Contra Zoom Pod

The Academy Awards recently announced a whole slate of new rules and regulations to take effect immediately for the 99th Oscars next year. We discuss how actors can now be nominated twice in the same category, the different route a film can take to be nominated for Best International Film, the organizations stance on AI and much more. Joining the show is Elysia Brenner , host of ⁠The Lorehounds⁠ p...

Our first director ranked episode since episode 175: Wes Anderson Ranked we look at the films by Paul Thomas Anderson in celebration of his 10th film being released and him winning Best Picture and Best Director at the Oscars. Dakota and Jeff rank all 10 films and give out awards. Here are our PTA Rankings: 10. Hard Eight 9. Punch-Drunk Love 8. Licorice Pizza 7. Inherent Vice 6. Magnolia 5. The Ma...

The 2026 Canadian Screen Awards concluded their week long celebration. The big film winners were 40 Acres, Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie and Honey Bunch. Matthew Simpson joins the show as we discuss the big winners, losers and snubs. Read our CSA nominated reviews mentioned on the show: Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie , Wrong Husband , The Things You Kill , Endless Cookie , 40 Acres and...

MySpace is a new documentary about the rise and fall of the once all encompassing social media site MySpace and the effect it had on the world. Jeff Bulmer had the chance to talk with the director of the film Tommy Avallone about trying to get Tom Anderson involved, picking the right guests and how the full scale cut out of Tom came to be. Follow Tommy Avallone on Instagram . Read Dakota Arsenault...

The 2026 Hot Docs film festival, celebrating the best in documentary cinema from around the world has come to a close. We discuss eight films that played including The Seoul Guardians , My Foreign Land , Replica , Gimme Truth , The Ballad of Judas Priest , Whispers in May , Public Access and Myspace . Joining Dakota Arsenault and Jeff Bulmer is Pedro Lima and Rach Epstein. Read Jeff's review o...

Jeff Bulmer had the chance to interview Amalie Atkins, the director of the new documentary Agatha's Almanac , which stars her aunt who runs a 64 acre farm in rural Manitoba. They discuss the importance of 16mm film, how to maximize the footage shot and the impact of having a great cinematographer. Read Jeff's reviews of For Worse , Ballistic and Akashi . Follow Jeff's podcast Classic M...

Now that Oscar season has come and gone, it is finally time to put a bow on the films from 2025. We rank our top 10 films of the year. Joining the show is Matthew Simpson . We also feature voicemails from friends of the show who name their favourite film of the year. Dakota's List: 10. The Secret Agent 9. Train Dreams 8. Predator: Badlands 7. The Alabama Solution 6. Is This Thing On? 5. Sentim...

The nominations for the 14th annual Canadian Screen Awards have been released. 40 Acres, Nirvana The Band The Show The Movie and Blue Heron are some of the heavy hitters this year. We discuss the new rule changes implemented, our favourite nominated films and what movies are now on our radar to watch. Matthew Simpson and Jeff Bulmer join the show. Check out Jeff's Letterboxd list to track how...

Jeff Bulmer had the chance to interview Alireza Khatami the director of the new film The Things You Kill , which was submitted by Canada to be their entrant to the Best International Film at this year's Oscars. They talk about changing the dialogue from Farsi to Turkish, the use of mirrors and the importance of translation. Read our review of the film by Ryan Beaupit. Follow Jeff's podcast...

The 98th Academy Awards are now behind us! One Battle After Another was the big winner with 6 prizes, we had a tie for the first time since 2012 and Conan O'Brien dressed like Aunt Gladys! Alex Southey joins the show to discuss the big moments, winners and losers from Hollywood's biggest night. Watch our interview with Alison McAlpine , the Oscar nominated director of Perfectly A Strangene...

The Oscar's are a week away, so it is time to put our reputation's on the line and predict who will come away with all the awards at this year's ceremony on March 15th 2026. Joining Dakota in getting bold is Thomas Stoneham-Judge⁠⁠ , the owner of For Reel. Below are our picks of who we think will win: Best Casting - Sinners (D), One Battle After Another (T) Best Cinematography - Sinner...

Jeff Bulmer interviews Alison McAlpine, the director of the Oscar nominee for Best Documentary Short, Perfectly a Strangeness . They chat about blending narrative and fiction, working with donkeys and being able to think quickly on your feet. Watch Perfectly a Strangeness on Crave in Canada. Follow Jeff's podcast Classic Movies Live on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

We are back with our fourth annual Oscar Draft. It is very simple, each person selects 5 movies that are nominated at this year’s Oscars and whoever gets the most awards, wins! Joining Dakota is ⁠Thomas Stoneham-Judge⁠ , Darren Zakus and Todd Pengelly . Stay tuned to the Oscar Wrap Up podcast to see who the winner was! Check out the 2025's Oscar Draft , ⁠2024's Oscar Draft⁠ and the ⁠2023 Draft too...

