Last Days Here
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''Last Days Here'' is a 2011 American documentary film featuring
Bobby Liebling Robert Harold "Bobby" Liebling (21 December 1953) is an American musician. He is the founder, lead vocalist, and only continuous member of the pioneering doom metal band Pentagram (band), Pentagram. He has been referred to as "very much the U.S ...
, lead singer of
doom metal Doom metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music that typically uses slower tempos, low-tuned guitars and a much "thicker" or "heavier" sound than other heavy metal genres.K. Kahn-Harris, ''Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge'' ...
band
Pentagram A pentagram (sometimes known as a pentalpha, pentangle, or star pentagon) is a regular five-pointed star polygon, formed from the diagonal line segments of a convex (or simple, or non-self-intersecting) regular pentagon. Drawing a circle around ...
. Directed by
Don Argott Don Argott (born September 14, 1972) is an American documentary film, documentary filmmaker and musician. He has directed several documentary films and has also worked as a producer and cinematographer. He co-owns the production company 9.14 Pi ...
and
Demian Fenton Demian Fenton (born March 6, 1975) is an American filmmaker and musician from the Pocono Mountains region of Pennsylvania, and currently residing in Philadelphia. Fenton edited the films '' Rock School'' (2005), ''Head Space'' (2006) (which he ...
, the film had its world premiere at the
South by Southwest South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...
film festival on , 2011. It is distributed by Sundance Selects.


Synopsis

''Last Days Here'' follows
Bobby Liebling Robert Harold "Bobby" Liebling (21 December 1953) is an American musician. He is the founder, lead vocalist, and only continuous member of the pioneering doom metal band Pentagram (band), Pentagram. He has been referred to as "very much the U.S ...
, lead singer of
Pentagram A pentagram (sometimes known as a pentalpha, pentangle, or star pentagon) is a regular five-pointed star polygon, formed from the diagonal line segments of a convex (or simple, or non-self-intersecting) regular pentagon. Drawing a circle around ...
, an
Alexandria, Virginia Alexandria is an independent city (United States), independent city in Northern Virginia, United States. It lies on the western bank of the Potomac River approximately south of Washington, D.C., D.C. The city's population of 159,467 at the 2020 ...
-based doom metal band founded in 1971 and active sporadically throughout the following four decades. At the film's outset, Liebling is in his 50s, living in his parents' basement, and addicted to drugs. After Pentagram's music is rediscovered by the heavy metal
underground scene Underground music is music with practices perceived as outside, or somehow opposed to, Popular music, mainstream popular music culture. Underground styles lack the commercial success of popular music movements, and may involve the use of avant-g ...
, Liebling begins to recover from his lifestyle. His friend and manager Sean "Pellet" Pelletier attempts to help Liebling overcome his drug addiction and escape his old life. The film ends in 2010 with Pentagram returning to the stage and Liebling sober, married and his new wife expecting their first child.


Production

Co-director Fenton first became familiar with Liebling after listening to Pentagram's 1970s recordings on cassette tape and the 2001 compilation '' First Daze Here'', and enjoying the early Pentagram material. He heard rumors about Liebling, including living in his parents' basement and ingesting illegal drugs. When Fenton and Argott began filming Liebling, they were not sure if a documentary could result. Fenton said, "It really seemed like he was going to smoke himself to death in his parents' basement, something we weren't interested in documenting." When Liebling attempted to recover from his lifestyle, the directors saw potential for a documentary. The directors filmed hundreds of hours of footage over three years with very little budgeting. Fenton said about addressing the swift changes in Liebling's life, "Many times we had to finesse the rapid shifts in Bobby’s life so the viewer wouldn’t be left confused." He said that Liebling had shown multiple sides of himself, which the directors tried to balance for their documentary.


Release

''Last Days Here'' premiered at
South by Southwest South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...
on , 2011. In the following month, Sundance Selects acquired the rights to distribute ''Last Days Here'' in North America. It distributed the documentary in theaters and through its
video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos, television shows and films Digital distribution, digitally on request. These multimedia are accessed without a traditional video playback device and a typica ...
platform. It was released commercially on July 31, 2012 in DVD format.


Reception

Stephen Saito of
Independent Film Channel IFC is an American basic cable channel owned by AMC Networks. Launched in 1994 as the Independent Film Channel, a spin-off of former sister channel Bravo, IFC originally operated as a commercial-free service, devoted to showing independent fi ...
said Liebling's story was typical of most rock star stories and that he would normally not be interesting to mainstream viewers since Pentagram never had a mass audience. However, he said that "Fenton... and Argott spent six years waiting for the story to reveal itself and that patience has been rewarded with a tale that's sad, sometimes frustrating and ultimately triumphant." Saito applauded Fenton and Argott's use of supporting characters to share stories about Liebling. He noted, "''Last Days Here'' isn't weighed down by history, or much of anything for that matter as it uses a traditionally straightforward, slightly shaggy narrative to tell of Liebling's rise and fall."


References


External links

*
914Pictures.com - Official website
{{pentagram (band) 2011 documentary films 2011 films American documentary films Documentary films about heavy metal music and musicians Documentary films about drug addiction 2010s English-language films 2010s American films English-language documentary films