Contra Zoom Pod

We are back from our holiday break and it's time to start looking back on the year 2022! We discuss some of the biggest news stories that dominated the film world. We look at how horror movies were dominating the box office (Scream 5, X, Pearl, Men) and some reinventing how word of mouth works (Terrifier 2), how RRR became a global phenomenon, the DC Films reshuffling and cancellation of projects, the Don't Worry Darling drama and much more! 

Read a timeline of the DWD drama. 

Follow Rachel on Twitter, bookmark The Asian Cut and check out her website for more great reviews. Read Karen Tran's interview with Andrew Phung and Rakhee Morzaria from Run the Burbs and Rachel's coverage of the Whistler Film Festival.

Read Dakota's contributions to That Shelf's The Best Films of 2022 and to Bil Antoniou's The Criterion Shelf: A Tribute To Sony Pictures Classics.

Listen to Dakota doing some voice acting on Technically a Conversation's A Christmas Séance episode!

Check out more great Contra Zoom content on That Shelf!

Listen to Contra Zoom on Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, Overcast, RadioPublic, Breaker, Podcast Addict and more!

Please rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Send us a screenshot of your 5 star rating and review to [email protected] and we will send you free stickers!

Thank you Eric and Kevin Smale for the original theme songs, Jimere for the interlude music and Stephanie Prior for designing the logo.

Support the show on Ko-fi by sending us a tip!

Follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook and visit our official website.

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 Simpson from the Awesome Friday podcast. Rachel "created" a game where she looked up popular actors and filmmakers on Letterboxd and asked the guys what the four Most Popular films were in their filmographies are. 

If you listen to our podcast on Spotify or YouTube, you'll be able to see video of Dakota and Matthew trying not to embarrass themselves.

Listen to Awesome Friday and follow them on Twitter and Instagram as well as Matthew's personal Twitter account.

Follow Rachel on Twitter, bookmark The Asian Cut and check out her website for more great reviews. Read Alisha Mughal's write up on the CBC show Sort Of.

Check out more great Contra Zoom content on That Shelf!

Listen to Contra Zoom on Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, Overcast, RadioPublic, Breaker, Podcast Addict and more!

Please rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Send us a screenshot of your 5 star rating and review to [email protected] and we will send you free stickers!

Thank you Eric and Kevin Smale for the original theme songs, Jimere for the interlude music and Stephanie Prior for designing the logo.

Support the show on Ko-fi by sending us a tip!

Follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook and visit our official website.

It's finally here! With the release of the British Film Institute's Sight and Sound Great Films of all Time poll came out on December 1st, and the discourse has been nonstop since then. Everyone has put out their thoughts and opinions and we decided to weigh in as well! Dakota and Rachel react to the official list. They also polled nearly 80 critics and industry professionals to submit their own list. We reveal our own ballots, the Contra Zoom Pod Top 10, and discuss some interesting stats and facts that arose! 

Read the accompanying blog about our Greatest Films of all Time List and follow our Letterboxd List to see how many films you have seen. 

We also are now a part of the That Shelf family of podcasts, bookmark their site and follow them on Twitter and Instagram.

Huge thank you to Stephanie Prior for the special graphic for this episode. Want a sticker of it? Send a screenshot of you reviewing CZP to [email protected]. 

Thanks to Jeff Bulmer for making marketing materials for this episode and for sending in a voicemail defending Freddy Got Fingered. 

Follow Rachel on Twitter, bookmark The Asian Cut and check out her website for more great reviews. Read her review of Spoiler Alert on The Globe and Mail and her interview with Jeremy LaLonde, director of Ashgrove, on That Shelf. 

Check out more great Contra Zoom content on That Shelf! 

Listen to Contra Zoom on Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, Overcast, RadioPublic, Breaker, Podcast Addict and more!

Please rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Send us a screenshot of your 5 star rating and review to [email protected] and we will send you free stickers!

Thank you Eric and Kevin Smale for the original theme songs, Jimere for the interlude music and Stephanie Prior for designing the logo.

Support the show on Ko-fi by sending us a tip!

Follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook and visit our official website.

"The Curtain Rises" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

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 the young girl. Joining the show is Matthew Simpson, host of Awesome Friday and last heard on episode 212: 2022 VIFF Wrap Up. 

Our double bill pairings include You Were Never Really Here (Dakota's pick) and The Sweet Hereafter (Matthew's pick). See our complete A24 Double Bill Pairings on Letterboxd. 

If you haven't heard our deep dive into the origins of A24, listen to episode 108: A History of A24 Films and our last episode in this series episode 217: A24 Retrospective - Revenge of the Green Dragons.

Listen to Awesome Friday and follow them on Twitter and Instagram as well as Matthew's personal Twitter account.

Listen to Contra Zoom on Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, Overcast, RadioPublic, Breaker, Podcast Addict and more!

Please rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Send us a screenshot of your 5 star rating and review to [email protected] and we will send you free stickers!

Thank you Eric and Kevin Smale for the original theme songs, Jimere for the interlude music and Stephanie Prior for designing the logo.

Support the show on Ko-fi by sending us a tip!

Follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook and visit our official website.

Back on November 26th 1942 the movie world was changed with the release of the Michael Curtiz directed Casablanca. The film appears on lists such as the IMDb Top 250, the Letterboxd Top 250 Narrative Features, AFI's 100 Years 100 Movies and the 2012 Sight & Sound Critics Poll. The film won Best Picture, Director and Screenplay at the 1944 Oscars. It is beloved the world over with a stacked cast that includes Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet and more. Inspired by Emma Badame's Milestone Movie Anniversaries in 2022 over at That Shelf, we decided to see why this movie still resonates with movie lovers. Joining the show is Brodie Cotnam who was last on the show on episode 200: Movies That Made Us.

Watch Brodie's short film The Gift that he wrote and follow him on Twitter. 

Follow Rachel on Twitter, bookmark The Asian Cut and check out her website for more great reviews. Make sure to read the profile on Romeo Candido and his new series Topline written by Jericho Tadeo on The Asian Cut. 

Listen to Contra Zoom on Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, Overcast, RadioPublic, Breaker, Podcast Addict and more!

Please rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Send us a screenshot of your 5 star rating and review to [email protected] and we will send you free stickers!

Thank you Eric and Kevin Smale for the original theme songs, Jimere for the interlude music and Stephanie Prior for designing the logo.

Support the show on Ko-fi by sending us a tip!

Follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook and visit our official website.

We continue our series going through the entire catalog of A24's films. On this episode we are looking at 2014's Revenge of the Green Dragons directed by Andrew Lau and Andrew Loo. The film stars Justin Chon and Kevin Wu as two young men in a Chinese gang, The Green Dragons, in the early 90's in New York. Joining the show is Rose Ho, one third of The Asian Cut (alongside Rachel and Alisha Mughal). 

Our double bill pairings include Goodfellas (Dakota), Gook (Rachel) and Dragonball Evolution (Rose). Check out the ongoing Letterboxd list of all our pairings.

If you haven't heard our deep dive into the origins of A24, listen to episode 108: A History of A24 Films and our last episode in this series episode 215: A24 Retrospective - Laggies.

Follow Rose on Letterboxd and read her review of Riceboy Sleeps. Listen to our interview with Riceboy Sleeps director Anthony Shim.

Follow Rachel on Twitter, bookmark The Asian Cut and check out her website for more great reviews. Make sure to read Rachel's review of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. 

Listen to Contra Zoom on Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, Overcast, RadioPublic, Breaker, Podcast Addict and more!

Please rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Send us a screenshot of your 5 star rating and review to [email protected] and we will send you free stickers!

Thank you Eric and Kevin Smale for the original theme songs, Jimere for the interlude music and Stephanie Prior for designing the logo.

Support the show on Ko-fi by sending us a tip!

Follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook and visit our official website.

It's Noir-vember again and we are back with another great film noir themed show! This year The Criterion Channel has a collection of 20th Century Fox produced films and we look at three of the movies showing. Joining the show is critic Alisha Mughal, who was last heard on episode 197: David Cronenberg and Body Horror. We discuss Fallen Angel directed by Otto Preminger, Call Northside 777 directed by Henry Hathaway and Panic in the Streets directed by Elia Kazan. 

Listen to last year's noir themed episode 173: Noir-vember to hear Rachel and Dakota share their favourites of the genre. 

You can watch the three movies we covered either on The Criterion Channel with two of them for free on YouTube (Fallen Angel and Call Northside 777)

Read Bil Antoniou's Criterion Shelf articles on last year's Fox Noir collection and on journalism in film. 

Read Alisha's review on Leonore Will Never Die at The Asian Cut and subscribe to the Film Daze Substack for their new movie club! Follow Alisha on Twitter.

Follow Rachel on Twitter, bookmark The Asian Cut and check out her website for more great reviews. Make sure to read Rachel's interview with Randall Park on Exclaim! for his new show Blockbuster. 

Listen to Contra Zoom on Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, Overcast, RadioPublic, Breaker, Podcast Addict and more!

Please rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Send us a screenshot of your 5 star rating and review to [email protected] and we will send you free stickers!

