Review of Last Days (2004) by Louis F — 23 Jul 2008

Man. I love Gus Van Sant. And I love Nirvana.

Well, I loved Nirvana, well maybe I still love Nirvana but this movie made me fucking hate Kurt Cobain.

This movie should've been called "A Junkie Shuffles Around Mumbling.".

I don't know, this movie is strange, because it made me feel like I can only imagine "Blake" felt, being trapped with no escape, the movie despite it's beautiful environment still manages to make the viewer feel trapped, the way things happen again and again, you feel stuck, I don't know.

Michael Pitt is an incredible actor. This film should be used to illustrate the difference, when doing a musical biopic, between doing an impression (i.e. Jamie Fox In Ray, Joaquin Phoenix in Walk The Line) and actual acting (Michael Pitt in Last Days, Gary Oldman in Sid and Nancy).

The ending is unbelievably cheesy.

I think the main problem with this film is the same problem with "Im Not There", with the director being too close to the source material, too awed by the main character, too humbled by hero worship, they get lost, confused.

I love Ricky Jay, in nearly every film I see I think "This film would be so much better if Ricky Jay was in it". So when I see him in the car riding to the house (which by the way is far, far, FAR too busy with random passerbys for a castle buried deep in the woods) I think alright, I wonder who hes portraying.

Then he starts talking magic so I think, alright! He's playing himself!

Then, suddenly, no, he's a private investigator. What? Wait, what? That was obviously Ricky Jay just rambling, why pretend he's anything else, WHY BRING HIM IN AT ALL?

Also, I think this film might be the result of a bet between Gus Van Sant and somebody else wherein Gus was bet that he couldn't make an hour and a half movie out of 10 pages of script.

Excerpt from the script right here, (i imagine).

BLAKE walks around, looks at things, falls over, mumbles incoherently.

30 minutes later someone else does the exact same thing.

The choreography is great, the acting is top notch but god is it fucking boring. Nice try Gus, nice attempt, poor follow through.

And the end with the naked spirit thing? UGH. Too corny.

Made me hate Kurt Cobain, if all he was was a mumbling boring junkie. Also, enough with the "OH POOR ROCK STARS" thing. Enough of that. Srrsly.