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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Last Night

19:19 / 25.03.05

Just finished watching a really strange movie called Last Night. It's basically about how various people spend the last six hours on earth before the apocalypse... it was listed as a comedy, but considering that two of the main characters are holding guns to each other's heads, describing it as a black comedy would be undercutting it. I liked it, though.

They've got a character in the movie who works for the gas company, and spends the last few hours going through their customer database, calling all of them and basically thanking them for being customers. It was simultaneously depressing, odd, and completely engaging. It was treated as a side bit at best, but I can't get that imagery out of my head right at the moment. It's a really uncomfortable film, despite it touching on territory that hasn't exactly gone unexplored before.

19:48 / 25.03.05

It's a great movie - with some great moments - the awkward small talk when he meets his old high-school French teacher coming out of his mate's bedroom. It was pretty much the film that I wanted to write when I was 19, (but I wanted to do it as a play)

The gas company official is David Cronenberg and if you don't know who that is then you should.

Brigade du jour

23:27 / 25.03.05

Holy shit, someone else has seen this movie, I thought I was the only one ... etc.

It's a fine film, the very definition, perhaps, of a curate's egg. However, I need to see it again, it's been a couple of years. Best viewed at 1am though, IMHO.

01:24 / 26.03.05

Woah, I thought I'd only seen this.

To be sure, is this the one with the secretary who feels unloved/unsexy and ends up spending the last couple of hours with the protagonists' bi-curious mate? That film was ace. Really moving. Though for a 17 year old me the bit where the mate tries to snog him was just a TAD uncomfortable.

A pretty good what if? movie all round. Not sure about the "terror of troubled teens!" angle with all adolescents being portrayed as rampaging gun-happy bastards. Bit boring really. How about showing teens who try to be the best they can in the last few hours as they've got no actual future ahead of them?

SIX MINUTEEEEES!!!!!111

01:34 / 26.03.05

Huh. Awesome. I should see this... only because I've written a short story roughly the same, only it was *one* hour, and had a single protagonist.

10:01 / 26.03.05

A pretty good what if? movie all round. Not sure about the "terror of troubled teens!" angle with all adolescents being portrayed as rampaging gun-happy bastards. Bit boring really. How about showing teens who try to be the best they can in the last few hours as they've got no actual future ahead of them?

Well, they did have the one teen that comes out and chases off some of those 'troubled teens' with a shovel when they try to assault Sandra Oh's character. Unless I missed something there. My attention was about 90% on the movie and 10% on some work I was trying to get done on the computer.

The gas company official is David Cronenberg and if you don't know who that is then you should.

Apparently so. I have heard the name as a director, but as far as recognizing him by face, no. I'll have to remedy that... Hmm. According to Hollywood Bitchslap, he had a role in Jason X. Brr. Well, if I let John Cusack go on Con Air, I suppose I can let Cronenberg slide on that.

10:07 / 26.03.05

One more thing that got to me was right at the end, when everyone is counting down the last few seconds like it's New Years' Eve.

When HBO shows this again, I'm really going to have to devote my full attention to it. There were just bits and pieces I think I missed in getting distracted by the computer and various other things. Unfortunately, a movie like this is specifically about the bits and pieces.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

10:28 / 26.03.05

I liked it in places but the main character, the one who's stroppy at his parents meal, he was a pain in the neck. I've managed to forget most of it now.

12:08 / 26.03.05

If you haven't seen Videodrome run, don't walk, to your local DVD emporium - much of the ideas it covers are even more relevant today with people accessing footage via the internet...

Brigade du jour

21:50 / 26.03.05

Slow down sleaze, how about easing hir in with The Fly or something?

Back to Last Night though - I love the fact that it's bright daylight the whole time, which I took to mean that this is the sun doing a premature supernova (or maybe not premature - maybe in 10 billion years or so human civilisation will have gone round in circles a few more times and we're at about what we know as 1998, etc.) and yet people aren't spontaaneously combusting from the heat.

Wait a minute then - maybe that means it's definitely set in 10 billion years' time and human civilisation HAS gone round in cirlces a few more times and we're at about what we know as 1998, etc. after all. Thus human beings have evolved into superhuman beings with far higher tolerances for extreme temperature. Cool! Or maybe bollocks.

05:13 / 27.03.05

Slow down sleaze, how about easing hir in with The Fly or something?

*snort* Yeah, thanks, got that one covered.

Back to Last Night though - I love the fact that it's bright daylight the whole time, which I took to mean that this is the sun doing a premature supernova (or maybe not premature - maybe in 10 billion years or so human civilisation will have gone round in circles a few more times and we're at about what we know as 1998, etc.) and yet people aren't spontaaneously combusting from the heat.

Wait a minute then - maybe that means it's definitely set in 10 billion years' time and human civilisation HAS gone round in cirlces a few more times and we're at about what we know as 1998, etc. after all. Thus human beings have evolved into superhuman beings with far higher tolerances for extreme temperature. Cool! Or maybe bollocks.

Oh, c'mon. Most of us here have read The Invisibles. I think we totally know what that white flash was.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

06:29 / 27.03.05

It's a comet crashing into the earth isn't it? And it's so vast it's reflecting light from the sun as it approaches so the world, or Canada at least, are in perpetual midday. I don't know, it's been so long but I thought that was explained somewhere near the start.

08:57 / 27.03.05

No, its never expalined why the world is ending - or how peoplw know about it - that is really unimportant in terms of the narrative anyway - the focus is on what ordinary people do when faced with the end of the world...

D Terminator XXXIII

16:26 / 27.03.05

4 years old thread here.

I've tried to watch it many times. I never completely succeed because, I don't know, it's dull? It feels stagey in the worst way and, I don't know, I think it's dull? Or maybe I just found the characters unengaging or, possibly, just dull.

16:48 / 27.03.05

I really love Last Night, I think it's a really charming, sad, and funny film. Plus, living in Toronto, it's fun to see deserted streets and overturned streetcars.

Director/Actor Don Mckellar lives about a block away from my studio.