Gregg Araki is set to direct Olivia Wilde in his next feature, Black Bear’s provocative thriller “I Want Your Sex.”
The film features an original script penned by Araki and Karley Sciortino which blithely explores desire, domination and fantasy.
When fresh-faced Elliot lands an exciting job for renowned artist, icon and provocateur Erika Tracy (Wilde), his fantasies come true as Erika taps him to become her sexual muse. But Elliot soon finds himself out of his depth as Erika takes him on a journey more profound than he ever could have imagined, into a world of sex, obsession, power, betrayal and murder.
Arlie Day (“To Leslie”) and Mike Page (“The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry”) are casting the picture. The film will be produced by Seth Caplan, a past winner of the John Cassavetes Award at the Film Independent Spirit Awards, alongside Black Bear’s Teddy Schwarzman and Michael Heimler.
The film features an original script penned by Araki and Karley Sciortino which blithely explores desire, domination and fantasy.
When fresh-faced Elliot lands an exciting job for renowned artist, icon and provocateur Erika Tracy (Wilde), his fantasies come true as Erika taps him to become her sexual muse. But Elliot soon finds himself out of his depth as Erika takes him on a journey more profound than he ever could have imagined, into a world of sex, obsession, power, betrayal and murder.
Arlie Day (“To Leslie”) and Mike Page (“The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry”) are casting the picture. The film will be produced by Seth Caplan, a past winner of the John Cassavetes Award at the Film Independent Spirit Awards, alongside Black Bear’s Teddy Schwarzman and Michael Heimler.
- 5/9/2024
- by Katcy Stephan
- Variety Film + TV
Gregg Araki has no time for the “weariness” of film journalists.
The “Doom Generation” director, while in conversation with Richard Linklater for Interview magazine, criticized the trend of asking acclaimed filmmakers their thoughts on “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer.” Araki referred to a “clickbait” story where Linklater told a reporter that he saw “Barbie” multiple times and thought “Barbenheimer” was “the best thing that happened to cinema in a while.”
“I read a clickbait on you. It’s like, ‘Rick Linklater loved “Barbie.” He saw it three times,'” Araki said. “I was like, ‘Really, this is your story? You’re talking to fucking Rick Linklater and you want to talk about “Barbie”?'”
Linklater clarified his comments, saying, “Yeah, they get you on the red carpet, and it’s that last question in an interview where you’re just in a mood and you tell them the truth, but it’s...
The “Doom Generation” director, while in conversation with Richard Linklater for Interview magazine, criticized the trend of asking acclaimed filmmakers their thoughts on “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer.” Araki referred to a “clickbait” story where Linklater told a reporter that he saw “Barbie” multiple times and thought “Barbenheimer” was “the best thing that happened to cinema in a while.”
“I read a clickbait on you. It’s like, ‘Rick Linklater loved “Barbie.” He saw it three times,'” Araki said. “I was like, ‘Really, this is your story? You’re talking to fucking Rick Linklater and you want to talk about “Barbie”?'”
Linklater clarified his comments, saying, “Yeah, they get you on the red carpet, and it’s that last question in an interview where you’re just in a mood and you tell them the truth, but it’s...
- 10/10/2023
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
In the late 1980s, Gregg Araki began making movies. He made films on a shoestring budget with a do-it-yourself mindset–not due to any kind of loyalty to the auteur theory, but the constraints of what he had at his disposal. In 1992, he made The Living End, a tale of two HIV-positive gay men, a loner and a film critic, who set off on a bloody, ferocious adventure. The film was dedicated to “the hundreds of thousands who’ve died and the hundreds of thousands more who will die because of a big white house full of republican fuckheads.” From there, […]
The post “It’s Disturbing to Me How Relevant They Are”: Gregg Araki on New Restorations and His Teen Apocalypse Trilogy first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “It’s Disturbing to Me How Relevant They Are”: Gregg Araki on New Restorations and His Teen Apocalypse Trilogy first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 9/13/2023
- by Conor Williams
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
In the late 1980s, Gregg Araki began making movies. He made films on a shoestring budget with a do-it-yourself mindset–not due to any kind of loyalty to the auteur theory, but the constraints of what he had at his disposal. In 1992, he made The Living End, a tale of two HIV-positive gay men, a loner and a film critic, who set off on a bloody, ferocious adventure. The film was dedicated to “the hundreds of thousands who’ve died and the hundreds of thousands more who will die because of a big white house full of republican fuckheads.” From there, […]
The post “It’s Disturbing to Me How Relevant They Are”: Gregg Araki on New Restorations and His Teen Apocalypse Trilogy first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “It’s Disturbing to Me How Relevant They Are”: Gregg Araki on New Restorations and His Teen Apocalypse Trilogy first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 9/13/2023
- by Conor Williams
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
The Jesus & Mary Chain have announced a new live album titled Sunset 666, out August 4th via Fuzz Club. Recorded in 2018 while the band was opening for Nine Inch Nails in Los Angeles, it includes a version of “Sometimes Always” with former Belle & Sebastian singer Isobel Campbell. Hear that below.
Sunset 666 was recorded during a run of six shows at the Hollywood Palladium and spans the Scottish alt-rockers’ discography from 1985’s Psychocandy through their 2017 comeback album, Damage and Joy. The first 12 tracks capture The Jesus and Mary Chain’s full set from the final date on December 15th, 2018, while the latter five were recorded at the show that took place four days prior.
Besides “Sometimes Always,” Campbell guests on “Black and Blues” as a fill-in for Sky Ferreira. The album will be available in digital, CD, and multiple vinyl formats. Pre-orders are ongoing. Check out the artwork and tracklist below the jump.
Sunset 666 was recorded during a run of six shows at the Hollywood Palladium and spans the Scottish alt-rockers’ discography from 1985’s Psychocandy through their 2017 comeback album, Damage and Joy. The first 12 tracks capture The Jesus and Mary Chain’s full set from the final date on December 15th, 2018, while the latter five were recorded at the show that took place four days prior.
Besides “Sometimes Always,” Campbell guests on “Black and Blues” as a fill-in for Sky Ferreira. The album will be available in digital, CD, and multiple vinyl formats. Pre-orders are ongoing. Check out the artwork and tracklist below the jump.
- 6/27/2023
- by Eddie Fu
- Consequence - Music
In the article series Sound and Vision we take a look at music videos from notable directors.This week we look at The Micronauts' The Jag, directed by Gregg Araki. Gregg Araki never really played by the rules, not even in the boundaries of New Queer Cinema, a movement that itself was built upon the destruction of rules and boundaries. The Living End was a seminal film in New Queer Cinema, tackling the AIDS crisis in a deliriously blunt, raw and cathartic way. This was a film made out of anger, rightfully so, addressing the people who left the queer community to die. The Teen Apocalypse Trilogy that followed was equally angry, born out of existential dread and discomfort with societal pressure. But there is a...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 6/19/2023
- Screen Anarchy
When you think about scrappy, micro-budget, guerrilla filmmaking of the ’90s, you think of Gregg Araki films. Shot on shoestring budgets with little more than his own two hands, Araki’s films were marked by a certain kind of radical punk rock aesthetic that mirrored the grunge era in music.
Described as a gay “Thelma and Louise,” he began the decade with “The Living End” (1992), a sexy road trip comedy about two young guys living with HIV. After making a splash at Sundance with that film, (and with the help of visionary longtime producer Marcus Hu), he churned out a trio of erotically charged teenage dirtbag films, dubbed his Teenage Apocalypse trilogy: “Totally Fucked Up” (1993), “The Doom Generation” (1995), and “Nowhere” (1997).
