LAST OF THE GRADS (2021, Jay Jenkins, Collin Kliewe)

 

* 

It's the last day of school. And it could also be the last day ... of their lives.

Starring  Jessica Lang, Sara Eklund, Jadon Cal, Jim Fitzpatrick, Ethan Rich

Written by  Jay Jenkins, Collin Kliewe

Produced by  Jay Jenkins, Collin Kliewe, David Prue

Duration   113 minutes

Here's one of those notorious Hollywood stories. Might be true, might be bullshit. The fact that it comes from a famously subversive comedian does make you sceptical; but then again, it could be crazy enough to be true.

So, Bill Murray voices Garfield in GARFIELD: THE MOVIE (2004). It's a career choice he says he regrets during his cameo as himself in ZOMBIELAND (2013).

A year later, The New York Post reported Murray revealing why he chose to lend his vocal talents to the fat orange cat. His reason? He thought he was signing on to star in a movie written by one of the Coen brothers. He only realised he was mistaken after it was too late. You see, it was actually Joel Cohen, with an 'H', who had a hand in GARFIELD's script. The writer of, er, MONSTER MASH: THE MOVIE and MONEY TALKS, not the one who came up with RAISING ARIZONA and BARTON FINK.

All right, so now I'd like you to imagine something. You're a plucky young filmmaker. You have written a screenplay called LAST OF THE GRADS. You want to secure funding to direct it, and you know this will be easier with acting talent attached. You already have popular YouTuber 'Cr1TiKaL' in a small role, so that's the young demographic sorted.

But you want to cover all your bases. It's a competitive marketplace out there, you need someone from the other end of the appeal scale. An older star; Hollywood royalty. Your script is for a throwback slasher ... didn’t Jamie Lee Curtis successfully turn up again in the 2018 HALLOWEEN revival? OK, hiring an older female star doesn't always work, but surely it's worth a try?

Then, you notice the name of one of the actresses auditioning for LAST OF THE GRADS. And it gives you an idea. What about saying that you have cast Jessica Lange? Which would be close to the truth; hopefully close enough to get away with. 

Because instead of the Oscar-winning star of THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, TOOTISE and CAPE FEAR, you actually have Jessica Lang, who was in, um, LITTLE SISTER, TWISTED REVERIE and DARK ECHOS. But by the time anyone realises, it'll be too late!

This latter story is one that I definitely made up. But it does beg the question of what exactly young Miss Lang, the eventual lead in LAST OF THE GRADS, is trying to pull.

No member of the guilds that represent actors in the UK (Equity) or US (SAG-AFTRA) is allowed to have an identical working name to any another. You may in fact not be aware that there's a Billy Murray out there, most famous for nine years playing DS Don Beech in British cop show The Bill. 

I couldn't find much online about the young lady in question here, but surely there are only two possibilities: 

a) she was born Jessica Lang, was permitted to use that name despite the similarity to an existing actress, and she doesn't mind the potential confusion; or 

b) she was christened something else and decided to choose Jessica Lang as her stage name, presumably with the intention of encouraging confusion.

Which one is it? Will we ever know? It's certainly not as clear cut as with someone like James Deen, the porn star who was in that Bret Easton Ellis/Paul Schrader/Lindsay Lohan joint THE CANYONS in 2013.

So it's with this maddening uncertainty left unresolved that we move onto LAST OF THE GRADS itself. 

Here we have the kind of retro slasher that could have been made 40 years ago. It's of the school-set breed, joining the ranks of BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974), PROM NIGHT (1980), FINAL EXAM (1981), STUDENT BODIES (1981), RETURN TO HORROR HIGH (1987), CUTTING CLASS (1989), CHILD'S PLAY 3 (1991), and so on.

Like many a slasher, it starts with backstory. In this case far too much backstory, and with expositional voiceover to boot. It sets up two outcast teenage boys as a pair of killers. They're like a less-convincing version of those preppy lads from FUNNY GAMES and its remake, in which they're played by Michael Pitt and future BRUTALIST director Brady Corbet.

The boys' cross-country killing spree, reported during the opening credits in fake-looking newscasts, earns them the collective nickname the Coast-to-Coast Killer. But no one knows who they are, or if they even exist and aren't just an urban legend. 

And then finally, we settle in on the final day at a high school, where the youngsters are preparing to graduate. Featuring is the usual soap opera stuff: unrequited love; jocks off on football scholarships; promises to stay in touch after summer; yearbooks being signed.

Meanwhile, the local cops suspect that their sleepy town could be the next target for the killers, because ... I didn't quite get that part. But anyway, they of course turn out to be right.

From then on, LAST OF THE GRADS plays out exactly how you'd expect. Are there any surprises? No. Is it derivative, awkwardly acted, tediously scripted, cheesily scored, lacking in suspense and without any decent kills? Yes. 

Do I recommend it?

Let's just say I'm as likely to do that as I am to believe someone could mistake 20-something Jessica Lang for 70-something Jessica Lange. Or, for that matter, that an A-list actor would sign on for a talking cat movie believing that it's from the writer of FARGO and THE BIG LEBOWSKI. And then to go on to star in its sequel, too (GARFIELD 2: A TALE OF TWO KITTIES).

One star out of five.

 

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Some live, some die. So ... yes, somewhat.

What would a movie called FIRST OF THE GRADS be about?  I guess if they give out the scrolls in alphabetical order, it would be about a bloke called Aaron A Aaronson.

Previously:  THE LAST TIME I COMMITTED SUICIDE

Next time:  EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST TIME I COMMITTED SUICIDE (1997, Stephen T Kay)

 

* * 

The rambling tale of one man's ramblings, in a movie that strains desperately to make us care. 

