With her new film Sometimes I Think About Dying now playing in the US and opening across Canada on Friday, director Rachel Lambert brings up another study of an alienated person making an unlikely connection: John Schlesinger's Oscar-winning Midnight Cowboy, a film unique in American cinema for all sorts of reasons. Your genial host Norm Wilner is walking here.

The Canadian theatrical release of her second feature Tótem  gives writer-director Lila Avilés the chance to bend the format a little and talk about how her voracious, lifelong love of cinema -- from Disney to Cassavetes -- helped her find her own aesthetic as an artist. Your genial host Norm Wilner apologizes for his voice, which he blew out doing Canada's Top Ten events over the weekend.

Charles-Olivier Michaud,  whose adaptation of Kim Thuy's award-winning novel Ru opens across Canada this Friday, January 26th, is here to ride along with Sebastian Schipper's 2015 single-take thriller Victoria, starring Laia Costa as a Spanish pianist who meets the wrong group of dudes in a Berlin nightclub and has a hell of a night as a result. Your genial host Norm Wilner wouldn't even be up at 4 am these days, you know?

With a new restoration of her rediscovered film Household Saints opening at Toronto's Revue Cinema this Friday, writer-director Nancy Savoca shares her love of another long-lost picture: Euzhan Palcy's 1983 debut Sugar Cane Alley, which has been even harder to find in recent years. Your genial host Norm Wilner still regrets not buying the DVD when he had the chance.

With his new movie Who's Yer Father? now on digital and the third season of Run the Burbs premiering tonight on CBC and CBC Gem, actor and stand-up Chris Locke is here to celebrate The Wrong Guy, the deadpan 1997 farce where Dave Foley tries to be a fugitive even though no one is chasing him. Your genial host Norm Wilner has some history with this one.

Happy new year! Writer-director Orson Oblowitz -- whose retro-cinema charmer Showdown At the Grand just arrived on disc and digital -- is here to celebrate the earth-shaking impact of Katsuhiro Otomo's 1988 anime breakthrough Akira. Your genial host Norm Wilner is always happy to nerd out for a bit.

With his extremely '80s thriller Going In now available on digital, actor and filmmaker Evan Rissi is here to celebrate one of the films that inspired it: Road House, the 1989 action drama starring Patrick Swayze as the world's greatest bouncer and Ben Gazzara as the world's pettiest crimelord. Your genial host Norm Wilner would never leave you without an episode over the holidays.

Actors, writers and real-life pals Rosa Labordé and Anna Hardwick – whose new streaming series Nesting premieres on Crave in Canada this Friday, December 22nd -- make some noise for Joan Micklin Silver’s Crossing Delancey, the unassuming 1988 dramedy where Amy Irving plays a New York bookseller torn between a flashy European author and a nice pickle man. Your genial host Norm Wilner does enjoy an old dill.

With her latest feature Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret gaining momentum on the awards circuit, writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig takes a moment to celebrate the remarkable collaboration between Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater that gave us Before Sunrise and Before Sunset ... and that third one, too. Your genial host Norm Wilner apologizes for mixing up "seven" and "nine" early in the conversation.

With her debut feature My Animal in theaters across Canada (and available on digital in the US), director Jacqueline Castel shares her love for the landmark 1942 thriller Cat People -- the one where Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur kept the real horrors offscreen. Your genial host Norm Wilner swears he's never been afraid of shadows.