At the forefront of the New Queer Cinema, an enduring queerness ignites all of Araki’s films, though he certainly had fun toying with expectations. If every rebellious teenager wanted...
Described as a gay “Thelma and Louise,” he began the decade with “The Living End” (1992), a sexy road trip comedy about two young guys living with HIV. After making a splash at Sundance with that film, (and with the help of visionary longtime producer Marcus Hu), he churned out a trio of erotically charged teenage dirtbag films, dubbed his Teenage Apocalypse trilogy: “Totally Fucked Up” (1993), “The Doom Generation” (1995), and “Nowhere” (1997).
At the forefront of the New Queer Cinema, an enduring queerness ignites all of Araki’s films, though he certainly had fun toying with expectations. If every rebellious teenager wanted...
- 8/17/2022
- by Jude Dry
- Indiewire
With fears our winter travel will need a, let’s say, reconsideration, the Criterion Channel’s monthly programming could hardly come at a better moment. High on list of highlights is Louis Feuillade’s delightful Les Vampires, which I suggest soundtracking to Coil, instrumental Nine Inch Nails, and Jóhann Jóhannson’s Mandy score. Notable too is a Sundance ’92 retrospective running the gamut from Paul Schrader to Derek Jarman to Jean-Pierre Gorin, and I’m especially excited for their look at one of America’s greatest actors, Sterling Hayden.
Special notice to Criterion editions of The Killing, The Last Days of Disco, All About Eve, and The Asphalt Jungle, and programming of Ognjen Glavonić’s The Load, among the better debuts in recent years.
See the full list of January titles below and more on the Criterion Channel.
-Ship: A Visual Poem, Terrance Day, 2020
5 Fingers, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1952
After Migration: Calabria,...
Special notice to Criterion editions of The Killing, The Last Days of Disco, All About Eve, and The Asphalt Jungle, and programming of Ognjen Glavonić’s The Load, among the better debuts in recent years.
See the full list of January titles below and more on the Criterion Channel.
-Ship: A Visual Poem, Terrance Day, 2020
5 Fingers, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1952
After Migration: Calabria,...
- 12/20/2021
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Wim Wenders’ adaptation of Peter Handke’s The Goalie's Anxiety At The Penalty Kick in the New Directors/New Films at 50: A Retrospective Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art’s 50th New Directors/New Films to include a retrospective with free virtual screenings of Chantal Akerman’s Les Rendez-vous d’Anna; Sara Driver’s Sleepwalk; Christopher Nolan’s Following; Eduardo Coutinho’s Twenty Years Later; Horace Ové’s Playing Away; Charles Burnett’s My Brother’s Wedding; Gregg Araki’s The Living End; Humberto Solás’s Lucía; Mani Kaul’s Duvidha; Lee Chang-dong’s Peppermint Candy, and Wim Wenders’ adaptation of Peter Handke’s The Goalie's Anxiety At The Penalty Kick.
Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art’s 50th New Directors/New Films
Amalia Ulman’s El Planeta (Spain) will open the festival and Theo Anthony’s All Light,...
Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art’s 50th New Directors/New Films to include a retrospective with free virtual screenings of Chantal Akerman’s Les Rendez-vous d’Anna; Sara Driver’s Sleepwalk; Christopher Nolan’s Following; Eduardo Coutinho’s Twenty Years Later; Horace Ové’s Playing Away; Charles Burnett’s My Brother’s Wedding; Gregg Araki’s The Living End; Humberto Solás’s Lucía; Mani Kaul’s Duvidha; Lee Chang-dong’s Peppermint Candy, and Wim Wenders’ adaptation of Peter Handke’s The Goalie's Anxiety At The Penalty Kick.
Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art’s 50th New Directors/New Films
Amalia Ulman’s El Planeta (Spain) will open the festival and Theo Anthony’s All Light,...
- 4/2/2021
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The Museum of Modern Art and Film at Lincoln Center have today announced the 50th anniversary edition of New Directors/New Films (Nd/Nf), this year available in both virtual and in-theater settings, marking it as the first New York City festival to return to live screenings since the pandemic began. This year’s festival will introduce 27 features and 11 shorts to audiences nationwide in the MoMA and Flc virtual cinemas, and to New Yorkers at Film at Lincoln Center. The festival will open with Amalia Ulman’s “El Planeta” and close with Theo Anthony’s “All Light, Everywhere,” both of which premiered at Sundance in January.
This year’s edition will mark the second time the festival has offered a virtual arm: the festival’s original March 2020 dates were postponed when pandemic shutdowns took hold, with the series eventually opting to go virtual for its 49th edition, rolling out last December.
This year’s edition will mark the second time the festival has offered a virtual arm: the festival’s original March 2020 dates were postponed when pandemic shutdowns took hold, with the series eventually opting to go virtual for its 49th edition, rolling out last December.
- 4/1/2021
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
The Museum of Modern Art and Film at Lincoln Center have announced the 50th anniversary edition of New Directors/ New Films.
The annual program will be held virtually on April 28 through May 8, with in-person screening extending through May 14 at Film at Lincoln Center.
This year’s festival is introducing 27 features and 11 short films. Unique to the 2021 edition, there will be a free virtual retrospective to celebrate the past 50 years of New Directors/ New Films running from April 16 through April 28.
“From intimate, personal tales to political, metaphysical, and spiritual inquiries, the films in the 50th edition of New Directors/New Films embody an inexhaustible curiosity and a fearless desire for adventure,” said La Frances Hui, curator of Film at The Museum of Modern Art and 2021 New Directors/New Films co-chair. “They prove that cinema will continue to illuminate and inspire the way we live, and make art.”
Writer and director Amalia Ulman...
The annual program will be held virtually on April 28 through May 8, with in-person screening extending through May 14 at Film at Lincoln Center.
This year’s festival is introducing 27 features and 11 short films. Unique to the 2021 edition, there will be a free virtual retrospective to celebrate the past 50 years of New Directors/ New Films running from April 16 through April 28.
“From intimate, personal tales to political, metaphysical, and spiritual inquiries, the films in the 50th edition of New Directors/New Films embody an inexhaustible curiosity and a fearless desire for adventure,” said La Frances Hui, curator of Film at The Museum of Modern Art and 2021 New Directors/New Films co-chair. “They prove that cinema will continue to illuminate and inspire the way we live, and make art.”
Writer and director Amalia Ulman...
- 4/1/2021
- by Rebecca Rubin
- Variety Film + TV
The question of how to convey characters speaking a language other than English in a fully English-language production is one that many a director of an exotically-set Hollywood production or lumpy Europudding has faced over the years. For those who simply cannot resort to subtitles, the artifice of heavily accented English dialogue is a stilted standby. “Potato Dreams of America” finds an unusual way around the problem, though it takes some time for its cleverness to emerge.
Wes Hurley’s autobiographical comedy of a gay Russian teen and his plucky single mother seeking a new life in 1980s America begins in unexpected fashion: A title card tells us we’re in Gorbachev-era Vladivostok, yet the unhappy family tableau we’re plunged into is performed in broad, brash American speech. “Our lives are like Russian movies, nothing good ever happens,” observes young Vasili (Hersh Powers). That is as may be; to us,...
Wes Hurley’s autobiographical comedy of a gay Russian teen and his plucky single mother seeking a new life in 1980s America begins in unexpected fashion: A title card tells us we’re in Gorbachev-era Vladivostok, yet the unhappy family tableau we’re plunged into is performed in broad, brash American speech. “Our lives are like Russian movies, nothing good ever happens,” observes young Vasili (Hersh Powers). That is as may be; to us,...
