New Podcast: Welcome to the Year 1996!
Join us as we revisit movies from around 1996 when my movie brain was still forming! From Crash to Jerry Maguire to Get on the Bus
Dear The Last Thing I Saw-ers,
Happy New Year! I nearly sent this in 2021, but 2022 was just around the corner with a fresh-baked batch of streaming options. So here we are, with a tray full of movie pastries (see picks below) and a new episode of the podcast.
On the latest episode, scholar/ol’ pal/mensch Nick Davis joins me to revisit movies from around 1996. This was earlier in our careers of incessant moviegoing, and at an intriguing transitional moment (or one of several) in cinema. What did we think of Jerry Maguire or Smoke or Crash or Get on the Bus or La Promesse then? What do we think of them now? The episode mostly consists of me getting out of the way and listening to Nick’s delightful flow of eloquence, which I am very happy to do.
As always, I encourage/invite/beseech you to become a paid subscriber to The Last Thing I Saw and make possible the continued production of these podcasts.
Thanks for listening! And be sure to click on the closing song/anthem.
Nic
NEW PODCAST NOTES
Episode 91: Around 1996 with Nick Davis (Crash, Smoke, Jerry Maguire, Get on the Bus, and more)
Nick Davis is a professor at Northwestern University, researching and teaching in the areas of film, queer theory, feminist and gender studies, and 20th/21st-century American literature.
We also saw Surviving Picasso in 1996 but we aren't ready to talk about that yet.
For more information on the podcast’s opening music by The Minarets (gratefully used with permission):
Follow the band on Instagram
@theminaretsmusic
twitter.com/MinaretsMusic
MY RECENT WRITING
For Sight & Sound, I reviewed The Tragedy of Macbeth, director Joel Coen’s first film without Ethan Coen. Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand star as Mr. and Mrs. M. It’s in theaters now, a marvel of stark beauty on the big screen.
Sight & Sound also asked me to write a report on 2021 in U.S. cinema, using something like 600 words. Such a delightfully mad proposition that I had to accept immediately. Needless to say, I could not cover everything!
THIS CRITIC’S PICKS
Delectable selections for home viewing.
The Lusty Men (Criterion) Directed by Nicholas Ray. “I was looking for something I thought I lost.”
THE END
Here I may end with a song.
ABOUT ME
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw!
Besides hosting a podcast, I’m a writer and an editor for hire. My features, interviews, festival dispatches, and reviews have been published in The New York Times, Sight & Sound, Artforum, Filmmaker, and W Magazine (as well as dearly departed publications such as The Village Voice, Stop Smiling, The New York Sun, and The L Magazine).
I worked as editor-in-chief of Film Comment, where I was for 15 years. I assigned and edited both the web and print editorial, hosted its podcast and talks and screenings, learned from brilliant writers, curated Film Comment Selects, and wrote a lot, including interviews with Spike Lee, Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, and Frederick Wiseman.
Film Comment was subsequently awarded the Film Heritage Award by the National Society of Film Critics (an honor historically awarded to the Museum of Modern Art and other institutions).
Feel free to get in touch re: writing, editing, moderating, programming, podcasting, etc.
nicolas.rapold@gmail.com