A Guide to Gregg Araki

Gregg Araki is an independent filmmaker, writer, director, producer, editor, a sometimes cinematographer, and my second favorite director of all time. His filmography is bursting with color and pop culture references. From his wild and campy Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy to his more critically acclaimed Mysterious Skin, Araki’s movies are never without his usual directorial trademarks: aliens, nihilism, surrealism, profanity-laced one liners, and shoegaze soundtracks. So let this taxonomy of Gregg Araki’s filmography guide you through his usual backdrop of slipstream Los Angeles (which, by the way, is like Nowhere. Everybody who lives there is lost.)

Three Bewildered People in the Night – 1987

Alicia, David, and Craig meet up in at art shows and late-night coffee shops to talk about sexuality, boredom, video projects, and cynicism.

Rating: three out of five eye patches

Favorite Line: “I’m overwhelmed lately with the pointlessness

and futility of it all. Uh, can I have the short stack of wheat and honey pancakes?”

The Long Weekend (O’ Despair) – 1989

Three couples get together for a long weekend in L.A. where past drama and infidelities are slowly relived and revealed.

Rating and Favorite Line: I wouldn’t know. Unfortunately, this movie is stuck in VHS limbo and I can’t find a working link ANYWHERE

The Living End – 1992

After finding out they are both HIV positive, anxious film critic Jon and hustling drifter Luke embark on a nihilistic road trip fever dream full of guns, anal, and The Jesus and Mary Chain.

Rating: three and a half out of five Choose Death bumper stickers

Favorite Line: “I mean we’re talking about a guy who went into severe depression for two weeks when Echo and The Bunnymen broke up.”

Totally F****D Up – 1993

The first film in Araki’s Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy, Totally Fucked Up follows six gay teenagers through fifteen vignettes wandering around L.A. as they deal with boredom, loneliness, oppression, and relationships.

Rating: four out of five VHS parking garage drug parties

Favorite Line: all of the title screens. Standouts include- “The Alienation Generation”, “Lifestyles of the Bored and Disenfranchised”, and “To Live and Fry in L.A.”

The Doom Generation – 1995

Angsty Teens™ Jordan White and Amy Blue are forced to pick up violent hitchhiker, Xavier Red and the three end up on-the-run on a road trip full of murder, sex, surrealism, junk food, and one liners.

Rating: four and a half out of five extra large diet cokes

Favorite Line: “You want a Dorito?"

Nowhere – 1997 (my third favorite movie of all time)

Heralded as ‘90210 on acid’, Nowhere documents a day in the life of a group of teenagers in a bizarre slipstream L.A. as they hang out at diners, play drug-fueled games of Kick the Can, commit suicide, get abducted by aliens, and spend like 387 bucks on CD’s at Erin’s.

Rating: five out of five really good sweaty games of racquetball

Favorite Line: The entire scene with the valley girls, I can recite it from heart.

N

Splendor – 1999

After trying to choose between Abel, a poet, and Zed, a drummer, Veronica ends up choosing them both and entering a perfectly happy threesome. But as time goes by, Veronica starts to grow apart from the childish and now-inseparable Abel and Zed especially after discovering she is pregnant and receives a marriage proposal from a very successful director.

Rating: three out of five Mink Stole cameos

Favorite Line: “I mean I had come to the city to cut loose, although I was thinking more along the lines of not paying off my student loan than doing it with some stranger on the floor of a public toilet.”

This Is How the World Ends – 2000

A made-for-MTV pilot that never became a full series, Araki dives back in to the Teenage Apocalypse world with high schoolers Casper, Miles, and Sluggo as they attend their bizarre new age school, get held up at the music store (with a cameo from the Man From The Other Place from Twin Peaks), and getting heartbroken and falling in love at the huge party tonight (the Chemical Brothers are spinning.)

Rating: five out five new Sugar Ray CDs

Favorite Line: Sluggo telling Casper about her new girlfriend: “And she’s a witch” “Cool” “I know”

Mysterious Skin – 2004

A drastic and darker turn in Araki’s filmography, Mysterious Skin revolves around two teenage boys, Neil and Brian, as they grow up in the aftermath of childhood trauma. Sexually abused at age 8, Neil interprets the abuse as a sexual awakening of sorts, later becoming a prostitute aiming specifically towards much older men. Brian is convinced his trauma was caused by alien abduction and becomes progressively more paranoid and obsessed. As he works to uncover the truth about what happened to him, he seeks out Neil after recalling the two of them together as children.

Rating: five out of five hours crying after watching this movie

Favorite Line: “Come on, I’ll buy you Dairy Queen.” (I just love that scene in the car and I just love Eric)

Smiley Face – 2007

The only movie Araki has directed but not written, Smiley Face follows Jane F., a young actress, as she gets progressively more stoned on her way to Venice Beach to pay back her dealer.

Rating: three out of five pot cupcakes (which are reserved for the sci-fi extravaganza-con!!! Do not eat! This means you Jane.)

Favorite Line: “You think you're so... umm... uhh... JESUS! Then you go on and on and on about this and that and all this other bullshit! And all I gotta say is FUCK MAN! This situation is totally fucked! With a capital! I mean... Have you ever!... Do you like even... DO YOU? You tell your people that!”

Kaboom – 2011

College student, Smith’s routine of parties, sex, and hanging around campus is interrupted by recurring weird dreams about a strange girl trying to escape masked killers, eventually drawing him in to a major conspiracy.

Rating: three out of five see-through thigh high boots

Favorite Line: “Dude, it’s a vagina not a bowl of spaghetti”

N

White Bird in A Blizzard – 2014

After her mother’s sudden and unexplained disappearance, Kat tries to deal with her general coming-of-age while dealing with the mystery of what happened to her mother.

Rating: four and a half out of five of Kat’s post-punk mixtapes

Favorite Line: Kat and her friends back home from college “Ugh I can’t believe we ever lived here.” “Oh I know! Though I kinda find it reassuring how this place never changes you know? Like its frozen in time.” “Ew.”

#movies #greggaraki #aguideto #AllisonTovey