- 3/17/2021
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
“Minyan,” an acclaimed tale of sexual and spiritual identity directed by Eric Steel, has sold to Strand Releasing in North America.
The film, starring stage breakout Samuel H. Levine of Broadway and the West End’s “The Inheritance,” played in the official selection at last year’s Berlin International Film Festival and went on to win Outfest’s grand jury prize for U.S. narrative feature.
In Judaism, a minyan refers to the minimum amount of celebrants required for certain religious traditions. Set in 1980s Brighton Beach, the film follows a young Russian Jewish immigrant who is caught up in the tight constraints of his community. He develops a close friendship with his grandfather’s new neighbors — two elderly closeted gay men who open his imagination to the possibilities of love and the realities of loss. In the East Village, he finds a world teeming with the energy of youth,...
The film, starring stage breakout Samuel H. Levine of Broadway and the West End’s “The Inheritance,” played in the official selection at last year’s Berlin International Film Festival and went on to win Outfest’s grand jury prize for U.S. narrative feature.
In Judaism, a minyan refers to the minimum amount of celebrants required for certain religious traditions. Set in 1980s Brighton Beach, the film follows a young Russian Jewish immigrant who is caught up in the tight constraints of his community. He develops a close friendship with his grandfather’s new neighbors — two elderly closeted gay men who open his imagination to the possibilities of love and the realities of loss. In the East Village, he finds a world teeming with the energy of youth,...
- 1/26/2021
- by Matt Donnelly
- Variety Film + TV
After unveiling the discs that will be arriving in April, including Bong Joon Ho’s Memories of Murder, Olivier Assayas’ Irma Vep, and more, Criterion has now announced what will be coming to their streaming channel next month.
Highlights include retrospectives dedicated to Guy Maddin, Ruby Dee, Lana Turner, and Gordon Parks, plus selections from Marlene Dietrich & Josef von Sternberg’s stellar box set. They will also present the exclusive streaming premieres of Bill Duke’s The Killing Floor, William Greaves’s Nationtime, Kevin Jerome Everson’s Park Lanes, and more.
Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, which recently arrived on the collection, will be landing on the channel as well, along with a special “Lovers on the Run” series including film noir (They Live by Night) to New Hollywood (Badlands) to the French New Wave (Pierrot le fou) to Blaxploitation (Thomasine & Bushrod) and beyond. Also...
Highlights include retrospectives dedicated to Guy Maddin, Ruby Dee, Lana Turner, and Gordon Parks, plus selections from Marlene Dietrich & Josef von Sternberg’s stellar box set. They will also present the exclusive streaming premieres of Bill Duke’s The Killing Floor, William Greaves’s Nationtime, Kevin Jerome Everson’s Park Lanes, and more.
Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, which recently arrived on the collection, will be landing on the channel as well, along with a special “Lovers on the Run” series including film noir (They Live by Night) to New Hollywood (Badlands) to the French New Wave (Pierrot le fou) to Blaxploitation (Thomasine & Bushrod) and beyond. Also...
- 1/26/2021
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Indie auteur Gregg Araki’s outlandishly weird Starz series “Now Apocalypse” has officially been canceled after one season. But there may be a future for the show yet, according to the filmmaker.
“We are shopping for a new home since the show’s cheap, and with the most amazing cast and incredibly passionate fanbase,” said Araki in an email to IndieWire. “The fan reaction let me know that the people who watched it got it exactly as I hoped. The show really is a dream come true for me. I love it so much and am so proud of the work we all did together. And regardless of what happens, I’m happy knowing that it will live forever in the streaming/sharing cosmos.”
Araki continued, “As far as our demo goes, we were told when we got greenlit that, in the wake of their successful app launch, Starz was...
“We are shopping for a new home since the show’s cheap, and with the most amazing cast and incredibly passionate fanbase,” said Araki in an email to IndieWire. “The fan reaction let me know that the people who watched it got it exactly as I hoped. The show really is a dream come true for me. I love it so much and am so proud of the work we all did together. And regardless of what happens, I’m happy knowing that it will live forever in the streaming/sharing cosmos.”
Araki continued, “As far as our demo goes, we were told when we got greenlit that, in the wake of their successful app launch, Starz was...
- 7/28/2019
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
The following essay was produced as part of the 2018 Nyff Critics Academy, a workshop for aspiring film critics that took place during the 56th edition of the New York Film Festival.
“We could make a beautiful life together.” So pours this utterance, gently from one man’s mouth into another man’s ear in Christophe Honoré’s latest film, “Sorry Angel.” For the speaker, this implied future rests in the distance, bathed in a warm, vivid glow. But to the receiver, the words vibrate like a death rattle. “Sorry Angel” positions itself into a long, somber lineage of HIV/AIDS-crisis-related films set in the nineties, from Robin Campillo’s recent queer activist drama “Bpm (Beats per Minute)” to Gregg Araki’s 1992 blood-stained road movie, “The Living End,” but “Sorry Angel” takes care to show the audience the unsentimental side of a gruesome process of physical change.
When we first meet...
“We could make a beautiful life together.” So pours this utterance, gently from one man’s mouth into another man’s ear in Christophe Honoré’s latest film, “Sorry Angel.” For the speaker, this implied future rests in the distance, bathed in a warm, vivid glow. But to the receiver, the words vibrate like a death rattle. “Sorry Angel” positions itself into a long, somber lineage of HIV/AIDS-crisis-related films set in the nineties, from Robin Campillo’s recent queer activist drama “Bpm (Beats per Minute)” to Gregg Araki’s 1992 blood-stained road movie, “The Living End,” but “Sorry Angel” takes care to show the audience the unsentimental side of a gruesome process of physical change.
When we first meet...
- 10/27/2018
- by Spencer Williams
- Indiewire
What critic B. Ruby Rich dubbed the “New Queer Cinema” encountered little but praise (plus some attention-getting damnation from political conservatives) with such early ’90s titles as “Swoon,” “My Own Private Idaho,” “The Living End,” “Paris Is Burning,” and so forth. But by mid-decade the vogue had run long enough that even gay audiences felt less inclined to embrace every creative effort, giving a relatively cold shoulder to Steve McLean’s “Postcards From America” (1994) and Todd Verow’s “Frisk.” Both were adapted from edgy gay lit figures — the former from autobiographical writings by David Wojnarowicz (who’d died of AIDS), the latter from a typically violent, queasy novel by Dennis Cooper.
These films look better now than most critics or viewers allowed then. The revulsion “Frisk” was greeted with (at a time when gay films were expected to provide some measure of reassuring uplift) only emboldened Verow as a since-highly-prolific director of microbudget features,...
These films look better now than most critics or viewers allowed then. The revulsion “Frisk” was greeted with (at a time when gay films were expected to provide some measure of reassuring uplift) only emboldened Verow as a since-highly-prolific director of microbudget features,...
- 6/28/2018
- by Dennis Harvey
- Variety Film + TV
At the end of "White Bird in a Blizzard," I felt sad and dirty and lost. Call it the Gregg Araki effect. The writer/director's beautifully told films make you feel warm and fuzzy, with bubblegum candy colors and likable young characters, before revealing a latent darkness that leaves you unsafe and unsettled. And these warring sensibilities have never felt more at odds (or at home) with each other than in the campy, creeping dread of "White Bird." Foremost the director of "The Living End," "The Doom Generation" and "Mysterious Skin" (this is his first film since 2010 pratfall "Kaboom"), Araki sheds his new queer cinema roots for this Shailene Woodley vehicle about a 17-year-old girl named Kat whose sexual awakening is sparked by the spooky disappearance of her down-in-the-doldrums alcoholic mother, played with wicked malaise and malice by an out-of-place (but never out-of-step) Eva Green. Then there's Kat's stiff,...
