Contra Zoom Pod

On this episode the guys start talk about the forth edition of their Best Picture Winners revisits. The years are 1968-1977 (the 40th-49th Oscar winners). In Part One the guys reveal their bottom five of the decade. 10.  Oliver!   9.  Rocky   8.  Patton   7.  The French Connection   6.  One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest   Here are the top five pi...

This week Dakota Arsenault is joined by special guest Rachel Gordon as they talk about their favourite movies you should watch during the Halloween season!  New Horror (1980’s on)-  Rachel suggests watching The Blair Witch Project Dakota suggests watching The Thing Classic Horror- Rachel suggests watching anything from Alfred Hitchcock specifically Psycho or The Birds Dakota suggests wat...

Mehek Seyid joins Dakota and Andreas this week as they discuss the Toronto International Film Festival including the big winners and some other must sees. Links: – La La Land was the big winner taking home the People’s Choice award and both Andreas and Mehek are in sync lavishing even more praise on the Oscar front runner. – Jackie was another film both Mehek and Andreas saw with Natalie Portman g...

On this episode the guys start talk about the forth edition of their Best Picture Winners revisits. The years are 1968-1977 (the 40th-49th Oscar winners). Our photographer Katrina Lat joins us to talk about her favourite movies. – Down With Love – Singin’ In The Rain – Big Fish Here are the bottom five pictures in our rankings. Dakota’s ratings come first and Andreas’ second next to each film. 10....

Even though Dakota Arsenault and Andreas Babiolakis are currently prepping for their proper return to Contra Zoom, it is only fitting for them to have a tribute to one of the greatest comedic actors ever in Gene Wilder. The guys talk about their favourite Wilder movies, moments and what made him so special.  Enjoy some great clips from some of his movies. – Puttin’ On the Ritz from Young Fran...

Dakota Arsenault and Andreas Babiolakis review the new film X-Men: Apocalypse . In the end the guys think the film is good, but not great and nowhere near the super negative reviews some critics have been giving it. – Andreas spoke with Canadian actress Carolina Bartczak who plays Magneto’s wife, Magda, in the new summer blockbuster film X-Men: Apocalypse. Carolina talks about meeting Jennifer Law...

This is the third year in a row that Live in Limbo has attended the  Toronto Screenwriting Conference  and the second year that Contra Zoom has done a pod and interviews on the great weekend. Here you can listen to last year’s  episode , which features interviews with David S Goyer and Mara Brock Akil. Links: This is Part Two of our TSC coverage at Contra Zoom. On Part One there wer...

This is the third year in a row that Live in Limbo has attended the Toronto Screenwriting Conference and the second year that Contra Zoom has done a pod and interviews on the great weekend. Here you can listen to last year’s episode , which features interviews with David S Goyer and Mara Brock Akil.  Make sure you read the recap of the weekend, Day 1 done by Andreas Babiolakis and Day 2 done...

This week Dakota Arsenault is joined by a special guest in Mehek Seyid to talk about some of the films we are most excited to see. April – Sing Street May – Captain America: Civil War – The Angry Birds Movie – X-Men: Apocalypse – The Lobster – The Nice Guys (Redband) June – Me Before You – The Conjuring 2 – Finding Dory – Independence Day: Resurgence – Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (Redband)...

On this episode the guys start talk about the forth edition of their Best Picture Winners revisits. The years are 1958-1967 (the 30th– 39th Oscar winners). You can find Edition 3 HERE and Part 2 of it HERE .  Katrina Wong-Shue joined us on this episode and talked about her favourite films of all time. – A Nightmare Before Christmas – A Goofy Movie – The Lion King – Beauty and the Beast Make s...

While it is March, the guys finally get around to discussing their ten favourite films of last year. Mehek Seyid who is just as passionate about movies as Dakota and Andreas joins them. Andreas moderates this episode as he had already made a post back in December talking about his twenty favourite films of last year . Also if you missed it, Andreas did a post about the twenty best performances too...

This week Dakota and Andreas go over their thoughts on the 88th Oscars. From Chris Rock’s hosting to the nights big winners and losers, the guys cover it all. On the last episode Dakota, Andreas and special guest Dasha Peregedouva made their bold predictions on who they think would win. See below for how their guesses turned out. Check out Andreas’ recap of the ceremony and the big winners. Follow...

In part 2 of our third annual Oscar Extravaganza Dakota and Andreas are joined yet again by Dasha Peregoudova to lend her expert opinion. Our expert picks are at the bottom, look for Andreas’ post Oscar reaction’s early next week and a pod discussing the big winners and losers coming soon! Follow Dakota  @Dgapa  and Andreas  @AndreasBabs  and follow the show @ContraZoomPod &nbs...

