Have you seen the film, The Last Time I Committed Suicide? It's based on a letter from Neal Cassady to Jack Kerouac and stars Thomas Jane, Claire Forlani, Gretchen Mol, and Keanu Reeves. I have it somewhere around the house, a VHS version, borrowed from my great friend Keith, and we don't own a VHS player.
I just read this 1997 review at CNN Interactive and it makes me want to watch it, despite some harsh criticism.
Anybody out there seen it? What did you think?
Funny you should ask, I just watched it for the first time a couple of days ago.
ReplyDeleteHere's what I wrote in my movie journal: "Better than I expected, but with no tangible substance. As if they were content to represent a character or, even, an attitude, without actually understanding (or even trying to understand) the real heart of it all."
The actors are pretty good, and the story is surprisingly faithful to the contents of Neal Cassady's "Joan Anderson" letter (see: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/5083/letter3.html). But, I don't know, I feel like something is missing from that movie.
Probably worth seeing, at least for those who have a pre-existing interest in Cassady and the whole "Beat" mythos.
Salutations,
Simon
Cool! I didn't make the connection that it was the "Joan Anderson letter" (that I wrote about in a previous post: http://thedailybeatblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/several-notable-kerouac-resources.html).
ReplyDeleteThanks for the review!