- 10/22/2014
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Thompson on Hollywood
Magnolia Pictures has acquired all North American rights to writer/director Gregg Araki's "White Bird in a Blizzard," the controversial film out of Sundance in which star Shailene Woodley bares all. Based on the novel by Laura Kasischke, "Blizzard" is set in 1988 and centers on college-bound, sexually blooming Kat (Woodley), whose husk of a mother (Eva Green) disappears unexpectedly. While grappling with the dark truths behind her mother's departure, and the passivity of her father (Christopher Meloni) Kat comes of age, and undone. Gabourey Sidibe, Thomas Jane and Angela Bassett costar. Araki has been pushing the envelope since his 1992 breakout AIDS/road movie "The Living End," and has since held court in indie film with a few hits here and there, from "The Doom Generation" to his masterpiece "Mysterious Skin," another film in which he asked an attractive young actor (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) to bare more than just his soul.
- 4/11/2014
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Thompson on Hollywood
Gregg Araki is no stranger to The Sundance Film Festival. "100 times," he laughed when asked how many times he's come to Park City. "I was emailing with Rick Linklater before I came and he’s totally the all-time king. He’s gotta be in the teens. I think this is my eighth film in the festival?" "White Bird in a Blizzard" -- which premiered at Sundance Monday night -- is actually Araki's ninth film at the festival following "Kaboom" (2011), "Smiley Face" (2007), "Mysterious Skin" (2005), "Splendor" (1999), "Nowhere" (1997), "The Doom Generation" (1995), "Totally F***ed Up" (1994), and "The Living End" (1992). And it falls comfortably into that list. Sexy and hilarious and brutal and haunting all at once, "White Bird" is based on Laura Kasischke's book of the same name. Set in the late 1980s, it follows teenage Kat (Shailene Woodley, continuing to never fail) as she comes of age amidst the disappearance of...
- 1/23/2014
- by Peter Knegt
- Indiewire
The Living End (1992). Totally F***ed Up (1993). The Doom Generation (1995). Nowhere (1997). Splendor (1999). Mysterious Skin (2005). Smiley Face (2007). Kaboom (2011). VIP jacket wearing Gregg Araki has been breaking into Park City mode for more than the eight films mentioned. An integral part of the moving into his third decade, White Bird In A Blizzard is a French funded thriller and much like Kaboom, this is a welcome switch of pace for the filmmaker. Production began in November of 2012, so this is in the can as we say and will come equipped with Shailene Woodley, Eva Green, Angela Bassett, Gabourey Sidibe, Christopher Meloni, Shiloh Fernandez and Dale Dickey.
Gist: When Katrina Connors’ mother walks out on her family, Kat is surprised but not shocked; the whole year she has been “becoming sixteen” – falling in love with the boy next door, shedding her babyfat, discovering sex – her mother has been slowly withdrawing. As Kat and...
Gist: When Katrina Connors’ mother walks out on her family, Kat is surprised but not shocked; the whole year she has been “becoming sixteen” – falling in love with the boy next door, shedding her babyfat, discovering sex – her mother has been slowly withdrawing. As Kat and...
- 11/22/2013
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
The first American retrospective for New Queer Cinema provocateur Gregg Araki will come to the Museum of Arts & Design, at New York's Columbus Circle, this September and October. The series will feature rare films from Araki's oeuvre, including his classic film "The Living End," his first feature "Three Bewildered People in the Night," and a pilot for a television show that never came to be, described as "Twin Peaks for MTV." Araki will also host a master class on Saturday, September 28. "God Help Me: Gregg Araki" was curated by Mad's Director of Public Programs, the filmmaker Jake Yuzna. The entire lineup, with links to more information on the Mad website, is below. The Living End Thursday, September 19, 2013, 7 p.m. Araki's entry into the New Queer Cinema movement, The Living End humorously and honestly tackles the effects of HIV on Generation X through the experiences of star-crossed lovers that take to...
- 8/19/2013
- by Bryce J. Renninger
- Indiewire
As the Sundance festival 2013 kicks off, David D'Arcy says the number of indie gems is likely to outstrip their audience
Plus Henry Barnes picks out 10 key films from the festival
This will be my 23rd Sundance. Over that time, I have watched Robert Redford's festival grow to a point where more than 12,000 films are submitted each year, and the media are everywhere – though mostly looking for Hollywood types briefly vacationing in gun-friendly, anti-abortion, Mormon Utah. The success and spillover of films has led to more indie festivals than you can count, including SXSW, Traverse City (Michael Moore's shindig on Lake Michigan), CineVegas, founded by a Sundance programmer and for a spell chaired by Dennis Hopper, even a Latter Day Saints film festival in Orem, a Mormon stronghold, which unspools simultaneously with Sundance's bacchanal.
Bona-fide hits have come out of Sundance: The Blair Witch Project (which grossed more than...
Plus Henry Barnes picks out 10 key films from the festival
This will be my 23rd Sundance. Over that time, I have watched Robert Redford's festival grow to a point where more than 12,000 films are submitted each year, and the media are everywhere – though mostly looking for Hollywood types briefly vacationing in gun-friendly, anti-abortion, Mormon Utah. The success and spillover of films has led to more indie festivals than you can count, including SXSW, Traverse City (Michael Moore's shindig on Lake Michigan), CineVegas, founded by a Sundance programmer and for a spell chaired by Dennis Hopper, even a Latter Day Saints film festival in Orem, a Mormon stronghold, which unspools simultaneously with Sundance's bacchanal.
Bona-fide hits have come out of Sundance: The Blair Witch Project (which grossed more than...
- 1/18/2013
- by Henry Barnes
- The Guardian - Film News
For quite some time I've wanted to start a regular queer-themed column on Indiewire. The precursor to this idea -- at least in large part -- was written at last year's Sundance Film Festival. It was basically a personal essay reflecting on David Weissman's intensely affective documentary "We Were Here" (which had premiered at the festival) in relation to my own experiences with HIV/AIDS and the media. As that essay detailed, I come from a generation of queer men that largely found out about HIV/AIDS through the mainstream media. As a result, I had by my late teens developed a problematic, unnecessary fear of the virus (and a drastic lack of real knowledge regarding it) perpetuated by these largely ignorant media representations. But then I found my way to Gregg Araki's "The Living End," Peter Friedman and Tom Joslin's "Silverlake Life: The View From Here,...
- 11/30/2012
- by Peter Knegt
- Indiewire
Craig Gilmore and Mike Dytri in Gregg Araki's The Living End (1992)
This year is the 20th Anniversary of Gregg Araki’s The Living End and the birth of New Queer Cinema as a whole. Outfest’s Legacy Project has preserved Araki’s films, as well as the work of several New Queer directors, including Swoon!
After a screening of The Living End hosted by Outfest, I asked Gregg a few questions about his films, films today and what goes on in that head of his.
Your films never take themselves too seriously, but you always drive your point home. Where does your sense of humor come from?
I guess it’s sort of in my nature and the way I view at the world. I’m not really sure. I just sit down to write my movies and this kind of crazy stuff – my outlook on the world – comes out.
This year is the 20th Anniversary of Gregg Araki’s The Living End and the birth of New Queer Cinema as a whole. Outfest’s Legacy Project has preserved Araki’s films, as well as the work of several New Queer directors, including Swoon!
After a screening of The Living End hosted by Outfest, I asked Gregg a few questions about his films, films today and what goes on in that head of his.
Your films never take themselves too seriously, but you always drive your point home. Where does your sense of humor come from?
I guess it’s sort of in my nature and the way I view at the world. I’m not really sure. I just sit down to write my movies and this kind of crazy stuff – my outlook on the world – comes out.
- 3/29/2012
- by Film Independent
- Film Independent
I first met Bingham Ray in 1992, when I interviewed him and October Films partner Jeff Lipsky about their company’s expansion and move to New York. It was for Filmmaker‘s second issue, and in our talk, Bingham was all the things he’s now being remembered for — committed, combative, intelligent and garrulous. He was pitching me on his upcoming slate, a diverse lot that included Alain Corneau’s Tous Les Matins Du Monde, Mike Leigh’s Life is Sweet, and a shorts package that included Michael Moore’s Pets or Meat. The ostensible hook for the article, though, was Ray and Lipsky’s move from L.A., where they founded the company in Lipsky’s garage, to swanky Rockefeller Center offices.
So this was the moment when Ray would have been expected to tone it down a bit, to slowly modulate his speaking into that hollowed-out blah-blah “corporate voice” that,...
So this was the moment when Ray would have been expected to tone it down a bit, to slowly modulate his speaking into that hollowed-out blah-blah “corporate voice” that,...
- 1/26/2012
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
This past week I finally caught up with Gregg Araki's Kaboom which is now available on DVD and Blu-Ray. I still vividly remember seeing The Living End when it came out and the memory is vivid because it was so raw, like a gay garage band demo. The latest is a typical Araki as its obsessed with beautiful young men, polysexual love triangles and the apocalypse.
Here are a few thoughts on the movie ... let's say five of them to be precise.
01 While Araki has been known to reuse the same actors, his obsession with youth means that he has to keep moving on from muses past. It must suck for 38 year old James Duval, for example, to be demoted to third tier stoner "The Messiah" after headlining in the past. For Kaboom Thomas Dekker gets the beloved son position front and center and I do mean front and I do mean center.
Here are a few thoughts on the movie ... let's say five of them to be precise.
01 While Araki has been known to reuse the same actors, his obsession with youth means that he has to keep moving on from muses past. It must suck for 38 year old James Duval, for example, to be demoted to third tier stoner "The Messiah" after headlining in the past. For Kaboom Thomas Dekker gets the beloved son position front and center and I do mean front and I do mean center.
- 8/9/2011
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Director of Mysterious Skin and Kaboom is keeping indie pop alive by featuring new music and remixes by his favourite bands
This week sees the DVD release of two films from the singular talent of Gregg Araki: 1993's Totally Fucked Up and Kaboom, his most recent. It's always tempting to look for patterns and themes in a director's work, but in Araki's case, there's little that connects them all. The disenfranchised gay teens of Totally Fucked Up don't share much common ground with the silly stoners of his later comedy Smiley Face; and it's hard to reconcile the serious, subtle Mysterious Skin with the knockabout thrills of Splendor and Kaboom.
But for all the hallucinatory imagery, ambisexual cavorting, drug taking, violence and other shocking facets of Araki's work, there's one element that runs through them all: the music. When he says that "Kaboom is my most autobiographical and personal...
This week sees the DVD release of two films from the singular talent of Gregg Araki: 1993's Totally Fucked Up and Kaboom, his most recent. It's always tempting to look for patterns and themes in a director's work, but in Araki's case, there's little that connects them all. The disenfranchised gay teens of Totally Fucked Up don't share much common ground with the silly stoners of his later comedy Smiley Face; and it's hard to reconcile the serious, subtle Mysterious Skin with the knockabout thrills of Splendor and Kaboom.
But for all the hallucinatory imagery, ambisexual cavorting, drug taking, violence and other shocking facets of Araki's work, there's one element that runs through them all: the music. When he says that "Kaboom is my most autobiographical and personal...
- 8/5/2011
- by Phelim O'Neill
- The Guardian - Film News
Director Gregg Araki is an indie film stalwart, with films dating back into the '80s with "The Long Weekend (O'Despair)" and into the '90s with "The Living End," "Totally F***ed Up," "The Doom Generation," "Nowhere" and more. This century, he recruited Joseph Gordon-Levitt in "Mysterious Skin" and the likes of Anna Faris, John Krasinski and Adam Brody in "Smiley Face" and Juno Temple in last year's "Kaboom." But it all ...
- 7/10/2011
- Indiewire
After a brief detour into universal critical acclaim with a 'dark, serious' film, Gregg Araki returns to familiar territory making a horny, druggy college caper
Rumours that Gregg Araki has finally grown up appear to have been greatly exaggerated. They started in 2004 with his extraordinary movie Mysterious Skin, in which two young men struggle to process the sexual abuse they suffered years before at the hands of their baseball coach. Bold, sensitive and, yes, mature, the film won Araki more critical and festival acclaim than the rest of his work combined. At last, it seemed, Araki was ready to join his contemporaries Gus van Sant and Todd Haynes in the fold of "serious" film-makers. So how did he follow up Mysterious Skin? With Smiley Face, a goofy stoner movie in which Anna Faris eats too many hash cookies. In terms of critical expectation, it was the equivalent of Scorsese following up Raging Bull with Dude,...
Rumours that Gregg Araki has finally grown up appear to have been greatly exaggerated. They started in 2004 with his extraordinary movie Mysterious Skin, in which two young men struggle to process the sexual abuse they suffered years before at the hands of their baseball coach. Bold, sensitive and, yes, mature, the film won Araki more critical and festival acclaim than the rest of his work combined. At last, it seemed, Araki was ready to join his contemporaries Gus van Sant and Todd Haynes in the fold of "serious" film-makers. So how did he follow up Mysterious Skin? With Smiley Face, a goofy stoner movie in which Anna Faris eats too many hash cookies. In terms of critical expectation, it was the equivalent of Scorsese following up Raging Bull with Dude,...
- 6/2/2011
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
By Christopher Stipp
The Archives, Right Here
Check out my other column, This Week In Trailers, at SlashFilm.com and follow me on Twitter under the name: Stipp
Irt: Deadliest Roads - Blu-ray Review
I am a reality television fiend when it comes to Ice Road Truckers.
Yes, there is no ice this time around but that doesn’t make this series any less thrilling. Missing a few episodes when it aired and then just waiting for the chance to see all the episodes all at once when it hit Blu-ray this was really well worth the wait. For those of us who enjoy series like this Irt: Deadliest Roads does not disappoint.
Instead of cold driving truck drivers going across snowy strips of ice we’ve got a trio of drivers making their way on some of the most sinister roads in India. Brimming with genuine humor and the...
The Archives, Right Here
Check out my other column, This Week In Trailers, at SlashFilm.com and follow me on Twitter under the name: Stipp
Irt: Deadliest Roads - Blu-ray Review
I am a reality television fiend when it comes to Ice Road Truckers.
Yes, there is no ice this time around but that doesn’t make this series any less thrilling. Missing a few episodes when it aired and then just waiting for the chance to see all the episodes all at once when it hit Blu-ray this was really well worth the wait. For those of us who enjoy series like this Irt: Deadliest Roads does not disappoint.
Instead of cold driving truck drivers going across snowy strips of ice we’ve got a trio of drivers making their way on some of the most sinister roads in India. Brimming with genuine humor and the...
- 5/27/2011
- by Christopher Stipp
Next year sees the 20th anniversary of Reservoir Dogs. But while the 70s and 80s were golden years for cinema, what's the best we can say of the decade that followed?
