The Criterinot Podcast

In the Season Two finale I am joined by superstar editor Matt Hannam (Enemy, Swiss Army Man, The OA, White Noise) to talk about the ultra-depressing and incredibly innovative Requiem for a Dream. Did Miranda July get "pooping back and forth" from watching the ass-to-ass scene in this film? Yes. Well, I don't know for sure, but...yes.Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed the season let me know by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts! xoxo

"Dear God, guide us and protect us. We are too young to reign." On this week's episode I'm joined by a French-Canadian queen to talk about THE French queen and the injustices that both she and director Sofia Coppola have suffered. Magali Simard (TIFF Programmer, Toronto Film Development Manager) and I are quietly outraged about the way this film was received. It is a movie that was truly ahead of its time. Long Live Marie Antoinette.

This motion picture is a grim foreshadowing of Britney's real life. It's uncanny how many things in the story wound up playing out in Brit Brit's IRL timeline. Producer and Southern belle Jacki Calleiro gets into this Shonda Rimes/Tamra Davis spectacle of teen suffering with me. We also talk about Frances Farmer, Kim Cattrall's day-play, felons crossing state lines with minors, and much more. 

It's the movie that dares to ask "Fellas, is it gay to hug?"Filmmaker and hunk Carlo Guillermo Proto (El Huaso, Resurrecting Hassan) joins me to talk about the shockingly f-slurless Good Will Hunting. Directed by queer auteur Gus Van Sant, this extremely straight movie will have you in tears simply because a couple bros open up about their feelings. If you love this movie as much as we do, "It's not your fault."

Yellowjackets director and producer Jamie Travis joins me to talk about the 1992 "lady thriller" The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. Annabella Sciorra, Rebecca De Mornay, Ernie Hudson, Matt McCoy, and Julianne Moore star in this wild, upsetting, and incredibly entertaining movie about a psychotic usurping nanny.

Writer Katie Silberman (Booksmart, Set It Up, and a super secret upcoming Marvel movie) is a master of storytelling and a MAJOR fan of The First Wives Club. This 1996 adaptation of the Olivia Goldsmith novel stars absolutely everyone, but mostly Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton, Bette Midler, Stockard Channing, Maggie Smith, Elizabeth Berkley, and Sarah Jessica Parker.

Darren Stein - writer and director of Jawbreaker, Sparkler, and Put the Camera on Me - joins me to talk about Peter Bogdanovich's 1985 tearjerker Mask*. Cher, Eric Stoltz, Laura Dern, and Sam Elliott star in the biopic about Rocky Dennis, a teenager with a big ole face.*Not to be confused with THE Mask starring Jim Carrey.

"It's a good old-fashioned fag-drag." Filmmaker Matt Kenchington, noted heterosexual and one of my nearest and dearest friends, joins me in this episode to talk about gay shit. Get out your hanky. 

The Holiday is a delightfully boring movie. At Criterinot, we're fans not critics, but we do shit-talk this movie quite a bit and still come out the other end loving it. Other topics this episode include Jerry Seinfeld's bee fetish, why moms love pan flute music, people being "90s hot", and Amanda Knox. My guest this week, Jennifer Shin, is Director of Development for Comedy at The CBC. 

Writer/director Jordan Canning (Schitt's Creek, Fraggle Rock, Baroness von Sketch, We Were Wolves) joins me this week to talk about Robert Zemeckis and Diane Thomas's 1984 adventure comedy Romancing the Stone. Kathleen Turner stars as the romance novelist turned reluctant adventurer Joan Wilder. Along with the pits and pratfalls that Joan deals with while trying to save her sister in Cartagena, Colombia, we get into the pits and pratfalls of filmmaking itself. 

Look out Tucson, here we come! The inimitable comedian and elusive chantuese Tranna Wintour is here to talk about 1997's Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, written by Robin Schiff and directed by David Mirkin. We go deep on this 90s classic featuring an incredible cast that includes Mira Sorvino (hot on the heels of her Oscar win), Lisa Kudrow, Janeane Garofalo, Alan Cumming, Justin Theroux and Camryn Manheim. 

