To honor the life of David Lynch, whose death last week left a hole in world cinema, here's an episode from September 2017 featuring actor Rick Roberts on discovering the director’s first feature, the undefinable Eraserhead, and becoming a lifelong fan. Your genial host Norm Wilner just wants to lose himself in art right about now, you know?

With their bachelor-party nightmare Birdeater in theaters and on demand in the US and en route to Canada, Australian filmmakers Jack Clark and Jim Weir drop by to share their love for Akira Kurosawa’s relentless 1963 crime drama High and Low, starring Toshiro Mifune as an executive whose scheme to take over his own company is derailed when a kidnapper mistakenly abducts his chauffeur’s son. Your genial host Norm Wilner has been waiting so long for someone to pick a Kurosawa movie, you have no idea.

His delightful first feature Young Werther opens across Canada this Friday, so writer-director José Avelino Gilles Corbett Lourenço is here to kick off the new year by being entirely worthy of Mike Myers’ 1992 blockbuster-slash-breakout Wayne’s World, directed by Penelope Spheeris. Your genial host Norm Wilner is happy to kick off 2025 riding shotgun in the Mirthmobile.

With his new documentary The Last Republican making its US theatrical premiere at the Film Forum in New York this Friday, writer-director Steve Pink takes a break to dive into the tangled loyalties and murky morals of Luc Besson’s 1990 breakout La Femme Nikita. Your genial host Norm Wilner cannot wait to put 2024 behind him … so Happy New Year, everyone!

Have yourself some Hedwig for the holidays, as The People’s Joker writer-director-star Vera Drew drops in to discuss John Cameron Mitchell’s 2001 glam-rock indie Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and the nuclear impact it had on her own artistic journey. Your genial host Norm Wilner is just delighted to be a part of this one.

With the holidays upon us – and the second season of The Recruit hitting Netflix in the new year – we’re reaching back to 2015 for A Very Kristian Bruun Christmas, in which the Orphan Black and Murdoch Mysteries star hangs out with your genial host Norm Wilner, eating too much fruitcake and talking about the seasonal cinema they both love. Nog up and enjoy, unless “nog up” has a different meaning nowadays.

With his first feature Drive Back Home in theaters across Canada, writer-director Michael Clowater wanted to talk about another modestly scaled, emotionally alive debut: Tom McCarthy’s delicate 2003 character study The Station Agent. Your genial host Norm Wilner is really glad he did.

It’s a mother-daughter episode as actor Sheila McCarthy and producer-director Mackenzie Donaldson – who collaborated on the post-collapse thriller All the Lost Ones, now onscreen in Toronto at the Carlton Cinema – bring The Wizard of Oz to the podcast, just in time to draft on the opening of Wicked. Your genial host Norm Wilner is always up for a chat about how weird Frank L. Baum’s books are.

Writer, director and actor Ben Petrie, whose first feature The Heirloom has its Toronto premiere at the TIFF Lightbox this Thursday, November 28th, before moving to the Carlton and the Revue on Friday the 29th, is here to celebrate City Lights, Charlie Chaplin’s masterful blend of comedy and heart. Your genial host Norm Wilner is amazed this is the first time someone’s brought a Chaplin film to the podcast.

With Vivieno Caldinelli’s horror comedy Scared Shitless making its Toronto premiere this Saturday, November 23rd at the Blood in the Snow film festival, scene-stealer Mark McKinney is here to ride or die with George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, which rolls back the clock to show us how the wasteland’s greatest warrior learned her craft … and what it cost her. Your genial host Norm Wilner would have given an arm to have this conversation.