I know this is technically the Halloween episode of Someone Else’s Movie, and my guest is a director of horror films — his latest, Spell, hits VOD on Friday — but the movie he chose to discuss is the furthest thing from scary.

And that’s okay, because Mark Tonderai wanted to talk about The Straight Story, the outlier in David Lynch’s catalogue of hothouse nightmares: It’s Lynch’s most placid and direct work, a lovely drama about an old man making an arduous journey and meeting some decent and helpful people along the way, I will also note that the film’s energy is the exact opposite of Mark’s in the episode, which might require a bit of an adjustment, at least initially. But it’s good! You should listen!

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play and Stitcher and get the episode immediately, or download it directly from the web. And then you can look up the newest NOW What, which features Rad talking to Amanda Parris as she prepares to take a year off from CBC.

Also, since November is coming, you might want to check out our look-aheads for Netflix, Amazon and Crave; we even did one for CBC Gem this month, because there’s so much good stuff coming … and because we’re all staying home with nothing else to do, right?

Right?

I’ve met Wayne Wang a few  times over the years, usually when we bump into one another at TIFF — he’s a lovely guy, and he makes interesting movies, and it’s weird that it took more than three decades for us to sit down together.

I guess we still haven’t, technically, but his episode of Someone Else’s Movie totally counts as a conversation — and it’s a good one, as he discusses the influence of Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles on his excellent new drama Coming Home Again, which I saw at TIFF last year and which is finally coming out as a virtual release in the US and a Vimeo rental here in Canada.

And it turns out the comparison holds; Akerman’s radical experiment in banality does echo through Wayne’s movie in ways both obvious and subtle. We talked about that, and somehow also about Ralph Fiennes doing yoga every morning on Maid in Manhattan. And yes, I’d forgotten that Wayne Wang directed Maid in Manhattan. I bet you did too.

Listen already! Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play and Stitcher and get the episode immediately, or download it directly from the web.  And then maybe check out today’s NOW What, in which Richard Trapunski and ACORN Canada’s Alejandra Ruiz Vargas talk about closing the digital divide that keeps internet access from the people who might need it the most.

Also! Writing! Here’s this week’s What to Watch, featuring reviews aplenty, as well as my full thoughts on Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and a Five-to-See for the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, which got underway yesterday. And if you missed it last week, my review of Ben Wheatley’s Rebecca is just as valid now that the movie’s available on Netflix.

I got the date wrong in last week’s post. Sorry about that.

On this week’s episode of Someone Else’s Movie, actor and writer Jessica Reynolds joins me all the way from Belfast to talk about Catherine Hardwicke’s Thirteen, a movie I kinda hated but have since come to appreciate for Evan Rachel Wood’s fearless lead performance and Holly Hunter’s steely support.

And Jessica, who stars opposite Jared Abrahamson and Don McKellar (yep, really) in the new horror curio The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw, comes at the film from the perspective of a young woman who was thirteen when she first encountered the movie nearly a decade after its release, and found she connected with it powerfully, cultural divides notwithstanding.

Want to feel the passion? Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play and Stitcher and get the episode immediately, or download it directly from the web.

And then check out the latest episodes of NOW What — last Friday, Kelsey Adams and Vanessa Davis walked me through the world of baking while baking, and today I talk to writer-director Emma Seligman about her buzzy debut feature Shiva Baby, which is making a homecoming of sorts at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival this week after playing TIFF and Inside Out.

Also, reading! Here’s last Friday’s What to Watch — I really should be posting those on the day they go up, shouldn’t I — and a list of 10 recent horror movies to stream for Halloween, as well as my reviews of the new season of Star Trek: Discovery and Ben Wheatley’s Rebecca, which drops on Netflix tomorrow.

I watch a lot of stuff, is the takeaway here.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Jennifer Abbott picked John Carpenter’s They Live for her episode of Someone Else’s Movie; she’s spent her career making documentaries about the damage that unchecked capitalism has done to the world, so of course she’d have a soft spot for Carpenter’s gonzo alien-invasion satire, which posited that the human race had been colonized by extraterrestrial venture capitalists — and that the Reagan Revolution was just the latest step in their master plan. (It arrived in theatres on the eve of the 1988 election; it wasn’t hard to see which side Carpenter was on.)

So we talked about that, and about her two films playing (virtually) at Planet in Focus this week, The Magnitude of All Things and The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel.

Wake up and join us! Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play and Stitcher and get the episode immediately, or download it directly from the web. It’s good to have a little fun at the end of the world.

Also fun, as it turns out, are the latest episodes of NOW What: On Friday, we released the audio version of Rad’s Thanksgiving panel with Mary Berg, Ryan Hinkson and Kris Siddiqi, which was a very entertaining conversation about the grim reality of not being able to see one’s family on a holiday weekend, and today I talk to Judy Rebick and Mike Hoolboom about their movie Judy Vs. Capitalism, in which Mike lets Judy tell her own story in a really moving way. It’ll be streaming at Rendevous with Madness on Thursday, and you should see it.

Also, writing! Here’s last Friday’s What to Watch column, and a thing I wrote explaining why the major studios aren’t just rolling out their 2020 release schedules onto VOD. The answer will not surprise you!

Oh, and I talked to Adam Benzine about his plan to drop his COVID documentary The Curve into the runup to the U.S. election, which seems like a pretty good idea. People need to know about the ghouls, after all.

I admit it: I absolutely hated Jaco Van Dormael’s Mr. Nobody. But the whole concept of Someone Else’s Movie is that the guest chooses the title, so when Kodi Smit-McPhee picked it that was that.

Fortunately, Kodi is a very nice person and willing to entertain different perspectives — which is, in the end, the core concept of Van Dormael’s movie, which shuffles through a series of infinite scenarios for Jared Leto’s placid hero … including one in which he’s married to a depressed woman played by none other than friend of the show Sarah Polley. And a certain life-changing moment she experienced during the shoot adds another little moment of convergence to this episode. You’ll see.

So give it a listen! Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play and Stitcher and get the episode immediately, or download it directly from the web. The future is waiting.

When you’re done with that, you’ve got two episodes of NOW What to catch up to: Friday’s music special, where Kelsey Adams and Richard Trapunski discuss Mustafa’s new album and the issues facing Toronto music venues, respectively, and today’s public health update with Dr. Jennifer Kwan, where we talk about what Ontario is and isn’t doing to keep a lid on the pandemic. (Best celebrate Thanksgiving in your heart this year.)

And if you’re all about reading, there are plenty of reviews waiting for you in last week’s What to Watch, as well as our monthly look-aheads for Netflix, Crave and Amazon. I recommended some titles (virtually) screening at the Inside Out festival, and I talked to Andrea Riseborough and Christopher Abbott about the very specific challenges posed by Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor.

It’s video. I hate video. Sorry about that.