Contra Zoom Pod

With the recent release of Crimes of the Future , the newest film directed by David Cronenberg and his first in almost a decade, we are celebrating the auteur's proper return to the body horror in quite a long time. We look at how body horror helps move the story along and what it has to offer in helping to better understand his films themes. We are focusing on The Fly , Videodrome and Naked Lunch...

We continue our series going through the entire catalog of A24's films. On this episode we are looking at 2014's Locke directed by Steven Knight. The film stars Tom Hardy as a man driving to a hospital as a woman prepares to give birth to his child. On this drive he has to fight potential consequences for making this decision, including telling his wife he cheated on her and his work that on the e...

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 1962 J. Lee Thompson version of Cape Fear (a film celebrating its 60th anniversary this year) and the 1991 Martin Scorsese remake also called Cape Fear. Check out our past Make/Remake 's for mor...

We continue our series going through the entire catalog of A24's films. On this episode we are looking at 2014's Under the Skin directed by Jonathan Glazer. The film stars Scarlett Johnasson as a nameless woman who picks up lonely men in Scotland before bringing them back to a black void where their bodies are harvested as it turns out this woman isn’t human. Joining the show to talk about one of...

For the third year in a row, we cover the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, which celebrates the best documentaries in the world. This year it ran from April 28th to May 8th and 225 movies from 63 countries were screened in-person in Toronto and online. We review and discuss Blue Island , Eternal Spring , The Thief Collector , Shooting War and Eskape . We each also recommend Th...

With 2021 fully behind us, we begin to look forward to what new releases excite us the most for the rest of 2022. Rachel's picks include Men, The Phantom of the Open, Bullet Train, Nope and DC League of Super Pets. Dakota's picks include Thor: Love and Thunder, Don’t Worry Darling, Babylon, Blonde and Disappointment Blvd. Check out episode 190: Top Ten Films of 2021 . Follow Rachel on Twitter and...

With the recent release of Pixar's latest film Turning Red, Toronto has hit the international stage. The city is home to one of the busiest filming hubs in the world, but very rarely gets to play itself. We look at the Toronto-ness of the giant red panda bounding across the city, Scott Pilgrim vs The World having a bass off in Lee's Palace, The F Word going skinny dipping at the Scarborough Bluffs...

We are celebrating our 7th anniversary here at Contra Zoom, so we decided to continue our Better Know a Contributor series by getting the whole backstory of the pod from the creator himself. From the early days at Live in Limbo where finding a name was the most difficult thing in the world to the current highs of always striving for the heat possible show. We learn about Dakota's introduction to l...

We're finally at the point to reveal out top ten films from last year! Yes it is now April but we have our reasons that you'll have to listen to to find out what they are!  Dakota's List: 10. The Worst Person in the World 9. Pig 8. Nightmare Alley 7. The Tragedy of Macbeth 6. Official Competition 5. Red Rocket 4. Drive My Car 3. The Righteous 2. Belfast 1. The Last Duel Rachel's List: 10. Fle...

What a boring uneventful Oscar night. I'm sure there will be nothing to talk about as Bil Antoniou returns to the show after last appearing on episode 157: Best Films Through the Decades. We recap the 94th Academy Awards where CODA won Best Picture, Jane Campion won Best Director, Drive My Car won Best International Film and oh yeah Will Smith assaulted Chris Rock on live television. We discu...

After spending the last few episodes looking at the Best Picture contenders and their odds to win, we finally make our big bold predictions for the big ceremony happening March 27th. We go over 21 of the categories (the shorts were omitted) and we stated who we think will win and who we want to win. Joining Rachel and Dakota is Stephanie Prior, who was last heard on episode 162: Vancouver Queer Fi...

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 second episode of the series we talked about Belfast , West Side Story , CODA and Licorice Pizza . On this show we break down The Power of the Dog , Don't Look Up and Drive My Car . We label each nomination as Frontrunner, Dark Horse, Longshot and Just Happy To...

