Ep. 272: Christian Lorentzen on Pavements (and Pavement) Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week the movie Pavements (and the band Pavement) came to The New York Film Festival. So I sat down after a Lincoln Center screening with critic Christian Lorentzen of the London Review of Books among many publications, to get his initial impressions on the hybrid documentary from director Alex Ross Perry (Her Smell, Listen Up Philip). Lorentzen talks about the band’s pas...
Oct 04, 2024•25 min
Ep. 271: Eric Hynes on Conclave, Friendship, Tata, The Last Republican, Winter in Sokcho (Toronto) Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. So it turns out I had another Toronto International Film Festival episode up my sleeve, with Eric Hynes, Curator of Film at Museum of the Moving Image. We talk about the Ralph Fiennes elect-a-pope movie, Conclave (directed by Edward Berger); the Tim Robinson comedy, Friendship (directed by Andrew DeYoung); an intriguing pair of docume...
Sep 27, 2024•54 min
Ep. 270: First-Person 1990s Documentary at MOMI with Jeff Reichert and Asha Phelps: Personal Belongings and Beyond Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The documentary work that bloomed in the 1990s, partly thanks to new technologies, has a raw immediacy that’s a pleasure to re-encounter on the big screen. Thanks to a new series starting this weekend at the Museum of the Moving Image, you can, and I sat down with the co-programmers, Jeff Reichert and Asha Phelps, abou...
Sep 20, 2024•54 min
Ep. 269: Toronto 2024: Mark Asch on The End, Hard Truths, Eden, Measures for a Funeral Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The fall is always packed with movies entering the world for the first time, and the Toronto International Film Festival brings together a sprawling slate of such premieres—some opening later in the fall, some looking for distributors. As I have for several years, I went to Toronto and chatted with fellow critic Mark Asch, who used to edit me yea...
Sep 16, 2024•42 min
Ep. 268: Venice 2024: Jessica Kiang on April, Queer, Vermiglio, Happyend, 2073 Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The 81st Venice Film Festival had a few more important films up its sleeve in its final days, and I was very happy to sit down in Venice with Jessica Kiang of Variety for a chat. Titles discussed include: April (directed by Dea Kulumbegashvili), Queer (Luca Guadagnino), Vermiglio (Maura Delpero), Happyend (Neo Sora), and 2073 (Asif Kapadia). This episode...
Sep 14, 2024•1 hr 5 min
Ep. 267: Venice 2024: Edo Choi on Pavements, Familiar Touch, Mistress Dispeller, Israel Palestine doc, plus Joker 2 Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The 81st Venice Film Festival is underway, and I’m podcasting from the Lido about the latest movies to screen. This time I chatted with Edo Choi of the Museum of the Moving Image who is writing up a couple of films for Reverse Shot. Titles discussed include: Pavements (directed by Alex Ross Perry), Familiar Touch (Sar...
Sep 06, 2024•40 min
Ep. 266: Venice 2024: Guy Lodge on Harvest, Babygirl Redux, Peacock, Diciannove (Nineteen) Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The 81st Venice Film Festival is underway, and I’m podcasting from the Lido about the latest movies to screen. This time I chatted with critic Guy Lodge of Variety about a number of titles including Harvest (directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari), Diciannove (Giovanni Tortorici), Peacock (Bernhard Wenger), and one more time, Babygirl (Halina Rei...
Sep 05, 2024•37 min
Ep. 265: Venice 2024: Glenn Kenny on The Room Next Door, I’m Still Here, Wolfs, Separated, Finally, The Brutalist Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The 81st Venice Film Festival is underway, and I’m podcasting from on site about the latest movies to screen. This time I chatted with critic Glenn Kenny (Roger Ebert, The New York Times) about a number of titles including The Room Next Door (directed by Pedro Almodóvar), I’m Still Here (Walter Salles), Separated (Errol...
Sep 04, 2024•43 min
Ep. 264: Venice 2024: Jordan Cronk on The Brutalist, Cloud, Baby Invasion, The Day the Clown Cried, Three Friends Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The 81st Venice Film Festival has just begun, and I’m podcasting from the festival about the latest movies to screen. This time I chatted with critic and programmer Jordan Cronk. Among the titles we discussed are The Brutalist (directed by Brady Corbet), Cloud (Kiyoshi Kurosawa), Baby Invasion (Harmony Korine), Three Fr...
Sep 02, 2024•48 min
Ep. 263: Venice 2024: Jonathan Romney on Maria, Babygirl, The Quay Bros., John and Yoko, Beetlejuice 2 Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The 81st Venice Film Festival has just begun, and I will be podcasting from the festival about the latest lineup. To make sense of the opening batch of movies, I sat down for a chat with critic Jonathan Romney, who is covering the festival for Screen Daily and The Observer. Among the titles we discussed are Beetlejuice Beetlejuice...
