A riveting portrait of loss and redemption as 53-year-old, one-time 70s rock god (and now crackhead) Bobby Liebling attempts to swap an early death in his parents’ basement for musical resurrection.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2012
Last Days Here 2011
“The hugely engrossing, stranger-than-fiction documentary Last Days Here tracks three roller coaster years in the recent life of 50-something burnout Bobby Liebling, the outrageous frontman of 70s doom metal band Pentagram. Co-directors Don Argott and Demian Fenton have created a deft and weirdly affecting portrait of how a drug-addicted man-child knocking on death's door manages an astonishing resurgence.
When we first meet Liebling, he's living in the sub-basement of his aging, long-suffering parents' suburban Maryland home. Strung out on crack, heroin and who knows what else, scratching his skin raw from imagined parasites and surrounded by frat house squalor, the wraith-like Liebling still dreams of the rock 'n' roll stardom that, thanks to a staggering series of botched opportunities, eluded him and his revolving door of bandmates.
That Pentagram has maintained a strong cult following in the Facebook age is not lost on Liebling's friend and manager, a good egg and Pentagram nut named Sean Pelletier. The über-fan's longtime goal to rally the band — and keep the erratic Liebling sober and focused long enough — for an awesome reunion concert (Liebling OD'd at the last one in 2005), makes for highly eventful, never-say-die drama.
But it's the offbeat love story at the heart of Liebling's resurrection that provides the film's most powerful — and touching — surprise.” – Gary Goldstein, LA Times