Kaboom (2010)

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.

While it has been said that there are 12(?) essential plot lines (and Shakespeare covered them all) there are those stories that seem hard to categorise. For me, at least, a good story is one where you wish to keep watching/reading/listening in order to know what happens next. And good film making is where the you want to keep watching in order to know what happens, as well as having the visual impact to make it worthwhile. Writing as an over-50, I watched Kaboom with no idea of what the film was about (or even the title actually). The first 20 minutes did not grab me (college flick) but I could see that this film was not what it purported to be. Slowly the story develops, and with hints of weirdness the characters are exposed and revealed. After 30 minutes I was intrigued as there was something hinted at that I wanted to see developed. After 40 minutes I was hooked, and the last 20 minutes were a movie drug. This is not 'conventional' film making, rather it is exposition, development and denouement all mixed up. It is meant to be unclear (though the end brings it all together), it is meant to be sexually challenging, it is meant not to be stereotypical. Had someone told me the story (college kids, sex/gay, blah-blah-blah) I would have told him/her to get a life. Instead, I was treated to an unusual, entertaining, challenging story that made me shout out at the end. Not for the Hollywood/Disney audience. Well done to Gregg Araki.

This chronicles the life of college student Smith (Thomas Dekker). He's bisexual, is about to turn 19 and is having these trippy strange dreams which seem to work their way into his life. There's gay sex, lesbian sex, witchcraft, men in animal masks, murder and some secret organization. During the last 30 minutes the movie manages to pull everything together and throw a science-fiction angle in it! It sounds strange and it is...but I couldn't stop watching. I should admit I'm a fan of director Gregg Araki. He's not afraid to take chances and push buttons and doesn't tone things done for an R rating (this was unrated). It was also his first film shot in wide screen and the colors and cinematography are bright and vivid. Also he doesn't tone down the gay sex like most Hollywood movies do. There's plenty of hunky guys kissing other guys, simulated sex and male nudity. The acting varies but Dekker is great in the main role. He has a pretty tricky role but pulls it off. If you're looking for something different with plenty of sex this is it. I think this is a rare movie that would grow with repeated viewings. I'm definitely getting the DVD of this!

I am SICK of guys who look like Thomas Dekker: pale, androgynous, black-haired pretty boys with stubble and stringy hair hanging in front of their eyes. There must be a factory somewhere that cranks them out like Edsels. This might have been an interesting movie if Araki had made him shave and wash his hair.Certainly the idea of an Araki horror movie is intriguing, and maybe he'll try again in a few years after the tiresome stubble/messy hair craze has died (Isn't it dead YET?!). I did manage to get through the movie, but it was not as good as it could have been with a different star, or with the same star after a shampoo and shave. His acting is fine; it's his look that seems about ten years out of date and is so tiresome it's distracting.