The Doom Generation

Year of Release:  1995
Director:  Gregg Araki
Screenplay:  Gregg Araki
Starring:  Rose McGowan, James Duval, Johnathon Schaech
Running Time:  83 minutes
Genre:   dark comedy, drama, crime

Amy Blue (McGowan) is nihilistic, angry and bored with herself, with her friends, with her world.  Her main interests are drugs, music and sex (not necessarily in that order), and she maintains an affectionate relationship, withe her sweet, good-natured boyfriend Jordan (Duval).  One night handsome, violent drifter Xavier, nicknamed "X", (Schaech), literally falls onto their car and, after a convenience store clerk is accidentally killed during an impromptu robbery, the three find themselves on the run in a surreal, violent, hallucinatory USA.

A principal figure in the "New Queer Cinema" movement of the late 1980s to early '90s, this was billed as "a heterosexual movie"  by Araki.  In reality it is and it isn't, while the more obvious object of desire is the seductive Amy, it's plain to see that the real love story is between guys Jordan and Xavier.  It feeds quite neatly into the "lovers-on-the-run" road movie genre that was popular in the 1990s (such as Wild at Heart (1990), True Romance (1993) and Natural Born Killers (1994)), but this is funnier than most and stylish.  Full of inventive production design and a superb central performance from McGowan, this is a dark, violent and bleak film.  The film, is full of scenes of characters eating, but rarely has food been filmed as unappetizing as what is proved to be the source, with all the artifificial elements accentuated and fearful.  Everything about the film screams late 1990s and yet it is still relevant today.

     James Duval, Jonathon Schaech and Rose McGowan are the Doom Generation.

Kaboom

Year:  2010
Director:  Gregg Araki
Screenplay:  Gregg Araki
Starring:  Thomas Dekker, Haley Bennett, Juno Temple, Roxane Mesquida, Brennan Mejida, James Duval
Running Time:  83 minutes
Genre:   Science-fiction, comedy, surreal

This bizarre science-fiction comedy centres on 18 year old sexually "undeclared" college student Smith (Dekker) who, when he is not lusting after guys and girls, spends his time hanging out with his best friend Stella (Bennett) who is involved in a difficult relationship with the beautiful but unstable Lorelei (Mesquida) who has bizarre psychic powers.  Smith strikes up a friendship with British student, London (Temple).  He also finds himself plagued by bizarre dreams, and becomes preoccupied with a mysterious red-haired girl (Nicole LaLiberte) who appears to be threatened by mysterious figures wearing animal masks.  Smith becomes convinced that the masked figures are also targeting him.  However Smith, Stella and London soon find out that there is far more going on then they could ever have imagined.

Gregg Araki's films tend to be very much love them or hate them.  He is a good director with a strong visual sense and a distinctive take on the world.  This film treads very familiar Araki territory being a surreal, teenage sex comedy.  It has a very distinctive visual style of lurid, bright colours and  bizarre transition effects between scenes.  The attractive, and never knowingly over-dressed, cast are engaging and seem to be having a great time throughout.  Coming across at times like an episode of Dawson's Creek if it was written by Bret Easton Ellis, if you can tune into Araki's wavelength and enjoy his particular brand of sexy, camp surreal take on teen angst you can have a great time with this movie. 

It is entertaining and frequently very funny, however it does have the problem of trying too hard to be hip.  However even if you don't like it, it is too startling and strange to get dull.  

Juno Temple, Thomas Dekker and Haley Bennett in Kaboom