Aug 30, 2024•42 min
Ep. 262: Locarno 2024 with Keva York: Invention, Sparrow in the Chimney, Mandico, Vernier Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. Before the fall schedule of festivals and new releases begins in earnest, the Locarno festival has its say with a few choice selections (last year including one of my favorites, Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World). This year, I chatted about the Locarno selection with critic Keva York, who was attending the festival. ...
Aug 30, 2024•46 min
Ep. 261: Nathan Silver and C. Mason Wells on The Strange Mr. Victor, Serpent’s Path, Parenthood, and more Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. Nathan Silver’s latest movie Between the Temples comes to cinemas on August 23, with a cast lead by Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane. So for this episode, Silver and his co-writer, C. Mason Wells, join the podcast to talk about recent viewing (some of it in preparation for writing a new film!). Among the titles discussed are Th...
Aug 18, 2024•46 min
Ep. 260: Trap, Twisters, This Closeness, Janet Planet, Last Summer, and more with Maxwell Paparella and Elissa Suh Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. After a little summer vacation, it’s time once again to chat about some recent releases with two guests making their premieres on the podcast: Maxwell Paparella, an editor at MUBI Notebook, and Elissa Suh, a critic who’s published in Screen Slate, Vogue, and Bon Appetit, and writes a substack called MOVIEPUDDING. We ta...
Aug 07, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Ep. 259: K.J. Relth-Miller on Il Cinema Ritrovato 2024: Sisters of Nishijin, Amadeus, Anatole Livtak retro, The Innerview, The Sealed Soil Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. Il Cinema Ritrovato, the annual festival of revivals and restorations, showcases a bounty of discoveries, classics, and rarities in Bologna, Italy, many of which will then make their way across the world. Among the eager audience members was K.J. Relth-Miller, director of film programs at the Ac...
Jul 17, 2024•1 hr
Ep. 258: Amy Taubin on Tribeca Picks, Agnieszka Holland, Bleak Week, Mireia Sallarès’s Little Deaths Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. Why go through the summer without a return visit from the inimitable Amy Taubin? On this episode we discuss a few films cherry-picked from this year’s Tribeca Festival; Agnieszka Holland and her incisive latest film Green Border; the intriguing repertory series known as Bleak Week, held annually at L.A.’s American Cinematheque and r...
Jul 04, 2024•49 min
Ep. 257: The Nitrate Picture Show 2024 with David Schwartz Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The Nitrate Picture Show takes place every year in Rochester, New York, at the George Eastman Museum, projecting movies from nitrate prints. The resulting super-vivid images create a movie-going experience that can be, in the words of my guest, programmer David Schwartz, “life-changing.” I asked Schwartz about some of his highlights at this increasingly popular festival, in...
Jun 20, 2024•43 min
Ep. 256: Amy Taubin on Leos Carax’s It’s Not Me, The Shrouds, Charles Atlas, Arthur Jafa, Man Ray, and More Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The one and only Amy Taubin comes back to The Last Thing I Saw for a wide-ranging conversation about what she’s been watching. That includes at least a couple of Cannes titles—Leos Carax’s It’s Not Me and David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds—and New York repertory highlights from the spring: the enormous Charles Atlas retrospective...
Jun 09, 2024•52 min
Ep. 255: Cannes 2024 Redux: Jessica Kiang on Black Dog, 2nd Features, The Other Way Around, Viet and Nam Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. Every year at Cannes there are a few more films I want to talk about, even as the time is running out at the festival. So for a very special postscript (and postgame), critic Jessica Kiang of Variety joined to talk about the ones that got away. Among the titles discussed: Un Certain Regard prize-winner Black Dog (directed by Gua...
Jun 05, 2024•58 min
Ep. 254: Cannes 2024 Finale: Manohla Dargis on The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Anora, The Apprentice, Marcello Mio, and more Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. It’s become an annual tradition on the last day of Cannes to sit down with Manohla Dargis, the chief film critic for The New York Times, and take stock of the festival, some selected highlights, and other points of interest. For our 2024 chat, in a corner of the Palais starting to buzz with activity before the aw...
Jun 01, 2024•35 min
Ep. 253: Cannes 2024: Justin Chang on All We Imagine as Light, Caught by the Tides, The Shrouds Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. On the latest selection of highlights recorded during the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, I was delighted to sit down with Justin Chang of The New Yorker, recent recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, with whom I’d last chatted when he was at the Los Angeles Times. On this episode, occasionally to the soundtrack of Cannes doves cooing...
