The Last Thing I Saw

Ep. 337: Keva York on Locarno 2025: Dracula, Legend of the Happy Worker, plus The Seasons Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I’m reporting from the Locarno film festival, which annually rolls out an adventuresome sale of films. For my latest episode I’m joined by Keva York, a critic and an editor of the festival’s Pardo publication. Titles discussed include the highly anticipated Dracula (directed by Radu Jude), Legend of the Happy Worker (Duwayne Dunham), and The Seasons (Maureen Fazendeiro). Ambient sound is courtesy of our recording location, the lounge of the GranRex cinema, one of the festival’s venues. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 336: Jordan Cronk on Locarno 2025: With Hasan in Gaza, Mektoub My Love, Blue Heron, Balearic, Phantoms of July Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I report from the Locarno film festival, which annually rolls out an adventuresome sale of films. For my first episode I’m joined by Jordan Cronk, critic and programmer, who has already seen an impressive share of titles in the early days. Titles discussed include With Hasan in Gaza (Kamal Aljafari), Blue Heron (Sophy Romvari), Mektoub, My Love: Canto Due (Abdellatif Kechiche), Balearic (Ion de Sosa), and Phantoms of July (Julian Radlmaier). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 335: Will Sloan on Ed Wood: Made in Hollywood USA about the director of Plan 9 From Outer Space and Glen or Glenda Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week the writer and podcaster Will Sloan visits to discuss his new book, Ed Wood: Made in Hollywood USA, a reconsideration of the filmmaker who notoriously symbolized the bottom of the barrel in movies. Sloan’s book avoids the usual so-bad-it’s-good look at Ed Wood and instead appreciates the strange dreamlike spaces opened up by the likes of Plan 9 from Outer Space, the “accidental” experiments of his shoe-string-budget movies, and the poignant personal resonance of Glen or Glenda and other movies with Wood’s identity as a cross-dresser (as memorably chronicled in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood). Plus any number of tangents and comparisons that Wood’s work seems to invite through its very imperfections. Ed Wood: Made in Hollywood USA is available now from OR Books (https://orbooks.com/catalog/ed-wood/). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 334: Mark Asch on F1, Tour de France, American Hunter, Revelations of Divine Love, Afternoons of Solitude, plus 92 in the Shade, The Brig, and Al Green Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week’s episode is a little midsummer night’s stroll through movies with critic and bon vivant Mark Asch! This time on the show he brings together the Brad Pitt racing film F1 with his recent viewing of Tour de France and other sports broadcasts, and from there it’s off to the races: Spectacle Theater favorite American Hunter (Arizal); Oblivion, also from F1 director Joseph Kosinski; Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra); Revelations of Divine Love, recently premiered at FIDMarseilles and previously previewed by the filmmaker, Caroline Golum, on this program; 92 in the Shade (Thomas McGuane); Big Deal on Madonna Street (Mario Monicelli); The Brig (Jonas Mekas); and the music documentary Gospel According to Al Green (Robert Mugge). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 333: Kiyoshi Kurosawa on his new film Cloud, life, lighting, casting, and the last thing he saw Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. Cloud is the new film by director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, whose unique career includes the films Cure, Pulse, and Tokyo Sonata. Cloud follows an internet reseller (Masaki Suda) who becomes targeted for murder by a band of customers he has played a little too fast and loose with. It’s suffused with the air of menace that the director excels at creating, but situated in an actual cutthroat world of extremely online internet resellers. Kurosawa has said it’s partly inspired by a true story of an internet-inspired killing, and partly by his desire to shoot an action movie, particularly with characters who are (relatively) ordinary people. As a longtime fan of his work, I felt especially fortunate to speak with director Kiyoshi Kurosawa about Cloud and his work generally. Thank you to Monika Uchiyama for translation. Cloud is in theaters now and had its world premiere in the Venice film festival last fall. It was the centerpiece film at the Japan Society’s annual festival Japan Cuts, where director Kiyoshi Kurosawa was honored with the Cut Above Award for his outstanding achievements in cinema. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 332: Amy Taubin on Cloud, Tribeca (I Was Born This Way, Happy Birthday, Shadow Scholars), Twin Peaks, Outrageous, plus Mountainhead Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The summer may have technically begun, but it’s not truly the summer without our annual June-July-ish kick-off: a podcast with critic Amy Taubin! Once again she brings a selection of highlights gleaned from the Tribeca, including prize-winners and otherwise: I Was Born This Way (directed by Daniel Junge and Sam Pollard), Natchez (Suzannah Herbert), The Shadow Scholars (Eloise King), Cuerpo Celeste (Nayra Ilic García), Happy Birthday (Sarah Goher), and the delightful Lion King doc Runa Simi (Augusto Zegarra), with my chiming in about The Scout (Paula González-Nasser). But wait, that’s not all: Amy also talks about Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cloud (coming to U.S. theaters on July 18); her recent work on Twin Peaks, with a remarkable personal connection to David Lynch’s work; and Outrageous, the very resonant TV series about the Mitford sisters. Plus: I ramble a bit about the latest movies from Celine Song, Materialists, and from Danny Boyle, 28 Years Later, as well as Jeremy Strong’s feature-film directorial debut, the tech-bro-apocalypse satire Mountainhead. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 331: Eva Victor, writer-director of Sorry, Baby, on the film’s influences and her recent viewing Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. I’ve been eager for people to see Eva Victor’s Sorry, Baby ever since I saw it at Sundance (where it picked up a prize). A wonder of a film, it’s the funny and moving story of a woman working through trauma, with Victor playing the leading role, opposite Naomi Ackie (Mickey 17) and Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea). The writer-director brings her tonal and emotional precision both as a performer and as a writer to a debut feature that blazes its own path (distinct from the comedic shorts that were my first introduction to her work). I was delighted to speak with Victor about influences on the film (ranging from Certain Women to The Handmaiden and beyond), as well as her recent viewing. Sorry, Baby is in theaters now, distributed by A24. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 330: David Schwartz on A Theater Near You series at MoMA + Nitrate Picture Show 2025 Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The repertory cinemas of New York were a formative influence on me and so I was excited to see a new film series at the Museum of Modern Art that surveys their programming, called A Theater Near You. David Schwartz, the former chief curator at the Museum of the Moving Image, guest-programmed the series, and he joins the podcast to talk about how the specific films in the program capture the particular flavors of New York cinemas past, such as the Bleecker Street Cinema, the Public, and the pioneering Cinema 16, brainchild of New York Film Festival co-founder Amos Vogel. Then on the second half of our chat, Schwartz talks about the latest Nitrate Picture Show at the George Eastman Museum, the festival that shows exclusively nitrate prints, including La Ronde, The Destroyers of Our Gardens, and more. “A Theater Near You” runs through July 11 at the Museum of Modern Art. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 329: Edo Choi on Mikio Naruse at Metrograph: When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, Scattered Clouds, Wife! Be Like a Rose!, and more Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. There are retrospectives that remain close to one’s heart and for me, one such was an immersion in Mikio Naruse’s work many years ago at Film Forum. Fortunately, film history can repeat itself in a good way: Metrograph and Japan Society have teamed up for a Naruse retrospective on his 120th anniversary. I spoke with Edo Choi, a film programmer at Metrograph and past guest on the program, about Naruse’s rich and perhaps still underappreciated body of work, as well as its context within Japanese cinema. Among the films discussed: When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, Wife! Be Like a Rose!, Floating Clouds, and perhaps one of the great swan songs, Scattered Clouds, before Naruse’s death in 1969. Mikio Naruse: The World Betrays Us continues through the end of the month at Metrograph. For listeners outside of New York, select films are available on the Criterion Channel. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 328: Michael Koresky on his new book Sick and Dirty: Hollywood’s Gay Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness - The Children’s Hour, These Three, Tea and Sympathy, Dance Girl Dance, and more Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. I was a huge fan of Michael Koresky’s last book, Films of Endearment, and so I leapt into action when I heard about his latest, Sick and Dirty: Hollywood’s Gay Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness. Koresky is now Senior Curator of Film at Museum of the Moving Image, and, as he points out, his book has roots in his column I had the privilege of editing at Film Comment, Queer and Now and Then. I spoke with him about some pivotal titles in his deeply researched chronicle of under-the-radar queer cinema from the 1930s to the 1960s, and the fascinating work that could emerge under Hollywood’s censorship regime: These Three and The Children’s Hour, two adaptations of Lillian Hellman’s play, both directed by William Wyler; Dorothy Arzner’s Dance, Girl, Dance; Vincente Minnelli’s oft-maligned Tea & Sympathy; and more. “Sick and Dirty: Hollywood’s Gay Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness” by Michael Koresky is available now, published by Bloomsbury. On June 22, Tea & Sympathy will screen with Koresky in conversation at the Museum of the Moving Image as part of a special book event. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass