When some of the first words you hear in a film are David Cronenberg telling you that he’s calling for the gas company, which will do its best to keep the gas flowing until the very end, that this isn’t a traditional end-of-the-world film. In fact, it’s a film that doesn’t really get into the nitty-gritty of how the world ends, and isn’t going to have Bruce Willis show up to protect us all at the very last moment.

Instead, “Last Night”, written, directed by and starring Don McKellar - who later won an Oscar for the screeplay for “The Red Violin” - the film has other familiar faces in Sandra Oh (“Sideways”, “Under the Tuscan Sun”, “The Princess Diaries”, “Grey’s Anatomy”), Callum Keith Rennie (“Memento”, “Battlestar Galactica”, “Blade - Trinity”) and Genevieve Bujold (“King Of Hearts”, “Dead Ringers”, “Coma”).

Rather then be overly concerned about the mechanics of the apocalypse - it’s only late in the film that we learn something’s gone wrong with the sun - or how to prevent it, we’re spending time with people who’ve known for months that the world’s about to end and we’re seeing how they deal in their final hours.

Imagine that it’s your last night… you are extremely confident that the world will be destroyed within 12 hours… and the rest of the world shares in this confidence. How will you spend your last night? Get drunk? Pray? Have lots of sex? Be violent? Take care of other people? Drugs? Be with your family? Your friends? Or spend your last few hours alone?

That’s what “Last Night” is about… and it’s one of my favorite apocalypse films.

“Last Night” is available at Amazon.com

[tags]david cronenberg, last night, apocalypse, canada, canadian, don mckellar, sandra oh, callum keith rennie, genevieve bujold, end of the world, film, movie, dvd, sun[/tags]

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