Starring  Thomas Jane, Keanu Reeves, Adrien Brody, John Doe, Claire Forlani

Written by  Stephen T Kay

Produced by  Edward Bates, Louise Rosner   

Duration  92 minutes   

Famously, we're told never to judge a book by its cover. So, I suppose we shouldn't judge a film by its title, either. But when that title is as distinctive as THE LAST TIME I COMMITTED SUICIDE, it's kind of hard not to.

It's a title that suggests a movie that will deal with controversial subject matter in a quirky way. FOUR LIONS (2010) is, I would say, the all-timer example of this. Suicide-bomber comedy is not likely to ever be a category on Netflix, but director Chris Morris manages to pull off the headline-baiting premise, while making a star out of Riz Ahmed along the way.

CITIZEN RUTH (1996) is another one. Alexander Payne made his debut with a black comedy that puts Laura Dern's pregnant and dim-witted title character at the centre of the highly combustible abortion debate. Oh, and there was "shit, dude, I've got cancer!" movie 50/50 (2011), from that period when Joseph Gordon Levitt was starring in comedy pictures with Seth Rogan.

I reckon the best scenario for THE LAST TIME I COMMITTED SUICIDE would've been if it turned out to be a mid-90s version of the 1985 teen suicide comedy BETTER OFF DEAD, with Keanu Reeves taking over from John Cusack. Instead of trying to hang himself in his parent's garage, it could be Keanu, dressed in John Wickian suit, comically trying and repeatedly failing to shoot himself in the head with one of his many guns. Or dressing up as Neo from THE MATRIX, proclaiming "I need an exit!" and then jumping off a bridge. Um, anyway, more on Mr Reeves later.

What we actually got with this movie sadly turned out to be something pretty terrible.

OK, perhaps that's a little strong. But there's no escaping that upon on actually watching THE LAST TIME I COMMITTED SUICIDE, my first impression was bad and things only got worse from there. And it was nothing to do with how the movie deals with sensitive issues. The next few paragraphs recount my first impressions in a kind of stream of consciousness – a jazzy riff, if you will.

So, what do we have here. Thomas Jane is wandering around his apartment mumbling to himself, with black and white photography and an excruciating jazz score. Man, I hate jazz. Jane sounds like he's running lines or something? Is he an actor? Then he sits down at his typewriter and types something. So, a writer.

OK, so now it's settled into colour. Jane is waiting to be let in somewhere, holding flowers. He starts the scene with a voiceover, it sounds like maybe he's reciting poetry? No, he's talking about the young woman he's visiting in what turns out to be a hospital, after some unspoken incident, an accident we assume.

The early scenes trickle by in kind of a mannered, wannabe Coen brothers style. Jane is pretty manic. In what is presumably a flashback, he comes to his girlfriend's office to take her out for lunch – "But it's 4pm!" she protests. He answers her phone for her, dances with the coat rack, affects a British accent, that sort of thing. Crazy guy; what I mean is, annoying.

There's a kind of retro feel, too: the ever-present annoying jazz, how everyone seems to use typewriters, not just him, it doesn't seem to be an eccentricity.

Wait, is this one of those beat poet things? I tried to read On the Road once and didn't make it very far. Too loose and dull and directionless.

Yes, it turns out the script was based on a 1950 letter written by Neal Cassady to Jack Kerouac. Who the hell was Neal Cassady? I'd never heard of the bloke but, according to Wikipedia, he was "a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic and counterculture movements of the 1960s". The reason he was obscure to me was that "he published only two short fragments of prose in his lifetime, but exerted considerable intellectual and stylistic influence through his conversation and correspondence."

This movie is apparently based on some of that correspondence. Boy, those must have been some long letters. Thousands of words, apparently. So that makes this movie less like adapting a tax rebate from HMRC and more tackling a short story.

(Oh wait, the girlfriend, it wasn't an accident – I get it now! It was a suicide attempt, hence the title of the movie. Can't say I blame her, going out with this tool.)

The only thing to have come out of this beat generation business that does anything for me is David Cronenberg’s NAKED LUNCH. Actually, I remember going on to read William Burroughs' source novel, then possibly Junk as well, if I recall. Those were OK; totally bonkers, but interesting and lively.

But still, this kind of all-over-the-place, jittery, motormouth vibe is too much for me. THE LAST TIME I COMMITTED SUICIDE embraces this approach wholeheartedly, with the camera spinning around like it's manned by a hyperactive child, editing stuffed with jump cuts back and forth in time, and yet more of that bloody awful jazz. And Jane's performance: cigarette always in hand, talking to himself, reciting things he's hoping to write (but I guess never does?), absorbed in how witty, urbane and original he believes himself to be.

And the final thing that put me off was that this Neal Cassidy abandons his girlfriend in the hospital to go joyriding with a co-starring Keanu, Amy Smart and some other girl of high school age. Not cool, daddio ... or sport, or whatever it was these beat generation types called each other. 

That's about all I have to say about THE LAST TIME I COMMITTED SUICIDE. Just a few closing words now about two actors.

Adrien Brody wanders into the film at one point, presumably around the time he was auditioning for THE THIN RED LINE. And I started wishing I was watching that movie instead. Wait a sec, Jane was in THIN RED LINE, too! They probably ran through scenes together. And then, after it came out, consoled each other over shots of bourbon in a grimy bar, complaining about how they both ended up with less screen time than some limey who only lasted one season in the British sitcom Game On.

And what of Mr Reeves in this movie? Sad to say, but he sticks out, like he always does. He pops up as Neal's pool-playing pal and joins him in drinking and talking, then pausing to have another drink before talking some more.

Look, there's no doubts about Keanu being A Really Nice Guy. After all, everyone knows he lives out of a suitcase and donates all of his acting royalties to charity (citation needed).

But it's always him in a movie, no matter who he is ostensibly playing. In MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, he's Keanu doing school play Shakespeare. In BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, he's Keanu with a wobbly English accent. And in this, he's Keanu in the 1950s, yet still sounding like a laidback surfer dude.

But despite that, I was glad to see him. He at least made this dross tolerable. Just about.

Two stars out of five. 

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  I think Jane actually uses this oh-so-amusing phrase at one point? It was hard to pick up among the rest of the never-ending voiceover.

What would a movie called THE FIRST TIME I COMMITTED SUICIDE be like?  There would be less rambling, you'd expect, and hopefully no jazz. Unless they played it at the damned funeral.

 

Previously:  THE LAST BUS

Next time:  LAST OF THE GRADS

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST BUS (2021, Gillies MacKinnon)

 

* * * 

An old guy decides to travel from one end of the UK to the other by bus.

Starring  Timothy Spall, Phyllis Logan, Natalie Mitson, Ben Ewing

Written by  Joe Ainsworth

Produced by  Roy Boulter, Sol Papadopoulos

Duration  88 minutes 

"Since when did they start charging for the bus? Didn't we used to ride that shit to school every morning for free?"

– Jay, JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK

Public transport and the glamour of movies. The two don't tend to mix.

That applies especially to buses. To use the bus is seen as a defeat, a symbol of shamefully low status. The most common onscreen utterance is some variation of "Don't take the smelly old bus!"

Buses don't ever feature in any positive or aspirational way. SPEED (1994) is the most famous example of making a bus central to the plot, but there's nothing desirable about taking the number 33 to Santa Monica. Sandra Bullock's character is only tolerating the journey because of a driving ban ("I like my car, I miss my car"). And a bus is only one of three places Dennis Hopper puts his bombs: it's a lift first, then the bus, then finally a train.

Beyond SPEED? Randomly, the year 2010 featured two movies with bus-riding protagonists, neither of whom are conventionally heroic. Michael Cera's Scott Pilgrim from SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD is an unlucky-in-love geek, whereas Roger Greenberg in GREENBERG (Ben Stiller) irritates everyone he meets.

Er, what else ... STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME (1986)? That bit with Spock and the punk's boombox?

Trains generally get better treatment. THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123 (1974) is a love letter to the New York subway. Liam Nesson foils a conspiracy on his train home in THE COMMUTER (2018). Tony Scott wringed rail-based thrills out of the PELHAM remake (2009) and, in his final film, UNSTOPPABLE (2010). Oh, then there are BULLET TRAIN (2022) and SNOWPIERCER (2013), movies that apparently some people like (but not me).

Cars, of course, are regularly fawned over in films. You can even get labelled an actual hero for racing around in one at dangerous speeds. But I'd say that among public transport, only the aeroplane regularly gets a good rap. Probably because it's the one thing that can handle journeys impossible by car.

So, traveling by bus is something that should only be endured in extreme circumstances. And yet in THE LAST BUS, we follow a person who voluntarily elects to use several of the things. What gives?

We open in 1952 with a young couple. The woman is unhappy and wants to move "as far as possible" away from their home in Land's End, Cornwall. As anyone who resides in the British Isles knows, they're already at one end of the country. The furthest they can go without crossing a body of water is northeast to John O' Groats, up in Scotland.

We then cut to that particular Scottish village, now in the present day. Same couple, except much older. Within minutes of screen time, she (Phyllis Logan) has sadly died of cancer. He, Tom (Timothy Spall), then decides to make the trip back to their old house in Cornwall. He concludes that the most practical way of doing this, owing to his advanced age and lack of car, will be by bus. (Not just one single bus, you understand. I did that once from London to Edinburgh, for only £5, non-stop. That was eight hours of pure fun, I can tell you.)

So Tom slowly makes his way southwest through the UK, bus by bus, meeting a range of characters as he goes. There's the disillusioned young lad who wants to join the army and is interested in Tom's WWII experiences. There's the Land Rover driver who needs a hand with his engine. There's the racist white man hassling a Muslim mother who Tom stands up to. There's the rowdy football fans, cartoonishly depicted in full colours, whose clash with a hen do is subdued by Tom singing 'Amazing Grace' with a local tramp.

Now, during many of these colourful incidents, where Tom intervenes to help turn a bad situation around, people pop up with their mobiles and film him in action. Then we see them tagging him on some kind of social media app. Hmm, wonder if that will come up again later.

We find out that, like his late wife, Tom has inoperable cancer. With not long left, he's doubly determined to complete his odyssey. And that's no matter how many bureaucratic bus drivers tell him his OAP pass isn't valid for this route; or how blown about by the wind he gets at a rural bus stop; or how many times he ends up in hospital with minor injuries. Plus he gets very defensive if anyone touches the old brown suitcase he lugs around with him, even if it's just a couple of kids at a Ukrainian family party he ends up getting invited to.

And, yes indeed, Tom has become a social media sensation, with people recognising him and offering to pay his bus fares. A cheering crowd greets him at his final destination, where the ultimate purpose of this cross-country exodus is revealed: that closely guarded suitcase contains his late wife's ashes, which he wants to scatter into the sea at the place they first met. Which he does, in a scene that plays like the non-comedic version of The Dude emptying the coffee can of Donnie's remains at the end of THE BIG LEBOWSKI. Tom also visits the grave of their daughter, whose death in infancy was the tragedy that spurred the couple to move so far away, all those years ago.

So, look. This is a performance film. It's an acting showcase for Mr Spall. That's all that really matters. And of course he delivers: lower lip protruding, mumbling to himself, all strong stuff. It's a sentimental film, it's a gentle film, it's a slight film. But, just like taking the bus, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Plus, it's better than THE LAST JOURNEY, although roughly on par with LAST PASSENGER.

Three stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  The last bus Tom takes will indeed be the last one he’ll ever take.

What would a movie called THE FIRST BUS be like?  More than 20% of the UK is covered by a bus operator called First Bus. But what happens when a conspiracy is uncovered by one enterprising driver, which goes all the way to the very top ... etc.

Previously:  UNDISPUTED 2: LAST MAN STANDING

Next time:  THE LAST TIME I COMMITTED SUICIDE  

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

UNDISPUTED 2: LAST MAN STANDING (2006, Isaac Florentine)

* * * 

A professional boxer and former felon thinks he's done fighting in illegal prison tournaments. The Russian mob has other ideas.

Starring  Michael Jai White, Scott Adkins, Ben Cross, Eli Danker, Mark Ivanir, Ken Lerner

Written by  James Townsend, David N White   

Produced by  Boaz Davidson, David Varod, Danny Dimbort   

Duration  94 minutes   

 

When it comes to action movies, I have a secret shame. A shame that causes me no little anguish.

A little background. Growing up, it was all Arnie. COMMANDO, THE TERMINATOR(S), PREDATOR, TOTAL RECALL. And to a lesser extent, LAST ACTION HERO and THE RUNNING MAN. Although not RAW DEAL, never that one. (Does anyone out there actually like RAW DEAL?)

Later, I started to warm up to Stallone, as well: FIRST BLOOD, TANGO & CASH, DEMOLITION MAN and (especially) CLIFFHANGER. I would also come to respect how he could write and direct, too.

Between those two titans, there was always a smattering of Willis, Van-Damme, Lundgren and Seagal in between.

But as the 1990s drew to a close, so did the box office dominance of these muscle men. I consider FACE/OFF (1997) to be the last great 'classic' studio action picture. BLADE made a solid impression a year later, but showed worrying signs of ushering in the superhero apocalypse that was to come. Then the most overrated movie of the 20th Century, THE MATRIX, hit big in 1999, ensuring that nerds' fantasies of breaking free from drudgery to wear costumes and wield special powers would dominate action cinema for the next 25 years.

So, the age of the R-rated/18-certificate action movie was over. I gritted my teeth as the appeal grew broader, CGI started to dominate, and the mayhem got watered down. Adapting from source material for people who still need their books to have pictures became the norm. A little part of me died; I mourned by keeping my physical media collection, and keeping it close.

This is the source of my shame. That I gave up. That I rolled over like a cowardly henchman in the final stretch, when he realises he that he has no chance against the hero.

And yet, it wasn't over. Not really. Like a tournament in a JCVD movie, the action scene merely went underground. It just carried on in the direct-to-video market, which is still flourishing today. (The term 'DTV' endures, even if we've long moved past going direct to video or even DVD and into the age of streaming.)

The budgets went down. The aging stars adjusted. New icons emerged. The quality may be patchy, but no more than it ever was.

Diving into the DTV action pool is well overdue for me – although, in my defense, I did recently check out the rightly lauded latter-day UNIVERSAL SOLDIER sequels, REGENERATION and DAY OF RECKONING. 

And handily, the players involved with UNDISPUTED 2: LAST MAN STANDING happen to make it a pretty good DTV action primer. For starters, director Isaac Florentine (NINJA, ACTS OF VENGEANCE) is one of the sub-genre's leading helmers. Star Michael Jai White (SPAWN, EXIT WOUNDS), meanwhile, is a charismatic leading man – and if you've never seen his hilarious BLACK DYNAMITE, please do. 

But as well as those two, UNDISPUTED 2 features Birmingham-born Scott Adkins (ACCIDENT MAN, CLOSE RANGE). He's the poster boy of DTV action, as well as occasionally dipping his lethal toe into Hollywood's waters: THE EXPENDABLES 2, ZERO DARK THIRTY, JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4.

So, watching UNDISPUTED 2: LAST MAN STANDING, then. First thing to note is that it's not to be confused with this movie. The director of that, Walter Hill, actually helmed the first UNDISPUTED, as well as middling Arnie vehicle RED HEAT. Do try to keep up at the back.

Anyway, Michael Jai White plays George Chambers, a boxer who, as played by Ving Rhames in UNDISPUTED 1, won a prison boxing tournament and was then released. We catch up with him as he's trying to get his professional punching people career back on track. Currently, he's touring Russia, while doing a Bill Murray in LOST IN TRANSLATION on the side: hawking booze in cheesy commercials.

This film is set in a world in which the mega-rich elite watch privately televised mixed martial arts fights between hardened cons, broadcast straight from the prison and run by the Russian mob. Currently, this pseudo-sport is dominated by Atkins' character. He enters the ring like a celebrity: hood up, the crowd chanting his name: "Boyka! Boyka! Boyka!" There may as well have been entry music.

Since Boyka tends to obliterate any mug foolish enough to touch gloves with him, no one is bothering to bet anymore. The mob's solution? Frame former champ and Mike Tyson-substitute Chambers for cocaine trafficking and throw him in the same slammer, putting him on a collision course with the mighty Boyka.

Look, I'm going to be honest. Boxing has never done much for me. Mostly over in a couple of rounds, primarily two fighters grappling up close and rarely landing any blows. And yet it's surrounded by immense hype, the fighters slag each other off in the press, etc.

MMA, however, I think I could get into. All I've seen of it comes from the movies, but it seems a lot more dynamic: spinning kicks, throws, exotic combos. And that's certainly what we get here. Florentine shoots the bouts with intensity, keeping both fighters in frame most of the time, giving a good sense of where they are in relation to each other. But also going in tight for some brutal close-ups and sprinkling a little slo-mo here and there. Plenty of blood flying out, bones breaking. Lovely.

UNDISPUTED 2 is not only an unlikely sequel – the Hill-directed original hardly set the world alight – but it also birthed a further two instalments. Both of which featuring Boyka as the hero

That Adkins, I'm telling ya. The hardest man to ever come out of the Midlands. Our beloved action genre is in good, sweaty, blood-caked hands. Long may it continue, and shame be damned. Everybody: "Boyka! Boyka! Boyka!"

Three stars out of five.

 

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  If you lose one of these fights, you are not the one who remains vertical. So, yeah, I'd say so.

What would FIRST MAN STANDING be like?  A tournament film focusing on a fan who is always the first to get off his feet and start applauding during the fights.

 

Previously:  THE LAST KISS

Next time:  THE LAST BUS

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST KISS (2006, Tony Goldwyn)

 

* * * 

Boy, it's tough getting older. Who'd have thought you could have it all, yet still be unhappy about losing your youth?

Starring  Zach Braff, Jacinda Barrett, Casey Affleck, Rachel Bilson, Marley Shelton

Written by  Paul Haggis

Produced by  Gary Lucchesi, Tom Rosenberg, Marcus Viscidi, Andre Lamal

Duration  104 minutes

 

 

Presenting THE LAST KISS: myths vs reality.

Myth: Movies about young people struggling with the transition from carefree adolescence to grown-up responsibilities tend to be insufferable.

Reality: Opening voiceover from Zach Braff: "I'm 29 years old; I'll be 30 next month. So far, I gotta admit that my life has turned out pretty great."

Then, at a dinner with her parents, his girlfriend (Jacinda Barrett) announces that she is pregnant. Cut to: slow zoom-in to a close-up of Braff's bemused and gormless face.

If this plotline had occurred in Braff's star-making sitcom Scrubs (more on which later), we could have cut away to a desk fan that gets hit in the blades with a lump of shit. Just like that bit in disaster spoof AIRPLANE.

Whichever way, we get the point.

It's immediately clear that we have here yet another man-child movie. See any number starring Seth Rogan (KNOCKED UP also features an unexpected pregnancy) or Will Ferrell (especially STEP BROTHERS) or Robin Williams (JACK).


Myth: These kinds of movies are even worse when the narrative is "My life is perfect ... so why am I not happy?"

Reality: It is mightily hard to sympathise with someone whose life is essentially being threatened with a downgrade from 'absolutely brilliant' to 'pretty great, all things considered.'

The worst cinematic offender has to be BRUCE ALMIGHTY (2003). Pity poor Bruce (Jim Carrey): he has a great job as a TV reporter, but craves a promotion to news anchor. When someone else gets the gig, he lashes out petulantly, then sulks off home to his extravagant apartment to be comforted by his gorgeous girlfriend, played by Jennifer Aniston.

Yes, the viewer can find it difficult to care about a protagonist's problems when, to quote CASABLANCA (a movie with genuine jeopardy), they don't amount to a hill of beans. It's especially challenging in something like THE LAST KISS, where the main struggle is letting go of adolescence. Newsflash: you don't have to settle down, get married, buy a house, have kids. No one is forcing you to; plenty of people never tick off all those boxes.

But if you do decide to follow that particular path, then for crying out loud, don't start moaning about it. Try to remember that there are people out there who crave what you have.

Braff's character's main complaint is that his life has become predictable, that there are no more surprises left. As if going out and getting pissed with his mates every weekend to is full of variety, and starting your own family is a straightforward, never-changing bore. Moron.


Myth: Scrubs is the most annoying sitcom of all time.

Reality: How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory are its main competitors, I'd say. Here in the UK, things like Mrs Brown's Boys and Miranda provide stiff competition.

But Scrubs is definitely on the list. It had that cartoonish, Ally McBeal hyper-reality that was inexplicably popular at the turn of the century.

Braff wasn't the only culprit of this irritation-athon, but he takes his share of the blame. And he definitely has the kind of face you'd like to punch. Often, his expression suggests that he is expecting to be punched: features in a grimace, as if bracing for the worst.

Myth: THE LAST KISS was Zach Braff's second movie as director.

Reality: It was actually helmed by another mostly actor, Tony Goldwyn. He's probably still best known for playing Patrick Swayze's supposed friend but actual rival in GHOST. Apparently he was part of OPPENHEIMER's ensemble, too, but so many people were in that I must have missed him. Oh and THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT remake, too.

No, Braff's actual second turn behind the camera, following on from acclaimed debut GARDEN STATE, was something called WISH I WAS HERE. Nope, me neither.


Myth: THE LAST KISS has a homoerotic subtext.

Reality: I started to suspect this when Casey Affleck, playing one of Braff's mates, warns our hero to not cheat on his girlfriend. What persuasive rhetoric does he employ? "She's perfect! She's just like a guy!" Weird thing to say.

So, naturally I started keeping an eye out for more homoerotica. But there didn’t end up being enough to call it a trend. There is a bit with Affleck on the receiving end this time (ooh-er, etc), when another man tells him "call me!" in a camp voice while making that telephone hand gesture.

Seems like THE LAST KISS would have been quite a different film if they'd put Affleck's character at the centre of it ...


Myth: These mid-noughties comedy-dramas haven't aged well.

Reality: Well, the soundtrack dates it: Snow Patrol, Athlete, Rufus Wainwright, early Coldplay. And some of the fashion: baggy clothes, more spiky hair and sideburns than you see these days, hardly any smart phones.

But it's certainly not as era-specific as things made in the 1990s or 1980s tend to be.


Myth: In fact, they don't really make these kinds of movies at all anymore.

Reality: It does feel like something that nowadays would be a Netflix show.

For one thing, it's very sub-plot-heavy. It's nearly an ensemble piece, like HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU (2009) or WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU'RE EXPECTING (2012). Braff's three friends all get their own arcs; as do Barrett's parents, played by reliable old-handers Blythe Danner and Tom Wilkinson.

Harold Ramis also pops up in a cameo that suggests a bigger role giving way during post-production.

Myth: Zach Braff is able to pull off playing a complex, conflicted character and make them sympathetic, despite their flaws.

Reality: Look, the angst he is going through is not uncommon. The malaise, the quarter-life crisis ... fair enough, fair enough.

But when he, a man in a committed relationship with a partner up the duff, accepts Rachel Bilson's college-age temptress’s flirtations, he erodes our goodwill by not immediately getting the fuck away from her.

Then, he gives her his number when she asks for it.

Then, he goes to meet her outside her college.

Then, he agrees to go to a frat party with her. Where he kisses her! And it's only then that he suddenly pulls away and says "No! This isn't right!"

But that's not the end. Because then, he has a minor tiff with Barrett and immediately runs back to Bilson and only goes and bloody shags her, right in her dorm room! (Not a euphemism.)

Not really endearing yourself to us, are you my man? And of course, Barrett finds out and is justifiably fuming.


Myth: After taking the hero's journey to a point as dire as the above, a film is never going to be able to get the audience back onside – especially with only a short-ish third act left to go.

Reality: OK, so here's the thing. THE LAST KISS did win me over in the end.

Braff doesn't get off the hook easily. He's made to suffer. He's genuinely repentant and seems to have learned his lesson. Everyone makes mistakes, people aren’t perfect and they can change. A good perspective, in my opinion. Actually rather refreshing, when the common dialogue today is more 'one strike and you're out, buddy'. (Am I really looking back on 20 years ago as a lost and more innocent time?)

I also liked how they wrapped it up: with a hint of hope, but no dramatic, cathartic resolution. Only the feeling that this young couple will have to work on things, and it may take a long time, and they might not succeed. But they are going to try.

And hey – at least the guy's not bored anymore! Am I right? Huh? 

Three stars out of five.

 

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  It's a a title that makes me think they couldn't come up with one and landed on that late in the day. THE LAST FLING would have been more accurate, but they probably wanted something softer to draw in the romcom crowd.

What would a movie called THE FIRST KISS be about?  I wouldn't have been surprised if that was one of the titles spit-balled for the Drew Barrymore vehicle NEVER BEEN KISSED.

 

Previously:  LAST THREE DAYS

Next time:  UNDISPUTED 2: LAST MAN STANDING 

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

LAST THREE DAYS (2020, Brian Ulrich)

* * 

A rookie narcotics cop inadvertently starts jumping back and forth through time.

Starring  Robert Palmer Watkins, Thomas Wilson Brown, Deborah Lee Smith, Roy Huang

Written by  Brian Ulrich

Produced by  Brian Ulrich, Julianna Ulrich, Jonathan M Black

Duration  86 minutes

 

 

I've tried to avoid doing these reviews in a predicable, bog-standard 'and then this happens, and then that happens' style. But for LAST THREE DAYS, I'm going to do exactly that, for better or for worse. 

Let's see how we get on!

Monday, 22st, a title card tells us. We're in a house, it looks like a crime has taken place. Empty beer bottles, furniture knocked over. Expended shell casings, a discarded handgun. Jack, a police officer and our protagonist, is there, and his colleagues soon burst in and pull their guns on him. Uh-oh; what have you done, Jack? He pleads innocence, but whatever has gone down here, the evidence against the young cop is pretty damning.

Then it's seven years ago. College-student Jack is in shorts, sitting underneath a tree, study books open. Then a pretty girl turns up and tells him that this is her favourite study spot. Jack agrees to let her sit there if he can take her out to dinner. She tells him she's writing an essay on the nature of time and memories; the audience is invited to believe that this is relevant to her nursing degree, not just clumsy plot foreshadowing. Jack, meanwhile, is majoring in criminal law and aspires to be a top detective.

They walk and talk and flirt. He gets her name and number. She's Beth. We montage through their relationship. Soon they're married, moving in together, now indeed working as police officer and nurse.

Then it's seven years later again, this time Wednesday, 17th. Beth comes home from her nursing job to an exposition-rich noticeboard, where she's marked that it's been 'Five days without Jack', and also that it's soon going to be their fifth wedding anniversary.

Then we’re with Jack and his veteran partner, Dave, busting into a drug dealer's house. "Sometimes in life we're given second chances," Jack informs the perp while cuffing him. "What we do with them … is up to us." Philosopher as well as lawman is our Jack.

Meanwhile, Beth is still waiting for Jack to come home. Instead, he goes to play cards with his cop buddies in a bar. They talk about local gang warfare, specifically the Japanese 'Yakus'. (Is ‘Yakuza’ a trademark or something? Or did the filmmakers want to avoid upsetting a real/real dangerous group?). Jack gets a call from the missus, wondering if he is ever coming home. He argues that as the newest member of the team he needs to socialise with his colleagues to build trust.

Beth hangs up. She is working late too, getting relationship advice from an older colleague, who insists that Jack does still love her.

Then it's the next day, Thursday, 18th. Jack assures Beth via text that he will be home tonight. Later, he and Dave meet up with a young Japanese woman to try and find out about the Yakus' next move. 

Davey Boy is a bit too cavalier for Jack: he boasts about not caring about doing a bust without a warrant or breaking any other rules, if it means they gets a result. But Jack nevertheless assures his increasingly dodgy-seeming partner that he does have his back. So, he agrees to go out for yet another drink after work – neglecting poor Beth for the umpteenth time, leaving her alone dressed in her best sexy outfit and nursing (no pun intended) a cold steak dinner. Jack didn't even realise that it's their anniversary today! 

And when he comes home drunk and accuses her of not respecting him, she accuses him of turning into his father, which he’s mentioned is his worst nightmare. So, Jack storms out again and catches up with Dave and the others in a strip bar. You can now mark 'strip bar' off from your cop movie clichés bingo card.

Next morning, Jack wakes up hungover in his own house, but alone: no Beth. And it turns out that rather than being Friday morning like it should be, it's actually Monday, 22nd! So just what the hell has happened to the LAST THREE DAYS?

He goes to Dave's house and finds it dishevelled; in fact, we're now back at the setup from the start of the movie. Jack's own gun is in the vicinity, as is a sexy photo Beth gave him of herself way back in the day. And when he plays Dave's answerphone messages, he hears Beth saying that she's left Jack and that she loves Dave! WTF?

Then a masked man bursts in and tries to shoot Jack, who shoots back. Before he can see if he's tagged him, Jack finds Dave’s bloodied corpse in the bathroom. When Jack's other cop pals turn up, it doesn't look good for our poor rookie. He legs it out the house but, in his haste, doesn't look both ways and is hit by a car.

Then Jack wakes in a dumpster, with no gun and a busted phone. But now when he checks the date on his watch it turns out that it's Sunday, 21st!

Jack happens upon (I guess?) some members of the Yaku and kidnaps one, getting out of him that they killed Dave and have framed Jack. And as for Beth, her whereabouts and whether that "I've left you for Dave" message was genuine? Jack still doesn't know!

After tussling with the Yakus, Jack races home and finds a "I still love you Jack, happy anniversary!" note from Beth. So, determined to piece together what the fuck is going on, Jack pulls down that exposition-tool whiteboard they have in their kitchen and starts doodling on it, lines and names and arrows, with dates and times. It’s a little like that scene with Doc Brown and the blackboard in BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II.

Then Jack wakes up again and it's Saturday now (the 20th – do try to keep up) and Dave is still alive. And Jack's getting into a car with Dave and asking him what's going on, when did he last see Beth? But Dave quickly moves the conversation onto work, specifically the against-protocol methods he wants to use to bust the Yakus.

Those include meeting their female informant (at least I think that’s what she was) with her Yaku pals in a warehouse. Soon, the female big boss Yaku emerges from the shadows. She doesn't trust Dave and at gunpoint forces him to admit that they're cops. (So, I guess they were undercover this whole time?) Then there's a shootout. The informant (?) girl is shot and the two cops run away. Then another shootout, on the pavement this time. Dave is hit, so gives Jack some incriminating evidence he has about the Yakus and tells him to take off. Then the Yakus call Dave "a real piece of shit" and shoot him dead.

Presently, Jack finds a payphone and tries calling Beth but can't get through. So, nursing a Yuka-administered gunshot wound, he goes to the hospital where she works. He doesn't find her, but, after collapsing due to blood loss, he is treated by Beth's nurse friend. The friend tells him that he had an unknown narcotic in his bloodstream – it's 'reaper', the new designer drug that the Yakus are dealing. Could they have slipped Jack some and that's what has been altering his perception of time?

We finally see where Beth is: staying with her dad. Jack rushes to her, but he's not in time to stop her getting kidnapped (pick up that bingo marker again) – and we see the Yaku forcing her at gunpoint to leave that cryptic answerphone message about leaving Jack and loving Dave.

Then it's the morning of Friday, the 19th. Alone again, Jack wakes up in bed and tries to call Beth – no answer! All seems lost. Jack meets Dave and tells him that he's off the case: "I've got a wife, man. It's time I started thinking about her." But Dave threatens him: turns out he's ultimately working for the Yakus, so wants to make sure Jack does what he's told, otherwise Dave will order his Yaku pals to hurt Beth. It's been/is/was/will be Dave who setting Jack up, all along! Damn, some partner!

The two of them tussle in a parking garage and Jack eventually gets the upper hand. He then has just 15 minutes to race to rescue Beth before she's due to be grabbed by one of Dave's/the Yaku's goons. He makes it, but she rejects his attempts at reconciliation.

But, no, wait a minute – in the movie’s final moments she kisses him in their kitchen as the sun sets through the window. These kids are gonna be all right, folks.

Phew, we made it! Blimey, that was hard work. Don't think I'll be doing that again any time soon.

Oh, and the film is OK, if a bit incoherent. Nothing amazing, but not one-star bad.

Two stars out of five.

 

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Actually one of the more accurate uses I’ve come across. Although if I were to be pedantic, I'd say they should have gone for 'the previous'.

What would a movie called FIRST THREE DAYS be like?  In terms of cop movies, sounds like it would be a longer version of TRAINING DAY. A movie to which this one has been compared, to the extent that anyone but me has actually bothered writing about LAST THREE DAYS.

 

Previously:  I’LL ALWAYS KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER

Next time:  THE LAST KISS

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

I'LL ALWAYS KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (2006, Sylvain White)

 

* 

Someone learns about something bad that a different someone did 12 months prior.  

Starring  Brooke Nevin, David Paetkau, Torrey DeVitto, Ben Easter, Don Shanks

Written by  Michael D Weiss

Produced by  Neal H Moritz, Erik Feig, Nancy Kirhoffer, Amanda Lewis

Duration  92 minutes   

 

Years ago, I worked with someone who confessed to always reading the last page of a book first.

"Why?" I asked her, incredulous. 

"Because I can't stand the suspense, I have to know how it ends," came the reply.

This struck me as plainly ridiculous. Not that there would have been any point me arguing with her – in the words of Bobby Brown, that was her prerogative. But certainly it's not something I would ever do myself.

(Although I did once watch a fan edit of PULP FICTION where the scenes had been reordered chronologically. It wasn't as good.)

Here's the thing. One of the least-heralded but most-important aspects of writing is structure. I'm not necessarily talking about nonlinear narratives, or MEMENTO-style trickery. More like, in what order does the audience learn things? Are certain events shown or not shown? How long do we linger over particular incidents? Stuff like that.

The writer (or, since this is now film we're talking about, writers plural) must make these decisions. They make them to serve the story and what they want the impact on the viewer to be. They've chosen to arranged things this way, out of the millions of other possible alternatives; that's their prerogative, their right as an artist.

So, messing around with the structure is kind of disrespectful, in my opinion. I wonder if my ex-colleague also used to skip her DVDs ahead to the final chapter? Shudder.

When it comes to a series of films, that's a structure too. You're supposed to go original first, then any sequels. Sure, some people have come up with other orders to watch things, like with prequels/sequels rosta of the STAR WARS universe, but that's mostly kept to the realms of hardcore geekdom.

I have done it, but not usually by choice. ALIENS and TERMINATOR 2 were both considered to be less intense than their predecessors, so as a youngster I was allowed to watch them years before the originals. And the first HALLOWEEN I saw, round a friend's house, was the controversially Michael Myers-free third one, SEASON OF THE WITCH. And I didn't even realise at the time that it wasn't the first film, so for years I was one of the rare people who didn't associate the franchise with its famous bogeyman.

So, on viewing I'LL ALWAYS KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, I tried to imagine I'd watched this film first. If so, would I have gone back and sought out the earlier ones? And to what extent does this reference those films? The answers are 'no' and 'slavishly', respectively. Or, as you'll see if you read on, I should probably say disrespectfully.

We begin in a carnival, like the start of another slasher threequal, FINAL DESTINATION 3, following the predicable gaggle of teenagers. Soon it's all:

"Have you guys heard of the Fisherman? Every fourth of July he gets out his hat and slicker, he sharpens up his hook and runs wild. But only on teenagers, ones with dirty little secrets."

"So he's like Santa in reverse? He goes after the naughty kids?"

In the slasher tradition of THE BURNING, PROM NIGHT, THE HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW, et al, it's a prank gone wrong that prompts the later killings. Our bland teens want to exploit the Fisherman legend by faking one of their friends receiving death by hook. But it goes wrong and he dies for real, and they make a pact to keep it to themselves.

We jump to next summer and our thinly sketched youths are feeling guilty about their dead buddy, especially lead/final girl Amber. Then everyone starts getting those ominous 'I know' messages, and before you can say 'mind your own business, mate' we get: a succession of kills and near-kills; Fisherman sightings and non-sightings; guilt and defiance. Rinse, repeat.

The cast is populated with unknowns, kids who were at the same auditions as those who made it onto shows like One Tree Hill and The OC, but who had to then watch on jealously as their peers achieved stardom while they instead popped up in things like I'LL ALWAYS KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER.

Clearly, the third entry in this almost-franchise isn't a direct follow up. Parts one and two had the connecting tissue of Jennifer Love Hewitt and were released fewer than 12 months apart. No JLC here, and nearly a decade has passed this time.

But I also can't help wondering: when is a sequel really a remake? Because when you get something like this, where it seems like they just dug out the original script and gave it a rewrite, how can you say it is actually a continuation? Yes, the characters are different and so is the location and some details. But that often happens in remakes, too.  They did add a supernatural element this time – but so what? The fact is, we still have the same basic structure and plot beats.

It's like they took a house, stripped off all the wallpaper and threw out the furniture and then redecorated. Except, they used lazy college kids to do the work and went to the local skip for supplies. And in terms of films that blur the line between sequel and remake, this does the opposite of going from EL MARIACHI to DESPERADO or when they redid THE EVIL DEAD as EVIL DEAD II: lower budget, fewer stars, less imagination and flair and filmmaking confidence.

There is a lot of what used to be called MTV-editing, now sometimes labelled 'Avid farts', an expression credited to online critic Outlaw Vern, Avid being the industry-standard editing software. It's not just cutting often to leave micro-short shot lengths, it's also adding white flashes and 'woosh' sounds to manufacture some excitement. Usually without success.

OK, to be fair, there was one sequence in I'LL ALWAYS KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER that impressed me. Not really the execution, but the concept. One of our teens, the blond not-Ryan Philippe one, is swimming alone at night. The Fisherman turns up, as is standard, and immediately hooks our boy’s ankle while he's trying to splash away. So, it’s like the Fisherman is actually going fishing!

I'd also like to think that the character name 'Amber Williams' is a tribute to the EVIL DEAD series’ Ash Williams, played by Bruce Campbell.

The only thing I can genuinely recommend I'LL ALWAYS KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER for is a drinking game. Do a shot any time someone denies the existence of the killer or you hear the words 'I know'; whenever the edit lets out an Avid fart, down your drink. After about 10 minutes, you won't know who knows what about anything anymore.

One star out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  God, please, please.

What would a movie called I'LL ALWAYS KNOW WHAT YOU DID FIRST SUMMER be about?  I’m sorry, I can’t. I just … I just can’t get my head around it. Sorry.

 

Previously:  THE LAST MOVIE

Next time:  LAST THREE DAYS

 

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com