Shows
The Last Thing I SawEp. 231: Berlin 2024 with Jordan Cronk: Who by Fire, Tu Me Abrasas, Chime, new Tsai, Direct ActionEp. 231: Berlin 2024 with Jordan Cronk: Who by Fire, Tu Me Abrasas, Abiding Nowhere, Chime, Direct Action, More Docs
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw with your host, Nicolas Rapold. For the latest episode about the 2024 Berlin Film Festival, I’m pleased to reunite with Jordan Cronk, who helped kick off this year’s series. We round up some vital highlights that hopefully will wend their way to other cinemas: Who by Fire, Philippe Lesage’s prize-winner in the Generation section; Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s mid-length Chime; Ben Russell and Guillaume Cailleau’s Direct Action, winner in the Encounters section; Matías Piñeiro’...
2024-02-2643 minThe Last Thing I SawEp. 164: Berlin 2023 Three with Jonathan Romney: Schanelec’s Music, Limbo, Philibert, SuperpowerEp. 164: Berlin 2023 Three with Jonathan Romney: Angela Schanelec’s Music, Limbo, On the Adamant, Superpower
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I bring you the latest and greatest from Berlinale 2023. For my latest episode, I chat with critic Jonathan Romney (Screen, The Observer). We consider what’s special about this year’s festival and discuss Angela Schanelec’s Music, Ivan Sen’s Limbo, Nicolas Philibert’s On the Adamant, and Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufman’s Superpower. Stay tuned for more from the Berlinale!
Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at...
2023-02-2328 minThe Last Thing I SawEp. 113: Jacques Audiard on Paris, 13th DistrictEp. 113: Jacques Audiard on Paris, 13th District
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. Paris, 13th District is the latest movie from Jacques Audiard, a writer-director whose work has spanned many genres, from The Beat That My Heart Skipped to Rust and Bone to The Sisters Brothers. Paris 13th District is Audiard’s unabashed look at a younger generation in love, and it starts by focusing on a woman, Emilie (Lucie Zhang) and her roommate, briefly turned lover, Camille (Makita Samba). But it gradually shifts to the story of Nora, a newcomer to Paris play...
2022-04-1522 minThe Last Thing I SawEp. 112: S.S. Rajamouli's RRR, Laida Lertxundi, Part Time Wife, Love Letter with R. Emmet SweeneyEp. 112: S.S. Rajamouli's RRR, Laida Lertxundi's Inner Outer Space, Leo McCarey's Part Time Wife, Kinuyo Tanaka's Love Letter with R. Emmet Sweeney
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. It’s time for a good old-fashioned romp through recent viewing, with guest R. Emmet Sweeney of Kino Lorber. He shares his experience with S. S. Rajamouli’s new adventure, RRR, as well as the latest work from Laida Lertxundi, a (partial?) Leo McCarey feature that’s of a piece with The Awful Truth, and a documentary about stuntmen. Plus: Kinuyo Tanaka’s Love Letter.
Pl...
2022-04-0841 minThe Last Thing I SawEp. 111: Kyle Buchanan on Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury RoadWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. One of the greatest action movies of all time is also one of the most beautiful: Mad Max: Fury Road. It was on the top ten lists of 2015 and more than a few best of the decade lists. But making the movie was no walk in the park, and a new oral history by Kyle Buchanan is full of well-researched and entertaining detail about the movie’s sometimes insane production process, which involved stops and starts dating back to the 1990s. Buchanan is a pop-culture reporter at The...
2022-03-2857 minThe Last Thing I SawEp. 110: Nadav Lapid on Ahed’s KneeEpisode 110: Nadav Lapid on Ahed’s Knee
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. The filmmaker Nadav Lapid has made one tense, kinetic, indelibly original drama after another: Policeman, The Kindergarten Teacher, Synonyms, and now Ahed’s Knee. Ahed’s Knee premiered at the Cannes film festival last year where it shared the Jury Prize with Memoria, and it opened in New York on March 18. The film follows an Israeli director who is presenting one of his movies in a small town, thanks to an invitation by a young, eager library official. But when he arriv...
2022-03-2127 minThe Last Thing I SawEp. 109: True/False 2022 with Eric Hynes + Joe Hunting on We Met in Virtual RealityWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. This year the True/False Film Fest welcomed guests back for another edition, fully in-person with guests from all over the globe. I try to go every year to take advantage of its delicious nonfiction smorgasbord, and joining me to talk about the selection is Eric Hynes, curator of film at the Museum of the Moving Image and a longtime attendee of the festival. We talked about the festival and films such as After Sherman, Mr. Landsbergis, The Balcony Movie, Vedette, Factory to the Workers, and GES-2. Af...
2022-03-121h 14The Last Thing I SawEp. 108: Manohla Dargis, Lisa Kennedy, Amy TaubinWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. The Village Voice loomed large for me as a critic and an editor. The Voice I grew up with may be long gone, but it’s been a joy to continue reading my favorite critics who wrote there. For this episode, I’m honored to bring together three all-star alumnae of the Village Voice to talk about movies. Manohla Dargis, the co-chief film critic of The New York Times, started writing about avant-garde cinema at the Voice early in her career. Lisa Kennedy has written for The New Yo...
2022-03-011h 13The Last Thing I SawEp. 107: Berlin #6 with Edo Choi (Dario Argento, Rewind & Play, Sonne, Terra que marca)Episode 107: Berlin #6 with Edo Choi (Dark Glasses, Rewind & Play, Sonne, A Little Love Package, Terra que marca)
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. We continue with the Berlin festival series, highlighting the intriguing new films you should know about. For what might be the last episode on this year’s edition, I talked with Edo Choi, assistant curator at Museum of the Moving Image. We discuss Dario Argento’s Dark Glasses, Alain Gomis’s Rewind & Play, Kurdwin Ayub’s Sonne, Gaston Solnicki’s A Little Love Package, and Raul Domingues’s Terra que marca.
Please...
2022-02-2331 minThe Last Thing I SawEp. 106: Berlin #5 with Giovanni Marchini Camia (Unrest, Mutzenbacher, Death of My Mother)Episode 106: Berlin #5 with Giovanni Marchini Camia (Unrest, Queens of the Qing Dynasty, Mutzenbacher, The Death of My Mother, Alcarras)
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. We continue with the Berlin festival series, highlighting the intriguing new films you should know about. This time I talk with Giovanni Marchini Camia, a critic (Sight & Sound and more), editor (Fireflies Press), and member of the Locarno selection committee. We discuss Unrest, Queens of the Qing Dynasty, Mutzenbacher, The Death of My Mother, and the Golden Bear winner Alcarras. Stay tuned for more from Berlin!
Please support th...
2022-02-2240 minThe Last Thing I SawEp. 105: Berlin #4 with Inney Prakash (Dry Ground Burning, Instant Life, Kegelstatt Trio, more)Episode 105: Berlin #4 with Inney Prakash (Dry Ground Burning, Instant Life, Jet Lag, Super Natural, The Kegelstatt Trio)
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. We continue with the Berlin festival series, highlighting the intriguing new films you should know about. This time I talk Fun at the Forum (and Forum Expanded) with programmer Inney Prakash of Maysles Cinema and Prismatic Ground. We discuss Dry Ground Burning (from Adirley Queiros and Joana Pimenta), Instant Life (Anja Dornieden, Juan David González Monroy, Andrew Kim), Jet Lag (Zheng Lu Xinyuan), Super Natural (Jorge Jacome), and The Keg...
2022-02-1825 minThe Last Thing I SawEp. 104: Berlin #3 with Jordan Cronk (The Novelist’s Film, Afterwater, Coma, Benning, Denis Côté)Episode 104: Berlin #3 with Jordan Cronk (The Novelist’s Film, Afterwater, Coma, United States of America, That Kind of Summer, more)
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. We continue with the Berlin festival series, highlighting the intriguing new films you should know about. I joined forces with Jordan Cronk, critic (MUBI Notebook and elsewhere) and programmer (Acropolis). We discussed new films by Hong Sangsoo, Bertrand Bonello, James Benning, Denis Côté, and Darezhan Omirbaev. Stay tuned for more from Berlin!
Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at:
rapold.substack.com
Music...
2022-02-1742 minThe Last Thing I SawEp. 103: Berlin #2 with Guy Lodge (Flux Gourmet, Robe of Gems, Small Slow but Steady, Brother in...)Episode 103: Berlin 2022 #2 with Guy Lodge (Flux Gourmet, Robe of Gems, Small Slow but Steady, Brother in Every Inch, Fire, AEIOU – A Quick Alphabet of Love)
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. The Berlin festival series continues, highlighting the intriguing new films you should know about. This time I talk with Guy Lodge, a regular critic for Variety. We discuss Peter Strickland’s Flux Gourmet, Natalia Lopez Gallardo’s Robe of Gems, Sho Miyake’s Small, Slow but Steady, Alexander Zolotukhin’s Brother in Every Inch, Nicolette Krebitz’s A E I O U – A Quick Alphabet...
2022-02-1627 minThe Last Thing I SawEp. 102: Berlin #1 with Jonathan Romney (Fire, Rimini, Incredible But True, Passengers of the Night)Episode 102: Berlin 2022 #1 with Jonathan Romney (Fire, Rimini, Incredible But True, Passengers of the Night, A Piece of Sky, See You Friday, Robinson)
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. The Berlin International Film Festival is underway and I kicked off this edition’s podcasts with series regular Jonathan Romney, a critic writing for Screen Daily and The Observer among other publications. We talked about notable premieres such as Claire Denis’s Fire, Ulrich Seidl’s Rimini, Quentin Dupieux’s Incredible But True, Mikhael Hers’s Passengers of the Night, Michael Koch's A Piece of Sky, and Mit...
2022-02-1639 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 101: Sundance 2022 #7 with Jessica Green (Mija, Alice, God’s Country, Framing Agnes, more)Episode 101: Sundance 2022 #7 with Jessica Green (Mija, Alice, God’s Country, The Exiles, Free Chol Soo Lee, Framing Agnes)
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. So it turns out I have one more episode of Sundance films to share. I was joined by Jessica Green, artistic director of the Houston Cinema Arts Society, who brought several films that haven’t been discussed yet on the podcast. Jessica came on toward the end of the festival to talk about Mija, The Exiles, God’s Country, and other thought-provoking movies from this year’s edition.
Please support th...
2022-02-1042 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 100: Maggie Gyllenhaal on The Lost DaughterEpisode 100: Maggie Gyllenhaal on The Lost Daughter
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. It's the 100th episode! As a working critic and journalist, I always hope these podcasts add something new to the discussion. And for that I have to thank my guests, all the talented critics and filmmakers who have joined me, and of course my listeners for listening. Finally, a special thank-you to my substack subscribers. Your support makes the podcast possible. This episode, I talked with Maggie Gyllenhaal, who made her acclaimed directorial debut with The Lost Daughter, adapted from th...
2022-02-0828 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 99: Sundance 2022 #6 with Jon Dieringer (Leonor Will Never Die, Short Films, TikTok, Boom)Episode 99: Sundance 2022 #6 with Jon Dieringer (Leonor Will Never Die, Short Films, TikTok, Boom, Cha Cha Real Smooth)
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. The Sundance Film Festival is here, there, and everywhere this year, screening in a virtual edition. As we enter the final days (of the festival), I was joined by Jon Dieringer, editor and publisher of the estimable Screen Slate. We talk about Martika Escobar’s Leonor Will Never Die, Shalini Kantayya’s documentary TikTok, Boom, and short films by directors such as Hugo Covarrubias, Joe Hsieh, and Mahboobeh Kaleee (some of who...
2022-01-2947 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 98: Sundance 2022 #5 with Jourdain Searles (Emily the Criminal, Sharp Stick, Honk for Jesus)Episode 98: Sundance 2022 #5 with Jourdain Searles (Emily the Criminal, Sharp Stick, Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul, When You Finish Saving the World)
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. The Sundance Film Festival is here, there, and everywhere this year, screening in a virtual edition. For this episode, I’m very pleased to welcome a terrific critic I’ve been wanting to feature on the podcast for a long time: Jourdain Searles, who writes for publications including The Hollywood Reporter, Little White Lies, and Okayplayer. We talk about John Patton Ford’s Emily the Criminal...
2022-01-2846 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 97: Sundance 2022 #4 with Beatrice Loayza (Dos Estaciones, Speak No Evil, jeen-yuhs)Episode 97: Sundance 2022 #4 with Beatrice Loayza (Dos Estaciones, Speak No Evil, Brainwashed, jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy)
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. The Sundance Film Festival is here, there, and everywhere this year, screening in a virtual edition. For this episode, I chat with Beatrice Loayza, a New York Times contributor and an editor at the Criterion Collection, about her recent Sundance selections, her favorites and her not-so-favorites. We talk about Juan Pablo González’s Dos Estaciones, Christian Tafdrup’s Speak No Evil, Nina Menkes’s Brainwashed, and jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy, from Clarence...
2022-01-2738 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 96: Sundance 2022 #3 with Amy Taubin (Nanny, Master, Call Jane, Resurrection, The Cathedral)Episode 96: Sundance 2022 #3 with Amy Taubin (Nanny, Master, Call Jane, Resurrection, You Won’t Be Alone)
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. The Sundance Film Festival is here, there, and everywhere, screening in a virtual edition. For this episode, I’m delighted to talk with the one and only Amy Taubin about yet another year of Sundance selections. We talk about a few highlights of her viewing so far, including Nikyatu Jusu’s Nanny, Mariama Diallo’s Master, Phyllis Nagy’s Call Jane, Andrew Semans’s Resurrection, Ricky D'Ambrose's The Cathedral, Goran Stolevski’s You Won’t Be Alo...
2022-01-2659 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 95: Sundance #2 with Eric Hynes (Dual, We Met in VR, A House Made of Splinters, Jihad Rehab)Episode 95: Sundance 2022 #2 with Eric Hynes (Dual, We Met in Virtual Reality, A House Made of Splinters, Jihad Rehab)
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. The Sundance Film Festival is here, there, and everywhere, screening in a virtual edition. We’re nearing the end of a packed weekend of premieres and I joined forces once again with Eric Hynes, curator of film at Museum of the Moving Image, to begin sorting through the movies. We share initial reactions to a few including Riley Stearns’s Dual, Joe Hunting’s We Met in Virtual Reality, Maryna E...
2022-01-2342 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 94: Sundance 2022 #1 with Eric HynesWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. The Sundance Film Festival is here, there, and everywhere, screening in a virtual edition that’s no less important for beginning the 2022 movie calendar. I joined forces with Eric Hynes, curator of film at Museum of the Moving Image, to talk about the independent-minded festival in general and to highlight a couple of movies that jumped out to us in the opening day (or two).
You can support this podcast and read show notes with links at:
rapold.substack.com
Music: “Tomorrow’s Forecast” by The Minarets
Photo by S...
2022-01-2129 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 93: Days of Horror with Mike Civins (Angst, Alien Resurrection, The Cremator, and more)Episode 93: Days of Horror with Mike Civins
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. Every October my good friend Mike Civins does a horror movie marathon. He watches 31 titles over 31 days, like clockwork. I have always been curious about his project, which happily ranges far and wide and includes movies that aren’t often thought of as a horror. This year he watched the Alien movies, including Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Alien Resurrection, but he also saw Wolf’s Hole, a movie from Daisies director Vera Chytilova. Also on the menu were goodies like Angst, Dolls, and a...
2022-01-1153 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 92: Medieval Times with Caroline Golum (plus Master and Commander and Nightmare Alley)Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. At some point last year I learned that Caroline Golum -- a critic whom I read on Screen Slate -- was planning to make a movie about a medieval mystic. For this episode, Caroline joins us to talk about movies set in olden times and how they envision the past. Two recent titles came to mind: The Last Duel, which is based on a true story from medieval France, and The Green Knight, which is inspired by a 14th-century chivalric romance. Our conversation led to storytelling set in...
2022-01-041h 04The Last Thing I SawEpisode 91: Around 1996 with Nick Davis (Crash, Smoke, Jerry Maguire, and more)Episode 91: 1996 with Nick Davis
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. It’s time to look back at the year in the movies—the year 1996, that is. Scholar and pal Nick Davis joins me to revisit movies from a pivotal year early in our rabid moviegoing. Our trips down memory lane take us through Hollywood productions like The People vs. Larry Flynt and Jerry Maguire, and independent visions like Wayne Wang’s Smoke and Spike Lee’s Get on the Bus. What did we think then? What do we think now? Did we ever recover fr...
2021-12-301h 21The Last Thing I SawEpisode 90: Amy Taubin on the Best of 2021Episode 90: Amy Taubin on the Best of 2021
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. It’s that time of year again, when we look back at the year in movies. Joining me to share her highlights is the critic Amy Taubin, a regular guest on the podcast. We start with one movie you might not have heard as much about this year, and go on to trade our top picks, with reflections on another strange year for moviegoing and moviemaking. Here’s to the best of 2021, and beyond!
You can support this podcast and read s...
2021-12-181h 10The Last Thing I SawEpisode 89: Penny Lane on Listening to Kenny GWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. One of the year’s best films about culture is Listening to Kenny G, from filmmaker Penny Lane (who directed Hail Satan?). now available on streaming. If the name Kenny G sets off alarm bells in your head, rest assured that this is not a goofy movie about something “so bad it’s good” or that pushes a case for Kenny G as an unsung master. Instead, Lane’s fascinating portrait crystallizes a number of insights about the way culture and taste work, and it inspires further questions about the...
2021-12-0651 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 88: Paul Verhoeven's Benedetta with Margaret Barton-Fumo and Adam NaymanWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. Paul Verhoeven’s hotly anticipated new movie, Benedetta, is set mostly in a convent in the 17th century, following its title character as she becomes a nun and rises in the ranks. The movie typically bold and provocative about the workings over power and organized religion and about Benedetta’s rich fantasy life. Margaret has long been immersed in Verhoeven’s world, and talked with the director at length as part of her book of interviews with him. As has critic Adam Nayman, another Verhoeven-head and author of It Doe...
2021-12-0358 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 87: Eric Hynes on New Documentary at IDFAWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week we look at some outstanding documentary highlights premiered at IDFA(International Documentary Festival Amsterdam), including Sergei Loznitsa’s post-Soviet portrait Mr. Landsbergis and an exciting new voice in Diem Ha Le and her film Children of the Mist. Plus: 100-year-old Indian river boats, a Dziga Vertov premiere, egg collecting, and movies made entirely from living room windows. I’m joined by critic and journalist Eric Hynes, curator of film at Museum of the Moving Image and a regular on the podcast.
You can support this podcast and...
2021-11-2952 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 86: Dasha Nekrasova Talks About Movies, Including The Scary of 61stWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. Back in the spring, I watched The Scary of 61st through the Berlin film festival, where it had its world premiere. I had to watch it on my laptop, holed up at home, with pandemic anxiety in the air. Somehow the mood was appropriate for experiencing the film, which tells a wild story that’s lurid, funny, unnerving, and often over the top. All of which is a good match for the frenzied state of its main characters: two roommates who unwittingly move into a New York apar...
2021-11-2548 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 84: Some Cop Movies with Nicholas RussellWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. A while back I had a conversation with critic Nicholas Russell about the portrayal of law enforcement in movies. The general idea was that the demonstrations and marches for justice in 2020 seemed to open the possibility of a paradigm shift on many fronts. So we looked at movies featuring the police and thought about the different assumptions about culture, about society, about genre, that go into making and watching them. How does Training Day look today, 20 years on, or the 1970s drama Report to the Commissioner? What ab...
2021-11-101h 21The Last Thing I SawEpisode 83: Inland Empire with Melissa AndersonWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. This year marks the 20th anniversary of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, a movie that has never been too far from best-of lists. But Inland Empire, Lynch’s three-hour digitally shot follow-up, which came out five years later, has sometimes gone overlooked. So it was great news to hear that the critic Melissa Anderson has devoted an entire new book to the movie, voyaging into its nightmarish depths. Anderson, who’s the film editor at 4 Columns, takes the opportunity to appreciate the unique qualities of Laura Dern and her...
2021-10-3147 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 82: Arrebato, Benedetta, Titane, and Sarah Maldoror with Jon DieringerWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. Right at the tail end of the New York Film Festival, I caught up with Jon Dieringer, editor and publisher of Screen Slate. We talked about highlights from the festival and also some terrific titles shown in a Screen Slate series at the Roxy Cinema that helped kick off the moviegoing season for a lot of New York movie-lovers. Jon has worked for years as an archivist so he also shares his expertise and opinion on how movies make their way through repertory and into film history, as...
2021-10-251h 17The Last Thing I SawEpisode 81: Todd Haynes on The Velvet UndergroundWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. Todd Haynes’s documentary about The Velvet Underground is not just a musical feast, as one would expect, but it’s also a visually rich and polyphonic work. Haynes has explored the mythology of glam rock and the many faces of Bob Dylan in his fiction films, and he turns his first documentary into a kind of multichannel installation for the cinema screen, putting Andy Warhol’s Screen Test series of filmed portraits into dialogue with other pictures and people. The movie does the same thing with its sens...
2021-10-2016 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 80: Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria, with Set Chronicler Giovanni Marchini CamiaWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The latest feature from Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Memoria, is coming to the New York Film Festival, after premiering in Cannes this past summer. Memoria stars Tilda Swinton as a woman seeking to explain a strange noise that she keeps experiencing and, as you might guess, the movie is a change of pace in some ways for Apichatpong, shooting his first feature in Colombia. In July, I spoke with the critic Giovanni Marchini Camia, the official set chronicler of the making of Memoria. I discussed the making of Memoria with...
2021-10-0433 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 79: Amalia Ulman on El Planeta, Venice films, Chinese independents, and moreWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. One of my favorite debuts in a while is El Planeta, directed by and starring Amalia Ulman. She plays a designer who lives with her mother (played by Ulman’s mother) but they’re both going broke. So they’re making ends meet any way they can, which for her mother might include a little light scamming. It’s a movie with many layers, both funny and poignant, about keeping up appearances and about the complicated bond between mother and daughter. In many ways it builds on Ulman’s extensiv...
2021-09-2327 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 78: Toronto and Camden with Eric Hynes, or, from Benediction to ProcessionWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. This episode I’m back with highlights from not one but two festivals: The Toronto Film Festival, and the Camden festival, which specializes in documentary. I’m joined by my fearless correspondent Eric Hynes, curator of film at the Museum of the Moving Image. This is another episode where you the listeners can support the production of The Last Thing I Saw. I invite you to show your support and get immediate access. You can do so by going to
rapold.substack.com
Opening music: “Monserrate” by The Minare...
2021-09-2202 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 77: Toronto Film Festival with Amy TaubinWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. As promised, this is another episode about notable movies from the Toronto Film Festival, with critic Amy Taubin. It’s also another episode where you the listeners can support the podcast. I’ve recorded over 75 episodes with leading critics and filmmakers. It’s all created with love and care on a weekly basis and sometimes daily, at home and at festivals. The new episode with Amy Taubin is available now to paid subscribers of my substack. So I invite you to show your support and get immediate access.
...
2021-09-2002 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 76: Toronto Film Festival with Eric Hynes: An InvitationWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. This is a special episode of the podcast for a couple of reasons. It introduces a series about notable premieres at the Toronto film festival -- highlights that you’ll want to know about. But it’s also a special episode because it’s a chance for you the listeners to support the podcast. The new episode about Toronto, with curator and critic Eric Hynes, will be followed by one with another beloved regular guest, Amy Taubin.
You can support this podcast by subscribing at:
rapold.substack.com
Musi...
2021-09-1702 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 75: 10 Skies and le cinema du sky with Erika BalsomWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. Sometime in May or June, I had a marvelous conversation about the sky. Not just one sky, but 10 skies, in fact, with the critic Erika Balsom. Balsom wrote an insightful book about the lovely, thought-provoking landscape film 10 Skies, from filmmaker James Benning. I think I originally saw the movie at a festival in the late 2000s, and it was a pleasure to revisit. Happily I have a new occasion to make this conversation available, thanks to a screening of 10 Skies at the Open City Documentary Festival in Lo...
2021-09-141h 01The Last Thing I SawEpisode 74: Venice 6 – Reflection, Trenches, Catholic School, Parallel Mothers with Jessica KiangEpisode 74: Venice 6 – Reflection, Trenches, The Catholic School, Parallel Mothers with Jessica Kiang
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. My 2021 Venice Film Festival series of podcasts concludes (for now?) with critic Jessica Kiang, a contributor to Variety, The Playlist, and The New York Times. I talked with Jessica about the formally audacious film Reflection from Ukraine’s Valentyn Vasyanovych, with a shout-out to the conflict doc Trenches; a controversial Italian drama, The Catholic School; and one of her favorites of the festival, the life-giving Parallel Mothers.
You can support this podcast and read show notes with...
2021-09-1237 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 73: Venice 5 – La Caja, L'Evenement, Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon with Guy LodgeWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The 2021 Venice Film Festival series of podcasts continues with Variety critic Guy Lodge. I talked with Guy on the Lido about highlights from the festival, including Audrey Diwan's L'Evenement, Lorenzo Vigas’s La Caja (The Box), Ana Lily Amirpour’s Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon, the abortion drama L’Evenement (Happening), and Madeleine Collins starring Virginia Efira.
You can support this podcast and read show notes with links at:
rapold.substack.com
Opening music: “Monserrate” by The Minarets
Photo by Steve Snodgrass
2021-09-1134 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 72: Venice 4 – The Power of the Dog, The Lost Daughter, Hand of God with Christina NewlandWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The 2021 Venice Film Festival series of podcasts continues with critic Christina Newland, whose work has been published in Sight & Sound, Vulture, and the Criterion Collection. I’d been holding on to the Jane Campion film, The Power of the Dog, for discussion, and here it is at last, along with our consideration of The Lost Daughter, the directorial debut of Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Paolo Sorrentino’s autobiographical film The Hand of God.
You can support this podcast and read show notes with links at:
rapold.substack.com
Opening musi...
2021-09-1029 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 71: Venice 3 – Dune, Parallel Mothers, The Cathedral, The Card Counter with Glenn KennyWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The 2021 Venice Film Festival series of podcasts continues with a deluxe installment featuring Glenn Kenny, a New York Times and RogerEbert.com contributor. It’s Glenn’s first time on the podcast and he makes up for lost time with a feast of movies: Dune from Denis Villeneuve, Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers, Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter, The Cathedral (a sample selection from the Biennale-funded section), and documentary on an outré horror filmmaker, Inferno Rosso: Joe D’Amato on the Road of Excess.
You can support this podcast...
2021-09-0853 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 70: Venice 2 – Last Night in Soho, Spencer, Il Buco with Jonathan RomneyWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The 2021 Venice Film Festival is in full swing, and I sat down to chat with critic Jonathan Romney (The Observer, Screen Daily) about a few highlights: Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho, starring Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Diana Rigg, and Terence Stamp; Pablo Larrain’s Spencer, starring Kristen Stewart; Michelangelo Frammartino’s Il Buco; and Official Competition (that’s the title) starring Penelope Cruz, Antonio Banderas, and Oscar Martinez. Please note there might be a little Venice ambience occasionally audible in the background—think of it as the festiv...
2021-09-0645 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 69: Venice 1 - Paul Schrader SpeaksWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. The Venice Film Festival has begun, with world premieres including Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers, Pablo Larraín’s Spenser, Edgar Wright’s Last night in Soho, and Denis Villeneuve’s Dune. I’ll be talking about as many of them as I can here on the podcast. But to start off, I thought I would talk with Paul Schrader, whose his new movie The Card Counter has its world premiere in Venice before its U.S. release on September 10t...
2021-09-0431 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 68: Newish Releases with Adam Nayman and Beatrice LoayzaWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. Before the onslaught of new fall releases, I thought it’d be nice to tackle three big summer titles. We start with Annette, the long-awaited new feature from Leos Carax starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard; The Green Knight, David Lowery’s medieval fantasy with Dev Patel; and last but definitely not least, the mind-bender Old, from the mind of M. Night Shyamalan. Joining the podcast for the first time is Adam Nayman, a contributing editor at Cinema Scope whose work is published in The Ringer and Sight & Soun...
2021-08-281h 08The Last Thing I SawEpisode 67: Locarno 2021 with Jordan CronkWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. It’s August and that means it’s time to talk about the Locarno film festival, which for years has been a reliable launching pad for stimulating and challenging cinema. This year I’m back talking with the critic and programmer Jordan Cronk (Acropolis Cinema). Our highlights include a raw adaptation of Medea from Russia by Alex Zeldovich, a spectacular debut feature called A New Old Play from a Chinese artist that looks at the afterlife, and the Indonesian genre film Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash.
You ca...
2021-08-2349 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 66: Billy Wilder with Farran Smith Nehme, Sheila O’Malley, and Steven MearsWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. A few months ago I caught wind of a book with an intriguing title: Billy Wilder on Assignment: Dispatches from Weimar Berlin and Interwar Vienna. It turned out to be a collection of writings from when Wilder as a brash young journalist—his previous career before becoming one of Hollywood’s absolute greatest directors. It’s a fascinating read, and as for his career, you can’t go wrong with a track record like Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Ace in the Hole, to name...
2021-08-181h 09The Last Thing I SawEpisode 65: Rebecca Hall interview (The Night House) + Cannes catchup with Giovanni Marchini CamiaWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. I like to bring together many kinds of movies on the show and this week’s deluxe episode is a case in point. We haven’t talked much about horror movies lately and so I was happy to get the chance to speak with Rebecca Hall about her role in The Night House, directed by David Bruckner. The Night House is a haunting horror movie about grief that opens on August 20, and we’ll hear more later about Hall's creating a character who faces both jump scares and weight...
2021-08-1345 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 64: Ra’anan Alexandrowicz and Eric Hynes on The Viewing BoothWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. It’s been a while since I’ve really focused on a documentary on the show, and a terrific opportunity came up with the release of The Viewing Booth. The Viewing Booth is a movie that’s been at festivals but for whatever reason, did not make its way to theaters until now. Which is unfortunate because it’s one of the best movies I’ve seen about how we sort out what we think and feel about the hundreds of things we are shown each and every day—intell...
2021-08-0742 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 63: Silent Film with James Vaughan (Friends and Strangers): Pabst, Murnau, and moreWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. One of my favorite films this year hands-down is Friends and Strangers, directed by James Vaughan. It’s about a timid twenty-something guy in Sydney, Australia, who goes on a camping trip with a woman his age. Skipping ahead a bit, he kind of goes nowhere fast and gets bogged down on a job with a wealthy loudmouth. The movie had its world premiere at the Rotterdam film festival, and during the festival’s June anniversary celebration, I had the chance to talk with Vaughan. Vaughan chose silent cine...
2021-08-031h 09The Last Thing I SawEpisode 62: Cannes #11 - Cannes Classics: I Know Where I’m Going and more with Carlos ValladaresWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. It’s not as well-known as the main competition, but I have always loved Cannes Classics and its selection of restorations, revivals, and film documentaries. The genuine discoveries and clever programming are outstanding, but many people find it hard to fit them into the usual crazy Cannes schedule. So, this year I vowed to put together a special Cannes Classics episode. There are far too many worthy titles to cover them all, but I got together with Carlos Valladares and talked about some highlights. Including: The Moon Has...
2021-07-2653 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 61: Cannes #10 with Amy Taubin: Prayers for the Stolen, La Civil, Clara Sola, RehanaWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. We heard from Amy Taubin at the beginning of this Cannes series, and now that the festival has wound down, I got together with Amy once more. This time, we single out some strong movies that could use more attention. That includes a remarkable group of films set in Latin America: Prayers for the Stolen, La Civil, and Clara Sola. We also talk about the Bangladeshi drama Rehana, and Amy gives a few preliminary thoughts on a much-anticipated title that arrived late in the festival.
If you like...
2021-07-2555 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 60: Cannes #9 with Jonathan Romney: A Hero, Hit the Road, Paris 13th District, Petrov’s FluWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. For this week’s episode, I catch up with my colleague Jonathan Romney, a veteran critic of the festival circuit who regularly files for Screen Daily. For this year’s blockbuster Cannes lineup, he joins the podcast to talk about a strong batch of films that we haven’t heard about yet. That includes two Iranian movies: A Hero from Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi, and Hit the Road, from Panah Panahi. Plus there was a curious new movie co-directed by Miguel Gomes, who you might know from Arabian Nights...
2021-07-2050 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 59: Cannes #8 with Mark Asch: The French Dispatch, Red Rocket, Titane, Compartment No. 6Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. By happenstance, we still have some of the biggest titles at Cannes to discuss, and I couldn’t be happier to talk about them with the critic Mark Asch, a longtime colleague who I’ve worked with as both an editor and a writer over the past decade and change. Mark brings a lot of goodies to the program, including Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch; Sean Baker’s Red Rocket; Titane, the sophomore feature from Julia Ducournau, who directed Raw; and a couple of picks that haven’t been scr...
2021-07-1749 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 58: Cannes #7 with Carlos Valladares: Andrea Arnold’s Cow, Libertad, Futura, Drive My CarWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. There are only a few days left in the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, but there are still plenty of excellent films left to tak about. So my job here is not done, and joining me today is the critic Carlos Valladares. We’ll talk about the unusual new film Cow, from Andrea Arnold, perhaps best known for American Honey and Red Road as well as work for television. We’ll also hear about the Spanish film Libertad, a sharp Croatian coming-of-age drama called Murina, and a collective film called Futu...
2021-07-1649 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 57: Cannes #6 with Justin Chang: Blue Bayou, Stillwater, Bergman Island, After YangWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. Today we're talking with Justin Chang, film critic at The Los Angeles Times, about more movies from the Cannes Film Festival. We talked about Blue Bayou, a drama from Justin Chon; Stillwater, starring Matt Damon, from the director of Spotlight; the mysterious Mia Hansen Love movie, Bergman Island; and Kogonada’s new science fiction film, After Yang, with Colin Farrell. I talked with Justin at the last edition of Cannes in 2019 and it was a pleasure to pick right back up. Be sure to check the Los Angeles Ti...
2021-07-1547 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 56: Cannes #5 with Jordan Cronk: Benedetta, Ahed's Knee, The Worst Person..., Flag DayWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. Today from the Cannes film festival, we hear about the much anticipated film from director Paul Verhoeven: Benedetta, about a young nun whose sexual awakening causes a stir in her convent. My correspondent this time is the critic and programmer Jordan Cronk, whose work is published in many publications including Cinema Scope, Reverse Shot, and MUBI Notebook. Jordan also tells us about the vibrant film Ahed’s Knee, from Israeli auteur Nadav Lapid; The Worst Person in the World, from Joachim Trier; and the latest directorial effort from Se...
2021-07-1341 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 55: Cannes #4 with Guy Lodge: The Souvenir Part 2, Drive My Car, Lingui, the Sacred BondsWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. Today we’ll hear about the new film from Joanna Hogg, The Souvenir Part 2, which continues the portrait of an artist begun in The Souvenir, again starring Honor Swinton Byrne and Tilda Swinton. We’ll also talk about Drive My Car, a Haruki Murakami adaptation from Ryusuke Hamaguchi, who is perhaps best known for Happy Hour and Asako I & II. And finally, a strong entry from Mahamat Saleh Haroun called Lingui, the Sacred Bonds, which goes in some unexpected directions. My guest this time is making his first appe...
2021-07-1241 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 54: Cannes #3 with Amy Taubin on Annette, A Chiara, Where Is Anne Frank?Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. We are back talking about the highlights of the Cannes film festival with critic Amy Taubin. Last time we talked about the Velvet Underground and now we move on to another musical selection, Annette, the new film from Leos Carax, starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard. We also devote some time to two movies that haven’t been talked about as much in the frenzy of the festival’s first week: A Chiara, from Jonas Carpinagno, and Ari Folman’s newest animated feature, Where Is Anne Frank.
You can su...
2021-07-1033 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 53: Amy Taubin on Todd Haynes's The Velvet Underground, Warhol's Factory, and Cannes 2021Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The Cannes Film Festival kicked off this week and so I joined forces with critic Amy Taubin, who is a veteran of the festival. This year Cannes is a little different for a number of reasons, which we talk about, but we also discuss the new film about The Velvet Underground from director Todd Haynes. Amy is actually in the documentary, and she was kind enough to share some of her firsthand experiences at the time with the Velvet Underground, Andy Warhol, and of course Warhol's Screen Tests...
2021-07-1031 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 52: Mark Cousins on The Story of Film: A New Generation (Cannes)Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The Cannes Film Festival begins this week, and part of its celebration of our collective return to movies is the world premiere of The Story of Film: A New Generation, from filmmaker and critic Mark Cousins. The latest work from Cousins looks at the most recent decade in cinema and sets out to pick the movies that brought something new to the art form. Cousins has taken on the herculean task of charting film history before, most famously on an even larger scale with The Story of Film...
2021-07-0740 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 51: Abel Ferrara interviewWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The director Abel Ferrara takes movies into the outer limits of experience and emotion, often challenging us with characters in the grips of moral and spiritual corruption. His movies include King of New York, Bad Lieutenant, The Addiction, 4:44 Last Day on Earth, and the semiautobiographical Tommaso, which had its world premiere in Cannes. His latest film is Siberia, which premiered in Berlin and stars Ferrara’s frequent partner in crime, Willem Dafoe. In Siberia, Dafoe plays a man living at the end of world in a snowy wasteland wh...
2021-07-0625 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 50: Amy Taubin on No Sudden Move, Another Screen + Amy Seimetz interviewWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week is a two-part episode, with a special interview. First I chat with the one and only Amy Taubin about our recent viewing, starting with the new Steven Soderbergh movie, No Sudden Move, a highlight of the summer. We also cherry-pick a couple of films from festivals, Courtroom 3H and Souad. And looking at the big picture, we celebrate online programs like Another Screen. And then the grand finale: I chat with No Sudden Move star, actor-writer-director Amy Seimetz (The Girlfriend Experience, She Dies Tomorrow, Pet Sematary...
2021-07-041h 12The Last Thing I SawEpisode 49: In the Heights, Inside, The Driver, Tribeca, Amusement Park with Beatrice LoayzaWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I was happy to chat again with the critic Beatrice Loayza, whom you might know from her reviews in The New York Times and essays in Reverse Shot and other publications. We caught up with In the Heights and another sort of musical movie, Bo Burnham’s Inside. And since we hadn’t seen Fast 9 yet, I picked a replacement and talked about that instead: Walter Hill’s The Driver, with Ryan O’Neal, Bruce Dern, and Isabelle Adjani. Beatrice also talks about the rediscovered George Romero m...
2021-06-2854 min
The Cinematologists PodcastNicolas RapoldIn the latest episode, Neil talks at length to critic, editor and podcaster Nicolas Rapold about his podcast The Last Thing I Saw, as well as podcasting in general, the benefits of direct-to-subscriber content via Substack and, a favourite topic of Neil and Dario's, film culture in 2021 in general.Elsewhere, Neil and Dario ponder ideas around conversation and podcasting, inclusivity and good faith and share war stories of near-middle-age ailments based around tennis and a visit to the barber.The Last Thing I Saw is available wherever you get your pods, but the be...
2021-06-251h 27The Last Thing I SawEpisode 48: Janicza Bravo interview (Zola)Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. Directed by Janicza Bravo, Zola follows a Detroit waitress and dancer played by Taylour Paige as she goes along with her brand-new friend Stefani on a trip to Tampa, Florida. Stefani (Riley Keough) says the plan is to make some money stripping, but things get increasingly messy and shady and dangerous. It’s a comedy with a crazy energy that crashes into bleaker moments as Zola keeps a cool head in Stefani’s world of pimps, gangsters, and nincompoops. Janicza Bravo brings a sense of vibrant visual invention and...
2021-06-2337 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 47: Jim Cummings and PJ McCabe on The Beta Test + Bruce Bennett on Zero Focus and moreYou’re listening to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. First I interview the directors and co-stars of The Beta Test, a crackling new comedy of panic set in the double-talking world of Hollywood agents. Then it's the thrilling conclusion of my conversation with writer/critic Bruce Bennett, about the 1961 Japanese mystery/melodrama Zero Focus and bizarro 1975 thriller The 'Human' Factor, starring George Kennedy. The Beta Test screens in this year’s Tribeca Film Festival and comes out in November from IFC Films.
You can support this podcast and read show notes with links at:
rapold.subs...
2021-06-131h 27
The Last Thing I SawEpisode 46: Christian Petzold Interview + Bruce Bennett on Budd BoetticherWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. First I chat with Christian Petzold, the delightful director of Transit, Phoenix, Barbara, and now Undine, which comes out June 4. Undine is about a Berlin historian(Paula Beer) who may be a figure from ancient myth. She gives regular lectures in tours of the municipal museum, and eventually she connects with an industrial diver (Franz Rogowski). This being a Petzold movie, there are layers of history and myth that haunt the main plot. I reached Petzold at his office in Berlin over Zoom, with the occasional help of...
2021-06-031h 16The Last Thing I SawEpisode 45: Oliver Stone InterviewWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. For a period in the 1980s and 90s, Oliver Stone directed movies as if somebody might stop him at any time. His movies tended to land like bombshells in American culture: Platoon, JFK, The Doors, Natural Born Killers, to name a few. I spoke with Stone recently on the occasion of the paperback publication of his latest book, Chasing the Light: Writing, Directing, and Surviving Platoon, Midnight Express, Scarface, Salvador, and the Movie Game. Stone’s global interests guaranteed that our interview would be a bit like lassoing a...
2021-05-2836 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 44: True/False Film Fest with Cosmo B + Interview with Theo Anthony (All Light, Everywhere)Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. Every year the True/False Film Fest puts together a terrific showcase of nonfiction film, and for several years I’ve headed out to Columbia, Missouri, to attend. This year I attended virtually and compared notes with someone who went in person, Screen Slate managing editor Cosmo Bjorkenheim. After our conversation, I talk with Theo Anthony, the director of the fascinating essay film All Light, Everywhere, which screened in True/False after premiering at Sundance and showing in New Directors New Films. All Light, Everywhere opens June 4.
You ca...
2021-05-181h 29The Last Thing I SawEpisode 43: Mommie Dearest, Terms of Endearment, Aliens with Michael Koresky and Molly HaskellWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. For his new book, Films of Endearment, critic Michael Koresky (Reverse Shot) watched 10 movies from the 1980s with his mother, a fellow movie lover. This simple premise becomes a way to talk about the decade’s bounty of great acting by women and reflect on the many facets of his mother’s life and their relationship together. Michael makes it look easy as he mingles film criticism, family biography, and social history, with his characteristic insight, sensitivity, and knowledge of film history. For this episode, Michael is joined by c...
2021-05-0955 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 42: Movies and More with Manohla DargisWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host Nicolas Rapold. This week I talk with the one and only Manohla Dargis, a chief film critic at The New York Times. We chose a couple of movies to watch in advance -- one by a pioneering French female filmmaker who should be better known, another a Hollywood small-town picture with an intriguing pair of stars -- and discuss. We also talk about television aesthetics, life under the pandemic, and, taking a fresh audiovisual angle, AOC’s historic use of Instagram Live.
You can support this podcast and read show no...
2021-05-031h 29The Last Thing I SawEpisode 41: Eight Hours Don't Make a Day, Dirk Bogarde, and Godzilla Thoughts with Beatrice LoayzaWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week the conversation starts with R.W. Fassbinder's serial drama Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day. My guest is a regular on the show, critic Beatrice Loayza (The New York Times, Reverse Shot, A.V. Club). Beatrice’s viewing leads us to two dramas with British star Dirk Bogarde and two comedies by the great Albert Brooks. We also take the measure of studio blockbuster filmmaking from recent months, including Godzilla vs. Kong and Nobody.
You can support this podcast and read show notes with links at:
...
2021-04-2655 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 39: Interview with Alexander Nanau on CollectiveWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The film Collective is an investigation of corruption in the aftermath of a deadly fire in a Romanian nightclub that led to protests that toppled the prime minister. Director Alexander Nanau follows tenacious journalists as they expose wrongdoing at hospitals and in government dealings with the help of whistleblowers. He also gains access to a newly appointed health minister who is trying to reform the system. Like All the President’s Men or Citizenfour, the results make us feel as if we’re watching the process develop in real...
2021-04-0926 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 38: The Red Balloon, Tony Longo, The Gleaners and I with Genevieve Yue and Nico BaumbachWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week Genevieve Yue tells us about a film series she programmed at Metrograph called Implicit Movies. It's a fascinating selection of films, exploring a world of backgrounds, bit parts, and fragmented memories that lurk behind every image. Genevieve is an assistant professor of culture and media at the New School, and so we also talk about how she taught Uncut Gems in one of her classes. And as part of my “bring a friend” initiative on the podcast, Genevieve invited Nico Baumbach, an associate professor of film and...
2021-04-041h 07The Last Thing I SawEpisode 37: David Fincher and Donald Graham Burt InterviewWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host Nicolas Rapold. For this special episode I talk with director David Fincher and production designer Don Burt about Mank, a black-and-white evocation of Hollywood through the jaded eyes of one Herman J. Mankiewicz, as he writes the screenplay for Citizen Kane. If you’ve seen any Fincher films since Zodiac, you’ve also seen Burt's beautiful work, which won him an Academy Award for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. We talk about the conception of Mank's particular spaces; the techniques behind designing for a black-and-white film; the eagle-eyed capabilities of d...
2021-04-0248 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 36: Johnny Firecloud, Straight Time, Bless Their Little Hearts with Adam PironWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host Nicolas Rapold. This week we begin with some films from the cult label Something Weird Video: the revenge drama Johnny Firecloud, and a couple of films from the one and only Doris Wishman. My adventurous guest is Adam Piron, Los Angeles-based programmer for the Sundance Film Festival where he's associate director of the indigenous program. Other movies discussed: Straight Time; Bless Their Little Hearts; The Exiles; and the silent movie The Daughter of Dawn, which led Adam to an incredible personal discovery. Adam is also a member of the Cousin...
2021-03-281h 05The Last Thing I SawEpisode 35: Movie Fun with Nick Pinkerton and Sean Price WilliamsWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host Nicolas Rapold. Critic Nick Pinkerton and cinematographer Sean Price Williams join this episode. Pinkerton’s new book on Tsai Mingliang’s wonderful film Goodbye Dragon Inn is available now from Fireflies Press. Sean Price Williams’s vibrant and dynamic work as a cinematographer includes the acclaimed movies Good Time, directed by Josh and Benny Safdie, and Her Smell, directed by Alex Ross Perry. A leading cinematographer of his generation, Williams has also shot movies with Abel Ferrara, Sean Baker, Michael Almereyda, Jessica Oreck, and Albert Maysles.
You can support this podcas...
2021-03-191h 02The Last Thing I SawEpisode 34: Berlin Film Festival 2021 #5 with Jessica KiangWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host Nicolas Rapold. For the final installment in our essential picks from the 2021 Berlin Film Festival, I’m joined by Berlin-based critic Jessica Kiang, who wrote about the festival for The New York Times and filed multiple reviews of highlights for Variety. Movies discussed include The Scary of 61st, from Red Scare podcast co-host Dasha Nekrasova; the Georgian small-scale epic What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?; fresh readings of Alice Diop’s We, the Vietnamese curio Taste, and Alonso Ruizpalacios’s meta-docufiction A Cop Movie; and Petite Maman...
2021-03-151h 07The Last Thing I SawEpisode 33: Berlin Film Festival 2021 #4 with Amy TaubinWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host Nicolas Rapold. The one and only Amy Taubin joins to talk about a couple of selections from the Berlin Film Festival and Berlin Critics’ Week, with some comments on watching on the small screen. Movies discussed include Ballad of a White Cow, An Unusual Summer, Nous (We), and Petite Maman.
You can support this podcast and read show notes with links at:
rapold.substack.com
Opening music: “Monserrate” by The Minarets
Photo by Steve Snodgrass
2021-03-1240 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 32: Berlin Film Festival 2021 #3 with Ela BittencourtWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host Nicolas Rapold. Brazil-based critic Ela Bittencourt, who has been reviewing for MUBI, joins to discuss a selection of movies in the Berlin Film Festival, which presented its slate online in advance of its public summer incarnation. Movies discussed include The Girl and the Spider, Natural Light, Azor, Tsarenska Scaling, and the short Fury Is a Feeling Too (1983).
You can support this podcast and read show notes with links at:
rapold.substack.com
Opening music: “Monserrate” by The Minarets
Photo by Steve Snodgrass
2021-03-1049 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 31: Berlin Film Festival 2021 #2 with Jonathan RomneyWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host Nicolas Rapold. London calling! Critic Jonathan Romney weighs in on the best from the Berlin Film Festival, which presented its slate of films online in advance of a public summer incarnation. Movies discussed include the prize-winners Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn from Radu Jude, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, Maria Speth’s Mr. Bachmann and His Class, Alonso Ruizpalacios’s A Cop Movie, and more.
You can read show notes with links at:
rapold.substack.com
Opening Music: “Monserrate” by The Minarets
Photo by Steve Snodgrass
2021-03-0834 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 30: Berlin Film Festival 2021 with Jordan CronkWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host Nicolas Rapold. We’re giving a sneak preview of the prestigious Berlin Film Festival, which presented its slate of films online this week (in advance of a public summer incarnation). Critic-programmer Jordan Cronk joins the episode to give a run-down on what’s new at Berlin and a selection of highlights including the latest from Hong Sangsoo and adventurous new work.
For complete show notes with links, sign up for my newsletter at
rapold.substack.com
Music: “Monserrate” by The Minarets
Photo by Steve Snodgrass
2021-03-0539 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 29: New Releases (Judas, The Father, more) with Beatrice Loayza and Nicholas RussellWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host Nicolas Rapold. We’re talking about new (or new-ish) releases this week, including Judas and the Black Messiah, The Father, I Care a Lot, and Saint Maud. Joining me for this episode are a supergroup of two regulars: critics Beatrice Loayza and Nicholas Russell.
For complete show notes with links, sign up for my newsletter at
rapold.substack.com
Music: “Monserrate” by The Minarets
Photo by Steve Snodgrass
2021-02-281h 07The Last Thing I SawEpisode 28: Resnais, Looney Tunes, Joan Micklin Silver, and a secret film with Carlos ValladaresWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This one's a wild journey with guest Carlos Valladares, a critic and Yale graduate scholar. Carlos is working on a project about the director Jerry Schatzberg, so our conversation starts with his films Scarecrow and Honeysuckle Rose. Then it’s off to the races: Alain Resnais’s Je t’Aime, Je t’Aime; Looney Tunes; the late Joan Micklin Silver; Kevin Jerome Everson's Park Lanes; and Bill Gunn’s great lost studio film, Stop!
For complete show notes with links, sign up for my newsletter at
rapold.substack.com
Music...
2021-02-181h 09The Last Thing I SawEpisode 27: Rotterdam (and a Sundance smidgen) with Jordan CronkWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host Nicolas Rapold. The Rotterdam film festival provides a launching pad for cutting-edge cinema that often ends up screening in New Directors / New Films and other series. To discuss highlights from this year's edition -- including the prize-winning Indian film Pebbles and the eye-opening Dutch drama Feast -- I’m joined by Jordan Cronk, veteran critic and founder/programmer of the Acropolis Cinema in Los Angeles. (We also catch up with a Sundance documentary that explains how to move giant trees.)
For complete show notes with links, sign up for my ne...
2021-02-1234 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 26: Sundance #5 with Amy TaubinWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host Nicolas Rapold. As our week of Sundance comes to a close, Amy Taubin returns to discuss Judas and the Black Messiah, Bring Your Own Brigade, a discovery in the episodic series section, the Sparks documentary, and her reason for missing the Summer of Soul concerts in 1969.
For complete show notes with links, sign up for my newsletter at
rapold.substack.com
Music: “Monserrate” by The Minarets
Photo by Steve Snodgrass
2021-02-0647 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 25: Sundance #4 with Jessica KiangWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host Nicolas Rapold. On this Sundance episode, critic Jessica Kiang (Variety, The Playlist) shares some of her recent favorites, including The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet, the Sparks documentary, and Sabaya.
For complete show notes with links, sign up for my newsletter at
rapold.substack.com
Music: “Monserrate” by The Minarets
Photo by Steve Snodgrass
2021-02-0331 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 24: Sundance #3 with Beatrice LoayzaWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host Nicolas Rapold. On this episode about the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, I’m joined by critic Beatrice Loayza, a frequent guest on the show. Among the movies we discuss are Ben Wheatley’s In the Earth, 1980s throwback Censor, A Glitch in the Matrix (from the director of Room 237), and Amalia Ulman’s El Planeta.
For complete show notes with links, sign up for my newsletter at
rapold.substack.com
Music: “Monserrate” by The Minarets. This episode was co-produced by John Gaudio.
Photo by Steve Snodgrass
2021-02-0240 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 23: Sundance #2 with Nicholas Russell and Eric HynesWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host Nicolas Rapold. We’re back at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, this time talking with critics Nicholas Russell and Eric Hynes, who will both write about the festival at Reverse Shot. The discussion covers Eight for Silver, Passing, and the nuances of criticism and reception at festivals.
For complete show notes with links, sign up for my newsletter at
rapold.substack.com
Music: “Monserrate” by The Minarets
Photo by Steve Snodgrass
2021-02-0142 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 22: Sundance #1 with Eric HynesWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host Nicolas Rapold. On this episode we talk about highlights from the first days of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival with Eric Hynes, curator of film at Museum of the Moving Image. We discuss two stand-outs from this year’s edition—Summer of Soul, directed by Questlove, and President, directed by Camilla Nielsson—and a documentary about a Visconti star, The Most Beautiful Boy in the World.
For complete show notes with links, sign up for my newsletter at
rapold.substack.com
Music: “Monserrate” by The Minarets
Photo by Steve Snodgrass
2021-01-3034 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 21: Sundance 2021 with Amy TaubinWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host Nicolas Rapold. On this episode we look at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival with the one and only Amy Taubin, who has been attending since the year of Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape. Taubin shares some of the movies and events she is looking forward to and reflects on what’s different about this pandemic-era edition of the festival.
For complete show notes with links, sign up for my newsletter at
rapold.substack.com
Music: “Monserrate” by The Minarets
Photo by Steve Snodgrass
2021-01-2931 minThe Last Thing I SawEpisode 20: The Best of 2020 with Amy Taubin, Eric Hynes, Jessica Kiang, and Beatrice LoayzaWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host Nicolas Rapold. This is the 20th episode of the podcast, and we’ll be sharing our highlights from the year in movies. You might notice a few likely candidates are missing, such as First Cow or Time, but that’s because we tried to talk about movies that haven't been covered as much on this podcast, though a few old favorites do sneak in. It’s been a long year so I got some brilliant critics to share their picks: Amy Taubin, contributing editor at Artforum; Eric Hynes, curator of film a...
2020-12-311h 21The Last Thing I SawEpisode 19: Steve McQueen's Small Axe with Jonathan Romney and Nicholas RussellWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host Nicolas Rapold. On this episode I’m tackling a wonderful collection of new films by director Steve McQueen called Small Axe. The five Small Axe movies are on Amazon, completed today with the release of the fifth and final film, Education. Small Axe is a fascinating and ambitious chronicle of West Indian experience in London—personal, political, and cultural—and it’s definitely an event. First, veteran critic Jonathan Romney (Screen Daily, Sight & Sound) joins me to talk about Mangrove and Lovers Rock, which are about an infamous trial and a joyous...
2020-12-181h 51The Last Thing I SawEpisode 18: Time with Amy Taubin + 70s Horror with Beatrice Loayza and Christina NewlandWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host Nicolas Rapold. This week, I start with a featured look at Time, directed by Garrett Bradley. I talk with the wonderful Amy Taubin about the movie, which is one of the year’s best. On the second half of the episode, I look at a terrific collection of 1970s horror available at the Criterion Channel. Critics Beatrice Loayza and Christina Newland join me to discuss the pleasures and politics of the movies, including: Death Dream, Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, George Romero’s The Crazies, Death Line, and sp...
2020-10-261h 13The Last Thing I SawEpisode 17: New Beginnings, with Beatrice Loayza, Susannah Gruder, and Eric HynesWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host Nicolas Rapold. This week, we’re trying something different. After our usual discussion of recently watched movies, I dig into a special topic with another guest. First I trade New York Film Festival highlights with critics Beatrice Loayza and Susannah Gruder. Then on the second half, I talk about the possible futures facing moviegoing and film exhibition because of the pandemic, with Eric Hynes of the Museum of the Moving Image. We’ll have more of what I’m blithely calling audio magazine features in future episodes, with in-depth looks at fil...
2020-10-121h 09The Last Thing I SawEpisode 16: Rob Sweeney of Kino LorberWelcome to The Last Thing I Saw, a podcast where we reach out to folks to talk about what they've been watching. It’s as simple as that. Joining Nicolas Rapold this time is R. Emmet Sweeney, producer of DVDs and Blu-rays for Kino Lorber. Rob has had two projects lately: looking for good movies to watch with his daughter, and watching fantastical Indian genre movies. Titles discussed include: Wee Willie Winkie and Heidi, both starring Shirley Temple; Mamoru Hosoda’s Wolf Children; The Wizard of Oz; S.S. Rajamouli’s Eega (“The Fly”); Bill & Ted Face the Music; High Risk, star...
2020-10-0148 min
The Last Thing I SawEpisode 1: Nicolas Rapold, Devika Girish, and Clinton KruteNicolas Rapold talks with Devika Girish and Clinton Krute about the assortment of movies they’ve been watching in lockdown, including Jackie Chan’s Police Story, Indian classic Pakeezah, long awaited Aretha Franklin doc Amazing Grace, Maurice Pialat’s Under the Sun of Satan, and many more (including the ZZ Top doc).
Original music by Nate Kinsella
Photo by Steve Snodgrass
2020-05-1147 min