Last Days on DVD (2005)

what a disappointment

Paula Sheppard from London , 06/09/2005

What a heap of cr*p!

This movie left me waiting for the poor guy to die just to be put out of my own misery.

It does not take a lot of brain power to imagine what someone wandering around in a stupor looks like. But Gus van Sant uses 89 painful minutes to illustrate this simple idea. And nothing else. I’m all for arty movies that embrace long, quiet scenes of hedgerow (ahem)… if there is something to back it up, some point. This movie has nothing.

There is almost no dialogue and what little there is mostly unintelligible. You learn nothing about the characters or the music and are left feeling cheated and bored.

Kurt Cobain deserves a better portrayal of his last days, even if they were this banal. Damn, a potted plant deserves better and would be more entertaining.

Read all reviews

I thought it was great

pipedreambomb from Harrogate , 14/01/2006

As a slow (SLOW) paced film, I'm not surprised if it disappointed most of the Nirvana fans the marketing campaign would have attracted. Hell, I saw adverts for it all over the Leeds Festival last year and I don't think even 10% of the people I met there would have liked it. But I did. Not in an elitist, 'I can appreciate art so I'm great' way, I really walked out of the cinema moved. Subdued, placid, contemplative... a blockbuster it ain't. In fact, there's so little going on at times that's it's hard to say what there is. It's a film of isolation when surrounded by people. It's the desparation of a person no longer able to communicate and having to hide from former friends and hangers-on within his own estate. It follows the way a great talent can be exploited and pushed, and can corrupt others to the point that everyone wants a piece, no matter how small, until the man inside has gone. It's a mood piece that couldn't be delivered in any other format than film, but isn't strictly a movie. I heartily recommend you watch it if this review hasn't scared you off.

Read all reviews

A question?

froggy5 from West Yorkshire , 14/01/2006

What was Gus Van Sant thinking when he made this awful film? I know. He woke one morning and thought I'll make a film based on the last days of Nirvana's front man... Ah but how am I going to make it last over an hour and a half. I know... I'll fill it with painfully long takes of nothing. Including an eight minute slow zoom out shot of a window where the lead protagonist is playing the guitar. To add to that I will use non sensicle non diajectic noise. Take a tip from me Van Sant, watch 'Once upon a time in the West' if you want to learn about sound techniques. Luckily spatial time can just be followed as we see it getting dark. A terrible film, terrible direction. Monosolubic dialouge and dire cinematography/ sound make this one of the worst films I have seen in a long time.

Read all reviews

This is awful

graham rayner from London , 05/09/2005

This is utter drivel from beginning to end, you will be wishing for an early demise for the pseudo Kubane. It is painful and slow, it explains little of the characters demise and you are left caring very little the end was a great relief. Would have been fine as students project, but from the director of drugstore cowboy, he must have been on drugs.

Read all reviews

How can the Radio times give it 3 stars??!!!

matthew ridout from England , 07/06/2006

Rubbish, cr*p, slow, boring, numbing, waste of time, time wasting, hatefull - getting the idea? don't whatever you do think this will be a good film, if I had the opportunity I would punch the director in the face for doing such a bad job. If you feel like kurt did, high on heroin, unable to move, suicidal - this might just finish you off - -10 out of 10

Read all highest rated reviews

90 Mins closer to death!!

A customer from Telford , 22/04/2006

At the end of this film, all we (My Girlfriend and I) felt, was that we were 90 minutes closer to death!!

In fact, this isn't really the absolute truth, because we watched the last hour mostly on 4x play speed (and even then it was SLLLLLOOOOOOOOOWWWWWW)

Highlights???? The end credits - what a relief!!!!

Lowlights????? The previous hourish of our lives!!!

If this was meant to represent Kurt Cobain, then I feel really sorry for the poor chap. Bad enough to be desperate enough to blow your own brains out (perhaps he saw the start of the script for this film???), this is nothing like a fitting tribute to a genuinely talented songwriter and performer. Gus whatever his name is should be thoughouly ashamed of himself and to call this a movie, almost defies belief. It should be reported to trading standards under the trade descriptions act!!! This isn't entertainment in any form - it's pure torture!!!

If you are unfortunate enough to OWN a copy of this film, ebay is your only salvation!!

If it was possible to give it a negative star rating, I would have gone for the whole 5.

Read all highest rated reviews