The Last Winter is not a funny movie, but for the 2026 viewer there is a pretty amusing bit at the beginning. A young man played by Zach Gilford arrives to work on an oil drilling outpost in remote Alaska, where the second-in-command is played by — Connie Britton! Mrs. Coach and Matt Saracen, together again! Although technically together for the first time, as writer-director Larry Fessenden filmed The Last Winter in 2006, just before Britton and Gilford’s star-making turns in the TV adaptation of Friday Night Lights. Not that many people saw The Last Winter, which grossed a grand total of $97,522 at the box office. That’s not even a moral victory of the kind the FNL crew would be satisfied with — that’s a straight-up loss.
But before hitting the gridirons of Texas, Gilford and Britton are out in the wastelands of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge with a small crew of scientists and drillers led by a bluff, belligerent Ron Perlman. They’re investigating a well that was tapped 20 years ago and quickly capped for reasons unknown, but political maneuvering and a desire for “energy independence” has placed drilling in this area back on the table. Perlman is gung-ho but has to deal with the eggheads here to monitor climate conditions, particularly the investigative environmental journalist James Le Gros, and Le Gros is the bearer of the ironic news that the necessary ice road to the drill site can’t be constructed because of warming temperatures. The ground is heating up and the ice is melting and toxic, hallucinatory “sour gas” may be leaking out of the earth and into the humans walking the surface. And there may be something else as well.
First Gilford, and then others, see and hear strange things out in the tundra, and writer Fessenden and cinematographer G. Magni Ágústsson (filming in Alaska and Iceland) make this landscape of white wind-whipped permafrost and black, cawing birds a place of the supernatural. Which is not the same as unnatural. And Fessenden makes the conglomeration of trailers housing the drillers not unnatural as well — it is a habitation for people after all, and people are part of nature too.
In a perceptive review for Reverse Shot Andrew Tracy compares Fessenden to Kiyoshi Kurosawa, and while the former does not have the latter’s technique (who does?) he is working in a similar register. Long takes (often using a fixed frame) make static objects, particularly that capped well, uncanny; seemingly innocuous scenes are full of potential malice. A friendly football game turns bloody by what is clearly an accident but the violence still seems inevitable. And this feeds the very Kurosawan horror that drives the film, the blurring of boundaries that we think are solid. The expanse of the outside world becomes a walk down seemingly endless corridors in that cozy and tiny trailer complex; Gilford strides naked into the frozen night. Time itself freezes and moves in skips and the movie itself distends in unexpected places — a bush plane’s attempt to bring assistance in the film’s back half will obviously not end well, but Fessenden elides no part of the catastrophe, wrecking a surprising amount of set in a low-budget film and letting his characters burn onscreen with no relief.
“Energy independence!” is Perlman’s rallying cry and he is perfectly cast as a dude who believes in his toughness, his capability, his independence over all. The irony is that he is directing this attitude in service of a giant oil corporation, but Fessenden is interested in more than irony here. How can you be independent from your environment? How can you extract without consequence? These are arguments Le Gros makes over and over, trying to slow or even halt the drilling plans, but Fessenden quietly makes it clear that for all of his righteous anger Le Gros is not separate from this either. He is not independent from the drilling outfit he willingly joined to expose, he cannot extract his data without providing cover for their work. He is part of this, was part of it from the start, and he can’t walk away now.
When Gilford walks outside in his birthday suit, he also carries a video camera to capture the things he has heard and seen since arriving at the camp, the things that maybe only a new person could fully clock. And before his body is found miles away, camera clutched in icy hands and eyes pecked out of his head, he does get blurry footage of something enormous, something that can pick up a man and carry him to who knows where. Fessenden’s previous film revolved around the idea of the Wendigo and that myth — in particular, the version described in the immortal Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark — was apparently still on his mind. Because as Perlman and Le Gros strike out across the tundra to find help, something is still hanging around camp, yanking people out of their shoes and driving them mad, Britton is the only person who can hold out for sanity and rescue. And something finds these two men, apparent opposites yet the same in misguided and blinkered persistence, and lays them out on the ice within sight of a small town’s salvation.
Fessenden can only hold off so long, the “something” here, the Wendigo, is apparently a giant ghost moose or caribou, rendered in CGI that is not terrible but is not something that makes the viewer believe in spooks. It prepares to attack Perlman and Le Gros fires a flare gun to draw attention from that town; instead directly at the beast. Which grabs Le Gros instead, gathering speed, and if Fessenden did not have the effects budget for a realistic monster he has the sensibility for an aching horror. He blurs the image of Le Gros being dragged to his doom to footage of a child happily stomping through snow, a memory of unencumbered winter that is not just lost with its recaller but gone with the wind, the warming blast of sulfuric gas flowing over the Arctic. The movie ends with Britton waking up in a hospital and finding that the only doctor in the facility has hanged himself; she steps outside to the sound of sirens and an eerie breeze and while the camera doesn’t show us what she’s looking at, we can see the melted puddles at her feet.
The icy doom and paranoia of The Last Winter recalls The Thing, but that movie’s despair comes from an exterior intrusion. Clearcut feels like an inspiration in its brutal regard for environmental intrusion, both exploitative and well-meaning, but that film has Graham Greene’s incredible performance at its core, a face on the spirit. The Last Winter has characters we care about but it has no heroes and no real villains, because everyone here was fucked from the start and that is what the movie is about, the final blurring of action and intent into doom set in motion long ago.
Maybe you could make a satirical joke about that, about the futility of stopping what we have set in motion, and maybe you could bemoan the lack of action and the inability of art to change the path we’re on. Or maybe you could point out that The Last Winter came out 20 years ago and we’ve had plenty of winters since. The end is never when the doomsayers say it is, after all.
In 2006, Zach Gilford and Connie Britton were still a year away from the show that would define them. In 2006, not many people knew what a streaming service was, that an unending supply of TV (the new season of The Fall And Rise Of Reggie Dinkins airs Nov. 2!) and movies could be extracted for your viewing pleasure at the time and place of your choosing. Entertainment independence! I watched The Last Winter on TUBI, a streamer with an algorithm that popped the movie into my view and aired ads every 10-15 minutes or so as I watched. These were evenly split between advertising AI apps that suck up insane amounts of energy, promoting gambling “prediction markets” that suck up insane amounts of energy, and selling gas-powered off-roading SUVs that, well, you know. We all know, don’t we?
“Unlike his dissembling contemporaries, his films are defiantly about what they are about,” Tracy writes of Fessenden. And what The Last Winter is about isn’t tied to a particular time, but a particular way of existing and the end of that existence. If doomsday hasn’t come, it’s not because of anything we’ve done as we pursue independence from thought and labor and our very surroundings. Art won’t change that but a movie like The Last Winter can create a world and a mood that breaks through the distractions of our toys to show us something without sugarcoating or dissembling. Clear eyes, full hearts, we lose.
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What did we watch?
M*A*S*H, Season Five, Episode One, “Bug Out, Part 1”
“The War’s louder today.”
“I asked them to keep it down.”
“We don’t want the enlisted men to know we’re retreating.”
“Why? Aren’t they invited?”
Great, classic gag where Potter tears into the unit for spreading rumours about bugging out, ending with him announcing they’re bugging out.
“Never doubt your x-rays or your hairdresser.”
“Blood pressure’s ninety over sixty.”
“When it gets to a hundred, sell.”
This is the episode where they, you know, bug out. I chose to watch this divided up, just as in syndication, because I had other stuff I wanted to do and so I decided to try treating it as is. Double episodes in pre-LOST television tend to sprawl, but your average episode of this show is so packed that I think it genuinely makes it work; there’s a single emotional core of a patient that Hawkeye stays behind to look after as they’re bombed. And, of course, this show loves following procedure and pulling character out of it; Hawkeye and BJ’s still, Klinger’s dresses, Radar’s animals, etc etc.
“Don’t forget, my wife is looking forward to meeting you.”
That’s a hell of a sentimental line.
High on my list of favorite MASHes.
