The Last Thing I Saw

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