge. Here’s the last of my TIFF run, featuring Quebec writer-director Alexandre Franchi, whose new film L’Autre has its world premiere tonight at the festival with a repeat screening Monday afternoon.

I hadn’t seen Alexandre since he brought his first film, The Wild Hunt, to the 2009 festival. He’s gone through some stuff since then, a lot of which is in this new movie. It’s pretty good; you should check it out.

And Alexandre picked another movie that’s been a long time coming: Alain Resnais’ 1959 new-wave breakthrough Hiroshima, Mon Amour, a haunting romance set against the backdrop of one of humanity’s greatest atrocities. I’m surprised it’s taken so long for someone to bring this particular film to the podcast, but I guess it was waiting for him.

Come on, then; subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts or your podcatcher of choice, or download the episode directly from the web and listen to it while your lover sleeps beside you in the sanctuary you’ve made for one another.

After that, there is Shiny Things; specifically, my visit to the new brick-and-mortar Cinema Cellar store that just opened in downtown Toronto and is currently All Criterion All The Time. It’s nice there. And of course if you’re a paid subscriber you got yesterday’s What’s Worth Watching, featuring my exclusive reviews of the new seasons of North of North and The Paper and Gal Gadot’s new thriller The Runner, which is … well, it’s not good, but it is worth watching. As a cautionary tale, perhaps.

Not on  the paid tier? Level up! Five bucks a month gets you so many additional words, why wouldn’t you want that?

Surprise! Here’s the week’s first bonus episode of Someone Else’s Movie, and if you’re thinking “Wait, did he say the first?” well … yes, yes he did.

I’m just trying to keep up with TIFF’s schedule, and award-winning documentarian Carol Nguyen is bringing her first feature-length project  Still Night, Burning House to the festival on Saturday. So her episode drops now, because there’s another one cued up for Saturday!

I know! It’s nuts! But I’d be a total butt if I deprived you of a very engaging discussion of Tampopo, and the manner in which Carol discovered Juzo Itami’s 1985 “noodle Western” in the first place. We also take a more serious turn into the  subject matter of Carol’s film, and how she navigates the very specific responsibilities that come with making a movie about her own family. Somehow it all works.

Want to hear how? Call up the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts or your podcatcher of choice, or download the episode directly from the web and listen to it while you practice your noodle flips. It’s an art, you know!

And while there’s not much new in Shiny Things since Tuesday’s post — just a nod to Paramount’s latest release of the original Star Trek series — you’ve got about 24 hours to upgrade to paid so you don’t miss out on tomorrow’s exclusive edition of What’s Worth Watching. Five bucks a month gets you so many more words! Why wouldn’t you want that? Why?

Anyway, think about it. And I’ll see you back here on Saturday.

It’s almost TIFF time, and for the first of (at least) three festival-related episodes of Someone Else’s Movie I’m delighted to have Denis Côté on the podcast.

Denis is a director I’ve been trying to land for the entire run of the show, and while I was sure we’d be able to record an episode when I programmed his alluring experiment Mademoiselle Kenopsia at TIFF 2023, he had to miss the festival to get a new kidney. Totally understandable, but still.

Three years later, he’s feeling much better and still making the movies he wants to make, once again collaborating with the formidable actor Larissa Corriveau for Nobody’s Violence, a characteristically unquantifiable character study about a woman who performs a very specific service for individuals in need. It has its North American premiere in Toronto on Friday, September 11th, with additional screenings Sunday and next Saturday. Tickets and showtimes are available at the link above. You should see it.

Denis chose Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up for his episode, and I can see how that film’s been an influence not his entire filmography — it’s a movie about voyeurism that makes voyeurs of the audience, drawing us into a photographer’s increasingly frenzied search for meaning as he comes to believe he’s captured evidence of a muder. Has he? Sure seems like it, but the more he tries to prove it the blurrier everything gets. You’ve seen Blow-Up, right? You should see Blow-Up. Vanessa Redgrave is really good in it!

So see Blow-Up, and then join us for the conversation on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts or your podcatcher of choice, or download the episode directly from the web and listen to it while you snap random images in a London park, looking for a truth you’ll never find. Still beats watching mimes play tennis.

After that, you should catch up on last week’s Shiny Things because I crammed a whole bunch of August catalogue releases into two columns.

It’s a lot: 4K editions of Danger: Diabolik, Practical Magic, Auntie Mame, The People vs. Larry Flynt and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, as well as the Blu-ray releases of Viggo Mortensen’s Falling, Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague and James L. Brooks’ nearly-forgotten I’ll Do Anything. And then of course there were my exclusive reviews of Onslaught, Mayday and the new series of  Taskmaster in the What’s Worth Watching blast sent out to paid subscribers on Friday. Didn’t you get that? Wouldn’t you like to? All you need to do is upgrade your subscription and you’ll be on the list.

C’mon, be on the list. All the cool people are.

This week on Someone Else’s Movie, I welcome writer-director-producer Karen Lam, who’s been making off-center, genre-adjacent movies like Evangeline and The Curse of Willow Song and Bring it On: Cheer or Die for a decade and a half now. And with her latest picture Armageddon Road making its Toronto premiere Thursday night at the Revue Cinema — with an additional show Friday night, both followed by cast-and-crew Q&As — I finally got a chance to bring her onto the podcast.

Karen has chosen a movie that also has a haunted, doomed vibe about it: Martin McDonagh’s 2008 directorial debut In Bruges, the one where Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson play Irish hitmen exiled to Belgium after a botched job, and spend a few days trying to distract themselves from the hell their boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes) is going to rain down on them. I was not a huge fan when I first saw this one, but two decades later I must admit it’s grown on me. Karen, though? Superfan from the start, and I’m really glad we got to talk about that.

So give it a listen, like! Subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts or your podcatcher of choice, or download the episode directly from the web and listen to it as you trudge joylessly around one of Europe’s most storied cities because you’re dead inside.

And then you can shift over to Shiny Things, where my reviews of Disclosure Day, The Sheep Detectives and Backrooms await you! And of course subscribers to the paid tier got my reviews of Coyote vs ACME, the second season of Adults and Steven Soderbergh’s new experiment The Loomis Diaries in Friday’s  exclusive What’s Worth Watching mailing; did you not get that? Just upgrade that subscription and catch up to all the WWWs you’ve missed!

Finally, it’s September and that means tonight will be the final edition of Harbourfront’s Free Flicks series. And it’ll be my hoor to introduce Rob Reiner’s This Is Spinal Tap to people who’ve probably seen it a few times already, but almost certainly haven’t experienced it with a real audience before. You should join us! Popcorn is free but actual seating is limited, so bring a lawn chair or a stool or a blanket.

Show starts at 8:30pm. It will rock.

This week on Someone Else’s Movie, I welcome screenwriter, producer and now novelist Aaron Barnett, who’s a Bluesky pal I’ve been hoping to land for a while. And with his new movie Mutiny opening this past Friday and his novelization of the Matthew Bright movie Freeway arriving Sunday from Echo On Publications, this seemed like the perfect time to have him on.

Aaron chose State of Grace, Phil Joanou’s 1990 crime drama about an undercover cop who comes back home to Hell’s Kitchen to infiltrate the Irish mob, because it’s now run by his childhood pals and he’s also still in love with their sister. Sean Penn is the cop; Ed Harris, Gary Oldman and Robin Wright are the mob family and John Turturro is Penn’s short-tempered handler, and the combination of those actors is nothing short of incendiary. But it had the misfortune to open against GoodFellas, and its home-video release was messed up by Orion Pictures’ financial troubles, so State of Grace never really built an audience. But I’ve loved it ever since the press screening, and Aaron is even more of a defender, so here’s an hour of us talking about why you should catch up to it. And you really, really should.

Subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts or your podcatcher of choice, or download the episode directly from the web and listen to it while you sit at the bar, trying to figure out how the hell you’re going to get yourself out of this.

Another way to stall for time is to catch up on Shiny Things, because last week I reviewed the new 4K restorations of Severin Films’ The War Game and Threads and Warner’s Mars Attacks!, because the world can end in a lot of different ways, thank you very much.

I also tackled It Ends, HBO’s Lanterns and the return of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia in Friday’s What’s Worth Watching missive for paid subscribers, because I am conscientious like that. This week’s edition will include my exclusive review of Coyote Vs. ACME, which you are going to want to read … and for just five bucks a month, you can! Update that subscription, I beg you!

Also, if you’re reading this on Tuesday and you’re in Toronto, maybe come down to Harbourfront Centre for this summer’s second-last Free Flicks screening? Tonight we’re showing Beach Blanket Bingo,  the 1965 Frankie and Annette trifle that represents a very different approach to the summertime movie. It’s also the only film in this season’s lineup that’s older than me, so that’s fun.

Join us, won’t you? The popcorn is free, and the chairs are limited, so bring your own if you’re able. And if you can’t make it tonight, please join us next week for our last screening, This Is Spinal Tap. I honestly can’t believe we’re getting to play that one.

And before that, I’m going to be hanging out with yet another Aaron: Aaron Reynolds, whose ongoing Effin’ Birds project has kept thousands of people sane in a decidedly insane world. Aaron is back at Fan Expo this weekend, and he’s invited me to join him Friday at 6pm for another edition of Bootleg Safari, the very silly panel where he tries to find some beauty — or at least some artfulness — in objectively bad knockoff merchandise.

My appearances let him focus on movies, so my previous panels have focused on Alien and Jaws knockoffs; this time, we’re looking at the Raiders ripoffs that clogged drive-ins and grindhouses in the early ’80s. As always, we play by Alien Vs Predator rules: Whoever wins, we lose. Won’t you join us?

I am old now, so it makes sense that this week’s episode of Someone Else’s Movie should feature a film even older than me. And thankfully, my guest stepped right up to provide one.

The guest is Aaron Merke, an actor, improviser, puppeteer and makeup effects artist who you’ve seen in a whole bunch of stuff — most recently Ben Wheatley’s Normal, Andrew Kevin Walker’s Psycho Killer and the new Netflix adaptation of Little House on the Prairie. And he’s in the new TV series American Hostage, which is premiering in the Primetime program at TIFF next month. He’s everywhere!

And for his SEMcast, Aaron wanted to talk about The Ladykillers, the beloved 1955 Ealing Studios comedy starring Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers and Herbert Lom as thieves who rent a basement from a little old lady to pull off the perfect heist … only to find the little old lady a far more formidable opponent than any ten men in Scotland Yard. Aaron discovered the movie in the middle of a Guinness binge and fell in love with its weird mixture of English propriety and slapstick mayhem, and honestly that was the exact right reaction. So we talk about it, and the Coen brothers’ misbegotten remake, and the Safdies are in there somehow as well, and … eh, just listen, it’ll all make sense.

You know how this goes: Subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts or your podcatcher of choice, or download the episode directly from the web and listen to it while you’re pretending to be rehearsing for that musical performance you’re never, ever going to give.

And then catch up on your Shiny Things reading! Last week I covered the new discs of Project Hail Mary, Hokum and Exit 8, and subscribers to the paid tier got my exclusive reviews of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, The Wrong Girls and Furious. You didn’t, because you’re not a paid subscriber? It’s as easy as clicking this link and getting all signed up. Five bucks a month! That’s practically free!

And you know what is free? Tonight’s Harbourtfront Free Flicks screening of Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge, which kicks off at 8:30pm down by the lake and offers dazzling costumes, eye-popping sets and the finest melodrama money can buy — as well as one of the best soundtracks of the 21st century. Come on down, theater kids! There’s even free popcorn!

This week on Someone Else’s Movie, I welcome documentary filmmaker Alison Reid — whose new feature The Art of Adventure, about the lifelong friendship between renowned wildlife painter Robert Bateman and  biologist Bristol Foster, is now streaming on Hollywood Suite in Canada after an acclaimed festival run — to discuss Jon Avnet’s Fried Green Tomatoes, a movie she loves dearly and which I have not thought about in literally 35 years.

Now, it’s not that Fried Green Tomatoes is a bad movie, mind you, or that its cast aren’t  doing complex and interesting work. It’s just that … well, Fried Green Tomatoes is a really weird movie, both for what it’s about and how it is about it. We get into that, and why we have the opinions we have about it, and it’s a pretty engaging conversation.

Curious?  Subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts or your podcatcher of choice, or download the episode directly from the web and listen at the diner while you’re making that very special batch of chili barbecue stew. The one with the secret ingredient.

After that, get yourself caught up on Shiny Things, because there’s all sorts of good stuff in there. Last week I wrote about the new releases of Is God Is, Mortal Kombat II and Pressure, and subscribers to the paid tier got my exclusive reviews of The Samurai and the Prisoner, Sterling Point and the return of Ted Lasso in Friday’s What’s Worth Watching circular. Not one of those lucky few? There’s an easy fix for that!