May 28, 2024•38 min
Ep. 252: Cannes 2024: Beatrice Loayza on Visiting Hours, Eat the Night, and September Says Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. On the latest episode chock full of highlights from the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, I sat down with critic Beatrice Loayza to discuss some of the lesser-spoken-about titles from the festival. That includes two titles from Directors’ Fortnight: Patricia Mazuy’s Visiting Hours, starring Isabelle Huppert and Hafsia Herzi, and Eat the Night from C...
May 27, 2024•22 min
Ep. 251: Cannes 2024: Nick Davis on Bird, Grand Tour, Emilia Perez, Motel Destino Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. On the latest episode chock full of highlights from the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, I welcome a dear old friend, Nick Davis, a professor of film at Northwestern University and writer/editor of his own outstanding longtime site of film criticism (nick-davis.com). On his inaugural visit to Cannes, he shared his typically quicksilver thoughts on a slate o...
May 26, 2024•37 min
Ep. 250: Cannes 2024: Eric Hynes on Caught by the Tides, Apprendre, Cannes Classics (Brocka, Bellocchio, Insta-Wiseman) Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. On the latest episode from the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, I bring back Eric Hynes, curator of film at Museum of the Moving Image, to discuss two essential highlights of this year’s edition—Jia Zhangke’s Caught by the Tides and Claire Simon’s Apprendre—and restorations from Cannes Classics: Lino Brocka’s Bona, Marc...
May 24, 2024•26 min
Ep. 249: Cannes 2024: Jonathan Romney on Misericordia, Rumours, Being Maria, The Second Act, Parthenope Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. On the latest episode on the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, I chatted with critic Jonathan Romney and caught up with a number of movies in this year’s edition: Misericordia (directed by Alain Guiraudie), The Second Act (Quentin Dupieux), Being Maria (Jessica Palud), Parthenope (Paolo Sorrentino), and Rumours (Guy Maddin and Evan &...
May 24, 2024•43 min
Ep. 248: Cannes 2024: Mark Asch on Anora, Horizon, Julie Keeps Quiet, Armand, It Doesn’t Matter Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. On the latest episode on the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, I sat down with Mark Asch, critic and pod vivant, to talk about several highlights, each from a different section or showcase at Cannes. We discuss the highly acclaimed Anora (directed by Sean Baker, in Competition), Armand (Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel, from Un Certain Regard), Julie Kee...
May 23, 2024•42 min
Ep. 247: Cannes 2024: Jon Dieringer on The Apprentice, The Substance, Megalopolis Squared Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. On the latest episode on the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, I’m joined by Jon Dieringer, editor and mastermind of Screen Slate, to cope with a couple of doozies in this year’s lineup. First up is The Apprentice (directed by Ali Abbasi), also known as The Trump Movie, followed by the full-on The Substance (Coralie Fargeat). Both movies also allow a...
May 22, 2024•42 min
Ep. 246: Cannes 2024: Bilge Ebiri on Lanthimos’s Kinds of Kindness, Schrader’s Oh Canada, Furiosa, plus Bertolucci Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. For the latest episode on the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, I was happy to chat with Bilge Ebiri of New York Magazine for his inaugural Cannes appearance on the podcast. We discuss the much-anticipated new films from Yorgos Lanthimos (Kinds of Kindness), Paul Schrader (Oh Canada), and for a well-deserved encore, George Mi...
May 20, 2024•56 min
Ep. 245: Cannes 2024: Jordan Cronk on Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, The Damned, Eephus, Universal Language Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival marches on, and I sat down with critic and programmer Jordan Cronk to hear about some recent highlights from Directors’ Fortnight and Un Certain Regard: Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point (directed by Tyler Taormina), The Damned (Roberto Minervini), Eephus (Carson Lund), and Univers...
May 19, 2024•32 min
Ep. 244: Cannes 2024 with Alissa Wilkinson: Furiosa, On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, The Invasion, Ghost Trail, Ernest Cole Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival is officially underway, and it’s easy to miss films in the scrum of first few days. So I spoke with Alissa Wilkinson of The New York Times about, yes, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, but also Ghost Trail (directed by Jonathan Millet) in Critics’ Week, On Becoming a Guinea Fowl ...
May 17, 2024•34 min
Ep. 243: Cannes 2024: Eric Hynes on Megalopolis, plus Napoleon and The Girl With the Needle Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival is officially underway, and no film was more highly anticipated than Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis. To get the very latest, I connected with Eric Hynes, curator of film at the Museum of the Moving Image, fresh from a press screening of the movie, which has loomed over Cannes’ opening days thi...
May 16, 2024•27 min
