Nothing much is going on this week. Maybe you’ll buy something, maybe you’ll treat yourself to a classic film in 70mm, maybe you’ll sit around the house waiting for a negative COVID test. I don’t know your lives.

But I do know that I hate to leave you all without entertainment, and that’s why this week’s episode of Someone Else’s Movie is all about Road House, the 1989 Patrick Swazye punch-em-up which actor-filmmaker Evan Rissi loves beyond all reason.

So when I heard Evan’s first feature Going In was making its digital debut this month, this felt like the perfect opportunity to have him on and celebrate Swayze’s charisma, Kelly Lynch’s straight-woman charm and Ben Gazzara’s up-for-anything indie spirit. And Sam Elliott’s pubes, of course.

Subscribe at the usual locations — Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify — or download the episode directly from the web to enjoy while carefully applying your styling products of choice as part of your morning routine.

And then go catch up on your Shiny Things, because I offered some suggestions for Boxing Day bargain-hunters as well as pondering why it’s so difficult to bring Stephen King’s books to the screen without losing their essential spirit. (It would have been a very different essay if that new 4K edition of The Dead Zone had shown up in time, mind you.) You can subscribe right here!

That’s pretty much it for this week, though. Like I said, there’s just not a lot to do. I hope you’re enjoying a similarly calm few days, and if you’re in Toronto I really hope you get to see Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm at the Lightbox, as God intended.

See you next year!

Call it holiday counterprogramming: Despite previous Christmas episodes, this week’s brand-new Someone Else’s Movie has not a Santa in sight.

That’s because my guests are Rosa Labordé and Anna Hardwick, the co-creators and co-stars of the new Crave series Nesting, and for their episode they wanted to talk about a movie that speaks to them and their show: Joan Micklin Silver’s 1988 romantic dramedy Crossing Delancey, starring Amy Irving as a young Jewish woman trying to break free of her suffocating Orthodox community by contemplating an affair with European author Jeroen Krabbé, only to find herself drawn to Peter Riegert’s humble pickle man.

It’s a lot more textured and considered than that description sounds, because it’s a Joan Micklin Silver picture, and it’s held up remarkably well; if you haven’t seen it, you should definitely check it out before listening to the episode. (And you should also watch Nesting when it drops on Friday, because it’s silly and fun and Allana Harkin directed it!)

Subscribe at the usual locations — Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify — or download the episode directly from the web and listen to it while you wait in line at the pickle store. It’ll be worth it.

And then catch up on your Shiny Things reading! Last week I celebrated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, and later today I’m rolling out a look at the new 4K restorations of The Warriors and Clue for those on the paid tier. Are you a subscriber? No? Well, you can fix that!

Speaking of subscription series, a few tickets are still available for tonight’s Secret Movie Club screening, which is a good one and you should come if you can.

I’ve got a lot going on today (and tonight), so I made a point of getting this post up on time because I didn’t want anyone to miss out on this week’s episode of Someone Else’s Movie.

That’s because my guest is Kelly Fremon Craig, writer and director of The Edge of Seventeen and now Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, and she chose Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, the films where Ethan Hawke’s Jesse and Julie Delpy’s Celine meet and fall in love in Europe – first in 1996, and then again in 2005. (We also discuss the third one in the series, and even wind up pitching a fourth one, because how can you not.)

And yes, I know Maureen Judge tackled the entire trilogy on the podcast back in 2016  — and that was a really good episode, you should give it a listen — but there was a nice poetry to revisiting these particular films given how much time has passed, and how different the world is now.

So join us, won’t you? Subscribe at the usual locations — Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify — or download the episode directly from the web and listen to it while you stand around Vienna waiting for that special person to turn up.

And then go catch up on your Shiny Things reading, because I wrote about the latest physical releases of the streaming series WandaVision, The Mandalorian and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and the new 4K restorations of The Color Purple, Point Break and Titanic, because Spielberg, Bigelow and Cameron will not be ignored. If you’re not a subscriber maybe get on that? The free two-week trial is still going, and I have heard 2000-word newsletters about physical media make great Christmas presents. Just saying,

On this week’s episode of Someone Else’s Movie, I’m joined by filmmaker Jacqueline Castel to explore the roiling depths of the original Cat People.

You know the one, right? It’s a masterpiece of sublimated tension, with moral and psychosexual  underpinnings producer Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur could only hint at given the realities of American film production in 1942. It’s been a key genre text for eighty years now, and I was delighted to find it holds up very well — and given that Jacqueline’s first feature My Animal has some obvious resonances with it … well, we had a lot to talk about.

Want to join us? Of course you do! Subscribe at the usual locations — Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify — or download the episode directly from the web and listen to it the next time you take a lonely swim in your building’s basement pool.

And after that, you can catch up on the latest editions of Shiny Things. Last week I spun up Arrow Video’s new 4K editions of Barbarella, Blackhat and Tremors 2: Aftershocks, and wrote about the gutting loss of Canadian writer and director Charles Officer, whose death leaves a chasm in Toronto’s film community. You can find that right here, but if you subscribed you’d have already read it.

Also, because I don’t always get these posted on Tuesdays (obviously), here’s a heads-up that TIFF’s next free See the North screening is happening this coming Tuesday, December 12th, and  it’s a holiday special: We’re showing Coopers’ Christmas, the raunchy 2008 found-footage comedy from writer-stars Jason Jones and Mike Beaver and director Warren P. Sonoda, who’d previously collaborated on the really silly showbiz satire called Ham & Cheese and who achieved a demented sort of greatness with this  one.

We’re screening it on 35mm for added perversity, and Warren and producer Sean Buckley will be joining me for a Q&A. So if you’re in Toronto, come on down and share the holiday spirit. Tickets are free, and the show starts at 6:30pm. See you there?