This review is not about Kurt Cobain

The writer trying to explain Last Days to a friend:
Writer: “So I watched Last Days, the new Kurt Cobain film by director Gus Van Sant that isn’t about Kurt Cobain but makes references to Kurt Cobain through Michael Pitt’s character, Blake, without telling the story of Kurt Cobain’s last hours but alluding to the fact that what happens to Blake in the film might have been similar to what had happened to Kurt had Kurt and Blake been the same character or had Pitt’s band Pagoda been Nirvana, or had Gus Van Sant who also wrote the script been a fly on the wall of the house in Seattle in which Kurt spent his Last Days around friends but not with them, trying to make music that sounds like the music Blake, or actually Michael Pitt, made in the film, beautiful music, while his friends, or where they band members, gallivanted about just outside Kurt’s, I mean Blake’s drug induced delusional realm, though you never see him actually smoke, huff, snort or inject, any substance into his body, but he must have taken something since that is the only explanation as to why ten minutes into the film you would sit through, I mean he would sit through, actually we all sat through, the entire Boyz II Men music video for On Bended Knee.”

Friend: “What the hell are you talking about?”

This is what will undoubtedly happen when you watch the film for yourself and try to explain it to friends, because you will inevitably watch it, and you will also inevitably try to explain it to friends. Last Days is indeed beautiful film about a grungy [pun intended] subject. The problem arises in its explanation. How do you explain with words, a film with such little dialogue that you could easily have watched it with the theater sound muted. A film that resists its artistic genre, opting instead to be more like a painting, a somewhat abstract yet realist painting along the lines of what the bastard child of Chuck Close and Jackson Pollock might produce [referrence to buggery censored]. How do you confine these visual and visceral images you have witnessed to words displayed on paper, heard in audio, or communicated digitally as you are receiving it now, without sounding like trite gallery staff? I’m not sure.

The writer trying to explain Last Days to Pixelsurgeon:
Writer: “In the Last Days film that features Lukas Haas as Luke, Asia Argento as Asia, Scott Green as Scott, and Nicole Vicius as… well you get the picture by now, the main character, Blake, played by… no, not Blake anything, Michael Pitt, seems troubled about something. He wallows in this something that’s obviously miring him down and he tries to alleviate the pain, sorrow, heartache, disappointment, with drugs. His friends are concerned but not overly so, evidenced by them leaving Blake, possibly overdosed, alone in the house to go off and- well you don’t really know where they go or what they do, but they come back drunk. Anyway, his off-screen girlfriend is also concerned, so much so that she hires a private investigator, Ricky Jay, to find him. She hasn’t seen Blake in a long time. During his friends absence he is visited by his mother, or a much older sister, or maybe she was some older female relative or whatever matriarchal figure this character is supposed to represent, and offers him an out which he does not take. He’s not returning calls from the band’s manager about his upcoming tour dates. His friends, or once again were they band members, don’t let on that he’s actually there with them. And then -”

Pixelsurgeon: “Why?”

Writer: “Why what?”

Pixelsurgeon: “Why don’t they just say he’s there?”

Writer: “It doesn’t matter why. Don’t worry, your readers will get it when they see the film.”

That’s another problem with this film that’s not about Kurt Cobain. If you aren’t privy to the existence of the conspiracies surrounding Kurt Cobain’s death, or why there would exist a movie about him that isn’t about him, if you weren’t sitting in the theater with all of this background Kurt Cobain knowledge, then you would probably not be willing to sit through to the end of this film artist’s interpretation of all the voyeuristic information you had collected in nineteen-ninety-four when Cobain’s career peaked, then unexpectedly came to an end. I assume that was what happened to the couple that left halfway through the film, just before a climax usually happens in a film but didn’t in this one. I imagined the guy asking his girlfriend, or her asking him “I thought you said this film was about Kurt Cobain?”

