Kaboom

If you want image and attitude this can be fun. If depth of vision, on the other hand, it will seem small.

I'll have you imagine this as a guy with a bunch of comic-books and magazines on his floor, he cuts up strips and glues them together, now something about sex and college relationships, then a strip off Scooby- Do, another resembles Lynch, a third is about life on campus, then back to sex, more sex and obsession.

He is from that 90s crop of makers (Tarantino, Smith) who thought that life had no business being seen as deeper than the way stuff just hang together, the fun in having so much stuff to pick from: movies, comic- books, TV. He briefly tried something more coherent in Mysterious Skin, here he's back to a collage.

Two main thrusts here. One is the college journey of discovery, here he tries to paint a picture of sexual life, the confusion and reluctance - Nowhere was angsty, this is more relaxed in its skin, there's a sweetness around discovery. The second thrust is about mysterious happenings around campus, there are figures in animal masks who come out at night, a witch, a girl found dead. This is the more endearing part, all about how confusion in his mind around sexual identity manifests around campus as some inscrutable power of rearrange.

It's all in the opening scene, a recurring dream where he walks down a corridor lined with girls and comes up against a mysterious door marked 18, his age: sex, dreams, locked mystery.

It's fun for a while to see him do it, the fun all in the imaginative jumps from one strip to the next, in that it all loosely hangs together around a dream. But then it's as if he gets bored or can't see any point to it so he just keeps throwing stuff. A cult, the end of the world, a discovery about the father, more trysts, a car chase. None of it sticks, too much paper weight so it all just tumbles down in a heap of scraps. This is its own insight then on craft, if the patching doesn't begin to rise up into shape that guides the eye from forms to the possible thing they give rise to, it remains artless patchwork.

Lynch also takes a lot of care in picking out cinematic wallpaper so it's seductive when you enter, but that's after he has mulled long and hard about where the walls are going to be and what kind of space they will define.

This film is about a young man in college, who encounters a series of sexual encounters together with weird events.

"Kaboom" is quite different from the other Gregg Araki films I have seen, in that it has paranormal elements and feels more eerie, but still has the sexual subplots to give the it the director's signature. At times feels like a thriller, and at times it is the director's signature story of sexual awakening. Despite the blurred distinction between the two, "Kaboom" is still weirdly engaging. The leads are great, they can act and they look good too, providing loads of eye candies. Thomas Dekker is certainly a person to look out for in future films. And have you wondered why the film is called "Kaboom"? Watch the film until the last scene and you will understand!

That's how 'Kaboom' is billed on the DVD. I watched it, premiered on Film 4 last night.

Initially I rather liked it, the striking design, the casual attitudes to almost everything and the dialogue. Especially the catty one-liners. I'm not familiar with this director and on the strength of this one movie, I'm not in a particular hurry to explore further, however.

I realise that it's intended to be a surreal cult film and where it falls to pieces is where it starts to mess with your head, as it's just non-sensical and frankly, silly. I also realise that I'm not in the probable intended audience, age-wise. People running around in pig- headed masks just don't grab me, I'm afraid.

The liberal, mixed sex scenes were both interesting and fun and the attitude that good sex is just that, refreshing. Most of the young cast play their parts well, especially Thomas Dekker, Haley Bennett and Juno Temple. I did watch it all and there were many good points and I enjoyed much of it, but ultimately, it's just too way out there.

After the complex, challenging, touching and definitely mature "Mysterious Skin" (2004) I was really looking forwards to Araki's new film (And let's just pretend that the 2007 Smiley Face doesn't even exist). The trailer makes Kaboom look quirky, subversive and somewhat crazy in a fresh and fun sort of way…. Once again, a misleading trailer! Unfortunately the film itself has really none of that offer, as if Araki, instead of growing up, had been regressing to a film student again, because, that's what this film feels like: a polished and yet pointless student film! And believe me, I've seen many of those in my life! Thomas Dekker is quite likable and he's probably the best thing in the film and yet he's struggling with a story that has no beginning and no end (literally no end!)… and actually, come to think of it, no middle either! The film tries to be anarchic, dark, sexy, funny, rude, aping films like Donnie Darko and even The Rules of Attraction (which was a pretty faulty film anyway). In the end it is just too chaotic and definitely too silly to be taken seriously or to even recommend. There are very few original ideas and the little excitement in there is only given by the music and the editing, but certainly not by the story. Even the few good lines of dialogue in the script remain too isolated and detached be noticed, let alone remembered and they get lost in the ludicrous plot. What is real? Is there a conspiracy? Who are those people dressed like animals? Does any of this really matter? And actually, do we give a toss? In the end it's very hard to care about who does what and why, so basically you'll just end up waiting to see who's going to have sex with whom, (basically everyone seems bed down with just about everyone else in this movie despite their gender differences) and yet, none of the sex never has anything to do with the story. It is completely incidental and purely exploitive. But even if you take it as a sexy film , beyond its average straight/gay/bi soft-core porn clichés, it is all quite unremarkable and gets nowhere close to push any boundary and it thinks it does. In fact it all gets rather repetitive (I lost the count of how many times some character wakes up all of a sudden from some bad dream). This film might have been the director's wet dream, but none of that excitement shows up in the final product. I'll give Araki one last chance then I'll begin to think that "Mysterious Skin" was just a lucky mistake in an otherwise disastrous filmography MoviegeekBlog.wordpress.com

I've watched most of Greg Araki's films, weather online or by accident. In university I was directed to several of his movies, for his wild and outrageous plot-lines, and desolate themes of helplessness. I wouldn't call myself a fan, but I did enjoy the 90's drug escapade "Nowhere"(1997), which was a precursor to many well known stars of the early 2000 era. Araki leads viewers on a non-oriented vision of college life, complete with all the oddball events of his previous films, but ends up as a rather dull entry.

For most of the movie the viewer is listening to our main character (known only as Smith), discuss the trials and tribulations of his young adult life. Bi-sexual, awkward, unfocused, and generally ignorant of other people around him, we are forced into his fantasies, absurd lifestyle, and unrealistic grip on reality. Sounds like fun right? Well, unfortunately you'd be wrong. The events that we witness unbearably forced, despite its unnatural and science-fiction theme. I felt most of the actors were just terribly strained and the unnatural dialogue between characters only draws attention to the situation. I think the actors were just terribly tedious in their delivery, and before long, I found there wasn't as single one that was believable.

As with most drug riddled, and absurdist films, this movie has some interesting happenings. There is everything from serial killers to witchcraft here, and they certainly match Araki's usual plot-lines. Some are pretty amusing, and somewhat surreal, while others simply fall flat and actually take away from the enjoyment of the film. Several of them (if not most) have no significance to anything at all, and they leave you with the feeling that Araki is trying his hardest to stay relevant in his own way. I didn't mind the craziness, in fact, I was expecting it. However, by the end of the film, you find yourself more than confused (which is probably his goal in the first place).

If you're a fan of Araki, you'll probably like this film very much. I didn't really think it had anything to offer besides that "WTF is happening" feeling he brings to movies. An irrelevant event with an abrupt ending.

4/10