Seinfeld, S9 – the last two normal-length episodes before the show wraps up with what I hear are episodes beloved by everyone. “The Maid” was pretty funny, Jerry’s dating situation gets into dubious territory even for him and George trying to get a nickname to stick is inevitably a disaster. “The Puerto Rican Day” was ranked dead last on the Vulture list of every episode that I checked out a few times over the course of the run but I thought it was pretty fun, I think the guy who wrote that article was playing it a little safe with any episode that attracted controversy. It’s definitely one of the weaker “everyone goes somewhere else other than the apartment” episodes but the three guys using their rich-guy characters to exploit an apartment for sale was pretty great.
It’s always good to see Art Vandelay, but J. P. Pennypacker as well? A delight! That list is moronic.
EDIT: Oh wait, you said episodeS? I assume this means the clip show that aired before the finale, do not watch that! For one thing it’s a clip show, not much going on there, and it has the temerity to end with the goddamn cast hugging, disgraceful. But while the finale’s issues have been and will be debated about until the end of time, I think a hugely underappreciated factor in the initial bad reaction is that the finale also functions as a clip show of sorts, so it’s airing shit that the viewer just saw! Of course people are going to be annoyed at that. So skip the clips.
I have to admire the insane task of ranking a whole nine-season sitcom even if the results are dubious.
> That list is moronic.
I’m reminded that Vulture (IIRC) ran lists of the best SNL characters and best Mr. Show sketches that were (IIRC) written by the same guy, and they were awful.
36 Hours – In the last days before D-Day, Nazis capture US intelligence officer James Garner and try to make him think that it’s 1950, the US won the war, and he is recovering from amnesia. All to trick him into revealing where the invasion will land. But he sees through it, and the Nazis don’t believe him anyway, having a serious problem with confirmation bias. The premise is interesting but there isn’t enough here for two hours, and by the end it turns into a more standard “escape from the Nazis” film with Garner and Eva Marie Saint (RIP) on the run. Garner is okay but not well suited to unironic heroes. Rod Taylor is very good as the German doctor who leads the psyop and has remorse (a case of “the Good German” despite history telling us how rare that was). And Saint is excellent as a survivor of Ravensbruck coerced into helping the bad guys. She is a broken woman, but also defiant, and it rings true. Also, the script does not shy away from saying out loud that women were raped in the camps, something that historians were unable to grapple with until recently.
The fifth season of Elementary ends with a driven Joan making sure the previously untouchable drug lord who ordered Shinwell’s murder is brought down, going so far as to convince another gang to help, and relishing the idea of a drug lord facing trouble in a prison. At least she stops short of letting the other gang get revenge. Meanwhile, Holmes is revealed to be having hallucinations of his late mother along with memory lapses and exhaustion, The season ends with him getting a brain scan., Overall, the fifth season was very up and down, and the Shinwell arc was scattered, but there were some great moments.
The sixth season starts with Sherlock’s diagnosis: post-concussion syndrome. And he is horrified both that he will lose his ability to do his job and that without his job to ground him, he will fall back into addiction. Jonny Lee Miller’s performance is always good for here it’s amazing. So the season will be about his struggles with his own brain. But wait, there’s more. He meets someone at a meeting who attributes his own sobriety to something Sherlock said years ago, and the man offers to be a friend to Sherlock. Which is all well and good expect for how the man is a serial killer! Desmond Harrington, no stranger to serial killers as a longtime cast member on Dexter, joins the cast as our new killer. The mysteries in these two are quite good, the first thankfully straightforward, the latter very clever wihout being too twisty (and involving a Die Hard-style heist hidden by a fake terrorist attack).
Barnet Miller, “Power Failure” – A local blackout first leaves the 12th in the dark, if temporarily (as they have a generator). An assault suspect has MPD. And his pretty therapist has instant chemistry with Barney, who reluctantly but firmly says no. As good as Hal Linden is, he tends to preside over things more than anything else, so him getting to play off an admirer lets him spread his wings a bit. And I wonder if this is where the writes decided to end the now-unseen marriage and create more opportunities for Linden to act.
