I didn’t really plan to stay up till 2am watching this movie. It’s sort of a long story but, believe it or not, it’s actually work-related: I can be pretty sure that nobody wants to use the system I’m working on at midnight Saturday night, and while I need to keep an eye on the database operation I kicked off, I don’t have to watch it every second.
Anyway, The Last Man On Earth is not a great movie, but it’s worth seeing. The plot leaves a lot to be desired, as does most of the acting, but much of the imagery is fantastic. The opening sequence, an empty 20th century urban city-scape in black and white, is strikingly beautiful in a desolate sort of way. The phrase “pop Antonioni” occurred to me.
I’m interested now in reading the Richard Matheson novel, I Am Legend, from which the movie was adapted—so badly adapted, apparently, that Matheson didn’t want his name on it.
The story, by the way, is based on the idea of one man still normal in a world where everyone else has become a vampire; the normal man is a legend, as vampires are to us: he stalks the world in broad daylight when normal people are asleep, possessed of mysterious powers, killing them as they sleep…
Light On Dark Water 
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