Contra Zoom Pod

On this show we are previewing the 40th edition of the Vancouver International Film Festival. It is the largest film festival in Western Canada and gets plenty of prestige films from around the world. Joining the show is Matthew Simpson, who is one half of the Awesome Friday Movie Podcast. We each picked five films (and a few honourable mentions) to talk about. 

Dakota's picks - Red Rocket, Petit Maman, Benediction, Ste. Anne and Wife of a Spy.

Matthew's picks - The Power of the Dog, The Worst Person in the World, Paris, 13th District, Official Competition and Belfast.

Check out the official Letterboxd list for every film playing at the festival.

Follow Matthew and Awesome Friday on Twitter and check out his work on the Awesome Friday website.

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 wherever you listen. Send us a screenshot of your 5 star rating and review to [email protected] and we will send you free swag!

Thank you Eric and Kevin Smale for creating the awesome theme music and Stephanie Prior for designing the logo.

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The Toronto International Film Festival just concluded, this year the fest did a hybrid model offering both in person and digital screenings. We talk about the biggest news stories, who won the awards and review films we watched.

Read Rachel's review of Belfast.

Some digital screeners were leaked online, causing the festival scene to reevaluate the hybrid model.

No movies were sold during this year's TIFF.

Steven Soderbergh re-edited and re-released his 1991 Kafka, now called Mr. Kneff.

Alanis Morissette disowns the documentary Jagged that is about her.

Complete list of TIFF award winners. 

Check out Dakota's reviews during the fest.

Check out Rachel's website for more great reviews and follow her on Twitter.

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 wherever you listen. Send us a screenshot of your 5 star rating and review to [email protected] and we will send you free swag!

Thank you Eric and Kevin Smale for creating the awesome theme music and Stephanie Prior for designing the logo.

Follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook.

We're back with even more great Fantasia Festival coverage. Both Rachel and Dakota did solo interviews with directors who had their films screened at the best genre film festival in Canada. Dakota talked with Mark O'Brien, the director, writer and star of the Canadian horror film The Righteous. They talked about what horror films influenced Mark, finding the right cast members in two Canadian icons and getting to talk with Justin Chon about being a triple threat while he acted in Blue Bayou. Rachel talked with Travis Taute, the director of the South African action thriller Indemnity. They talked about the stigma of mental health, especially in men of colour, the grizzly side of firefighting that isn't talked about and struggling to figure out how to shoot an action film when you can't have actors too physically close to one another. 

The Righteous 02:30-25:00

Indemnity 26:00-54:30

If you haven't already, listen to episode 161: Fantasia Fest Interviews - Glasshouse and Alien on Stage Directors.

Listen to episode 163: Fantasia Festival 2021. 

Read Rachel's interviews with Riz Ahmed and Simu Liu.

Check out Rachel's website for more great reviews and follow her on Twitter.

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 wherever you listen. Send us a screenshot of your 5 star rating and review to [email protected] and we will send you free swag!

Thank you Eric and Kevin Smale for creating the awesome theme music and Stephanie Prior for designing the logo.

Follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook.

With this year's Toronto International Film Festival just around the corner, we are here to share our most anticipated films that are playing during this year's iteration. We both had five films we've named and included a few honourable mentions.

Dakota's Picks - Spencer, All My Puny Sorrows, Official Competition, A Hero and The Middle Man

Rachel's Picks - Flee, Night Raiders, Scarborough, Aloners and Belfast

Honourable mentions include Memoira, The Forgiven, Encounter, DASHCAM, Snakehead and Titane

Check out Rachel's helpful TIFF planning website.

Read Dakota's article detailing his most anticipated movies still to come out in 2021. 

Read Rachel's interviews with Riz Ahmed and Simu Liu. 

Check out That Shelf's best films of 2021 so far.

Listen to The Troubles podcast to learn more about the background information of Kenneth Branagh's Belfast. 

Check out Rachel's website for more great reviews and follow her on Twitter.

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 wherever you listen. Send us a screenshot of your 5 star rating and review to [email protected] and we will send you free swag!

Thank you Eric and Kevin Smale for creating the awesome theme music and Stephanie Prior for designing the logo.

Follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook.

We review the films that we watched during the 2021 edition of Fantasia, the yearly Montreal film festival that specializes in genre movies (horror, SciFi, thriller, action etc). We talk about movies we both saw, ones we had previously covered, ones only one of us saw and awards that were given out!

9:45-13:30 Glasshouse (Read Dakota's review and Rachel's review)

13:30-18:50 Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (Read Rachel's review)

18:50-25:00 Art Kabuki (Read Dakota's review and Rachel's review)

25:00-30:45 Last Night in the Strip Club (Watch this doc short for free on YouTube)

30:45-33:45 Alien on Stage (Read Dakota's review and Rachel's Review)

33:45-38:00 Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched (Read Dakota's review and Rachel's review)

38:00-39:45 Under the Open Sky (Listen to my review on episode 155: Toronto Japanese Film Festival)

39:45-45:45 Tombs of the Blind Dead (Read Dakota's review)

45:45-51:00 Indemnity (Read Rachel's review) 

**Trigger Warning - suicide and self harm** 51:00-59:15 #Blue_Whale (Read Rachel's review)

Listen to our interviews with Kelsey Egan the director of Glasshouse and Lucy Harvey and Danielle Kummer the directors of Alien on Stage.