We finish our yearly journey looking at all the Best Picture nominated films and the odds they have to win each of their awards. On this second episode of 2026, we look at Frankenstein , Marty Supreme , The Secret Agent and Train Dreams . Joining the show is Jeff Bulmer co-host of Classic Movies Live . Listen to episode ⁠323: Sinner's Hamnet of F1⁠ and 324: One Sentimental Bugonia After Another ou...

We continue our yearly journey looking at all the Best Picture nominated films and the odds they have to win each of their awards. On this second episode of 2026, we look at One Battle After Another , Sentimental Value and Bugonia . Joining the show is Elysia Brenner, host of The Lorehounds podcast. Listen to episode 323: Sinner's Hamnet of F1 , our first Best Picture podcast. Check out Elysia...

We begin our yearly journey looking at all the Best Picture nominated films and the odds they have to win each of their awards. On this first episode of 2026, we look at Sinners , Hamnet and F1 . Joining the show is expert Paulo Bautista host of the Oscars Death Race Podcast . Check out Paulo's written review of Cutting Through Rocks , the Oscar nominated documentary. Follow Paulo on ⁠⁠⁠Twitte...

We have a special video episode where Jeff Bulmer takes the reigns to interview Paying For It writer and director Sook-Yin Lee. They talk about adapting Chester Brown's graphic novel, casting actors to play real people in her life and creating fully formed sex worker characters. Read Jeff's review from TIFF 2024 . Read Pierre Frigon's review from VIFF 2024 . Catch Paying For It in US t...

Dakota and Jeff talk about the just announced 98th Academy Award nominations. We discuss Sinners setting a new record with 16 nods, wonder if One Battle After Another is still the front runner, the strong Best International Film category and much more. We also name our favourite nominations and biggest snubs. Check out Mark Morgan's Diane Warren: Relentless review. Follow Jeff's podcast Cl...

We continue our series going through the entire catalog of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠A24's films⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ . On this episode Dakota is looking at 2015's Green Room directed by Jeremy Saulnier and starring Anton Yelchin and Alia Shawkat as members of a punk band who get trapped in a neo-nazi club after witnessing a murder. Joining the show is actor Riley Orr who can be seen on season 2 of Watson and the upcoming A...

2025 was the year that HuntR/X and The Saja Boys took over the world. The phenomenon that was the film KPop Demon Hunters premiered on Netflix and was a massive hit. We talk about this movie, along with it's Oscar chances and the state of animation currently. Follow Jeff's podcast Classic Movies Live on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ....

We continue our series going through the entire catalog of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠A24's films⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ . On this episode Dakota and Matthew are looking at 2015's Room directed by Lenny Abrahamson and starring Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay as a woman and her son who escape their kidnapping and try to adjust to the real world. Joining the show is Alex Southey. Our double bill pairings include Kramer vs. Kramer (...

Frequent CZP guest Paulo Bautista, host of the Oscars Death Race Podcast , had the pleasure of attending the 63rd edition of the New York Film Festival. He reports back with audio diaries on films he saw. Paulo reviews Scarlet , Sound of Falling , Resurrection (with guest appearance from Kyle Flynn), Sentimental Value , No Other Choice and Magellan . Follow Paulo on ⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠Letterboxd...

With the latest version of the classic Mary Shelly story Frankenstein coming out from director Guillermo del Toro, we look back at the history of this monster movie. Pairing the latest version with 1931's Frankenstein directed by James Whale and 1974's Young Frankenstein directed by Mel Brooks. Dakota, Jeff and Matthew discuss adapting the book to screen and how the versions work telling t...

The 44th edition of the Vancouver International Film Festival just concluded and we are here to talk about some of our favourite films that played! Joining Dakota and Matthew is Darren Zakus from Movie Scene Canada . The guys talk about Deathstalker and A Welcome Distraction (Dakota's picks), Wrong Husband and Blue Heron (Matthew's picks) and Blue Moon and Is This Thing On? (Darren's p...

Even though the Toronto International Film Festival is over, we have a very special interview for listeners. Zacharias Kunuk, best known for his 2001 film Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, sat down with Jeff Bulmer to discuss his latest film Wrong Husband (Uiksaringitara) . Check out Jeff's review of Wrong Husband (Uiksaringitara) . If you haven't listened to our TIFF wrap up podcast, check out...