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Andor Season Two is Among the Best of Star Wars and the Year | Awesome Friday!
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 faces the difficulty of being both a sequel to its incredible first season and a prequel to the much-loved Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. It’s no mean feat, and while there is a lot to say about this season of television and this review will be as spoiler-free as possible,…
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Celebrating National Canadian Film Day 2025 | Contra Zoom
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, both of which are from 1998. Check out the full list here: https://contrazoompod.com/blog-celebrating-national-canadian-film-day-2025/
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Saving Private Ryan, Minute 130 – Deep Breathe Before the Plunge | MovieRob Minute
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. Listening Links:
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Saving Private Ryan, Minute 129 – Old Habits Die Hard | MovieRob Minute
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:
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Saving Private Ryan Minute, Minute 128 – Other Red Shirts in the Mix | MovieRob Minute
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:
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A24 Retrospective – Val | Contra Zoom
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 with throat cancer that left him without a voice. Kilmer sadly passed away on April 1st, 2025 so we decided to jump forward to cover this film. Additionally, I’ve accepted an offer to be a regular rotating co-host of Contra Zoom! I’ve been a guest numerous times before, but now…
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The Final Destination Franchise | The LAMBCast
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 the Franchise approach each year in April and we kicked it off with the “Lethal Weapon” series. Since then we have covered Indiana Jones, Dirty Harry, X-Men, and The Thin Man among others. Lisa’s choice of the “Final Destination” franchise lost out to “the Lord of the Rings”, “Invasion of…
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Saving Private Ryan, Minute 127 – Moments of Being Human | MovieRob Minute
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 continue to wait for the Germans to show up. Listening Links:
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Doctor Who Season 2 Premiere Review: Another Fun Adventure | That Shelf
Doctor Who has been running forever and has delved into every genre in every conceivable way. Recasting the main role every few years means that there have been fun doctors, dour doctors, weird doctors, and everything in between. The one thing that holds the show together, though, is the most basic premise of the show: a slightly mad man in a police box with a human companion solving mysteries throughout time and space. Whether The Doctor is driven by guilt or curiosity doesn’t really matter, as long as the show sticks to the format. Good news then that the second season premiere of Ncuti…
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Saving Private Ryan, Minute 126 – The Men Being the Men | MovieRob Minute
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 joins Rob as Ryan tries to get some confidential info out of Miller. Listening Links:
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Sacramento: A Tale of Change and Growth | KeithLovesMovies
Growing up can be hard. There’s no way around it; the journey from young to old, naive to wise, and irresponsible to responsible has bumps in the road for all of us. For some people, the process is thrust upon them, and others avoid it like the plague, but it’s a journey we all must take. Michael Angarano and Michael Cera are two men audiences have watched grow up in front of our eyes, but Sacramento –directed by Angarano– might be the first time that we’ve seen them grow up. At the outset of the story, neither man is read yet. Glenn (Cera) is…
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Queen of the Ring: A Frustratingly Straightforward Sports Biopic | KeithLovesMovies
There’s a particular balance that biopics have to strike. On the one hand, major points in their subject’s life need to be covered in order to be complete, and, on the other hand, the story needs to be told from a unique perspective in order to be dynamic and engaging in a way that is more than just documentary. This struggle is pervasive in the genre, and what made 2007s ‘Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story’ such a successful skewering of music biopics in particular: it may have lifted story inspiration from on particular real life musician’s life, but it hit…
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Night of the Zoopocalypse | That Shelf
Clive Barker is famous for scaring people. Whether it’s demons from the underworld or malevolent spirits, his films have provided some of the best scares of the last few decades, and now his formula has been adapted to a story for kids. Yes, you read that right: Night of the Zoopocalypse is a new animated Canadian/French/Begian co-production that has taken an idea from Barker and turned it into a fairly funny and mildly scary (for young kids) gateway horror film. Loosely based on Barker’s short story Zoombies,” Night of the Zoopocalypse follows a young wolf cub called Gracie (Gabbi Kosmidis)…
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‘O’Dessa’ Hits a Flat Note | Exclaim!
There’s nothing more exciting in film than a big, ambitious swing for the fences. This might mean assembling every hero in the stable to fight against the odds, gambling on a big twist that recontextualizes the entire movie, or — as in the case of O’Dessa— a musical genre mashup made of pure chaos. The film follows a young woman in a ’90s-inspired, neon-soaked post-apocalypse on a quest to find true love, leading to an eventual confrontation with a quasi-religious demagogue who preaches to the masses through CRT TVs. On paper, O’Dessa appears to be something new, interesting and unique. On the screen,…
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Wolf Man UHD Blu-Ray Review | Movies We Texted About
Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man, starring Christopher Abbott, Julia Garner, and Matilda Firtharrives on home video this week. The film received mixed reviews from critics (including our Manuel São Bento), but a UHD Blu-ray release is always a reason to celebrate, and this one is no exception. So, let’s take a closer look at Wolf Man on UHD Blu-ray. Link: https://movieswetextedabout.com/wolf-man-uhd-review/
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.
