Contra Zoom Pod

For the 3rd year in a row we cover the Toronto Japanese Film Festival and talk about movies we saw. They include Plan 75 , BL Metamorphosis , Roleless , and Father of the Milky Way Railroad . Read Jericho Tadeo's original review of Plan 75 when it was screened at TIFF last year on The Asian Cut . Both Dakota and Rachel participated in CBC's The 50 Greatest Films Directed by Canadians and R...

In lieu of a full episode this week, we bring you the eighth in our series of bonus episodes, Better Know a Contributor , where we ask frequent guests of the show 10 Contra Zoom Pod movie questions so you can learn more about your favourite voices. On this show is Paulo Bautista, a man who wears many hats but some of the podcasts he hosts include the Oscars Death Race Podcast , Box Office Watch ,...

We're a little over halfway through 2023, so we decide to look at the best films of the year so far! Our titles are listed alphabetically, so they are not in order of our rankings. We also share our honourable mentions that just missed the cut! Dakota's Top 5 BlackBerry Renfield Satan Wants You Scream 6 Showing Up Rachel's Top 5 BlackBerry John Wick: Chapter 4 Past Lives Retrograde Ric...

It's June, which means it is Pride Month! Bad Gay Movies is one of my favourite podcasts and love hearing Bil Antoniou talk about gay themed movies, but I wanted to hear his thoughts on movies that are actually good. We decided to focus on movies that were influential to Bil as he was coming of age. We discuss Madonna: Truth or Dare , Jeffrey and Clueless . Listen to our last Pride themed epis...

We continue our series going through the entire catalog of A24's films. On this episode we are looking at 2015's Cut Bank directed by Matt Shakman. The film stars Liam Hemsworth and Teresa Palmer as a couple who accidentally film the murder of their small town mailman. Once John Malkovich, the towns sheriff, starts to investigate the crime, things suddenly start not appearing as they seem....

Now that all the limited releases of 2022 have come out and we are past the winter studio dumping grounds, it is time to look at what movies are coming out the rest of this year. Both Dakota and Rachel pick 6 movies each that have confirmed release dates and discuss why they are so excited for them. Dakota's picks: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse , Asteroid City , Mission: Impossible - Dea...

We continue our series going through the entire catalog of A24's films. On this episode we are looking at 2015's While We're Young directed by Noah Baumbach. The film stars Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts as a couple who hit their mid-life crisis and meet young hipsters played by Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried who re-energize them. Joining the show is Bil Antoniou host of the Bad Gay Movi...

The first James Bond film Dr. No was first seen outside the United Kingdom in May of 1963. We celebrate the 60th anniversary of the film franchise by revisiting the seminal action movie directed by Terrence Yonge and starring Sean Connery, Ursula Andress and Joseph Wiseman. After we discuss the movie we look back at the franchise as a whole including our favourite Bond actors, best theme songs and...

The 30th edition of the Hot Docs festival that celebrates the best new documentaries just concluded in Toronto. We discuss the films Satan Wants You, July Talk: Love Lives Here, I’m Just Here For The Riot, A Still Small Voice, Aitamaako’tamisskapi Natosi: Before the Sun and The Mountains. Joining the show is Courtney Small a critic who runs the publication Cinema Axis and who's work can also b...

It is Contra Zoom Pod's 8th anniversary! To celebrate we decided to do a best of the year episode, from before CZP started! Our first best of the year show was 2015 ( 20: Top 10 Films of 2015 ) so we are going back in time to 2014. This show was inspired by Dakota's blog post ⁠Best of 2014⁠ . Listen to Better Know a Contributor - Dakota Arsenault to learn more about the history of the podc...

The Canadian Screen Awards just handed out awards for the best in film, television and web content. We look at the big winners in the film portion which included Brother dominating with 12 wins, Crimes of the Future with 2 wins and Alice, Darling , Viking , I Like Movies , Riceboy Sleeps and Falcon Lake each winning 1 award. We also named our top five Canadian films from last year! Dakota's To...

We continue our series going through the entire catalog of A24's films. On this episode we are looking at 2015's Son of a Gun directed by Julius Avery. The film stars Ewan McGregor as a bank robbery who takes a young man under his wing while in prison. Once on the outside the young man decides to join McGregor's crew as they attempt to rob a gold factory in Australia. Joining the show...

