The Last Thing I Saw

Welcome 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

Welcome 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: “Monserrate” by The Minarets Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Welcome 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 newsletter at rapold.substack.com Music: “Monserrate” by The Minarets Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Welcome 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

Welcome 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

Welcome 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

Welcome 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

Welcome 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

Welcome 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

Welcome 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 at Museum of the Moving Image; Beatrice Loayza, a widely published freelance critic; and for the first time, Jessica Kiang, a veteran of Variety and other publications. For complete show notes with links, sign up for my newsletter at rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass