MovieChat Forums > Kaboom (2010) Discussion > oh Gregg...

oh Gregg...

posted 13 years ago by notEVERYnookandcrannyJohn
1 reply | jump to latest

What a glorious mess of a film, exactly what I was expecting. It's not quite as good as Nowhere, but it really does feel like a spiritual successor to that movie. I just wish Araki would make movies like this every couple of years like he did in the 90s. There hasn't been anything like the Doom Generation or Nowhere since those films came out, and while I loved Mysterious Skin, this is the Gregg Araki I grew up loving. It just gets wackier and crazier and culminates in the best possible clusterf-ck of a climax you could want from a movie like this. I laughed my ass off when it ended.

And I have to say, it sucks that Gregg dropped all of the Slowdive and Ride stuff, but he certainly found some great newer tunes for this soundtrack. I think a lot of shoegaze bands should be at least somewhat indebted to Gregg Araki. I'm not sure if I would have ever even heard of Slowdive or the Catherine Wheel without him, along with multiple other bands of that era.

The only thing missing was one of his snappy title cards at the beginning. "A HOMOSEXUAL FILM BY GREGG ARAKI" or something like that. I always enjoyed those.

and don't forget to try the dipping sauces. They really bring out the ham.

[–] la_cinematheque 13 years ago

I thought this was drastically less enjoyable than Nowhere and The Doom Generation. I think those movies did a much better job of intertwining the surreal, apocalyptic elements with the overblown teen parody that's the heart of the story. This movie takes an abrupt turn for the supernatural or sci-fi or whatever about 2/3 of the way through and, for me, got really boring and pointless from then on. But even before that, the characters and especially the dialog weren't up to par with Araki's older films. Speaking of the characters, they definitely felt like they were written by someone far removed from teen years and trying to approximate it; throwing "google" and "blackberry" into every other sentence felt SO forced and obnoxious.

I liked the spirit of this movie, but overall it just didn't cut it. I'd prefer to see more like Mysterious Skin from him or other stories besides "teen apocalypse" told in his signature style.