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The 2023 Sundance Film Festival | Awesome Friday Podcast
Greetings programs! You’ve all been good so here’s a bonus episode of the podcast in which Rachel Ho and Matthew break down a few great titles from this year Sundance Film Festival. This was Matthew’s first year attending the festival and Rachel’s second, and it was a pretty good year if these six films are any indication. Join us as we take a look at Still, Fair Play, The Pod Generation, Eileen, Magazine Dreams, and Infinity Pool. Episode Homepage: https://awesomefriday.ca/2023/01/podcast-the-2023-sundance-film-festival/
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You People & M3gan | Awesome Friday Podcast
Greetings, programs, and welcome back to the show! This week we dive into two 2023 releases. First, we’ll discuss the new Netflix rom-com You People, starring Jonah Hill, Lauren London, Eddie Murphy, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Second, we’ll catch up with the Blumhouse-produced killer robot doll movie M3gan! Episode Homepage: https://awesomefriday.ca/2023/01/podcast-you-people-m3gan/
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Shrinking Grows Past Its Familiar Story | Exclaim!
With so much content these days, it can sometimes feel like there are no new stories. Shrinking, AppleTV+’s new series starring Jason Segel, covers familiar territory: an affluent, white male therapist living in an affluent neighbourhood full of affluent friends has hit rock bottom after a year of grief and begins to act out as a means of reconnecting with his own humanity — and, by extension, reconnecting with his family, colleagues and friends. But, despite its conventional premise, Shrinking is executed so well that the old feels new again. Full review at Exclaim.ca: https://exclaim.ca/film/article/shrinking_jason_segel_apple_tv_series_review
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Burial & Puss in Boots: The Last Wish | Awesome Friday Podcast
Greetings programs! This week on the show, we’re catching up with two more 2022 films, the IFC Midnight produced Shudder exclusive Burial and the latest film in the Shrek franchise, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. One of these movies is a little more divisive than the other here at Awesome Friday HQ; listen to find out which! Episode Homepage: https://awesomefriday.ca/2023/01/podcast-burial-puss-in-boots-the-last-wish/
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2023 Pandora International Critics Awards
The 2023 Pandora International Critics Awards are my second as a voting member of the group. This year there was one particular film that dominated the conversation! We have to go back to the Academy Awards in 1972 when Cabaret took home 8 Oscars – including Best Director and two acting prizes – without the big prize, Best Picture. That went to The Godfather, which also conquered in Best Actor and Screenplay. As we digest the recently announced winners for the 4th Pandora International Film Critics awards, there’s almost an exact mirror of those events some 50 years ago. Link: https://filmotomy.com/everything-everywhere-all-at-once-dominates-without-motion-picture-win-at-the-4th-pandora-international-film-critics-awards/
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The Last of Us | Awesome Friday Podcast
Greetings programs! You’re reading this correctly, a second episode this week! I was given access to the entire first season of the new HBO series The Last of Us, an adaptation of the PlayStation video game franchise of the same name. Joining me to speak about it is my friend Shaurya Chawla, who has not only seen the whole series but, unlike me, has played the game. Episode Homepage: https://awesomefriday.ca/2023/01/podcast-the-last-of-us/
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Matt & Simon & Rachel’s Top Movie Moments of 2022! | Awesome Friday Podcast
Greetings, programs, and welcome to a special episode of the Awesome Friday Podcast! This week Matthew, Simon, and Rachel get together and discuss their favourite movie moments of 2022. This episode is replete with spoilers for every movie we discuss, so if you haven’t seen something, please be mindful of segments you may want to skip or maybe bookmark this one and come back later. Either way, this is the first time that Simon and Rachel have been in a (virtual) room together, and it was a ton of fun to record. All told, we have fifteen moments from twelve…
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Matt & Simon’s Top Films of 2022! | Awesome Friday Podcast
Greetings programs! Welcome to our first episode of 2023. Now that Simon is back from holiday (and caught up!) it’s time for us to talk about our favourite movies of 2022! Get yourself comfy for this longer episode; it turns out it’s hard to keep discussions of excellent films brief! Episode Homepage: https://awesomefriday.ca/2023/01/podcast-matt-simons-top-films-of-2022/
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Broker Unboxes Found Families | Exclaim!
