When your most recent film, a goofy stoner-comedy called Happy Face, gets unjustly ignored and barely released, what’s your next move as a director? Go back to your roots and make a hot, young teenage sci-fi comedy thriller about sexual awakenings, that’s what. Gregg Araki’s latest film, Kaboom, stars Kelly Lynch (The L Word) and Araki mainstay James Duval alongside sexy young stars Thomas Dekker (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), Juno Temple (Atonement) and Haley Bennett (The Haunting of Molly Hartley). The plot involves a Twin Peaks-style small town mystery, some hallucinogenic cookies and a lot of boundary-blurring sexual connections. Translation: it’s what you already know and –presumably – love about Araki’s weirdly cool worldview. Be on the lookout later this year for an explosion of old-school New Queer Cinema in a theater that shows that sort of thing near you.
By Romeo San Vicente
