On this week’s episode of Someone Else’s Movie, I welcome director Heather Ross, whose documentary For Madmen Only: The Stories of Del Close assembles dozens of very talented people to talk about the man who more or less invented long-form improv as we know it. It’s been streaming on Hot Docs for a couple of weeks, and as of today it’s available on VOD platforms everywhere! Check it out!

Heather she picked a film that’s very much in line with her project: Waiting for Guffman, Christopher Guest’s improvised comedy that premiered at TIFF 25 years ago, launching his very specific subgenre of eccentricity-based mockumentary.  I suppose This Is Spinal Tap was the first one, but the tone was very different with Rob Reiner directing. Guest’s films are gentler and more indulgent of their casts, and at a tight 84 minutes Guffman doesn’t have any of the puffiness that creeps into some of Guest’s later projects. It holds up, is what I’m saying.

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And because NOW What only comes out on Fridays these days, that’s all the podcast news I can give you. But if you go to the NOW website, you can read about that time we put Jessica Chastain on the cover for TIFF 2011, and what made us so sure she was the real deal.

That’s pretty much it for today. Boy, when I do a Friday post I really burn through the content, huh.