The Last Thing I Saw

Ep. 409: Chris LeMaire on Bleak Week + John Wilson on Beak Week 2026

Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The 2026 edition of Bleak Week marks the fifth year of the acclaimed series at the American Cinematheque, which now also takes place in other theaters across the nation and the globe. Happily I was able to talk to Chris Lemaire, director of programming at the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles and co-founder of Bleak Week, about a few fantastic selections in the ongoing series, including tribute programs for guests Isabelle Huppert and Warwick Thornton, rarities like Letters from a Dead Man and Eureka, and restorations such as Buster and Billie.

On the second half of the episode, I was lucky to catch filmmaker John Wilson, co-founder of the Low Cinema in Ridgewood, in the midst of the theater’s delightful Beak Week program. Wilson talks about a personal favorite from the bird-centric lineup, a special recent surprise guest, a program of pigeon shorts, and some infrequently screened titles in the lineup.

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Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 408: Tubi programmer Ryan Lavallette on The In-Laws, Magic, 20 Questions, Arlington Road, Scorpio, Captain Ron, Report to the Commissioner, Skinamarink

Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. Tubi holds a special place among streamers for its free, wildly eclectic selection, and I’m not the only one who goes trawling through its selections to find something different to watch. And so for the latest episode, I had a blast talking with a member of the Tubi programming team, Ryan Lavalette, senior manager of content programming at the streamer. I picked his brain a little about how the Tubi mix is created, and then we chatted about a few movies currently on Tubi that had caught our eye for various reasons: The In-Laws (1979, with Peter Falk and Alan Arkin), Magic (1978, with Anthony Hopkins), 20 Questions (1987), Arlington Road (1999), Scorpio (1973), Captain Ron (1992), Report to the Commissioner (1975), and Skinamarink (2022).

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Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 407: K.J. Relth-Miller on Cannes Classics 2026: La Dérive, The Devils, Report to Mother, Moonlighting, Tilai, The Pelechian Project

Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. Every year at the Cannes Film Festival I always make sure to scrutinize the Cannes Classics line-up of restorations, and for the 2026 edition, I was happy once again to catch up with K.J. Relth-Miller of the Academy Museum in Los Angeles and chat about a few titles. Among the films discussed were an absolute discovery, La Dérive (1964, directed by Paula Delsol), Ken Russell’s one and only The Devils (1971), another discovery Report to Mother (1986, John Abraham), Moonlighting (1982, Jerzy Skolimowski), and Tilai (1990, Idrissa Ouédraogo), with shout-outs to The Pelechian Project (1966-1975, a collection of shorts by Armenia’s Artavazd Peleshian) and Taiwanese classic The Dull Ice Flower (1989, Li Kao Yang).

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Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 406: Manohla Dargis on Cannes 2026

Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. As the 2026 Cannes Film Festival drew to a close, I was fortunate again to sit down with Manohla Dargis, chief film critic of The New York Times, for our annual Cannes finale. The films discussed included titles that hadn’t been addressed yet on the podcast, as well as some that had. Throughout, Dargis shares her thoughts on this year’s edition of the festival in a historical context. Please note that the episode was recorded before the awards ceremony.

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Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 405: Justin Chang on Cannes 2026: All of a Sudden, The Samurai and the Prisoner, Coward, Fjord Redux

Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. At the 2026 Cannes Film Festival I sat down with Justin Chang of The New Yorker for a chat about a few films we had missed to talk about. Among the titles discussed are All of a Sudden (directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi), The Samurai and the Prisoner (Kiyoshi Kurosawa), Coward (Lukas Dhont), and Fjord (Cristian Mungiu), which at the time of recording had not yet won the Palme d’Or.

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Photo by Steve Snodgrass