And if you’re in Toronto, come on down to Harbourfront tonight — Tuesday August 11th, that is — for this week’s Free Flicks screening! We’re serving up DisneyPixar’s Soul, the one where Jamie Foxx voices a frustrated jazz musician who gets to see his life from an entirely new perspective, if you know what I mean. Show starts at 8:30pm; there’s free popcorn and the weather’s supposed to be quite pleasant. Plus, my voice works again! See you there?

Given the near-universal love for Joel and Ethan Coen’s Barton Fink, it seems preposterous that it’s taken 618 episodes for someone to bring it onto Someone Else’s Movie. But it has, and oddly, I’m grateful for that. This is a movie that’s aged beautifully, and now the podcast can mark its 35th anniversary with someone who loves it.

That someone is Peter Glanz, a writer and director whose eclectic career includes both co-writing a Captain America movie and writing and directing an 18th century comedy of manners. The former is Brave New World; the latter is Savage House, which stars Richard E. Grant and Claire Foy and is now available on VOD for your wicked little pleasure.

And as for Fink? In the rear view, it’s clear that the Coens’ fourth feature was the first to incorporate both Joel’s moody, textured intensity and Ethan’s more arch and antic silliness — and to prove such a fusion was sustainable. It’s  a symphony of heightened tones, and the key to everything they’ve done since, apart and together. Also? Pretty funny.

Anyway, you know the drill. Subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts or your podcatcher of choice, or download the episode directly from the web and listen to it in an attempt to drown out the voices on the other side of the wall. Oh, the voices.

After that, you can check out the latest editions of Shiny Things, because I have been busy. Caught up to a whole mess of catalogue releases: Severin’s splendid The Worlds Of Lucile Hadžihalilovi? box set, Canadian International Pictures’ The Other French New Wave, Vol. 2 and Warner Archive’s Late Summer in one blast, and Imprint’s Once a Thief, Henry & June and The Trigger Effect, Cohen Media Group’s Maurice, Sony’s The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (Dynamation in 4K!) in another.

And I still found time to cover I Want Your Sex, the new season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Dan Harmon’s new animated goofaround President Curtis for paid subscribers in Friday’s What’s Worth Watching. Didn’t get that? All it takes is one little upgrade and you’ll be on the list! Come on, the paid tier is so nice and comfy.

Finally, if you’re in Toronto and reading this on Tuesday August 4th, I’m introducing Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story at Harbourfront tonight. It’s the highlight of the program, if I do say so myself, and because of its length we’re starting a little earlier than usual. So come on down to the lake at 8:15pm and see one of the great modern movie musicals!

And if you’re reading this after the 4th, there are still four more movie nights on the menu. Come catch one!

I’ve been in the UK for the last week, and I am exhausted in the best possible way. Spent time with family, went to a castle, went to a museum, went to the shops, found a few movies I’d been hoping to find — and one I figured I’d never get my hands on. So that’s been great. Less great is the heat, which may be dry but still melts you. I took three showers on Saturday. Or maybe it was Sunday. Possibly both.

I’m coming home today, and landing in time to introduce tonight’s Harbourfront Free Flicks screening of Chicago at 8:30 pm. That’ll be fun! But first you should listen to a brand-new episode of Someone Else’s Movie, in which Vancouver director Gloria Mercer joins me to talk about Robert Altman’s Thieves Like Us, a film that doesn’t directly inform her first feature, A Safe Distance … but it doesn’t not inform it, either.

Give it a listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts or your podcatcher of choice, or download the episode directly from the web and listen to it while you circle the block waiting for your pals to come strolling out of the local depository with big bags of loot.

And if you’re in the Montreal area you should go see A Safe Distance at Fantasia, where it’s having its Canadian premiere Thursday night, with a second screening Friday morning. It’s good!

Things have been a little quiet on the Shiny Things front, since I’ve been largely AFK over here, but paid subscribers did get my exclusive reviews of William Woods‘ The Outer Threat and the new Prime Video series Ride or Die; sadly I wasn’t provided with an advance look at the new season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds but I’ll get to that this week. Make sure you don’t miss it by upgrading that subscription! But if you just want the free stuff, I understand. Times are tough for everybody.