Now that the Oscars are done, we can officially flip the calendar on the 2022 movie year. Dakota and Rachel each name their ten favourite films from last year and get some help with some voicemails from friends of the show! Special thanks to Calum MacNab from Scaretroducing (Nope), Paulo Bautista from the Oscars Death Race Podcast (Everything Everywhere All At Once), Jeff Bulmer from Classic Movie...

After dedicating much of the last two+ months to the Academy Awards, we finally have reached our finish line. The 95th Oscars awarded Everything Everywhere All At Once Best Picture an 6 other awards. All Quiet on the Western Front was the other big winner of the night as well. Joining Dakota and Rachel to recap the winners, review Jimmy Kimmel and discuss everything that happened during the show i...

We have another fun bonus episode and if you are either a Spotify or YouTube subscriber you'll also get the video for this show. Brodie Cotnam and Alex Watson join Rachel and Dakota as they have an Oscar Draft. Now you're probably wondering what an Oscar draft is, an idea inspired by the now defunct excellent show First Round Flick , basically you pick a movie nominated at the Oscars and for every...

We finished going through all the Best Picture nominees over the last month and it's time to put our money where our mouths are. Dakota and Rachel run through all the categories and pick who they want to win and who they think will win. This isn't all the great Oscar coverage as in a few days a bonus video podcast will go up where we do an Oscar draft, and there will also be another If We Were Osc...

We continue our yearly tradition of breaking down the Best Picture nominees and the odds they have to win each of their categories. On this show we discuss All Quiet on the Western Front , TÁR , Avatar: The Way of Water and Triangle of Sadness . We label each nomination as Frontrunner, Dark Horse, Longshot and Just Happy To Be There. Joining the show is Kyle Garzon, hosts of the podcast Once Upon...

We continue our yearly tradition of breaking down the Best Picture nominees and the odds they have to win each of their categories. On this show we discuss Everything Everywhere All At Once , Elvis and Women Talking . We label each nomination as Frontrunner, Dark Horse, Longshot and Just Happy To Be There. Joining the show is Paulo Bautista host of the Oscars Death Race Podcast and John Richards t...

Make/Remake examines how two films that share the same story. Not to say what film was better or worse, but how they are similar and different while following the same arcs. This time we are looking at the 1952 Akira Kurosawa film Ikiru starring Takashi Shimura and the 2022 British remake Living directed by Oliver Hermanus and starring Bill Nighy. Check out our past Make/Remake 's for more great c...

We continue our yearly tradition of breaking down the Best Picture nominees and the odds they have to win each of their categories. On the first episode of the series we talk about The Banshees of Inisherin , The Fabelmans and Top Gun: Maverick . We label each nomination as Frontrunner, Dark Horse, Longshot and Just Happy To Be There. Joining the show is Jeff Bulmer and Pierre Frigon, the hosts of...

We continue our series going through the entire catalog of A24's films. On this episode we are looking at 2014's A Most Violent Year directed by J.C. Chandor. The film stars Oscar Isaac as a man in 1981 New Jersey who is on the precipice of controlling a building to expand his natural gas empire while the world around him is crumbling. His wife, Jessica Chastain, supports her husband, but has her...

With the Oscar nominations announced just yesterday, Rachel and Dakota react to who is up for the industries highest honours. We discuss the lack of surprises and domination of the same ten films in just about every category, early favourites and more. The Oscars will be handed out on March 12th 2023, but along the way we will have plenty of great Oscar content, including breaking down each B...

On this bonus episode, I am sharing my interview with Benjamin Belloir, director of the new film Beautiful Stranger for the Academy of Death Racers Festival. Beautiful Stranger is a queer short about a man who experiences a sudden break up and decides to try his luck on a dating app despite his hesitations. I was asked to film a Q&A with Benjamin to appear alongside the film's screening. Feel...

We are back from our holiday break and it's time to start looking back on the year 2022! We discuss some of the biggest news stories that dominated the film world. We look at how horror movies were dominating the box office (Scream 5, X, Pearl, Men) and some reinventing how word of mouth works (Terrifier 2), how RRR became a global phenomenon, the DC Films reshuffling and cancellation of projects,...

It's our last show of 2022! Last year we decided to have some fun by playing a fun little game, you can check out 177: This or That to see how Rachel tortured Dakota into Sophie's Choicing his movie opinions. Rachel is back with another fun game, but to face off against Dakota we have Matthew Simpson from the Awesome Friday podcast. Rachel "created" a game where she looked up popular actors and fi...