Last Days

While I am sorely tempted to dismiss Last Days with a simple, one-sentence review (Lost Hour and 37 Minutes? Last Days and Days and Days?), I am a big enough fan of Gus Van Sant that I feel I should say a few words in this movie's defense. First off, there's some of the bitchin'-est cinematography you'll ever want to see. The Pacific Northwest is as much a character as any of the human beings in the film, and that sucker looks as cold and mystical and unbending as the day is long, not to mention like it could give a flying crap about any of the smackheads, Jesus freaks, record industry leeches and other hangers-on that populate the filmic landscape.

Second off, there are a few pretty great scenes, "great" as in "bordering on genius." Or rather, there are a few piercing, genius moments within some really overlong scenes. It is a tremendous luxury to be able to lock down wide and burn film on good-ass acting; it is a tremendous pain in the ass, literally, when the ass in question is parked on an ahhht-house seat, to have to watch the result of this little ahhht experiment in its entirety.

However, if you want to know what it feels like to do a lot of heroin, hooba-dooba, is this your movie. Because I haven't even done heroin and from watching this movie, I don't have to, since I'm now pretty sure shooting up heroin involves spending a lot of time in your interior world, which I do already, and eating a lot of Cocoa Rice Krispies and boxed mac-'n'-cheese, which is not allowed on my diet.

So according to the official website, Last Days is the natural outgrowth of the "elliptical style" Van Sant has been working in since Gerry and Elephant, neither of which I feel I have to see now because if they are the ramping-up pieces to this movie, that means they are like inferior heroin, and what the hell's the point of that?

I say quit going in circles and start doing films that are a natural outgrowth of your good movies. Or do more movies that are like drugs that I like, say, a cocaine series or a painkiller series.

Now that's ahhht.

xxx c

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