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 talked about Dune , King Richard and Nightmare Alley . On this show we break down Belfast , West Side Story , CODA and Licorice Pizza . We label each nomination as Frontrunner, Dark Horse, Longshot and Just Happy To Be There. Join...

We are taking a brief sojourn from Oscar talk, to instead look back into our own country of Canada and discuss the best movies from north of the border. We react to the 2022 Canadian Screen Awards, which celebrates the best in film, TV and screen work. On this show we discuss the movie portion of the nominees. Some of the films we go over include Scarborough, Night Raiders, All My Puny Sorrows, Wi...

We begin 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 talk about Dune , King Richard and Nightmare Alley . 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. Check out Scaretroducing's review of...

Normally 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 1957 Akira Kurosawa movie Throne of Blood and the 2021 Joel Coen movie The Tragedy of Macbeth both based on the William Shakespeare play Macbeth. Check out past Make/Remake films for mo...

We react to the just announced 94th Academy Award nominations. We talk about the big (early) winners in The Power of the Dog, Dune, Belfast, West Side Story, CODA, Being the Ricardos, Flee and more. We look at the big categories and what stuck out as a surprise or a snub. Stay tuned for the rest of Oscar season as there will be plenty more shows devoted to the Academy Awards including episodes bre...

We continue our series going through the entire catalog of A24's films. On this episode we are looking at 2014's Life After Beth directed by Jeff Baena. The film is a story about a young man given a second chance at love when his recently deceased girlfriend comes back to life as a zombie. The film stars Aubrey Plaza, Dane De Haan, John C. Reilly, Molly Shannon and Anna Kendrick. This is a special...

We continue our series going through the entire catalog of A24's films. On this episode we are looking at 2013's Enemy directed by Denis Villeneuve. The film is about a history professor played by Jake Gyllenhaal who watches a movie and notices his exact doppelgänger in it. As he investigates who this other man is, they get wrapped up in a mystery of who is really who and how they might be connect...

With 2021 now behind us, it's time for Dakota and Rachel to look back at the news stories that dominated the film industry. We talk about Scarlett Johansson suing Disney over the studio pulling Black Widow from theatres, Bob Odenkirk having a scary health moment where for a brief moment the world thought he had died, Jussie Smollet gets sentenced for orchestrating a hate crime against himself, how...

On this bonus episode, I am sharing my interview with Louis Lathey, director of the new film Who Am I Now? for the Academy of Death Racers Festival. Who Am I Now? is a queer coming out story for two women who are grappling with their self identities as they fall for each other. I was asked to film a Q&A with the Louise to appear after the films screening. Feel free to either watch the movie fi...

We continue our series going through the entire catalog of A24's films. On this episode we are looking at 2021's Red Rocket , directed by Sean Baker. The film is about a washed up former porn star Mikey, played by Simon Rex, who returns to his hometown in Texas as he tries to get his life back on track. He moves back in with his estranged wife and mother-in-law and gets back to his scheming ways....

We are approaching the holiday season, so we thought we'd have a bit of fun! Rachel put together a bunch of questions to test Dakota's ability to make movie recommendations. Jaws or Saving Private Ryan? Marie Antionette or The Bling Ring? Rushmore or The Royal Tenenbaums?  Check out some of Rachel's recent work on Exclaim's best of series, Exclaim!'s 17 Best Films of 2021 and Exclaim!'s 12 Be...

We continue our series going through the entire catalog of A24's films. On this episode we are looking at 2013's The Spectacular Now, directed by James Ponsoldt. The film is a coming of age romantic drama about Sutter, played by Miles Teller, who despite being popular has no direction in his life and showing signs of being a burgeoning alcoholic. He meets Aimee, played by Shailene Woodley, who see...

Our first director ranked episode since episode 134: David Fincher Ranked , we look at the films by Wes Anderson as we celebrate his tenth feature film release, The French Dispatch. Joining the show is Stephanie Prior, who was last heard on episode 162: Vancouver Queer Film Festival 2021 .  For more information on the rise of Wes Anderson and how he got his first film made, check out the You...