Kaboom Reviews

After watching ‘White Bird in a Blizzard’ (which was pretty good) and ‘Smiley Face’ (which was pretty lame), I was quite eager to check the feature that Gregg Araki did direct between these 2 movies. Well, I really liked the way it started and the damned thing had seriously some potential. Indeed, it was one of the best depictions of college life I have seen in a very long time. Furthermore, I loved Araki’s approach towards sexuality which was basically that almost no one is actually totally gay or hetero. Eventually, even though the characters were really promiscuous, it was never displayed as something really depraved or depressing like it was in ‘The Rules of Attraction’ for example and this approach was really refreshing. Unfortunately, even though this material was really interesting and more than enough to deliver a strong movie, for some reasons, Gregg Araki thought it would be a good idea to add a really misguided plot about some conspiracy involving an apocalyptic cult with some paranormal gifts. Seriously, it was so weak, so half-baked, it felt as if Araki had watched ‘Donnie Darko’ too many times and thought he could pull something similar but the end-result was just rather pathetic. It’s too bad because everything else in this movie was actually really solid. Anyway, to conclude, even though this movie didn’t really work, I still think it is worth a look though, especially if you are interested in Gregg Araki’s work.