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Canadian Film Draft | Contra Zoom
Recently The Big Picture Podcast visited TIFF headquarters and did a Canadian film draft, unfortunately it missed the mark for us at CZP. So we are here to rectify things. Joining Dakota on the draft is Matthew Simpson, Bil Antoniou host of BGM and Riviera Rats, and Matt Sheardown host of Cinema on a Shelf and I Can’t Believe You Haven’t…
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2026 Fantasia Festival Wrap Up | Contra Zoom
The 2026 edition of the Fantasia Festival, which was held from July 16th – August 2nd in Montreal, celebrates the best in horror and genre cinema. We look at six films that played and give our thoughts on them. Joining the show are Jeff Bulmer, host of Classic Movies Live and Matthew Simpson, editor…
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2026 Canadian Screen Awards | Contra Zoom
The 2026 Canadian Screen Awards concluded their week long celebration. The big film winners were 40 Acres, Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie and Honey Bunch. Matthew Simpson joins the show as we discuss the big winners, losers and snubs. Listening Links:
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The Best Films of 2025 | Contra Zoom
Now that Oscar season has come and gone, it is finally time to put a bow on the films from 2025. We rank our top 10 films of the year. Joining the show is Matthew Simpson. We also feature voicemails from friends of the show who name their favourite film of the year. Listening Links:
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2026 Canadian Screen Award Nominations | Contra Zoom
The nominations for the 14th annual Canadian Screen Awards have been released. 40 Acres, Nirvana The Band The Show The Movie and Blue Heron are some of the heavy hitters this year. We discuss the new rule changes implemented, our favourite nominated films and what movies are now on our radar to watch. Matthew Simpson and…
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Old, Young and New Frankenstein | Contra Zoom
With the latest version of the classic Mary Shelly story Frankenstein coming out from director Guillermo del Toro, we look back at the history of this monster movie. Pairing the latest version with 1931’s Frankenstein directed by James Whale and 1974’s Young Frankenstein directed by Mel Brooks. Dakota, Jeff and Matthew discuss adapting the book to screen and how…
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2025 Vancouver International Film Festival | Contra Zoom
The 44th edition of the Vancouver International Film Festival just concluded and we are here to talk about some of our favourite films that played! Joining Dakota and Matthew is Darren Zakus from Movie Scene Canada. The guys talk about Deathstalker and A Welcome Distraction (Dakota’s picks), Wrong Husband and Blue Heron (Matthew’s picks) and Blue Moon and Is This Thing On? (Darren’s picks). Listening Links
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A24 Retrospective – Oasis: Supersonic | Contra Zoom
We continue our series going through the entire catalog of A24’s films. On this episode Dakota and Matthew are looking at 2016’s Oasis: Supersonic directed Mat Whitecross. The documentary follows the creation and rise of the Britpop band culminating in their Knebworth Festival headlining performance in front of 250,000 people in 1996. Joining the show is Alex…
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The 2025 Canadian Screen Awards | Contra Zoom
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
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
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
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
[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
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
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