You can't choose your family, so the cliche goes, and neither do you get a say in the era you come of age. For me, cinematically at least, the timing was cruelly double-edged. Yes, as an 80s adolescent I spent formative evenings gawping in front of Blue Velvet, Brazil and so on; but by the time I was old enough to make £4 an hour in one of Soho's few non-porno video shops and spend all my spare time in cinemas, the rather less magical 90s had rolled around.
And therein lies the rub. Because mulching the cinema of an entire decade down into a single impression is, of course, an insanely reductive business. But it's one almost all of...
You can't choose your family, so the cliche goes, and neither do you get a say in the era you come of age. For me, cinematically at least, the timing was cruelly double-edged. Yes, as an 80s adolescent I spent formative evenings gawping in front of Blue Velvet, Brazil and so on; but by the time I was old enough to make £4 an hour in one of Soho's few non-porno video shops and spend all my spare time in cinemas, the rather less magical 90s had rolled around.
And therein lies the rub. Because mulching the cinema of an entire decade down into a single impression is, of course, an insanely reductive business. But it's one almost all of...
- 4/29/2011
- by Danny Leigh
- The Guardian - Film News
So you might have heard director Gregg Araki's latest, Kaboom, is somewhat... forward with its sexuality. This isn't exactly a new development for the indie bad boy, who has long approached his films' subject matter -- from The Living End to The Doom Generation to Mysterious Skin -- with a frankness as tender as it can be shocking. Movieline's Alonso Duralde caught up with Araki at Sundance, where the filmmaker and his cast (including, pictured from right to left, Juno Temple, Thomas Dekker, Chris Zylka and Haley Bennett) elaborated on the process of exploring and nailing down Kaboom's funny, trippy and, yes, horny dynamics.
- 1/28/2011
- Movieline
One of the key figures in the New Queer Cinema and ever youthful at 51 years of age, Gregg Araki is a director who is increasingly hard to pigeonhole. After the critical success of 2004′s Mysterious Skin, the film which confirmed that Joseph Gordon-Levitt was a movie-star and that Mr. Araki could direct delicate drama as well as exploitation and cult cinema, it seemed that the director of such indie Lgbt classics as The Living End (1992) and The Doom Generation (1995) was moving on to a new, more conventionally respectable, middle-aged portion of his career. Now Mr. Araki is back with Kaboom, a film which stars newcomer Thomas Dekker as a sexually ambiguous college freshman at a coastal California university who may or may not be discovering a plot that will lead to… wait for it… the end of the world!
Getting terrific work out of both Mr. Dekker and up and...
Getting terrific work out of both Mr. Dekker and up and...
- 1/28/2011
- by Brandon Harris
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Recalling the heyday of New Queer Cinema, Gregg Araki brings back the ‘90s with the college-set Kaboom, depicting a pansexual college experience where students are more concerned with hallucinogens and getting laid than studying. While 1992's The Living End wasn't Araki's debut film, it was the first one to bring him anything approaching mainstream attention. Its depiction of a couple of gay, HIV-positive outlaws on the run drew on the AIDS activism of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, and it was often linked with films like Todd Haynes' Poison and Christopher Munch's The Hours and Times as part of the New Queer Cinema movement. Araki has proved adept at reinventing himself. Nothing in The Living End suggested that one day he would make a stoner comedy like Smiley Face, or a drama as sober as Mysterious Skin, which brought him back into critical favor after years of inaction.
- 1/25/2011
- TribecaFilm.com
Here is the film trailer for Kaboom, an official selection in the Sundance Film Festival 2011 and Cannes Film Festival 2010. It’s a hybrid of Superbad meets Donnie Darko? Kaboom is directed by Gregg Araki and stars Thomas Dekker, Juno Temple, Haley Bennett, Chris Zylka and Roxane Mesquida.
About Kaboom:
Indie veteran Gregg Araki returns to the spotlight with Kaboom, a hyper-stylized Twin Peaks for the Coachella Generation, featuring a gorgeous, super-hot young cast. The film is a wild, sex-drenched, comical thriller that tells the story of Smith, an ambisexual 18-year-old college freshman who stumbles upon a monstrous conspiracy in a seemingly idyllic Southern California seaside town. Kaboom will make its Us premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and is writer/director Araki’s eighth film there since his breakthrough The Living End, including The Doom Generation to his masterpiece Mysterious Skin. The film stars Thomas Dekker, Juno Temple,...
About Kaboom:
Indie veteran Gregg Araki returns to the spotlight with Kaboom, a hyper-stylized Twin Peaks for the Coachella Generation, featuring a gorgeous, super-hot young cast. The film is a wild, sex-drenched, comical thriller that tells the story of Smith, an ambisexual 18-year-old college freshman who stumbles upon a monstrous conspiracy in a seemingly idyllic Southern California seaside town. Kaboom will make its Us premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and is writer/director Araki’s eighth film there since his breakthrough The Living End, including The Doom Generation to his masterpiece Mysterious Skin. The film stars Thomas Dekker, Juno Temple,...
- 1/16/2011
- by Terry Boyden
- BuzzFocus.com
Halfway through the new full trailer for Gregg Araki's new film Kaboom I'd already decided it looks like a sexually liberated, made for TV Donnie Darko when this quote came up: "A gonzo teen fantasy that's tripper, hornier and more apocalyptically funny than 'Donnie Darko'." Oh, the coincidence! We showed you some Nsfw clips [1] from the film when it was at Tiff last year, and a Nsfw teaser trailer [2] just a week ago, but this is the full trailer, from Sundance Selects. It lays out the basics of the film pretty well: really pretty college kids (could the trailer love Thomas Dekker's eyes any more?), lots of sex (not as much as in the Nsfw teaser) and then some 'freaky,' weird stuff. Is this thing serious? Is it a cartoon that exploits classic stereotypes of hot college kids having sex, or a more ambitious piece...
- 1/15/2011
- by Russ Fischer
- Slash Film
Thanks to IFC Films, we finally have the official trailer debut for Gregg Araki's "playfully perverse, refreshingly rude gonzo teen fantasy" Kaboom just ahead of its simultaneous U.S. premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and on-demand airings beginning on January 21st courtesy of Sundance Selects.
Synopsis:
Sundance veteran Gregg Araki returns to the festival with Kaboom, a hyper-stylized Twin Peaks for the Coachella Generation, featuring a gorgeous, super hot young cast. The film is a wild, sex-drenched, comical thriller that tells the story of Smith, an ambisexual 18-year-old college freshman who stumbles upon a monstrous conspiracy in a seemingly idyllic Southern California seaside town. Written and directed by Araki (who has shown eight films at Sundance from his breakthrough The Living End to The Doom Generation to his masterpiece Mysterious Skin) and produced by Araki and his longtime producer Andrea Sperling, the film stars Thomas Dekker, Juno Temple,...
Synopsis:
Sundance veteran Gregg Araki returns to the festival with Kaboom, a hyper-stylized Twin Peaks for the Coachella Generation, featuring a gorgeous, super hot young cast. The film is a wild, sex-drenched, comical thriller that tells the story of Smith, an ambisexual 18-year-old college freshman who stumbles upon a monstrous conspiracy in a seemingly idyllic Southern California seaside town. Written and directed by Araki (who has shown eight films at Sundance from his breakthrough The Living End to The Doom Generation to his masterpiece Mysterious Skin) and produced by Araki and his longtime producer Andrea Sperling, the film stars Thomas Dekker, Juno Temple,...