The writer trying to explain Last Days to himself:
Writer: “Why really did I go to see this film? Well I’m not sure. It could have been because of Elephant, the only other Van Sant film I’ve seen, or because of Van Sant’s notoriety, or the banal reviews I read or the hype. But such things never usually do much to motivate me. Then was it because I am a Nirvana fan that wanted to see how the lead singer of my favorite band had offed himself? Oh wait, I’m not a Nirvana fan, and if I were I’d have been sorry because that subject wasn’t dealt with in this the film that isn’t about the lead singer of Nirvana. Then why did I go? Did I go just to say ‘Last Days? Yeah, I saw it.’ And why did I like it so much? The cute butt shot of Nicole Vicius, the one I’d have missed had I blinked? The music? The slightly dark and somewhat sarcastic humor? If I hadn’t known, as the disclaimer clearly stated after all the credits had rolled off screen, that though this film was inspired by Kurt Cobain it was not about him, would I have cared for the Blake character and hated his friends as much? Would I have enjoyed the play on scene sequence? Would I have sat out Van Sant’s sometimes uncomfortably long your-are-waiting-for-something-to-happen-but-nothing-will shots?”

[Long silence.]

The voice in his head: “Yes.”

I can’t really explain what this film is about, or what happens in it, or what makes it a must see. But that doesn’t mean it’s something you should miss. On the contrary, if I scatter brained review writer, were able to convert the film into a few bites of easily digestible prose then it would probably be a film you would want to avoid at all costs. Last Days, the beautiful yet haunting film about nothing and no one, but that was inspired by the real events surrounding Kurt Cobain’s death is worth the ninety-seven minutes it will take for you to realize that it took ninety-seven minutes to reach a conclusion that you knew was coming all along.

Go see it. Or would you rather me continue my attempts at telling you why?

+ also published on the Pixel Surgeon website

Okay, so here we are on day 2 already going back on our word. But the Arkitip commissioned Geoff McFetridge ‘Stabbed‘ print is so worth double our mandated bankroll.

Go ahead, hate us for loving it.

To anyone hoping for a resurgence of eighties hip-hop, let it be know that Balkan Beat Box is not about breath control. That said, the funky band that is like an electronic, Israeli version of Gogol Bordello has funky fresh beats that make you get up out your seat… and mosh!

“BBB’s self-titled album is an imaginative, energetic, crazy mix of folklore tunes, bizarre lyrics and funky electronic beats. The album - released in Israel in May, in North America last month, and set for a September release in Europe - mixes folk sounds from North Africa, Israel (Hassidic, Arabic and Sephardic), the Balkans and Eastern Europe with electronic beats. (via the Jerusalem Post)”

check out the album here

If Putney Swope (superbly played by Arnold Johnson) had a hand in writing the Black Panther Ten Point Plan, it would include demands for equal opportunity television airtime, majority black employment on every rung of the corporate ladder, and termination of the marketing of destructive products to minority communities.

Robert Downy Sr.’s 1969 fuck the system film, Putney Swope, opens like any other big city flick… with a helicopter aerial shot. But this set-up is merely a cleverly disguised invitation to draw viewers into his manic version of corporate dystopia.

As soon as the chopper lands atop a piece of the Manhattan skyline and its middle-aged punk-rock passenger hops out with ‘MENSA’ stenciled to the back of his DIY sleeveless denim jacket with spray paint, you know that this film will deliver anything but what is expected.

The protagonist, “Swope” as he is called throughout the film, is introduced as the disgruntled black music director of a major advertising agency. He is sitting at a conference table encircled by white execs. The Madison Avenue Agency is going through rough times, and there is a heated debate as to what changes need to be made. Swope tries to interject with words of righteousness and sincerity, but is combated with cynicism and deject.

In a strange turn of events, the president of the agency shows up, dies of a heart attack, and is replaced by Swope who wins the Chairman’s seat through default vote.

That is when a big load of blackie shit hits the proverbial fan.

Swope fires the entire board, save for one “sick bastard”, hires a motley crew of militant afro-centrist politicos, and bans cigarette, alcohol and violent toy manufacturers from the company’s roster of clients.

The airing of the company’s first ad under Swope’s new direction lets the viewer in on Downy Sr.’s creative genius. Outside the television within the television, all the scenes are shot in stark black and white. But once the full-screen versions of ads Swope’s agency creates grace the screen, they surprisingly appear in soft-focused Technicolor.

The ads are the tongue-in-cheek driving force of the film. Offensive yet humorous, they are smart enough to make any Adbuster magazine administrator come close to an anti-creativity climax.

Ethereal Cereal, the first in a slew of funny five-minute spots, features a monotoned narrator informing a gentleman seated at a breakfast table of the benefits of this brand of cereal. As he eats, the camera closes in for a close-up. Then on hearing the summation of the off-screen accolades, the black gap-toothed breakfast eater exclaims, “No sheet!”

The other commercials run the gamut, from Mr. Sony’s Get-Out-Of Here mousetrap, to an interracial couple singing a soft duet for Face Off Pimple Cream, and match Ethereal Cereal in wit and political incorrectness.

The agency is a hit. Clients that were removed from the roster beg to be replaced. The corrupt midget Head of State (played by famous small person Pepi Hermine) gets involved. And, in a scheme reminiscent of Robin Hood, Swope orders that in order to keep working with the agency, each account has to pay one million dollars in cash upfront, all the while secretly thinking of disseminating the funds to the rest of his cronies at a later date.

Somewhere amidst the staccato scenes and profane deliveries, there is a message the director is cleverly conveying. It’s hidden below the surface, and behind the “blackface”. The hyper-exaggerated characters are making a mockery of every level of establishment. From religion—a nun tries to con Swope into adopting a yuck-mouthed youngster—to corporations—it goes without saying that corporate America and its mindless consumers are Downey Sr.’s main target—to minority Parties: behind closed doors the film’s most vocal black militant turns out to be a cunt-licking lowlife.

With the pint-sized Prez leaning hard on Swope, he knows his agency is in its last throws of life. In a scene composed to resemble Fidel Castro’s address to a newly liberated Cuba, Putney Swope orders his ad agents (everyone employed at Madison Avenue Agency, including janitors and bodyguards) to come up with the most outlandish ads they can think of and air them carte blanche.

He then later sabotages the video shoot for the Nazi car company the President is pushing, making a host of high-powered enemies and hammering the last nail in the agency’s coffin.

In his final act of defiance, Swope holds a board meeting that mirrors the opening scene. To his Negro band of disciples, Putney is a Jesus figure, but on hearing his plan to diverge from militancy and cow-tow to The Man, they decide it would be better to send him to the cross. They do not want to give up the right fight, even though it means risking the loss of all the clients and the loads of money the clients are willing to spend.

The meeting, of course, was a test, and Swope is pleased with the results… at least initially. He goes to the vault, grabs a few bags of money, and then orders that the rest be shared evenly. As he readies for an escape, Putney Swope is confronted by members of the board. Hotfooting over the prior topic they disappoint by showering him and his sellout ideas with praise.

Speechless, Swope shakes his head and pushes his way through the thick crowd, assisted by his bodyguard. And as the money-hungry mob squabbles over the loot, it is set ablaze by a rogue kamikaze sending the film to its fiery finale.

Written and directed by Robert Downy Sr., with production credits going to Herald Productions Inc., the film is a farcical exploration in big budget cinema. Yet it is revolutionary in its daring because of the time during which it was made, and the quasi pro-militant message it carries.

I am certain Putney Swope would have agreed to summing up the film in his signature gravely voice like this: “If you can’t join the system, then fuck the system.”

I eagerly await a remake.

+ also published on the Pixel Surgeon website

Expect rants, raves and random reviews on rock, architecture, voyeurism, documentaries, hip-hop, modern culture, country, observances, reggae, news, graffiti, guerilla warfare, pornography, social issues, video installation, pop, and everything in between.

Do not expect us to wax poetic on anything that will cost you more than fifty bucks and a train ride to experience.

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