Search - Late Last Night on DVD

Bizarre yet alluring...

07/17/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I didn't expect to watch the entire film - but I identified with the characters. It is very much a male-bonding sort of thing - but that's not always a bad thing. If you're a male in your late 20s or early-mid 30s, you'll find yourself enthralled with some of the decisions these guys make throughout the film.The writing and acting is solid. It takes some peculiar twists and turns because it doesn't have a plot. Like the typical male-bonding film, LLL meanders through different parties, different friends, different drugs, all during the course of one evening. But you never know where it'll take you next. Those who live in LA will identify with the film even more than the average joe, since it goes in and out of locales we angelinos frequent day in/day out. Check it out - it's worth 90 minutes of your time, especially if you live in LA."

Hey, this was pretty good

Jeff Derrickson | 07/06/2000

(3 out of 5 stars)

"For a straight to video comedy with a box that spoofs Swingers,this movie was pretty funny... this movie had me laughing all the waythrough... even though the plot was thin, and the outcome pretty obvious... The movie had a lot of good drinking and party scenes, and it's heavy on drugs humor--so if that's not your thing, maybe you should pass it up. Fortunately for me, I like that kind of stuff. Nothing new, but not unbearable."

Still another entry in "my strange, last night adventure" ge

Carlos | El Centro | 12/30/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This is a movie you want to hate, but it exercises its own fascination.

This film despite its 1998 vintage feels very much in the 80's spirit. It could almost be called a "The Grown-up Ferris Bueller's Night Off."

Every actor and director has to have one of these "you-wouldn't-believe- what-happened-to-me-last-night" Kafka-esque genre. They tend by their very nature to be surreal and have their exasperating appeal because of their very surreal, dark-side aspects. The sky is the limit as to how the writer imagines life "must continue" while the rest of the city sleeps. This genre cross-pollinates with other genres from horror to black humor to noir, etc.

"After Hours," "Into the Night," "The Blob," "DOA," "Miracle Mile" and a few I forget at the moment come to mind. Even an Oswald the Rabbit cartoon is legendary about Oswald's adventure as a street gas-lamp lighter who finally escapes his predicament as the sun rises.

Initially, the main character starts by minding his own business and wants to deal with a personal problem by staying up at night, but an incident or character that emerges from the night ends up taking him into an odyssey of discovery and into situations that the character would ordinarily never enter in broad daylight and meets with some unsavory stereotypes he would never cross. At some point all the main character wants is a return to the normalcy of daytime, but his voyage has just begun. Just as the main character believes he has turned a corner, his predicament escalates. And this crisis makes him able to cope the daytime problems he yearned to escape.

If done poorly, these movies will be hated, yet will still appeal to a certain demographic. They tend to lack the unities and nothing seems "to happen." It's the situations concocted by the screenwriter and the _character's reactions_ to the situations that provide the entertainment. They are seldom linear and can be exasperating. Think of them as "hip" Laurel and Hardy movies, sans obvious slapstick (although one of these scenes is obligatory). They are movies you love to hate but can't seem to stop watching. And later ask yourself, "how could I sit through it?"

There: "Night-time film" genre 101..."