Our Oscar Extravaganza podcast used to be held over at Capsule the last few years and we are excited to have it return to the permanent home of Contra Zoom. Make sure you get up to speed with the weekly Contra Zoom episodes of past and Oscar Primers going over the contenders. Friend of the show Dasha Peregoudova who actually beat Dakota last year in his Oscar Pool, so she knows her stuff joins Dak...

This is the third Oscar Primer podcast for Contra Zoom, continuing the series of Oscar Primer’s Dakota does every year, normally just as written articles. He is flying solo this episode once again as he talks about The Revenant and Spotlight . Unfortunately due to my illness last week I was unable to talk about Brooklyn and Room , but you should still totally check those films out because the...

This is the second Oscar Primer podcast for Contra Zoom, continuing the series of Oscar Primer’s Dakota does every year, normally just as written articles. He is flying solo this episode once again as he talks about Mad Max: Fury Road and The Big Short . These are the nominees for Mad Max: Fury Road. – Best Picture – Best Directing for George Miller  – Best Cinematography – Best Editing – Bes...

Who cares that Star Wars: The Force Awakens came out way back in December! Dakota and Andreas give a review for what will end up being the first of second highest grossing film of all time! The guys really enjoyed the film with Andreas even putting the film at number 11 in his top films of 2015 post ! The guys then discuss if the Original’s were as great as everyone remembers and if the Prequel’s...

This is the first Oscar Primer podcast for Contra Zoom, continuing the series of Oscar Primer’s Dakota does every year, normally just as written articles. He is flying solo this episode as he talks about The Martian and Bridge of Spies . These are the nominations for The Martian – Best Picture – Best Actor for Matt Damon – Best Adapted Screenplay  – Best Production Design – Best Sound Mixing...

This week Dakota and Andreas go over the just announced Oscar nominations .  The guys talk about the films with the most nominations including The Revenant with 12, Mad Max: Fury Road with 10 and The Martian with 7. They also talk about surprises both good and bad and some snubs. They also go through the big categories and discuss whom the early front-runners of some key categories are: – Bes...

*So I totally realized, that there never was an episode 11 and that makes everything out of whack, so this is actually episode 11. Enjoy!* On this episode the guys continue their talk about the third edition of their Best Picture Winners revisits. Check out Part 1 from the years are 1948-1957 (the 20th– 29th Oscar winners) here. You can find Edition 1  here  and Edition 2  here...

On this episode the guys start talk about the third edition of their Best Picture Winners revisits. The years are 1948-1957 (the 20th– 29th Oscar winners). You can find Edition 1 here and Edition 2 here and Part 2 here .  Dakota and Andreas talk about the history of HUAC (The House of Un-American Actives) and the Hayes Code both black marks on the history of Hollywood. Sarah Rix’s favourite f...

TIFF is in its 40th year. Andreas and Dakota (mostly Andreas though) covered a bunch of TIFF films including Love, Stonewall, Lolo, Room and more. Check out their capsule reviews HERE .  We compared TIFF to the Venice Film Festival , which is now overlapping with TIFF Previously TIFF has 5 Best Picture Oscar Winners and an additional 8 other films that were nominated win their prestigious Peo...

Your hosts Dakota Arsenault and Andreas Babiolakis were lucky to enough to see a screening of Rebecca hosted by the legendary film director Guillermo del Toro  while he was in town to host a lecture series based on Gothic Horror  films.  For those not familiar with GdT’s filmography, check out Pan’s Labyrinth , Pacific Rim , or the Hellboy films .  Back in 2012 GdT ho...

Continuing on from our Best Picture Winner decade-by-decade breakdown from last week’s part 1 Dakota Arsenault and Andreas Babiolakis count down the top five films of 1938-1947.  – Dakota recommends that you read the bio and trivia on actor John Garfield Here is a link to our bottom five in this decade’s Best Picture Winner’s Dakota’s ratings come first followed by Andreas’ 5. Gentleman’s Agr...

This week we started a new feature where Live in Limbo’s mastermind Sean Chin joined us to talk about his three favourite movies. – Shawshank Redemption – 2001: A Space Odyssey – A.I. Artificial Intelligence The bottom five of our countdown is the following. Dakota’s ratings come first followed by Andreas’ 10. How Green Was My Valley 2.5/10 5/10 9. Going My Way 4/10 6/10 8. Mrs. Miniver 7/10 7/10...