Contra Zoom Pod

We continue our series going through the entire catalog of A24's films. On this episode we are looking at 2015's Son of a Gun directed by Julius Avery. The film stars Ewan McGregor as a bank robbery who takes a young man under his wing while in prison. Once on the outside the young man decides to join McGregor's crew as they attempt to rob a gold factory in Australia. Joining the show is Simon Best, one half of the Awesome Friday podcast...

The Canadian Screen Awards just handed out awards for the best in film, television and web content. We look at the big winners in the film portion which included Brother dominating with 12 wins, Crimes of the Future with 2 wins and Alice, Darling, Viking, I Like Movies, Riceboy Sleeps and Falcon Lake each winning 1 award...

It is Contra Zoom Pod's 8th anniversary! To celebrate we decided to do a best of the year episode, from before CZP started! Our first best of the year show was 2015 (20: Top 10 Films of 2015) so we are going back in time to 2014. This show was inspired by Dakota's blog post ⁠Best of 2014⁠.

Listen to Better Know a Contributor - Dakota Arsenault to learn more about the history of the podcast.

Dakota's Top 10

10...

The 30th edition of the Hot Docs festival that celebrates the best new documentaries just concluded in Toronto. We discuss the films Satan Wants You, July Talk: Love Lives Here, I’m Just Here For The Riot, A Still Small Voice, Aitamaako’tamisskapi Natosi: Before the Sun and The Mountains. Joining the show is Courtney Small a critic who runs the publication Cinema Axis and who's work can also be read at That Shelf and POV Magazine among others...

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 at the franchise as a whole including our favourite Bond actors, best theme songs and overall best movies...

We continue our series going through the entire catalog of A24's films. On this episode we are looking at 2015's While We're Young directed by Noah Baumbach. The film stars Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts as a couple who hit their mid-life crisis and meet young hipsters played by Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried who re-energize them. Joining the show is Bil Antoniou host of the Bad Gay Movies podcast...

Now that all the limited releases of 2022 have come out and we are past the winter studio dumping grounds, it is time to look at what movies are coming out the rest of this year. Both Dakota and Rachel pick 6 movies each that have confirmed release dates and discuss why they are so excited for them.

Dakota's picks: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Asteroid City, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, Barbie, Next Goal Wins and Kraven the Hunter...

We continue our series going through the entire catalog of A24's films. On this episode we are looking at 2015's Cut Bank directed by Matt Shakman. The film stars Liam Hemsworth and Teresa Palmer as a couple who accidentally film the murder of their small town mailman. Once John Malkovich, the towns sheriff, starts to investigate the crime, things suddenly start not appearing as they seem...

It's June, which means it is Pride Month! Bad Gay Movies is one of my favourite podcasts and love hearing Bil Antoniou talk about gay themed movies, but I wanted to hear his thoughts on movies that are actually good. We decided to focus on movies that were influential to Bil as he was coming of age. We discuss Madonna: Truth or Dare, Jeffrey and Clueless.

Listen to our last Pride themed episode 112: Celebrating Queer Cinema...

We're a little over halfway through 2023, so we decide to look at the best films of the year so far! Our titles are listed alphabetically, so they are not in order of our rankings...