Gus Van Sant, The Master of Movies That Show Some Stuff Happening, Then Some Other Stuff.

So Chris and I watched Last Days last night, the supposed "third" "movie" in a "trilogy" about "death" by "Gus Van Sant." Clearly, all of these quotes around key words in this sentence must be signaling that perhaps my sincerity is questionable. If you came to that determination, you are correct.

For those of you not familiar with those movies, allow me to recap:

Gerry

That's Matt Damon on the left and Casey Affleck on the right. (Yep, Matt don't JUST hang out with the Ben of the Affleck family -- he's an equal opportunity Affleck aficianato.) And, well...the whole movie is, um, essentially that picture. No, I take that back. The most interesting and intriguing part of the movie was when Matt Damon was standing on a big rock, and he couldn't figure out how to jump off of it. But, he did jump off the rock. Also, there was a totally sweet scene where the camera slowly panned around Casey Affleck sitting down in the wilderness with some depressing piano music playing. I can't say it was necessarily a bad movie, but, I think it would qualify as a "movie." Cute experiment, Gussy Boy. And yes, better than Psycho. But that doesn't say much. As far as the "death" theme, well, one of them dies. And, that's it.

Elephant

Alright, so this one ain't so bad. But, again, there are a lot of scenes with people walking around, including this kid walking down the hall a lot. Also, they stand outside and have some recess and what not. But then, I guess it becomes somewhat more relevent, as a Columbine-like shooting happens at the school. But, again, not a whole lot else happens. Kind of like this post. Walking around, and then some other stuff happens, and some more stuff. At this point, I started thinking, "Gee, Gus Van Sant, you sure like cinematic people walking around and not doing stuff, but you certainly couldn't do it for a third movie in a row! You won't go there!" Well, he went there.

Last Days

See that dude on the left? That's Kurt Cobain! Wait, no it's not. But, it's a guy who is based on Kurt Cobain. And guess what he does! He walks around and does stuff (including playing a rather un-Nirvana-like song in the middle of the movie that is way more avant-garde sounding than you'd expect. Or maybe not. Who knows.) And, yep, as you'd expect, he dies at the end, too. Now, I'm not saying that I did not enjoy watching these particular movies, but I think it's telling that I had excellent naps during each movie. Most recently, through a nap near the end of the movie (or I guess, you would say, more of a half-nap), I thought to myself, "Why is Derek Van Jeter starring in this movie?" When I awoke, I thought to myself, a)Why am I thinking about Derek Jeter, b)Where did I get Derek Van Jeter from?

My point is, movies that are pretty and boring usually end up just being boring. But naps are awesome.

This entry was posted by Unknown, on Thursday, December 01, 2005. You can leave your response.