Contra Zoom Pod

Who cares that Star Wars: The Force Awakens came out way back in December! Dakota and Andreas give a review for what will end up being the first of second highest grossing film of all time! The guys really enjoyed the film with Andreas even putting the film at number 11 in his top films of 2015 post!

The guys then discuss if the Original’s were as great as everyone remembers and if the Prequel’s were as terrible as everyone remembers...

This is the first Oscar Primer podcast for Contra Zoom, continuing the series of Oscar Primer’s Dakota does every year, normally just as written articles. He is flying solo this episode as he talks about The Martian and Bridge of Spies...

This week Dakota and Andreas go over the just announced Oscar nominations. 

The guys talk about the films with the most nominations including The Revenant with 12, Mad Max: Fury Road with 10 and The Martian with 7. They also talk about surprises both good and bad and some snubs...

*So I totally realized, that there never was an episode 11 and that makes everything out of whack, so this is actually episode 11. Enjoy!*

On this episode the guys continue their talk about the third edition of their Best Picture Winners revisits. Check out Part 1 from the years are 1948-1957 (the 20th– 29th Oscar winners) here. You can find Edition 1 here and Edition 2 here and Part 2 here...

On this episode the guys start talk about the third edition of their Best Picture Winners revisits. The years are 1948-1957 (the 20th– 29th Oscar winners). You can find Edition 1 here and Edition 2 here and Part 2 here. 

Dakota and Andreas talk about the history of HUAC (The House of Un-American Actives) and the Hayes Code both black marks on the history of Hollywood.

Sarah Rix’s favourite films

• Oceans Eleven
• Fantastic Mr...

TIFF is in its 40th year.

Andreas and Dakota (mostly Andreas though) covered a bunch of TIFF films including Love, Stonewall, Lolo, Room and more. Check out their capsule reviews HERE...

Your hosts Dakota Arsenault and Andreas Babiolakis were lucky to enough to see a screening of Rebecca hosted by the legendary film director Guillermo del Toro while he was in town to host a lecture series based on Gothic Horror films. 

• For those not familiar with GdT’s filmography, check out Pan’s Labyrinth, Pacific Rim, or the Hellboy films. 
• Back in 2012 GdT hosted a four part series about other Hitchcock works...

Continuing on from our Best Picture Winner decade-by-decade breakdown from last week’s part 1 Dakota Arsenault and Andreas Babiolakis count down the top five films of 1938-1947. 

– Dakota recommends that you read the bio and trivia on actor John Garfield

Here is a link to our bottom five in this decade’s Best Picture Winner’s

Dakota’s ratings come first followed by Andreas’

5. Gentleman’s Agreement 7.5/10 8/10

4. You Can’t Take It With You 8...

This week we started a new feature where Live in Limbo’s mastermind Sean Chin joined us to talk about his three favourite movies.

– Shawshank Redemption

– 2001: A Space Odyssey

– A.I. Artificial Intelligence

The bottom five of our countdown is the following. Dakota’s ratings come first followed by Andreas’

10. How Green Was My Valley 2.5/10 5/10

9. Going My Way 4/10 6/10

8. Mrs. Miniver 7/10 7/10

7. Gone With the Wind 7...

For this week’s episode Dakota and Andreas discuss the finale for Mad Men and what the series as a whole meant to them and the landscape of television. The landmark show just finished its seven-season run back in May and the guys have had some time to digest what happens. They talk about their favourite characters and some of the best moments on the show...