Yeah, sounds like a good 90 minute movie, not a two hour one. RIP to Saint who by all accounts was a lovely person.
The 90 minute cut is called “27 Hours”
And the 360-degree cut is called “127 hours.”
And the version with Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte…
House on Haunted Hill – Way more fun than my first watch though I am slightly jealous of the Letterboxd viewers who got to see it in a theatrical experience much like what William Castle would have given you in the Fifties. Elisha Cook is in full pathetic proto-Dick Miller mode and Vincent Price is of course having a wonderful time as the eccentric, evil-ish millionaire in the big haunted house.
Always Sunny – Really funny season finale and there’s genuine sweetness in Charlie teaching Dennis how to have a good time at a sleepover. “Probably should have learned this 20, 30 years ago?” “Stop trying to put semen on your daughter’s food!” “There’s peyote in my tea?!” “Was that not implied?”
House on Haunted Hill whips ass, Price is the man and it’s so much fun to see bad behavior rewarded (at the expense of other bad behavior). The skeleton is as great as advertised!
The skeleton as HIMSELF! Loved that part of the credits.
Dead Ringer – Doppelganger, psycho-biddy (or Bette) thriller. A worthy follow-up to Baby Jane with Bette Davis playing unsavory twins. Edith is bitter at Maggie for stealing and marrying the rich man who actually loved Edith. After the guy dies Edith murders her wealthy sister and assumes her identity to get away from her seedy lifestyle and debt. The first half-hour is great with Davis giving each sister distinct personalities. Some good twists and revealed secrets give suspense. It needed some tighter editing. A so-so, suspenseful scene with Edith making the murder of Maggie look like Edith’s suicide could have been tightend to make it great. It made me think of the scene with Norman cleaning up after the shower scene in Psycho but nowhere as good. Karl Malden plays a police sergeant in love with Edith. He’s a little gullible and naive to catch what is going on. But Peter Lawford as Maggie’s lover catches on quickly to the deceit and starts blackmailing Edith. More twists come in the last twenty-minutes making things crazy. The ending is ambiguous with Edith either completely nuts or sane and saving Malden from any further hurt. This was the second time Davis played twins and was big news at the time for it being her return to Warner Bros.
The Mystery Of The Wax Museum – Beautiful and strange pre-Code horror from director Michael Curtiz. The early two-strip Technicolor gives this a waxy look enhancing the mood and making things creepier. Has early scream queen Fay Wray in a minor but pivotal role. But it’s Glenda Farrell as the punchy, wisecracking newspaper reporter on the trail of a hot story that steals the picture. She’s a hoot delivering her dialog fast like a screwball comedy. Definitely pre-Code with a junky fiending after his victims to get more junk and Wray in some short shorts you wouldn’t see an actress wearing again for a long time. Short with a quick pace and a feast for the eyes especially the expressionist, mad scientist laboratory and ending.
Hell yeah Mystery of the Wax Museum! I wrote that one up a while ago on the old site.
https://www.the-solute.com/year-of-the-month-tom-vomas-morton-on-mystery-of-the-wax-museum/
Should watch this as a Fessenden fan (as you know given our mutual love of Habit).
You definitely should! It’s very interesting to compare to Habit, both look incredible but Habit has urban gothic interiors in black and white and Last Winter is vast expanses in color that is mostly white, and how the people move in these environments (lots of verticality in Habit, almost entirely horizontal in Winter) is different. But the biggest difference is Habit’s focus on the individual and what an individual can and cannot do, Winter sketches its characters well but is taking a view that is broader in scope but with less agency for the people it covers.
Year of the Month updates:
Here’s all the movies, albums, books from 1998 you can sign up for this month.
Oct. 18th: Tristan J. Nankervis: Who Moved My Cheese?
Oct. 30th: Gillian Nelson: Halloweentown
And coming in November, get ready to write about anything from 1968! Here’s some lists of movies, albums, books, and TV to get you started.
Nov. 8th: Tristan Nankervis: Night of the Living Dead
Nov. 22nd: Tristan Nankervis: Slouching Towards Bethlehem