LAST DAYS OF THE WORLD (Japan, 2011)
Directed by: Eiji Uchida
Starring: Jyonmyon Pe, Chieko Imaizumi, Kiyohiko Shibukawa

What does shiftless schoolboy Kanou think about graduation?  “I feel like shit,” he tells the annoying guy from the AV club.  He’s been a dutiful son, but Dad’s a failed salaryman, Mom’s screwing the neighbor, and nothing seems to matter.  With a study-by-numbers future already mapped out for him, it all seems hopeless until a thimble-sized man in a business suit appears on his desk during class, and tells him that the Earth is in its last days.  Kanou’s reaction?  Beat the school bully half to death with a bat, kidnap his girlfriend and hit the road.  If the world’s going to burn, he’s ready to light the match.

Kanou’s eager to sow his wigged-out oats any which way he can, but he’s got issues.  A pair of dim cops are hot on his trail, and he can’t seem to figure out his carnal logistics.  Just when all seems lost, he begins receiving special bulletins from “God” via the radio.  “Use mayonnaise!” God commands, and Kanou lubes up and bears down.  Next up: scat, crossdressing, and sodomy-by-food.

Based on Naoki Yamamoto’s cult manga, Eiji Uchida’s LAST DAYS OF THE WORLD is a teenage nihilist’s pop-psychological mixtape spilled onto celluloid in the dirtiest, dreamiest way possible.  Everyone’s bored with everything, right down to the lethargic detectives playing at murder-suicide until they’re not playing anymore.  The cosplayer commune, the space cases dancing to slideshows of explosions, the lovelorn punk rocker who takes Kanou in her arms; everyone’s adrift and everyone’s lost something important that once kept their whole crazy world together.  LAST DAYS OF THE WORLD is a garage-band riff on Donnie Darko, a ragged head/road trip of heartbreak, full of desperate people cruising along the edges of the apocalypse.  In Uchida’s Japan, we’re all one minute away from permanent midnight.