- 1/14/2011
- by The Woman In Black
- DreadCentral.com
Indie veteran Gregg Araki returns to the spotlight with Kaboom, a hyper-stylized Twin Peaks for the Coachella Generation, featuring a gorgeous, super-hot young cast. The film is a wild, sex-drenched, comical thriller that tells the story of Smith, an ambisexual 18-year-old college freshman who stumbles upon a monstrous conspiracy in a seemingly idyllic Southern California seaside town. Kaboom will make its Us premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and is writer/director Araki’s eighth film there since his breakthrough The Living End, including The Doom Generation to his masterpiece Mysterious Skin. The film stars Thomas Dekker, Juno Temple, Haley Bennett, Chris Zylka, Roxane Mesquida, Andy Fischer-Price, James Duval and Kelly Lynch. Here is the beautiful new poster for the film.
- 1/14/2011
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
Are you ready for a sex-induced sci-fi college comedy? I thought so. Gregg Araki has delivered just that with Kaboom. The film premiered at Cannes last year, and then went on a lengthy festival circuit. It will now see a release in limited theaters and video on demand this month via IFC Films. The film stars Thomas Dekker, Juno Temple, Haley Bennett, Chris Zylka, and Roxane Mesquida. We shared the poster a few days ago, and now you can see the trailer below via Apple.
Synopsis: Indie veteran Gregg Araki returns to the spotlight with Kaboom, a hyper-stylized Twin Peaks for the Coachella Generation, featuring a gorgeous, super-hot young cast. The film is a wild, sex-drenched, comical thriller that tells the story of Smith, an ambisexual 18-year-old college freshman who stumbles upon a monstrous conspiracy in a seemingly idyllic Southern California seaside town. Kaboom will make its Us premiere at...
Synopsis: Indie veteran Gregg Araki returns to the spotlight with Kaboom, a hyper-stylized Twin Peaks for the Coachella Generation, featuring a gorgeous, super-hot young cast. The film is a wild, sex-drenched, comical thriller that tells the story of Smith, an ambisexual 18-year-old college freshman who stumbles upon a monstrous conspiracy in a seemingly idyllic Southern California seaside town. Kaboom will make its Us premiere at...
- 1/14/2011
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Kaboom
Opens: 2011
Cast: Thomas Dekker, Haley Bennett, Juno Temple, Kelly Lynch, James Duval
Director: Gregg Araki
Summary: Smith's everyday life in the dorm - hanging out with his arty, sarcastic best friend Stella, hooking up with a beautiful free spirit named London, lusting for his gorgeous but dim surfer roommate Thor - all gets turned upside-down after one fateful, terrifying night.
Analysis: A year after "Thelma and Louise" came "The Living End", an independent film which had a similar premise but made the protagonists two gay HIV+ men. It was raw, intense and signalled the arrival of a new talent in the form of filmmaker Gregg Araki. In the subsequent two decades, he's delivered several trippy films involving young, good-looking omnisexual people having lots of graphic sex and dealing with some wacky cobbled together plot shenanigans.
The tone has ranged the light-hearted "Splendor" and "Nowhere" to the darker "Mysterious Skin...
Opens: 2011
Cast: Thomas Dekker, Haley Bennett, Juno Temple, Kelly Lynch, James Duval
Director: Gregg Araki
Summary: Smith's everyday life in the dorm - hanging out with his arty, sarcastic best friend Stella, hooking up with a beautiful free spirit named London, lusting for his gorgeous but dim surfer roommate Thor - all gets turned upside-down after one fateful, terrifying night.
Analysis: A year after "Thelma and Louise" came "The Living End", an independent film which had a similar premise but made the protagonists two gay HIV+ men. It was raw, intense and signalled the arrival of a new talent in the form of filmmaker Gregg Araki. In the subsequent two decades, he's delivered several trippy films involving young, good-looking omnisexual people having lots of graphic sex and dealing with some wacky cobbled together plot shenanigans.
The tone has ranged the light-hearted "Splendor" and "Nowhere" to the darker "Mysterious Skin...
- 1/12/2011
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
Can't make it to Utah this year for the 2011 Sundance Film Festival? Well, thanks to Sundance Selects, the theatrical and video-on-demand film label, five films being screened at the fest will simultaneously be available nationwide, on demand, on most major cable systems. Two seems to qualify as genre films, but the others sound worthy of a bit of attention as well.
From the Press Release:
Sundance Selects has announced its second partnership with the not-for-profit Sundance Institute for the 2011 Sundance Film Festival (January 20th-30th; Park City, Ut). Five films are part of the "Direct from the Sundance Film Festival" initiative, including four world premieres recently acquired by Sundance Selects (Brendan Fletcher's Mad Bastards, Michael Tully's Septien, Paul Mariano and Kurt Norton's These Amazing Shadows, and Joe Swanberg's Uncle Kent) and one U.S. premiere (Gregg Araki's Kaboom). The films featured through the Sundance Institute...
From the Press Release:
Sundance Selects has announced its second partnership with the not-for-profit Sundance Institute for the 2011 Sundance Film Festival (January 20th-30th; Park City, Ut). Five films are part of the "Direct from the Sundance Film Festival" initiative, including four world premieres recently acquired by Sundance Selects (Brendan Fletcher's Mad Bastards, Michael Tully's Septien, Paul Mariano and Kurt Norton's These Amazing Shadows, and Joe Swanberg's Uncle Kent) and one U.S. premiere (Gregg Araki's Kaboom). The films featured through the Sundance Institute...
- 1/8/2011
- by The Woman In Black
- DreadCentral.com
In 2004, Gregg Araki stunned his fans and international critics with a brilliant little film, Mysterious Skin, a searing adaptation of Scott Heim's cult novel concerning child abuse, cow abuse, being gay, hustling, and grasping for affection.
Before achieving this cinematic feat, Araki helped kick off the New Queer Cinema movement with The Living End (1992), a poorly acted, technically uneven, yet audaciously brave feature about two hotties with AIDS who decide to become Bonnie and Clyde.
read more...
Before achieving this cinematic feat, Araki helped kick off the New Queer Cinema movement with The Living End (1992), a poorly acted, technically uneven, yet audaciously brave feature about two hotties with AIDS who decide to become Bonnie and Clyde.
read more...
- 1/3/2011
- by Brandon Judell
- www.culturecatch.com
Controversial Director Gregg Araki whose previous credits include ‘Mysterious Skin’ and ‘The Living End’ recently took time out to answer some questions regarding his latest project ‘Kaboom’ following its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
Thomas Dekker stars in the science fiction tale centred on the sexual awakening of a group of college students.
What is the main storyline from Kaboom?
Ga: In one line I describe it as an omnisexual ‘Twin Peaks’ set in college.
How did you come up with the concept for the film?
I wanted to make an old-fashioned, creatively uninhibited cult movie that was totally uncompromised and free from worrying about the constraints of the current Indie film marketplace. The closest corollary I can come up with is the music of some of the Indie bands I’ve loved like the Cocteau Twins. They may not be for everyone and were never super popular or...
Thomas Dekker stars in the science fiction tale centred on the sexual awakening of a group of college students.
What is the main storyline from Kaboom?
Ga: In one line I describe it as an omnisexual ‘Twin Peaks’ set in college.
How did you come up with the concept for the film?
I wanted to make an old-fashioned, creatively uninhibited cult movie that was totally uncompromised and free from worrying about the constraints of the current Indie film marketplace. The closest corollary I can come up with is the music of some of the Indie bands I’ve loved like the Cocteau Twins. They may not be for everyone and were never super popular or...
- 5/25/2010
- by Paul Downey
- FilmShaft.com
The old Gregg Araki is back!
It started with The Living End in 1992, when a gay hustler and a movie critic, both HIV positive, set out on a road trip. The following year brought Totally F***ed Up, which pulled James Duval into Araki's cinematic world. Then there was the introduction of Rose McGowan and the bloody road trip of Doom Generation, a little 90210 on acid with Nowhere, and bubble-gum three-way romance with Splendor. In 2004, Araki's resume was turned upside down with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Mysterious Skin, and again in 2007 with Anna Faris' stoner comedy Smiley Face. Now? The funny and strange world of sex, dysfunction, and death are back with Araki's Kaboom.
The film has screened at Cannes, Joe Utichi gave it a great review, and video clips are lurking online, which you can see after the jump. (Should the videos be removed, you can see them on Cannes' Kaboom page.
It started with The Living End in 1992, when a gay hustler and a movie critic, both HIV positive, set out on a road trip. The following year brought Totally F***ed Up, which pulled James Duval into Araki's cinematic world. Then there was the introduction of Rose McGowan and the bloody road trip of Doom Generation, a little 90210 on acid with Nowhere, and bubble-gum three-way romance with Splendor. In 2004, Araki's resume was turned upside down with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Mysterious Skin, and again in 2007 with Anna Faris' stoner comedy Smiley Face. Now? The funny and strange world of sex, dysfunction, and death are back with Araki's Kaboom.
The film has screened at Cannes, Joe Utichi gave it a great review, and video clips are lurking online, which you can see after the jump. (Should the videos be removed, you can see them on Cannes' Kaboom page.
- 5/18/2010
- by Monika Bartyzel
- Cinematical
Within minutes of Gregg Araki's "Kaboom," a familiar world comes together. The man responsible for subversive American indie delights like "The Living End" and "The Doom Generation" now introduces Smith (Thomas Dekker), a shy college student majoring in film studies and toying around with bisexuality. In case that last clause made it unclear, "Kaboom" offers a welcome return to Araki's self-made universe. Time has passed since we last paid a visit ...
- 5/17/2010
- Indiewire
Updated 04/19 They've added two titles but none to the actual competition list just yet. Updates are included below
04/15 Yes, they will add a few titles. Looking round the web people expect something like 4 to 5 more films to show up. Speculation that Malick's Tree of Life or Nolans Inception or Schnabel's Miral probably won't die until after they add said missing titles. But if you're heading over to the South of France next month or merely reading along on various Twitter feeds or film blogs, these are some of the titles you'll be hearing about.
Blanchett. Crowe. Scott
Opening Night Film
Because you have to kick off with a starry entry for that maximum red carpet kick. It gets the international and mainstream press excited and you need their eyeballs... even if your festival is for the global cinephiles.
Robin Hood (Ridley Scott)
I'm amused that the tagline is marketing this as an "untold story". Hee.
04/15 Yes, they will add a few titles. Looking round the web people expect something like 4 to 5 more films to show up. Speculation that Malick's Tree of Life or Nolans Inception or Schnabel's Miral probably won't die until after they add said missing titles. But if you're heading over to the South of France next month or merely reading along on various Twitter feeds or film blogs, these are some of the titles you'll be hearing about.
Blanchett. Crowe. Scott
Opening Night Film
Because you have to kick off with a starry entry for that maximum red carpet kick. It gets the international and mainstream press excited and you need their eyeballs... even if your festival is for the global cinephiles.
Robin Hood (Ridley Scott)
I'm amused that the tagline is marketing this as an "untold story". Hee.
- 4/20/2010
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Hi everyone, MattCanada here with another weekly dose of gay cinema. This week we're looking at Philadelphia, the Oscar winning courtroom drama, essentially the defining Hollywood response to the AIDS epidemic.
I first saw this film as a kid. I must have been about seven when I watched it with my parents and it was definitely my, and probably many other people's, introduction to AIDS. For me it continues to shape how I think about the virus, the stigma, and the epidemic. Longtime Companion opened a few years earlier but this was the first mainstream prestige film to deal with AIDS and homophobia. Having two big stars in Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington must have seemed like a big step for Hollywood. All of this is well and good, but rewatching the film for the first time in over a decade, I had serious problems with its filmic construction and especially its politics.
I first saw this film as a kid. I must have been about seven when I watched it with my parents and it was definitely my, and probably many other people's, introduction to AIDS. For me it continues to shape how I think about the virus, the stigma, and the epidemic. Longtime Companion opened a few years earlier but this was the first mainstream prestige film to deal with AIDS and homophobia. Having two big stars in Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington must have seemed like a big step for Hollywood. All of this is well and good, but rewatching the film for the first time in over a decade, I had serious problems with its filmic construction and especially its politics.
- 11/22/2009
- by CanadaMatt
- FilmExperience
Gregg Araki is detonating his next picture.
The writer-director ("The Doom Generation") has cast Roxane Mesquida, Thomas Dekker, Kelly Lynch and Haley Bennett in "Kaboom," which follows the sexual awakening of a group of college students. Araki is shooting the indie feature now.
Araki, repped by Untitled Entertainment, is the director of "Smiley Face," "Mysterious Skin" and "The Living End."
Repped by Apa and Untitled, Mesquida has appeared in "The Last Mistress" and "Fat Girl." This will be the French actress' American feature debut.
Dekker, repped by Icm and the Schiff Co., starred in "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" and recently appeared in the feature "My Sister's Keeper." He next appears in the remake of "A Nightmare on Elm Street," releasing in April.
Lynch, repped by Talent Works and Crestview Entertainment, appeared on Showtime's "The L Word" and in the features "Charlie's Angels" and "Road House."
Bennett, repped by Wme and the Schiff Co.
The writer-director ("The Doom Generation") has cast Roxane Mesquida, Thomas Dekker, Kelly Lynch and Haley Bennett in "Kaboom," which follows the sexual awakening of a group of college students. Araki is shooting the indie feature now.
Araki, repped by Untitled Entertainment, is the director of "Smiley Face," "Mysterious Skin" and "The Living End."
Repped by Apa and Untitled, Mesquida has appeared in "The Last Mistress" and "Fat Girl." This will be the French actress' American feature debut.
Dekker, repped by Icm and the Schiff Co., starred in "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" and recently appeared in the feature "My Sister's Keeper." He next appears in the remake of "A Nightmare on Elm Street," releasing in April.
Lynch, repped by Talent Works and Crestview Entertainment, appeared on Showtime's "The L Word" and in the features "Charlie's Angels" and "Road House."
Bennett, repped by Wme and the Schiff Co.
- 10/5/2009
- by By Jay A. Fernandez
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
- Smiley Face is director Gregg Araki’s follow up to his critically acclaimed Mysterious Skin, a stoner-comedy starring Anna Faris (Waiting, Lost in Translation, My Super Ex-Girlfriend) as Jane, whose day turns into a series of misadventures when she unwittingly devours a batch of marijuana cupcakes.When I hear the name Gregg Araki attached to my film, it grabs my attention. Odd, considering I’ve only seen three films directed by him -- The Doom Generation, The Living End, and Nowhere. The Doom Generation is my favorite, with superb art direction, camerawork, and music (Araki has a phenomenal ear for picking songs for his films – perhaps something to do with the fact he is a former music critic), and not to mention tons of tongue-in-cheek dialogue, bloody but comedic violence, and gratuitous sexual content. But it’s all fun and games till about the end, where the film takes a serious dramatic tone.
- 1/30/2007
- IONCINEMA.com
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