Product: Last Days (2 Disc Special Edition)
Rating: 2.0
Van Sant asleep at the switch
A Homeric nod from the great Gus Van Sant.Just as he made a movie about Columbine ("Elephant") that wasn't specifically about Columbine, Van Sant has made a film about Kurt Cobain that isn't specifically about Cobain. Blake is a suicidal rock star who skips out on his detox program and heads to a house in the woods where his fellow musician buddies have taken up residence. There he whiles away the time till he finds it in himself to take that inevitable step of crossing over into the great beyond.Let me just state right up front that I believe Van Sant to be one of the most brilliant and innovative of modern filmmakers, and that at least one of his films (the aforementioned "Elephant") is one of the truly great films of the 21st Century so far. But "Last Days" looks as if it were tossed off by the moviemaker and a few of his friends during a boring weekend in the Poconos (the film is actually set in Seattle to better gibe with the Cobain storyline). Van Sant's style, which seems to be becoming increasingly idiosyncratic with each film he makes, has here become so internalized and off-putting that he winds up completely alienating even the most tolerant and forgiving member of his admittedly small core audience. The movie basically consists of Blake shuffling around the house muttering and mumbling to himself, sometimes wearing a slip and sometimes toting a large rifle, while various irrelevant people from the outside world - a telephone book adman, a couple of Mormon missionaries - stop by for a visit. With no plot, characterization or conflict to speak of, the film simply evaporates into the ether, leaving us to wonder just why Van Sant felt compelled to make it, and why we should feel any compunction to watch it. Empty of ideas but filled with self-importance, "Last Days" is, without a doubt, Van Sant's least impressive work to date and an "art film" in the worst sense of the term. Let's hope for better things from him in the future.