Thank you Eric and Kevin Smale for the original theme songs, Jimere for the interlude music and Stephanie Prior for designing the logo.

Support the show on Ko-fi by sending us a tip!

Follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook and visit our official website.

We continue our series going through the entire catalog of A24's films. On this episode we are looking at 2014's Laggies directed by Lynn Shelton. The film stars Kiera Knightly as a woman who faces a quarter century crisis and runs away from her life to stay with a high schooler played by Chloë Grace Moretz. Joining the show is Kattie Laur and Mark Allin, Kattie is a writer for Pod the North and producer on Alpaca My Bags while Mark is a musician and host of former movie podcast Videophilia. 

Our double bill pairings include Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (Dakota), Hook (Rachel), Booksmart (Kattie) and Your Sister's Sister (Mark). Check out the ongoing Letterboxd list of all our pairings.

If you haven't heard our deep dive into the origins of A24, listen to episode 108: A History of A24 Films and our last episode in this series episode 213: A24 Retrospective - Tusk.

Follow Kattie on Twitter and read the Pod the North Substack. Follow Mark on Twitter and listen to his band Beat Noir. Follow their dog Joe on Instagram!

Follow Rachel on Twitter and check out her website for more great reviews. Make sure to read Rachel's interview with Decision to Leave director Park Chan-wook on The Asian Cut.

Listen to Contra Zoom on Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, Overcast, RadioPublic, Breaker, Podcast Addict and more!

Please rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Send us a screenshot of your 5 star rating and review to [email protected] and we will send you free stickers!

Thank you Eric and Kevin Smale for the original theme songs, Jimere for the interlude music and Stephanie Prior for designing the logo.

Support the show on Ko-fi by sending us a tip!

Follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook and visit our official website.

It's our annual Halloween special! This year we are looking at three versions of the Nosferatu story in preparation of Robert Eggers version coming next year. When the Bram Stoker estate wouldn't grant F.W. Murnau the rights to film Dracula in 1922, he made his own version and changed the names making Nosferatu, Eine Symphonie Des Grauens (A Symphony of Horror) starring Max Schreck. In 1979 Werner Herzog remade the film with Nosferatu the Vampyre starring Klaus Kinski. Then in 2000 E. Elias Merhige made a film about the original film, Shadow of the Vampire with Willem Dafoe playing Max Schreck. This isn't a traditional Make/Remake episode as we just have a free flowing discussion of the three films.

Check out the previous Halloween special episode 49: History of the Dracul, which looks at three different versions of the official Dracula character. 

Rachel just launched a new movie criticism website with friends of the show Alisha Mughal and Rose Ho called The Asian Cut that looks the Asian diaspora through the lens of film. Bookmark this site as there will be plenty of great content coming! Follow the site on Twitter and Instagram.

Follow Rachel on Twitter and check out her website for more great reviews.

Listen to Contra Zoom on Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, Overcast, RadioPublic, Breaker, Podcast Addict and more!

Please rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Send us a screenshot of your 5 star rating and review to [email protected] and we will send you free stickers!

Thank you Eric and Kevin Smale for the original theme songs, Jimere for the interlude music and Stephanie Prior for designing the logo.

Support the show on Ko-fi by sending us a tip!

Follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook and visit our official website.

We continue our series going through the entire catalog of A24's films. On this episode we are looking at 2014's Tusk directed by Kevin Smith. The film stars Justin Long as a podcaster who travels to Winnipeg, Manitoba and decides to interview a former sailor, Michael Parks, who had lured Wallace in hopes of performing a grotesque surgery on him. Joining the show is Nathan Sizemore, one third of the I Hope You Suffer podcast who was last heard on episode 128: Fright Flicks. 

Our double bill pairings include Freaks (Dakota) and Freaked with an honourable mention for The Oily Maniac (Nathan). Check out the ongoing Letterboxd list of all our pairings.

If you haven't heard our deep dive into the origins of A24, listen to episode 108: A History of A24 Films and our last episode in this series episode 211: A24 Retrospective - The Rover.

Listen to I Hope You Suffer and follow the show on Instagram. Also check out the Nate and Cait Movie Club podcast as well.

Listen to Contra Zoom on Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, Overcast, RadioPublic, Breaker, Podcast Addict and more!

Please rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Send us a screenshot of your 5 star rating and review to [email protected] and we will send you free stickers!

Thank you Eric and Kevin Smale for the original theme songs, Jimere for the interlude music and Stephanie Prior for designing the logo.

Support the show on Ko-fi by sending us a tip!

Follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook and visit our official website.