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The 2025 Canadian Screen Awards | Contra Zoom
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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: most of the 2025…
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Mission: Impossible – Ranked | Contra Zoom
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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 at Exclaim! Listening Links
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Celebrating National Canadian Film Day 2025 | Contra Zoom
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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…
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A24 Retrospective – Val | Contra Zoom
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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…
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The Best Films of the Decade (So Far), Part 2 | Contra Zoom
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[L]et’s look back at the best films that came out from 2020-2024. We sent out a poll to critics and made a list of the 50 best films of the decade so far. Last week on Part 1, we revealed picks 50-26. Now here is Part 2 where we count down picks 25 through number…
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Better Know a Contributor: Matthew Simpson | Contra Zoom
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On this episode of Contra Zoom, the subject is me! In lieu of a full episode this week, we bring you the ninth in our series of bonus episodes, , 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…
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Giallo! | Contra Zoom
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For our Halloween special this year we decided to fill in some horror blind spots and check out the Giallo collection that is available to stream on the Criterion Channel. We review Blood and Black Lace, Don’t Torture a Duckling and Deep Red. Joining the show is Matthew Simpson, one half of the Awesome Friday podcast. Listening Links
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A24 Retrospective – Mojave | Contra Zoom
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We continue our series going through the entire catalog of A24’s films. On this episode we are looking at 2015’s Mojave, directed by William Monahan. The film stars Garrett Hedlund as Tom, a depressed director who goes into the desert and ends up coming across Oscar Issac’s drifter Jack where they have a confrontation…
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A24 Retrospective – Dark Places (#277) | Contra Zoom
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We continue our series going through the entire catalog of A24’s films. On this episode we are looking at 2015’s Dark Places directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner. The film stars Charlize Theron as Libby Day a woman who witnessed her older brother murder her entire family in a satanic ritual as a child, only to now be…
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2024 Oscar Nomination Reactions (#266) | Contra Zoom
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The 2024 Oscar nominations have now been announced with Oppenheimer, Poor Things, Killers of the Flower Moon, Barbie and Maestro leading the pack. We go over the big categories and discuss what we think of the crop of nominees including who our pleasant surprises were and biggest snubs. Joining the show is Matthew Simpson,…
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The James Bond Draft (#264) | Contra Zoom
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To end 2023 we are having another game themed episode! Earlier this year we celebrated the birth of the James Bond film franchise on episode 236: Dr. No at 60 Years. After watching all 25 official Bond films in a calendar year, it was time to make our ultimate spy movie. 10 different categories…
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The 50 Greatest Films Directed by Canadians (#244) | Contra Zoom
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A few weeks ago CBC released a poll conducted by them where industry professionals and critics voted to help make a list of the Greatest 50 Films Directed by Canadians. Both Dakota and Rachel voted on the list, with Rachel even writing in praise of the #6 movie Crash. Joining the show to talk about…
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Dr. No at 60 Years (#236) | Contra Zoom
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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…
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The Letterboxd Game (#221) | Contra Zoom
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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…
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A24 Retrospective – The Captive (#219) | Contra Zoom
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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…