Friday 27 April 2012

kaboom (2010) - gregg araki









If you like your 'New Queer Cinema'  films to feature young, good looking, polysexual, drug taking, open minded children of the New Order (probably based on this), with some supernaturality, witchcraft and murder thrown in for good measure (and as the good lord Keith knows - l do), then Kaboom is the movie crafted especially with you in mind.
It features all of the above, and a little bit more, even if, at first, it seems like any other American high school movie.
Thomas Decker as Smith (John Conner in Terminator!)  is outrageously good looking, and even prettier than the rest of the cast. The music choices (The xx, Placebo, The Yeah Yeah Yeah's etc) are top notch, and the dialogue is sharp and current. Even the clothes are pretty cool (not green).
Once the drugs kick in, things start to unravel, as an undercurrent of menace starts to infiltrate, and it just gets weirder and weirder as it goes along.
There are strange dreams and premonitions, missing girls, people in animal masks, and plenty of sex and nudity.
So....why is it not superb?
Because the last half an hour feels false and rushed, as though it is a bodged job of trying to fit the various strands together, with no great resolution in sight. It's as if they didn't believe in a plausible way to end the movie, and the ending they chose felt like a let down.
Pah!!
So close to an excellent film, yet so far away.
Saying that, l am certainly going to check out more of Gregg Araki's  films.
As Arnie would say - "l'll be back".

toodle pip

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