the trailer:

http://www.lastdaysmovie.com/

who is having mixed thoughts about the production? critics are saying to forget everything you know about kurt cobain, but then design such a good rendition of his face and music for the movie.

it feels like bad taste.



[Edited on July 13, 2005 at 5:18 PM. Reason : which theaters are going to have it?]

7/13/2005 5:16:48 PM

it looks interesting ... but it'll be tough not to draw parallels to Cobain's life

7/13/2005 5:27:49 PM

so.. i guess i know how this will end

7/13/2005 7:49:55 PM

What exactly is this? Biography of sorts? Looks good

7/13/2005 7:53:36 PM

i think it's just a movie about an artist similar to kurt cobain

7/13/2005 8:13:37 PM

Kim Gordon's in it...that has to be an endorsement of some sort.

7/13/2005 8:15:13 PM

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7844300/

7/13/2005 8:23:32 PM

it's like Elephant was inspired by the Columbine shootings, but not based on them.

7/13/2005 10:16:35 PM

i have a lot of faith that gus will do a good job.

if you want to read a good biography, check out heavier than heaven.

7/13/2005 10:23:01 PM

I have never read a book as fast as I read "Heavier Than Heaven"

7/13/2005 10:31:33 PM

^agreed. it really helped clear up a lot of things.

7/13/2005 11:54:33 PM

except for who KILLED KURT COBAIN

7/14/2005 12:28:54 AM

who do you think it was?




going with kurt.

7/14/2005 11:42:33 PM

courtney. duh

7/14/2005 11:43:05 PM

she didn't help things.

seatle is an unhealth place for born depressers.

[Edited on July 14, 2005 at 11:50 PM. Reason : .]

7/14/2005 11:49:10 PM

I think she had him killed ... not killed him herself

7/15/2005 12:14:53 AM

think? i don't understand the motive.

he was a better musician, no doubt, but why make kurt dead? he really was a wrecked individual or at least that's what i got from Heavier.

7/15/2005 12:25:10 AM

read Love & Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain

Basically, Kurt wanted a divorce, he'd been to see a lawyer. Courtney was fairly successful so she wouldn't get mad alimony, just child support. However, in his will -- which she pushed for pretty strong in his latter months -- she takes his control of Nirvana. And under the Nirvana contract he got mad money -- significantly more than the other guys.

So her motive: He leaves her, she doesn't get shit. He dies, she gets everything.

[Edited on July 15, 2005 at 12:40 AM. Reason : ]

7/15/2005 12:40:00 AM

that's killer. it didn't say anything about that stuff in the novel...made it into a tragic heroin romance.

so what else about the crime scene? ^i saw your gallery pics. how could they have staged it? is there any evidence to suggest they did?

[Edited on July 15, 2005 at 1:08 AM. Reason : i know you told me to read, but persuade me that this was no suicide.]

7/15/2005 1:02:53 AM

This one is minor evidence compared to the forensic-type shit. The suicide note is much like anything else Kurt wrote in his Journals but if you notice the beginning where he addresses his childhood imaginary-friend Boddah and the closing where he writes, "Frances and Courtney, I'll be at your altar. Please keep going Courtney, for Frances. For her life, which will be so much happier without me. I love you, I love you!" is in a different handwriting than the rest of the letter. Furthermore, the part where he writes, "I don't have the passion anymore, and so remember, it's better to burn out than to fade away," acknowledges his desire to leave Nirvana. Before the "suicide," Kurt had been talking a lot about breaking up Nirvana because he wasn't really feeling it anymore. He had actually contacted Michael Stipe from R.E.M. about doing something together and he was supposed to fly to Atlanta about a month after the "suicide."


Now for the dirty stuff. Kurt's heroin-blood level was 1.52 mgs per liter. That meant he would have to inject 225 mgs of heroin, three times a lethal dose, even for a hardcore heroin addict. If he had done this himself, he would have died nearly within seconds of the injection. Before he could OD, which is about 30 seconds, he would have been too wasted to pick up the gun. And if he could pick up the gun, it was a shot gun and he'd pretty much have to pull the trigger with his toe. Being so fucked up on heroin does really give one the ability to pull a trigger with a toe -- remember he was a small guy so he couldn't reach the trigger and if he could just touch it, it would take quite a bit of concentration.
OK, so lets just say he is able to handle the massive amount of heroin and has enough coordination to pull the trigger, the gun was a shot gun. The gun would kick back like mad. When police showed up to the scene, the gun was right next to him. Add to that the fact there were no finger prints on the gun. I may be wrong, but a shot to the head does not allow much time for one to wipe off prints.


As for the investigation ... there was no investigation. The case was quickly closed because the body was cremated and the mortician ruled it suicide immediately. Check out Kurt & Courtney, it explains that the mortician was a close friend of Courtney's.

[Edited on July 15, 2005 at 2:06 AM. Reason : ]

7/15/2005 2:03:18 AM

Kurt & Courtney is a hackjob of a film. A compelling hackjob, but a hackjob nonetheless.

7/15/2005 2:08:25 AM

it was good for what it could be. Homeboy released it amidst threats of lawsuits and shit.

7/15/2005 2:13:33 AM

I don't even mean the production value and shit. I mean, for instance, including any of El Duce's comments in the film at all.

7/15/2005 2:16:03 AM

I was talking about the production either. The dude had to leave some shit out because of threats.

El Dulce was the dude that Courtney supposedly tried to hire to kill Kurt once, right?

He died shortly after the film was released. He was "mysteriously" hit by a train.

7/15/2005 2:23:03 AM

Yes. "Mysteriously" hit by a train when he, a raging alcoholic, was drunk off his ass. I wouldn't be surprised if he was getting cued.

7/15/2005 2:34:24 AM

I have nothing to say to that, you're right

7/15/2005 2:47:50 AM

Anyway, I wasn't impressed, but I'm not impressed by docu-ganda films in general, except maybe for "Roger & Me."

7/15/2005 2:52:52 AM

it's exciting when you agree with the material like for me with Kurt & Courtney

7/15/2005 2:55:27 AM

I just thought "pets or meat" was funny.

7/15/2005 3:08:18 AM

did courtney really try to kill him before? the details i remember from the book are sketchy.

thanks for the info, rawwulf. good stuff. i just don't get why cross didn't give a more thourough evaluation of the "suicide", motives, and possibilities of love acting as a suspect instead of an addict.

it was pretty evident that kurt was not liking nirvana. i think grohl was even taking over as the lead song writer, booting kurt out of some spotlight.

and if love did do it, so help her.

7/15/2005 1:32:29 PM

From what I've read, Cross would have had no cooperation from Courtney had he alluded to murder. Though it is the most accurate portryal of Kurt's life, it is really Courtney's take on it.

7/15/2005 10:20:01 PM

Quote :

