10th Anniversary of 'Mysterious Skin' and Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Actor

Glenn here. Look, we all know Joseph Gordon-Levitt was a child actor, and a pretty good one, too (that scene where he got skate in the face in Halloween: H20 is very memorable). But let's not kid around here. It wasn't until the release of Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin in 2005 that most really started to take him seriously. One year later he starred in Brick and he's only continued to rise up the ranks as a popular and critically respected actor. Looking back, I can't recall if his presence was as exciting to me in this film as Michelle Trachtenburg from Buffy, but looking back now he's certainly one of the reasons the film holds up.

It's actually rather appropriate that the 10th anniversary of Mysterious Skin should occur now at around the same time as New York Magazine's article entitled “Why You Should Go to the Movies (and Do Other Stuff) Alone” has been getting shared around on social media. You see, Araki's film was the first film I ever went to see at the cinema by myself. I travelled to Melbourne all on my lonesome, without friends or family who I usually convinced to join me for a day at the arthouse, and caught a screening of the movie that had amassed so much controversy in the local media. There were threats of it being banned after a 'family organization' (code for fundamentalist "won't somebody think of the children" noddies) demanded a review of its already very restrictive R18+ rating which is the Australian equivalent of an NC-17. Given the history of sexually graphic films being banned after similar action - titles like Romance and Baise-Moi - I knew I had to see this film. And fast!

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Thoughts I Had... While Watching "Kaboom"

This past week I finally caught up with Gregg Araki's Kaboom which is now available on DVD and Blu-Ray. I still vividly remember seeing The Living End when it came out and the memory is vivid because it was so raw, like a gay garage band demo. The latest is a typical Araki as its obsessed with beautiful young men, polysexual love triangles and the apocalypse. 

Here are a few thoughts on the movie ... let's say five of them to be precise.

01 While Araki has been known to reuse the same actors, his obsession with youth means that he has to keep moving on from muses past. It must suck for 38 year old James Duval, for example, to be demoted to third tier stoner "The Messiah" after headlining in the past. For Kaboom Thomas Dekker gets the beloved son position front and center and I do mean front and I do mean center. That seems to be the only compositional choice Araki makes in the movie. Nearly every scene ignores the sides of frames entirely -- the art direction often consists of a black screen - and places one actor cropped close up dead center, usually Dekker with his blue peepers and vaguely frosted lips. Dekker is nice to look at, and I'll admit straightaway that betwen this and Cinema Verite, he's a more interesting and game actor than I initially thought when he whined through The Sarah Connor Chronicles. But I'm not sure he's ready for his close-up. Or at least not this many of them in one movie. You'd have to be a full fledged movie star to nail that many of them in short succession.

02 See what I mean about the composition...

Do you wanna f*** me?"

...asks Juno Temple's "London" while Smith begins to hallucinate from the party drugs in an early scene. This is about as forward as the movie gets about sex despite a narrative which includes the following [NSFW]:

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TwitVid Jake Gylllenhaal and Pee Wee Herman. tee hee.
Cinesnatch runs down that Streep Tease show in LA for you. It sounds fun. I especially love the idea of a one-man conversation between multiple Meryl characters. Hopefully I'll get to see it next time I'm in LA. Whenever that is...
Business Spectactor Speaking of Meryl Streep, this is how you know someone's cinema achievements (of any sort)  have totally entered the realm of the popular mythic, when they're brought up in totally non-cinema related ways. Streep as defense of aging executives! Haha
Awards Daily I keep meaning to link up to this article on astrology and Oscar. Super interesting chart if you're into signs, baby. And it's all about Aries apparently.
The House Next Door Gregg Araki's new muse Thomas Dekker.
Twitch has a piece on how the PG-13 rating killed the films it was meant to protect, the films aimed at very young teenagers.
Senses of Cinema here's an interesting piece on Leo McCarey, his 1937 Oscar win and his preference for his drama Make Way For Tomorrow over his indisputable screwball classic The Awful Truth. I haven't seen Make Way... but I've never though artists were the best judge of their own art.
Rants of a Diva has an Oscar winning dream.
Serious Film has great advice for screenwriters of romantic comedies.
Capital New York. A fine review of Certified Copy starring Juliette Binoche though I'd urge you to see the movie first before reading it. It's a must-see film but one of the most beautiful things about it is the sense of evolving surprise as the film keeps shifting. So maybe read no reviews at all until afterwards. Then you'll want to read them all.

Finally La Daily Musto shares the news that that Barbra Streisand version of Gypsy that we were all excited / worried / shocked about has been cancelled already. Just as we'd gotten used to the idea. Apparently Stephen Sondheim is to blame. So here is Babs singing one of her best songs about nostalgia for what once was or what could have been.

Take it away Babs.

I love the guy bouncing up and down in the audience as she starts (notice him to the far right?). Babs fans were very excitable from the very start!