The Last Thing I Saw

Ep. 197: Manohla Dargis on Summertime Viewing (and possibly Barbie) Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I catch up with a very special guest, Manohla Dargis, chief film critic of The New York Times. Instead of comparing festival notes or discussing recent reviews, this is a glimpse at what Dargis happens to have been watching recently. So in the interest of preserving the surprise, I’ll leave out the usual viewing list, though I can say we get some final thoughts on Barbie. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 196: Locarno 2023 with K.J. Relth-Miller on Mexican Retro: Spectacle Every Day Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. We have one final report from the Locarno film festival, on this year's retrospective. K.J. Relth-Miller, who programs at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles, has been attending Locarno's overview of Mexican popular cinema dating back to the 1940s: “Spectacle Every Day.” Among the films we discuss are The Batwoman, Take Me in Your Arms, El Suavecito, The Mind and the Crime, and The Three Garcias. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 195: Locarno 2023 with Giovanni Marchini Camia on The Human Surge 3, Critical Zone, Good Place Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I’ve been reporting on the Locarno film festival, and for the latest batch of premieres, I am happy to welcome back a past guest, Giovanni Marchini Camia, who is a programmer at Locarno, a critic, and co-founder of the publishing house Fireflies Press. We discuss Eduardo Williams’s The Human Surge 3; the Golden Leopard winner Critical Zone, from Ali Ahmadzadeh; and Katharina Huber’s A Good Place, a discovery that went on to win two prizes. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 194: Locarno 2023 with Beatrice Loayza: Mademoiselle Kenopsia, Yannick, Camping du Lac, The Vanishing Soldier Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I’m reporting from the Locarno film festival. Beatrice Loayza, who’s attending the festival for the first time, joins the podcast to discuss a few highlights, including: Quentin Dupieux’s Yannick, Denis Côté’s Mademoiselle Kenopsia, Éléonore Saintagnan’s Camping du Lac, and Dani Rosenberg’s The Vanishing Soldier. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Music: “Tomorrow’s Forecast” by The Minarets, courtesy of The Minarets Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 193: Locarno 2023 with Jessica Kiang: Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, Sweet Dreams, Manga D'Terra Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I’m reporting from the Locarno film festival, where Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, has been a major stand-out. Jessica Kiang (Variety) joins the podcast to discuss Radu Jude’s film as well as two more titles in Locarno’s competition lineup: Ena Sendijarević’s Sweet Dreams and Basil Da Cunha’s Manga d’Terra. Please note: the audio in this episode may sound different at one point because of a mic change. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Music: “Tomorrow’s Forecast” by The Minarets, courtesy of The Minarets Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 192: John Wilson on How To with John Wilson Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I talk with John Wilson, the mastermind of How To with John Wilson, the sui generis series on HBO. The third and final season of How To has now begun, and so I took the opportunity to ask Wilson about the secret to assembling the show’s serendipitous paths through New York and his own experience of the world. We also talked about his recent viewing and selections from the Anthology Film Archives series he programmed for this month. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Music: “Tomorrow’s Forecast” by The Minarets, courtesy of The Minarets Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 191: Amy Taubin on Oppenheimer, Barbie, Command-Z, Richard Kelly Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I talk with the one and only Amy Taubin about the double feature that has attracted crowds to movie theaters this weekend: Oppenheimer, directed by Christopher Nolan, and Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig. We pick apart what we loved (or hated) about the two films, and then we discuss Steven Soderbergh’s surprise series Command-Z, available only online. Plus a few thoughts on upcoming Richard Kelly screenings. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Music: “Monserrate” by The Minarets, courtesy of The Minarets Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 190: Mstyslav Chernov on Ukraine documentary 20 Days in Mariupol Welcome to the Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I’m speaking with the director of the Ukraine documentary 20 Days in Mariupol, now showing at Film Forum and winner of a Sundance audience award. Mstyslav Chernov was a video journalist for the Associated Press who stayed in the city when the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. The AP journalists were the last from an international organization who remained in the city, and they were able to film the people and the streets during Russia’s brutal siege and bombardment, at one point filming from a hospital that became a target. Chernov and his colleagues won a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting, but 20 Days in Mariupol goes beyond news clips to give a fuller, tense chronicle of these days. I asked Chernov about crafting his documentary, getting the facts out about the war, and what films, fiction or documentary, have inspired him. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Music: “Monserrate” by The Minarets, courtesy of The Minarets Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 189: Amy Taubin on the Tribeca Festival 2023 and Beyond Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I talk with the one and only Amy Taubin about the 2023 edition of the Tribeca Festival. We discuss Taubin’s favorite from the festival; a couple of hard-hitting documentaries, Transition and Rule of Two Walls; video game titan Hideo Kojima and auteurs in dialogue David Fincher and Steven Soderbergh; and other notable titles like Mountains and A Strange Path. Plus thoughts on recent viewing and what’s to come. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Music: “Tomorrow’s Forecast” by The Minarets, courtesy of The Minarets Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 188: Peter Labuza on Sokurov, Klimov, Shepitko, Hellman’s Iguana, the strike Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week brings some recent highlights from Los Angeles repertory courtesy of my latest guest, Peter Labuza. He talks about two 1990s films by Alexander Sokurov, the formidable war-movie pairing of Larissa Shepitko’s The Ascent and Elem Klimov’s Come and See, and Monte Hellman’s rarely screened Iguana. Labuza, researcher at IATSE Local 600 (the International Cinematographers Guild) and a scholar in media industries law, also offers personal reflections on possible implications of the writers strike for the industry. Finally, I say a bit about Mary Bronstein’s Yeast. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Music: “Monserrate” by The Minarets, courtesy of The Minarets Photo by Steve Snodgrass