Killers of the Flower Moon, the Annie Baker film, All of Us Strangers, documentary ethics, and more

An entire interview, in fact, about documentary ethics

Dear Last Thing I Sawfolk,

This week on the podcast I talked about one of the year’s best films, Killers of the Flower Moon, and a couple of other noteworthy titles coming to theaters. Joining me was another movie pal, Edo Choi of Museum of the Moving Image, for an alfresco recording on a balmy autumn day. A delightful time was had by all.

I also wrote about a movie I saw at Tribeca what feels like ages ago, and is now out: Subject, which scrutinizes issues around documentary ethics by checking in on the “stars” of some well-known nonfiction films. More below.

And with that, I conclude by thanking all the supporters of The Last Thing I Saw!

Yours,

Nic

THE PODCAST

Edo Choi on Killers of the Flower Moon, Janet Planet, All of Us Strangers, Kevin Jerome Everson and James Benning (Episode 211)

Edo Choi is associate curator at Museum of the Moving Image.

Episodes of The Last Thing I Saw are also available at other podcast places such as Spotify.

RECENT WORK

I wrote about Subject, a film that revisits people from some well-known documentaries: Hoop Dreams, Capturing the Friedmans, The Wolfpack, The Square, and The Staircase. What’s fascinating are the questions of documentary ethics that arise, and for the Times, I talked with the directors of Subject about those issues—and the lengths they went to ensure a full collaboration with participants in their film.

Also for the Times, I reviewed Sly, a documentary about Sylvester Stallone that’s now on Netflix. Rambo, Rocky, and the rough family upbringing that seems to have formed part of his emotional core.

Now that The Killer is on Netflix, here’s my review I wrote in Venice when it premiered.

And one year ago: I interviewed Tilda Swinton about Joanna Hogg’s The Eternal Daughter for W Magazine, which included her pausing to look up a word in a dictionary. Oddly enough, after dropping this in here, I learned that today is her birthday, so, happy birthday to Tilda Swinton!

THIS CRITIC’S PICKS

Streaming selections.

Crumb (MUBI) R. Crumb and fam, uncensored

Carol (Netflix)

God Told Me To (Amazon Prime) As messed up as ever

The Bad and the Beautiful (HBO MAX)

The Devil, Probably (Criterion)

Tell Me: Women Filmmakers, Women’s Stories (Criterion)

THE END

Here I may end with a song.

ABOUT ME

Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw! I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. Feel free to get in touch re: writing, editing, moderating, programming, podcasting, etc. by writing me at nicolas.rapold[at]gmail.com

Besides hosting the podcast, I’m a writer and an editor. My features, interviews, festival reports, and reviews are published in The New York Times, Screen Slate, Sight & Sound, Filmmaker, Air Mail, The Los Angeles Times, and W Magazine. (Plus dearly departed publications such as The Village Voice, Stop Smiling, The New York Sun, and The L Magazine.) For notes on my superfun programming experience, drop me a line.

On the editorial side, I worked as editor-in-chief of Film Comment magazine, where I was for 15 years in all. I assigned and edited both web and print, hosted The Film Comment Podcast and Talks, curated and hosted Film Comment Selects screenings, learned from brilliant writers, and wrote a lot, including interviews with Spike Lee, Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, Pedro Costa, and Frederick Wiseman. Film Comment received the Film Heritage Award from the National Society of Film Critics.