More like Gus Van CAN'T!

Seriously, Gus Van Sant sucks.

I won't spend a lot of time on this, but you need to know the facts. The first Van Sant movie I saw was "To Die For," which I thought was pretty good. Nicole Kidman was great, and Matt Dillon and a young Joaquin Phoenix weren't bad, either. Then came the biggie: "Good Will Hunting." It's a tad overrated but still good, especially Robin Williams. ("Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season" would have been better, though.)

Alas, since then, Sh*tsville. I'll grant that "Finding Forrester," schlocky as it is, is tolerable. But the root of this post lies with three movies:

1. "Gerry," which I rented a couple of years ago and, 20 minutes in, played at double-speed because it was just two guys walking around in the desert.

2. "Elephant," which sounds promising -- a seemingly normal day at high school ends in a Columbine-esque massacre -- but started out with more of these damned shots of people just walking around. I mean ... it was really boring. I quit about 30 minutes in, way before the shooting.

3. "Last Days," which I think is about a self-destructive Kurt Cobain-type. (Yes, that's redundant.) I say "I think" because I just started watching it tonight, and after 30 minutes there had been virtually no dialogue, just a raggedy Michael Pitt walking around the woods, then a house.

Hey, I know I don't "get it." I'm sure there's some art here that's beyond my appreciation. So what. Boring is boring, and this is from someone who liked "Cache" until the end (which ruined the whole movie). According to IMDB, the above three movies form Van Sant's "Death Trilogy." What it doesn't tell you is that it's death by mind-numbing boredom.