"'Last Days': Kurt Cobain in Thin Disguise By Ann Hornaday Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, August 5, 2005; Page C05 If the grunge generation had a "Passion of the Christ" it would be Gus Van Sant's "Last Days," a meditation of almost exegetical solemnity on the death of musician Kurt Cobain. For fans who came of age with the fiercely anti-corporate sound of Nirvana, watching "Last Days" may well prove to be as powerful a communal and spiritual experience as Mel Gibson's "Passion" was for millions of Christians. As depicted by Van Sant, Cobain -- who projected a disarming persona of integrity, independence and vulnerability even as he became a hugely successful rock star and legendary drug addict -- certainly fits the role of a Christlike figure. In a transfixing performance, the actor Michael Pitt, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Cobain, portrays his alter ego as the gentle, doomed symbol of transcendence and sacrifice. Although Van Sant has been coy about how literally he has based "Last Days" on Cobain -- a postscript says the film was "inspired" by Cobain's story -- there's never any doubt who Pitt's character, named Blake, is meant to conjure. Cobain's death from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1994 has provoked endless beer-sodden speculation and even a malicious documentary suggesting that he was murdered by his widow, Courtney Love. Van Sant eschews such pointless theorizing, instead imagining how Cobain might have spent his final hours. "Last Days" begins just after Blake has left a drug rehabilitation facility and returned to his Seattle mansion, an elegantly decrepit pile overlooking a placid sound that will be both his Golgotha and Calvary. Stumbling and mumbling his way through a part that never calls for a line of clear dialogue, Pitt plays Blake as something of a feral creature, wandering through the near-empty rooms of a house that he shares with a group of spacey hangers-on. The phone rings and isn't answered; at one point a salesman for the Yellow Pages shows up, mistaking Blake for the former owner of the house. The drug-addled rock star, wearing his wife's black slip and a pair of hunting boots, doesn't disabuse him, and the two engage in an absurd conversation about whether advertising in the phone book improved Blake's "business." After giving the question serious thought, the young multimillionaire on the verge of suicide concludes that success, finally, is subjective. It's one of the few funny moments in a movie that is suffused with suffering, both physical and psychic. Hunting images, from the heraldic paintings on the walls to the boots and cap that Blake wears, run through "Last Days," and throughout the film Blake is portrayed as a creature being pursued (and he is, by a private detective played by Ricky Jay). For those interested in how far Van Sant goes in re-creating Cobain's friends and family, Love looms large here, in the form of a character named Blackie, who appears as a Shakespearean off-stage presence, shrieking into the other end of the telephone. Similarly, Blake's band mates call to cajole him into committing to some upcoming tour dates. Between those conversations and a series of unresolved encounters with the wastrels who share Blake's house (well played by Lukas Haas, Scott Green and Asia Argento), Van Sant seems to suggest that by the time Cobain died, he was being fatally used by nearly everyone in his life. The only person who seems genuinely to care for Blake is played by Kim Gordon, as a friend who tries to persuade him to return to rehab. Gordon's husband, Thurston Moore, supervised the music for "Last Days," and their imprimatur, as co-founders of indie rock's Sonic Youth, goes a long way in giving credibility to an enterprise that might otherwise be open to accusations of exploiting Cobain's legacy. Even though Van Sant is clearly paying homage to Cobain's purity of spirit here, the question remains of just what he's trying to accomplish in so ritualistically revisiting his death. As he did in his last film, "Elephant," which recapitulated the Columbine school shootings in a similar thinly fictionalized fashion, Van Sant is embarking on a bold narrative experiment, obsessively ruminating on the same moments over and over again, doubling back on long, uninterrupted scenes to subtly change their valence. Regardless of how morbid you find the enterprise -- and there is something ghoulish about Van Sant's willingness to co-opt such a painful, private moment as Cobain's death -- the film is unarguably mesmerizing. Thanks in large part to Pitt's breathtaking performance, which is almost balletic in its physical expressiveness, viewers find themselves attending to each detail of Blake's final moments, trying to find a thread leading to their inevitable climax. That climax, by the way, is handled with an image that is almost painterly in its delicate, even spiritual, iconography. As transcendent as that image is, the moments that lead up to it are almost laughable in their banality. Blake eats some Cocoa Krispies, he watches a Boyz II Men video, he listens as one of his roommates asks for advice on a demo tape, he sings and plays the guitar (Pitt, in Nirvana-sounding songs, has also managed to capture Cobain's signature plaintive yelp), he looks at the water. Whatever inner turmoil he's experiencing is left for viewers to fill in for themselves. (Van Sant deserves credit not only for handling Cobain's suicide with tact but also for referring to his heroin use obliquely but unmistakably.) More than an exploration of Cobain's inner life, "Last Days" may be most memorable as one of the screen's best representations of celebrity sycophants, the lumpen hipsters who have such a talent for sponging off the rich and famous. Even with the right clothes and a taste for Velvet Underground, this shallow entourage recalls Kato Kaelin more than the tortured artists they're impersonating. (One philosophical quibble with "Last Days" is why, after so brilliantly eviscerating these vapid poseurs, Van Sant would give them the last word in a final sympathetic shot.) Finally, despite all of Van Sant's narrative feints and coy protestations, the audience is left with one searing memory after seeing "Last Days," and that memory is of Cobain. Was he, as Gordon's character suggests at one point, simply a rock-and-roll cliche? Or was he a visionary genius, as the name of Pitt's character implies? Whatever the answer, "Last Days" leaves a haunting impression of a man who, even at the height of his fame and adulation, was hiding in plain sight."

I may go to this while I'm up here. I don't know when Galaxy will get it.

8/5/2005 2:50:28 PM

I know who killed kurt cobain

KURT COBAIN

you ever seen courtney love in action? That bitch couldn't kill a raccoon and cover it up, you really think she's capable of criminally masterminds a conspiracy that fooled the whole world?

[Edited on August 5, 2005 at 3:02 PM. Reason : ]

8/5/2005 3:01:35 PM

On the other hand, I'd sure as shit kill myself if I'd married her.

8/5/2005 3:03:37 PM

Last Days is opening at Galaxy Cinema this Friday, September 16th (Mexico's Independence Day! Viva!!).

Showtimes at 1:05, 3:15, 5:25, 7:30, and 9:40.

9/13/2005 4:00:49 PM

rock on

9/14/2005 1:11:53 AM

Tomorrow!

9/15/2005 11:47:31 AM

Wow, I would've thought more people would show up for this one.

9/17/2005 1:55:58 PM

i saw it tonight, theatre was pretty empty again

good show though

i think it would be pretty tough to fully experience without a good background on cobain though

[Edited on September 18, 2005 at 3:36 AM. Reason : c]

9/18/2005 3:32:30 AM

I'm planning on it sometime during the week, but Junebug has been on tonight's slate since Monday. Funny flick.

9/18/2005 3:45:11 AM