Last Days

Was I just not in the mood to watch it today, or was Last Days (Gus Van Sant's fictionalized Kurt Cobain movie) one of the worst pieces of crap to be filmed in the last few years?

Of course, I haven't thought Van Sant has made a decent movie since Drugstore Cowboy. Unless he directed To Die For, which I think maybe he did. And even it wasn't that good compared to the book it was based on.

But Last Days - yeesh. An hour and a half of pointless twaddle. If I'd had a shotgun handy, hell, I might've emulated Kurt rather than finish watching it.

Not even Ricky Jay is able to save it - although as always, he himself is worth watching, except most of his time onscreen is obscured by an artful shot of a car windshield reflecting foliage.

Oh well - Wrath of Khan is on now, so two hours of a hair-metal Ricardo Montalban chewing scenery with reckless abandon should put me in a better mood. And poor Chekov - getting that earwig stuck in him. He was always the go-to guy for horrific injuries on Star Trek, like the time he fell in with the cosmic hippies and got burned by acidic greenery.

is last days a ref to yr kidney stones?

bob kidney?
rolling stones?

i love GVS' elephant btw

feel better



Post Edited (02-10-06 18:24)

indeed it is. we netflixed it a couple of weeks ago and gave up about halfway. what a waste of film.

I'm now officially convinced to avoid this title.
As for Van Sant,
Elephant was pretentious and was as much of an exploitation (and shock for the sake of shock - what's the word I'm looking for) film as Passion of Christ/Blair Witch. It won the Gold Palm at Cannes but the voters there seem to go for ham-fisted exploitation pieces.
IYL Drug Store Cowboy then YML Mala Noche.
My Own Private Idaho was almost as good as Drug Store Cowboy.
The he adapted Robbin's Cowgirls get the Blues which (egads) is a palate cleanser!
To Die For had a likable cast that helped propel the film.
Good Will Hunting....you know
Psycho. Can anyone figure out the point of remaking this? I can think of one. Teens will watch a teen-horror flick at the Multiplex with no idea of its history and that might give you the cash to make a pet project.
If so, then Finding Forrester wasn't bad at all.



Post Edited (02-10-06 20:28)

Yes, please avoid it - don't let my and Ira's sacrifices be in vain. I really cannot stress how boring, pointless and pretentiously "arty" it is. Horrible - unless you like movies which open with a gripping scene of someone wading into a creek - for nearly ten minutes - no dialogue, just the Cobain character wading...into.....the....middle.....of......a......creek. And that's actually one of the more the action-packed & coherent parts of the film.

But while we're sort of on the subject - R&R movies (non-documentary) that I quite liked:

This Is Spinal Tap
Sid & Nancy
24 Hour Party People
That Thing You Do
The Commitments
A Hard Day's Night
Backbeat
Almost Famous
Grace of My Heart (up until Carole King marries Brian Wilson...then it just gets odd)

Velvet Goldmine would've been great if Haynes had stuck with a straightforward story instead of having the Citizen Kane-inspired structure - didn't see the point of that.

The best R&R movies are always the documentaries. "Filth & the Fury" is a masterpiece as far as I'm concerned - the decision not to show their faces now was brilliant and makes it seem otherworldly. There's a whole air of history to it, a whole context, right down to the way they link Lydon to Olivier's performance as Richard III.....Love that movie.

That's why I read reviews - the description sounded completely unappealing.

Greatest music movie? That's easy:
"Rock rock rock rock rock'n'roll high schooooooool!"

NP: "A Mighty Wind" ost

nope, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains.

riotgrrrl in 35mm - a decade before it happened

I don't know if I'd call Drugstore Cowboy a decent movie. Unless junkies really are that glamourous and stylish.
Didn't mind Elephant.
Have not seen Last Days but from what I've read, it was always going to polarize opinion.

drugstore cowboy has two potent forces within its sprockets: the stupendous Kelly Lynch and my favorite contemporary character actor, Max Perlich, both of whom do themselves proud in an already strong film. Stand aside, Matt, there's serious work being done here.

I've never understood why Kelly Lynch's career never took off the way it should've. Heck, she was even pretty good in Roadhouse.

(I had a half-coherent rant about Hollywood's treatment of actresses written, but decided I'd best wait until it was either fully coherent or incoherent to post it. Halfway is just no good at all.)

A couple of weeks ago, I was over a friend's house & he showed me Expresso Bongo, Sir Cliff Richard's 1st movie, which he actually taped from a local Boston station about 20 yrs. ago. It was pretty interesting to watch.