New Yorker staff writer and prolific Twitter user Naomi Fry is here to talk about Adventures in Babysitting, Elvis crapping to death, Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, Matthew Modine, and why young people looked so old in the 80s.

To Die For (1995) is not just this week's movie, it's how I'd describe my guest. The wonderful Bayne Gibby (The Comeback, Enlightened, Ladybird) is on the podcast this week to gush with me about Nicole Kidman in Gus Van Sant's "black comedy-drama crime film.” 

White Chicks is a fever dream of a movie and I'm a huge fan. My guest, Oscar and Emmy-nominated director Hubert Davis is also a fan. Directed, written, and produced by Keenen Ivory Wayans, this perfect movie stars the incredible Shawn and Marlon Wayans, B*sy Ph*l*pps, Dexter's Sister, Terry Crews, Jaime King, Frankie Faison, and my high school crush Lochlyn Munro. Thanks.

Strangers in Good Company is my favourite Canadian film (full disclosure, I haven't seen the unauthorized Céline Dion biopic  yet...so, that could change). I'm joined by actor, comedian, and fellow Stranger-head John Early (Search Party, I Think You Should Leave, and an IMDb STARmeter score of 13,959) to laugh and cry together about this fabulous gang of eight women who get stranded in the middle of nowhere in Québec. Watch the movie in Canada for FREE on the NFB YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKGw1wCWP1gWatch the movie on Amazon Prime in America here: https://www.amazon.com/Strangers-Good-Company-Alice-Diabo/dp/B002YV5LMU

Director and writer Craig Johnson (The Skeleton Twins, Special, Gossip Girl) joins me to talk about Kathy Bates's introduction to the wider world in Rob Reiner and William Goldman's adaptation of Stephen King's Misery (1990).

Don't watch this movie.The unmatchable Lara Marie Schoenhals joins me to talk about this huge bummer of a movie that we both love and hate.  David Fincher. Gwyneth Paltrow. Morgan Freeman. Brad Pitt. Kevin Spacey.

Beetlejuice is a magic trick of a movie and nobody knows that better than my guest, comedian and writer Liza Dye. 

Hail to the Guardians of the Watchtowers of the Notties! It's October so I guess it's time to catch up with "The Bitches of Eastwick." Grammy nominated music video and short film director David Wilson (Lady Gaga, Arcade Fire, Arctic Monkeys, M83, Tame Impala, Metronomy) hops on the pod to talk with me about Andrew Fleming's teen witch drama The Craft. The movie was released in 1996 and stars Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell, Rachel True, Skeet Ulrich, and Christine Taylor. 

It was the ass that launched a thousand gays. Nancy Jo Sales (journalist, writer of The Bling Ring, director of Swiped on HBO) joins me to talk about Roger Kumble's interpretation of Dangerous Liaisons. We get into the good and the bad, the unparalleled soundtrack, the incredible performances of Reese Witherspoon, Selma Blair, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and of course...Ryan Phillippe's bu-bu-bu-butt. 

Criterinot is the podcast where I, Graydon Sheppard, am joined by a guest to talk about a movie that we love that is NOT in The Criterion Collection. Season 2 will premiere on Thursday, September 30th 2021. 

Aleysa "Best Quality Crab" Young, director of Baroness von Sketch Show, Workin' Moms, Cavendish, and the upcoming New Eden joins me to talk about the tearjerker that is The Joy Luck Club. 1993's Chinese-American answer to Steel Magnolias is heartbreaking in the best way. There are poisoned sticky dumplings, family secrets, concubines, curses, Lubriderm, moles, thousand-yard-stares, and even Ross's girlfriend Julie from Friends! 

In a Criterinot first I let my guest, the wonderful Martha Kelly, choose a movie I'd never seen before. This week we talked about 2007's Alvin and the Chipmunks. The original, NOT the squeakquel. We get into David Cross's feelings about being in the movie, hamsters with huge balls, eating poo, divorce, loss, Martha's role in Marriage Story, and much more in this very special episode of the pod.

Gird your loins. Quintuple-threat Brian Jordan Alvarez (Will & Grace, Special, Get Shorty, The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo) sits down with me to talk about my favorite "sick day" movie, The Devil Wears Prada.

Kirsten "Kiwi" Smith, the co-writer of The House Bunny, Legally Blonde, 10 Things I Hate About You, and much more LOVES Postcards from the Edge, and you should too. After She-Devil and Death Becomes Her, Meryl Streep makes her third appearance in a Criterinot film. She plays a fictionalized version of Carrie Fisher in the adaptation of Fisher's eponymous novel about a fictionalized version of Fisher's relationship with her mother, Debbie Reynolds, played by Shirley MacLaine. It's an onion of a movie and we peel back the layers as well as we can. 

It's the 10th episode spectacular! For the very first time we have one of the stars of the movie we're discussing as a guest on the pod. Anna Faris plays Shelley Darlingson, the Playboy Bunny who becomes a sorority house mother to Emma Stone, Kat Dennings, and Rumer Willis.Lara Schoenhals joins us to talk about 2008's comedic underdog. We get the inside scoop from Anna about what it was like to work with the sorority sisters, how she toned her butt by walking in 10-inch heels, her mom's thoughts on Hugh Hefner, and the sticky layer of grease that covers The Playboy Mansion.

Watch his balls! Witch witch you're a bitch! Jacki Calleiro becomes the first return guest on The Criterinot Podcast for the genre-busting film Practical Magic starring Nicole Kidman and Sally Field. This Halloween we're asking all the right questions. Is Aidan Quinn hot? What are the rules of the magic in this movie, and do we even need rules? Why is life on this witchy island in Massachusetts so idyllic? We also dive in on the touching theme of allowing yourself to be vulnerable to love after loss. Don't miss what's bound to be a Halloween classic episode of TCP (The Criterinot Podcast).

This week's guest brings welcome dissent to one of the best, least controversial, yet most controversial films of the 2010s. Kathryn Borel and Graydon talk about La La Land.

Our guest this week is the King of Hollywood, Chris Chang. He brings a deep understanding to the latest addition to The Criterinot Collection: Addams Family Values. 

Director, writer, and coolest person I know, Eva Michon, joins me on the podcast this week. We get into the Scream 3, Wes Craven's answer to 8 1/2. Originally slated as the final film in the franchise, this meditation on filmmaking stars Courteney Cox-Arquette's bangs, Carrie Fischer, and Parker Posey giving life back to all the dead bodies. "My lawyer liked that."

Comedian Martha Kelly and her pets Barry, Gary, and Rosie talk with Graydon about 1992's Death Becomes Her. Is it mean to women? Or is that the point? Does Bruce Willis come out on top? Or is he a horrible murderer? How are Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn so stunning? We explore all these questions as well as topics like Alvin and the Chipmunks, One Direction, Keith Richards, visiting mental hospitals, nervous breakdowns, and more.

Prolific actor Sam Pancake joins Graydon to talk about Stepmom, starring Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon. The Chris Columbus film from 1998 is the perfect tearjerker for a balmy fall afternoon. Come with us as we talk about Julia Roberts' acting tricks, Graydon's connection to one of the stars, and, for some reason, Alexis Neiers.

Graydon is joined by wunderkind producer Jacki Calleiro to talk about Roseanne's first film role in the movie She-Devil.

It's New York Fashion Week, the perfect time to talk about the iconic New York fashion film: Zoolander. Graydon is joined by comedian, artist, and fellow podcaster Casey Jane Ellison. They dive deep on the film's weird connections to 9/11, director Ben Stiller's separation from Christine Taylor, the ubiquity of McDonald's, and what it means to be true to yourself.

Graydon is joined by New York Times bestselling author and media mogul Lara Marie Schoenhals to talk about the movie that was the inspiration for The Criterinot Podcast. We get into it about Amy Heckerling, which actors we'd do it with, and why Criterion itself is a henchman of the patriarchy.