What makes a family? This is the question on Hirokazu Kore-eda‘s mind lately. As with his 2018 Palme D’or-winning film Shoplifters, Broker attempts to answer that question by examining a most unlikely found family: a group of people brought together via human trafficking. That might sound sensational, but the film concentrates its characters around a so-called “baby box,” a place where mothers can leave infants that they either can’t or won’t care for. Ha Sang-hyeon (Song Kang-ho), a laundromat owner, and his friend Dong-soo (Gang Dong-won), who volunteers at the church where the baby box is, occasionally scoop up dropped-off babies and sell them…
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The Banshees of Inisherin & Avatar: The Way of Water (& Elvis, too) | Awesome Friday Podcast
Greetings, programs, and welcome to our final episode of 2022! We usually post on Sundays, but since you have been good, we’re dropping this one on Christmas Eve. This week we’re joined again by Rachel Ho of Contra Zoom Podcast, Exclaim.ca, and others as we talk about The Banshees of Inisherin (one of the year’s best) and Avatar: The Way of Water (another movie we have seen!) as well as a brief discussion about Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis. Episode Homepage: https://awesomefriday.ca/2022/12/podcast-the-banshees-of-inisherin-avatar-the-way-of-water/
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The Letterboxd Game (#221) | Contra Zoom
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 filmmakers on Letterboxd and asked the guys what the four Most Popular films were in their filmographies are. Episode Homepage: https://contrazoompod.com/221-the-letterboxd-game/
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Diaspora, Polaris, & The 2022 Whistler Film Festival | Awesome Friday Podcast
Greetings programs! This week Rachel and I are speaking about the 2022 Whistler Film Festival. This is my third year covering Whistler, and Rachel flew out to attend in person! We’ll be talking about several films, but in particular, two Canadian releases: Diaspora from director Deco Dawson, about a young Ukrainian immigrant living in Winnipeg and Polaris from director Kirsten ‘KC’ Carthew, about a young girl surviving in a frozen post-apocalypse. Episode Homepage: https://awesomefriday.ca/2022/12/podcast-diaspora-polaris-whistler-film-festival/
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Something in the Dirt & Emancipation | Awesome Friday Podcast
We’re diving into an indie darling and a big, oscar-bait action spectacle this week. First, Benson & Moorhead’s Something in the Dirt, which is finally in release after premiering all the way back at Sundance at the beginning of 2022. Then we move on to Emancipation, Will Smith’s first big release since “the slap”. One of these is quite good, and the other not so much. Listen to find out which! Episode Homepage: https://awesomefriday.ca/2022/12/podcast-something-in-the-dirt-emancipation/
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A24 Retrospective – The Captive (#219) | Contra Zoom
We continue our series going through the entire catalog of A24’s films. On this episode we are looking at 2014’s The Captive directed by Atom Egoyan. The film stars Ryan Reynolds who even eight years after his daughter was kidnapped he still maintains hope. Rosario Dawson and Scott Speedman play the detectives trying to track down the young girl. Joining the show is Matthew Simpson, host of Awesome Friday and last heard on episode 212: 2022 VIFF Wrap Up. Episode Homepage: https://contrazoompod.com/219-a24-retrospective-the-captive/
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Troll & Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio | Awesome Friday Podcast
Greetings programs! We’re breaking down two new Netflix releases this week on the show. First, we look at the Norwegian kaiju film Trolland then the new stop-motion adaptation of Pinocchio by director Guillermo del Toro. Episode Homepage: https://awesomefriday.ca/2022/12/podcast-troll-guillermo-del-toros-pinocchio/
I am a Rotten Tomatoes-approved, freelance film & television 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.