Rock 'n Roll High is a great movie, especially the concert scenes
I saw the Flith & the Fury the same night as Wingspan (what a double bill!)

cliff richards and the shadows made a couple of movies that are so bad they are good, but Espresso Bongo has Laurence Harvey in it playing a real oily bastard to save that one.

I still like "Get Crazy" with Lou Reed, Lee Ving, half of Fear, Coati Mundi, John Densmore, Jonathin Melvoin.......... which is about the last days of a Filmore east like theater doing their last show.


"The Gene Krupa Story" with Sal Mineo is R'n R' too dad!

There are some good R'nR' moments in movies that to me stand out more than an entire movie about said subject, like the first 3 minutes of "High School Confidential" which has Jerry Lee Lewis riding up playing on a flatbend trailer beats all of that godawful "Great Balls of Fire" with Dennis Quad.

or........the TV movie "Off the Minnesota Strip" when Mare Winningham is dancing when the garage band (and they are in the garage) rip a shit hot version of "All Down the Line", and since it is supposed to be Minnesota they still have their hats and snow boots on!

or... James Brown in a bright snow sweater in "Ski Party" doing a split in the snow at the end of "I Feel Good"...............
rock on buubalooooo

Speaking of Sir Cliff, one day I was listening to a BBC oldies show via the web, when I heard the first line of a song he did called Summer Holiday from about '63: "We're going on a summer holiday...." & I said to myself "Hm, that sounds familar" & I remembered it from an Elvis Costello song from This Year's Model called The Beat.

Took me some time but I came up with two good rock and one rap movie.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970). Either you love it or hate, but exploitation master Russ Meyer's first foray into Hollywood with his tale of the adventures of an all-girl rock band is definitely memorable. The outlandish dialogue either demonstrates that middle-aged Meyer was completely in the dark about the music scene or he hated it (methinks that future Pulitzer prize-winner movie critic co-writer Roger Ebert, didn't care for the music of the time). When John Lazar as Z-man is onscreen the movie shines, when he's not on, it drags. The ending is one of those completely outrageous ones that either makes you laugh or infuriates you. Stu Phillips' soundtrack ranges from the typical orchestral score with names that sound better than they are, e.g. "Hang Cool Teddybear!" or "I am Superwoman", to the bizaare title sequence which starts as a Hogan Heroes type march and then morphs into the easy listening of the Sandpipers!. The fake band, the Carrie Nations are typical to the period though "Find It" and "Come With the Gentle People" are extremely catchy. The Strawberry Alarm Clock contribute two songs and neither is "Incense and Peppermint" - catchy rootsy rockers.

Fear of a Black Hat (1994). Follows the Spinal Tap template to a T. Parodies of Run-DMC, Public Enemy, 2-Live Crew and NWA among many others can be found here. The main problem with this movie is that the subject matter it parodies usually is more outrageous than the movie. The spoof on PM Dawn, I found to be particularly hilarious. The music is dead on as Rusty Cundieff and Larry Robinson uncannily create songs that fit all the acts parodied. Probably the funniest thing is that hard-ass rapper Tasty Taste played by Larry Scott, who ends almost every sentence with "I'm gonna bust a cap in yo' ass", is better known as Lamar from the Revenge of the Nerds series.

Bandwagon (1996). Released the same year as "Almost Famous", this movie got overlooked and went straight to video. It's a shame as this is an excellent movie. The movie follows the travails of a band in North Carolina (I'm guessing). The cliche's are all hit but winningly so. The real surprise is the band's music - it fits in with the jangle pop sound that I associate from NC. Greg Kendall from Tackle Box wrote most of the songs including the fake band Circus Monkey. If Circus Monkey was a real band, that would be a killer album. The funny thing is that Kendall also wrote Spittle's song - a hilarious death metal grunge thing "Muddah Muddah Faddah". Doug MacMillan from the Connells plays the band's manager.

A while ago, I saw there was short called "Session Man" about, well a session man. I never saw it but I hold out hope that it is based on the Trotsky Icepick song "Temporary Faith Rangers" aka "Session Man" - now that would be hilarious.

bandwagon has the great kevin corrigan but it makes me snooze

hard day's night is good

still crazy is real good

band wagon with astarire is greatest musical ever

kelly lynch can steal me some pills anytime she a wants

"You won't fuck me and I always have to drive."