I have trouble believing it myself, but this week marks the tenth anniversary of my starting Someone Else’s Movie — which is ridiculous, right?

But here we are, and for this very special episode I’m joined by Felix-Antoine Duval, a brilliant young actor who just won the TFCA’s award for Outstanding Performance in a Canadian Film for his role in Sophie Deraspe’s excellent Shepherds. (After premiering at TIFF last fall and returning for a Canada’s Top Ten screening in February, it’s back at the Lightbox right now in regular release.)

And Felix picked another recent Canadian knockout, Pascal Plante’s disquieting psychological thriller Red Rooms, which stars Juliette Gariepy as a young woman who spends her days attending a murder trial in Montreal and her nights online, doing … stuff. We don’t exactly spoil it in our conversation, because I don’t think you can spoil what Plante and Gariepy (and Laurie Babin, and Max McCabe-Lokos) accomplish with this movie … but you haven’t seen the film, please seek it out before you listen.

Suitably intrigued? Join the celebration! 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 quietly in court, waiting for your moment.

And then you can catch up to last week’s Shiny Things, which was just one edition about Paramount’s new 4K release of Gladiator II — a stunning presentation of a very hollow film. There’s a lot more coming down the pike, though, so please subscribe if you haven’t already.

Oh, and I’m doing stuff in public this week! On Saturday the 15th I’ll be at Toronto Comicon for an edition of Aaron Reynolds’ Bootleg Safari panel, trying to determine the best and worst knockoffs of Alien; it’s at 6 pm in Theatre 2, come watch me talk about secret genre treasures with the man who makes birds swear about politics. (Where does XTRO fit in? Take a guess!)

And Tuesday, March 18th, is the next edition of TIFF’s Secret Movie Club, where once again I’ll be presenting the Toronto premiere of an upcoming picture that we think is quite good. You should come! It’d be great to see you.

You know Atom Egoyan, right? Double Oscar nominee for The Sweet Hereafter,  sure, but I’ll still make the case for his prior film, Exotica, as one of the best films to ever come out of this country.

Anyway, I programmed Atom’s latest feature Seven Veils at TIFF 2023, and now that it’s finally opening across Canada on Friday, I finally bagged him for an episode of Someone Else’s Movie.

And we knew exactly what film he’d tackle: Jesus Christ Superstar, Norman Jewison’s 1973 screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s concept album turned stage show. Atom had brought it up at our Canada’s Top Ten Q&A for Seven Lives last year, in tribute to Jewison, and even sung a few bars of it for the audience. He’s a little more restrained this time around, which is a shame. He knows his stuff.

And yes, Cara Gee tackled the film in the first year of SEMcast, but given that a full decade has passed I figured Atom’s take would be different enough to warrant doubling up.

You decide! 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 on the drive out to the desert.

And then you can get caught up on Shiny Things! Last week I wrote about the new releases of Paramount’s September 5 and Sony’s Venom: The Last Dance and Warner’s terrific 4K restorations of Amadeus and Constantine; of course, if you’re a subscriber you already know this! (And if you’re not a subscriber there’s an easy fix for that.)

Also, if you’re in Toronto and excited about the 20th anniversary edition of the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival kicking off this week, my latest piece for Toronto Today may be of interest. Enjoy it!

David Lynch died last Thursday. I wrote a little about him over at Shiny Things, but there wasn’t much to say that hadn’t been said by so many other people. Universally beloved and respected, consistently weird, able to alienate a cinema full of retired dentists and their wives in the space of three hours — honestly, what better way to be remembered?

So this week’s episode of Someone Else’s Movie pays the tiniest of tributes to him, bringing back Rick Roberts‘ September 2017 episode on Eraserhead. It’s a celebration of the film, of course, but it’s also conversation about an artist discovering another way to make art, and the cracks that can open when you least expect them. So yeah, it’s hopeful. I like that.

You can find the show in all the usual places:  Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts, your podcatcher of choice … or you can download the episode directly from the web and play it loud to drown out the cries of that weird baby in the next room. Assuming it is a baby, of course.

And then, get on board with Shiny Things! In addition to Lynch, last week I wrote about Criterion’s new 4K editions of The Mother and the Whore and Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling — two auterist knockouts I never thought would be rescued from limbo — and Arrow’s new 4K limited edition of Inglourious Basterds, which, meh. Subscribe now if you haven’t already so you don’t miss the next thing!