REVIEW: Last Days (Gus Van Sant, 2005)

I'm not positive why this couldn't simply call itself a movie about Cobain. Instead it's dedicated to him, inspired by him, blah blah blah... Van Sant did this with Elephant also... Oh no, its not about Columbine, even though it looks identical. It's merely inspired by the events. I'll assume it's a legal issue.

As for the film itself, its what I would call a visual masterpiece. It could be shown in an art gallery alongside the works of Van Gogh, Bosch, Renoir, Klimpt and Rothko. The compositions are beautiful, and they keep the silence of the film bearable.

When it comes to story and characters, there isn't much, and we as the audience have to fill in a lot of blanks. If someone watched this without knowing who Kurt Cobain was, they would most likely suffer from severe boredom because there is practically no direct insight into this character at all - everything is implied with multiple possible meanings.

The meanings I took away from the film were impressive, and the images will definitely stick with me. One thing I like about movies is when their titles are mentioned, a flood of imagery comes to my mind - and with Last Days, there is more than plenty to feed that flood. Oh, and Ricky Jay has a small role - always a plus.

QUICKIE: Good Night, & Good Luck (George Clooney, 2005)

This is an important film concerning topics that are seemingly more poignant today than they ever have been, and it knows it. In the way that we can watch a movie and pass off certain things by saying it's "just a movie," "Good Night, And Good Luck." is most certainly not "just a movie."

Murrow's opening speech of the film, as he gave it in October, 1958, makes note that recorded news as the Columbia Broadcast System was making is what historians in fifty to one hundred years will have to look back on for information. Here we are, almost fifty years after that statement, and we are looking back.

George Clooney's hands are clearly at incredible work here, yet they remain away from signatures or outstanding styles to the advantage of the film's purpose. Good Night is patient, and each scene bests being merely a sum of the parts, making for an internally intense and broadening experience.