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

Thank you Eric and Kevin Smale for creating the awesome theme music and Stephanie Prior for designing the logo.

Follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook.

Vancouver's second largest film festival and the largest queer arts festival in Western Canada had their 33rd annual Vancouver Queer Film Festival, celebrating the best films from the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. Joining the show is Stephanie Prior as we review three films that were screened during the festival. 

Raw! Uncut! Video! 02:30-13:00

Workhorse Queen 13:30-27:00

The Fandom 27:30-41:00

Check out our previous episode talking about LGBTQ+ movies, 112: Celebrating Queer Cinema.

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 wherever you listen. Send us a screenshot of your 5 star rating and review to [email protected] and we will send you free swag!

Thank you Eric and Kevin Smale for creating the awesome theme music and Stephanie Prior for designing the logo.

Follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook.

Montreal's Fantasia Festival is going on until August 25th. We had the chance to talk to the directors of two films being screened. Glasshouse, directed by Kelsey Egan, is a South African film about a family living in a green house during a pandemic that causes people to lose their memories and a mysterious stranger appears that upends the families tight bond. 

We also chatted with Danielle Kummer and Lucy Harvey, the directors of the documentary Alien on Stage. The doc follows a group of bus drivers in Dorset, England as they are mounting a stage production of the classic horror film Alien and how it became an unlikely hit.

Follow Kelsey Egan to get updates on Glasshouse.

Visit Alien on Stage's official website to learn more about the film.

Fantasia Reviews: Art Kabuki by Dakota and Rachel, Tombs of the Blind Dead by Dakota.

Check out Rachel's website for more great reviews and follow her on Twitter.

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 wherever you listen. Send us a screenshot of your 5 star rating and review to [email protected] and we will send you free swag!

Thank you Eric and Kevin Smale for creating the awesome theme music and Stephanie Prior for designing the logo.

Follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook.

We're just past the halfway mark of the year so we decided to name our five favourite and least favourite films of the year, so far. We added a caveat of removing any films that were in awards contention, so you won't hear us talking about Minari, Judas and the Black Messiah, The Father and others that technically came out in 2021. 

Dakota's Top 5

1. The Green Knight

2. Under The Open Sky

3. Zola

4. Luca

5. The Dig

Rachel's Top 5

1. Nine Days

2. Pig

3. Riders of Justice

4. Nobody

5. The Mitchells vs the Machines

Dakota's Bottom 5

1. The World to Come

2. With Drawn Arms

3. School Meals Time Final Battle

4. I Care A Lot

5. In the Earth

Rachel's Bottom 5

1. Space Jam: A New Legacy

2. Mortal Kombat

3. Cherry

4. The Last Letter From Your Lover

5. Coming 2 America

Read the Luca review from Victor Stiff at That Shelf.

Rachel and Dakota both wrote an article about our most anticipated films still to come in 2021. Read her's HERE and Dakota's HERE.

Check out Rachel's website for more great reviews and follow her on Twitter.

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 wherever you listen. Send us a screenshot of your 5 star rating and review to [email protected] and we will send you free swag!

Thank you Eric and Kevin Smale for creating the awesome theme music and Stephanie Prior for designing the logo.

Follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook.

With the release of one of the most anticipated films from the last two years, we decide to turn our A24 Retrospective forward to review The Green Knight. The film directed by David Lowrey tells the tale of Sir Gawain, who is challenged to a game by the Green Knight and how his loyalty and desire to become a legend is then tested. This episode does include some spoilers, so if you have not watched it yet, be warned. The film stars Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton, Sarita Choudhury, Sean Harris, Kate Dickie, Ralph Ineson, Barry Keoghan and Erin Kellyman. 

Read Rachel's review of The Green Knight on Exclaim!, along with David Ehrlich's from IndieWire and Simon Abrams from The Wrap.

Our double bill pairings include Eyes Wide Shut (Dakota's pick) and Nine Days (Rachel's Pick), with an honourable mention of The Sword in the Stone.

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 158: A24 Retrospective - Ginger & Rosa.

Check out Rachel's website for more great reviews and her Most Anticipated Movies For The Rest Of 2021 and follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

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 wherever you listen. Send us a screenshot of your 5 star rating and review to [email protected] and we will send you free swag!

Thank you Eric and Kevin Smale for creating the awesome theme music and Stephanie Prior for designing the logo.

Follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook.

In lieu of a full episode this week, we bring you the third in our series of bonus episodes, Better Know a Contributor, where we ask frequent guests of the show 10 Contra Zoom Pod movie questions so you can learn more about your favourite voices. We talk favourite movies (Speed, Casablanca), favourite guest appearances (155: Toronto Japanese Film Festival), last movie turned off (The Matrix Reloaded) and more!

Check out Rachel's website for more great reviews and interviews and follow her on Twitter. Read her recent review of For Madmen Only: The Story of Del Close on POV Magazine.

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 wherever you listen. Send us a screenshot of your 5 star rating and review to [email protected] and we will send you free swag!

Thank you Eric and Kevin Smale for creating the awesome theme music and Stephanie Prior for designing the logo.

Follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook.