Episode 9: Justin Chang of The Los Angeles Times

Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, a podcast where we reach out to friends to talk about what we’ve been watching. It’s as simple as that. Joining Nicolas Rapold this time is Justin Chang, a staff critic at the Los Angeles Times and, before that, chief film critic at Variety. Ordinarily, we would be comparing notes at a film festival, so it was a pleasure to catch up with Justin virtually and hear his thoughts on a changing film world. Among the movies we discussed were Buñuel’s unsettling 1961 film Viridiana and the question of shock and scandal in movies; a new release, The Painted Bird, about a boy facing the horrors of World War II, with nods to Elem Klimov’s Come and See and Bela Tarr’s Satantango; and finally, for a change pace, the beloved comedy Clueless and a new horror release, Relic. Photo by Steve Snodgrass