I am a freelance film critic and podcast host from Vancouver Canada! I am a co-founder of the Cascadia Film & Television Critics Association, and a voting member of the International Film Society Critics, Pandora International Critics, and the Online Film & Television Association.
I maintain bylines at Exclaim!, Awesome Friday!, That Shelf, ForReel, Movies We Texted About, KeithLovesMovies, and I can be heard regularly on the Contra Zoom Podcast and The LAMBCast.
The 2025 Canadian Screen Awards were handed out from May 30-June 1st and the television portion was hosted by Lisa Gilroy. Universal Language and The Apprentice were the big winners. We look at ten categories and discuss the winners and Dakota, Matthew and Jeff pick our own favourites. Real talk:…
The Predator franchise is the platonic ideal of an action horror franchise. There are highly skilled people in the world, and there’s a whole race of monsters that hunts those people for sport. The setup is simple, allowing it to serve as a framework for various kinds of stories. At…
Ignite Films was kind enough to send me a copy of their new 40th Anniversary release of the 80s horror classic Re-Animator, and I got to write about it for Movies We Texted About! The 1980s were perhaps the best decade for high-concept, low-budget, effects-driven horror films. There are many…
Your mission, should you choose to accept it is to listen to Dakota and Matthew rank the Mission: Impossible films to celebrate the release of the 8th entry (and possibly last film in the series?) , The Final Reckoning. Joining the show is former co-host Rachel Ho the film editor…
If Apple TV+ sitcoms have a through line, it’s that they aren’t actually at their best when they’re funny. That’s not to say that they aren’t funny — they definitely are — but rather that the laughs seem to come almost secondary to heart. Ted Lasso is probably the best example of this, a…
I sat down with my friend Austin Belzer on his podcast to talk about Andor season 2. The full conversation is nearly 90 minutes but we cover a lot of territory as we discuss one of the best Star Wars projects maybe ever. Listening Links And consider subscribing to Austin’s…
We try to keep our promises here on the Lambcast. A Month ago, we talked about the “Final Destination” Franchise and we agreed to come back to talk about the new entry when it dropped in May. Everyone technically has returned, although Richard had to cheat a little to do…
The first film of the late Val Kilmer, was chosen as the MOTM after being suggested by Jeanette Ward from “The Mundane Adventures of a Fangirl” blog. Almost two years ago she promoted “Real Genius” to MOTM status. It appears that Jeanette has a thing for Mr. Kilmer. After watching…
From Wall-E and RoboCop to Short Circuit and I, Robot, we are well-served with stories of robots built to serve that develop distinct personalities and humanity, and then eventually save the day. Apple TV+‘s Murderbot, the latest entry in this subgenre, mashes up several versions of this story into something that straddles the line between the familiar and the…
The 13th Canadian Screen Award Nominees are here! This years main ceremony will take place on June 1st with comedian Lisa Gilroy hosting. Some stand outs among the nominees include Matthew Rankin’s Universal Language which scored a towering thirteen nominations and David Cronenberg’s The Shrounds with nine. Be sure to…
The Lambcast is back and we have a big one for you to kick off the Summer season. The MCU seems to have been in the doldrums for a while and the characters in this movie have apparently been watching because they are all depressed as well. Maybe a new…
Black Mirror is the successor to series like The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, using science fiction narratives to expand and expound on themes of our everyday lives and make us think deeply about the world around us. It’s incredibly well produced and has given us some of the finest science fiction stories…
The first episode introduces each of the couples as they are arriving at the lake house. The initial moments are light and fun, and set up the group dynamics almost immediately as a group of old friends who know almost, but not quite, everything about one another. The first night…
Sequels and prequels are individually difficult. The former have to carry on story threads and push characters into new places in satisfying ways, the latter have to thread the needle of being their own entity while directly leading into the events that viewers have already witnessed. Andor season two then…
This past Wednesday, April 16th, was 2025 National Canadian Film Day! To help celebrate, I contributed to this list of great Canadian films you should totally watch. All the films on the list are great, but the two I chose to write about are Last Night and The Red Violin,…
The daily podcast where we FUBAR our way through the 1998 Steven Spielberg-directed film – Saving Private Ryan, one minute at a time. In this minute, Rob finishes off the week with Matthew Simpson of Awesome Friday, and the anticipation grows with the ground beginning to shake from the nearing tanks.…
The daily podcast where we FUBAR our way through the 1998 Steven Spielberg-directed film – Saving Private Ryan, one minute at a time. In this minute, Matthew Simpson of Awesome Friday is back with Rob as the men finalise their preparations for the imminent battle. Listening Links:
The daily podcast where we FUBAR our way through the 1998 Steven Spielberg-directed film – Saving Private Ryan, one minute at a time. In this minute, Rob returns with Matthew Simpson of Awesome Friday as they get an update on the ETA of the tanks. Listening Links:
We continue our series going through the entire catalog of A24’s films. On this episode Dakota and Matthew are looking at 2021’s Val directed by Leo Scott and Ting Poo. The film is a documentary using actor Val Kilmer’s extensive home video collection to cover his life and career up to his diagnoses…
It took four swings at the poll to finally win, but Lisa Leaheey of the “Pictures and Conversations Podcast” was never in doubt about her “Final Destination”. The April Movie of the Month has traditionally been a Franchise lookback and this year is no different. Starting in 2015, we did…
