Does anyone remember Gregg Araki's 90's indie gay movies?

I definitely remember "The Doom Generation".

That movie caused me to spill so many damn loads to tJohnathon Schaech

I will give her this: nuts as she seems now, I saw her once at a Starbucks near the William Morris Agency, where I had a meeting, and she was extremely nice to fans who recognized her. And, yes looked beautiful, much smaller in person too (as usual).

Good thread, OP. I really liked 'The Living End' but remember sitting with friends and arguing that 'Totally Fucked Up' and the 'Doom Generation' were pretentious crap. Bruce LaBruce, Monika Treut and Tom Kalin were sound, but we were critical of Araki., god knows why. I should go back and watch his earlier films.

Definitely check out "Nowhere" as well. It has a really great cast of young talent with some becoming big names now. There is this one scene where Ryan Phillipe puts a piece of chocolate in Heather Graham and well...it's messy. Great cameos w/ Charlotte Rey from Facts of Life.

R1 - WEHT to Jonathan Schaech - man he was gorgeous. In TDG when we blows the load all over his hand and then licks it up...or seeing his ass as he is jerking off over Rose and the other guy while they are sleeping. I need to revisit these movies again myself!

They were the worst, without substance and pretentious. His only redeeming factor was that he liked Curve and put their music in his movies.

If Rose McGowan worked with him and still has the nerve to call gay men misogynists, then she really is a homophobic breeder cunt.

I do miss those truly original voices in film back then. Even if you didn't like their movies, you knew who they were and what their aesthetic was. Unlike today. Sean Baker is about as close as we get these days. He seems like a maverick.

I LOVED "Nowhere". Still have it on VHS. Literally everyone was in that movie. It was such a fun little movie.

The sound tracks were incredible. Larry Clarke was a similar-ish style director. Remember "Kids"? Araki has a very distinct aesthetic. He directed a couple of episodes of "13 Reasons Why" and you can definitely tell which ones are his by his soundtrack (hipster high school kid of today listening to Joy Division, etc) and the muted coloring.

Ryan Philippe in Nowhere

[quote] I do miss those truly original voices in film back then.

Harvey Scissorhands helped silence them while he was busy making "indie film" into just another buzzword, and Rob Marshall helped with his relentlessly dull, form-over-substance bourgeois blandness. Things were so much better before the Miramax/Disney merger and the New Line/Turner merger.

I remember liking the The Living End the most of that string of movies from him as well.

[quote] WEHT to Jonathan Schaech - man he was gorgeous. In TDG when we blows the load all over his hand and then licks it up...or seeing his ass as he is jerking off over Rose and the other guy while they are sleeping. I need to revisit these movies again myself!

For sure. God I recall one scene when he is talking to James Duval about double-penetration and basically says it is hot to feel the other guys cock rubbing against your own. Good lord I wanted that man.

Think of TV now as indie film, and indie film as streaming services. That's where this kind of talent works now. Movies are for live-actions spectacles based on comic books/animated movies/pre-existing IP only now.

Christina Applegate

Where are these television shows about gay men r13? There was "Looking"....and that's about it.

The scene in splendor with Jonathan and Matthew making out in front of Kathleen Robertson was hot.

WHET Jeremy Jordan?

Mysterious skin with that kid fisting that hot daddy...

R11 - Do you think original, experimental movies like there were a sign of the times? These films were all done in the 95-99 era.. Around '99 things became more sanitized - we starting getting the boy bands, Britney...I am trying to think cinematically what was going on in Y2K.

The homoerotic Brewer Twins - where are they?

For starters, we lost the theatres for those unique voices. One remains in almost every major city but I would wager they hang on by the skin of their teeth. I remember seeing Bruce LaBruce's "Hustler White" in a theatre and loving it. That theatre is long long gone now. Think it's a Home Goods store now.

Mysterious Skin was magnificent. The others ok or pretentious.

Mysterion Skin was obviously his big hit, but those weird tiny budget queer experimental films is what the OP is referring to.

Butt cuts are to the 1990s what mullets were to the 1980s.

Yeah, Mysterious Skin was the only good one, because it was based on a novel with a plot.

His entire oeuvre is so pretentious '90s. Hottie from 'The Living End' stud was sexy but straight, and the story was banal.

I remember reading about them, thinking they sounded amazing, then being bored out of my mind watching them ("Totally Fucked-Up" and "Nowhere" - never saw "Doom Generation"). I guess it goes to show how starved I was for non-stereotypical gay content at the time.

Mainstream suffocates indie voices and dismisses them as pretentious posers. A couple of decades ago movie studios and music labels released credible stuff with real artistic integrity. Now it's just doing commercial stuff that makes you money while telling the masses "this product has all the artistic merit you need, because it was made to be nominated for award season! So, don't look any further!".

Everything needs to have a big marketing promotion budget in order to find an audience. Apparently no movie project can rely on good word of mouth during the festival circuit anymore.

Oh, and don't get me started on Bruce LaBruce. Godawful.

Do we think Gregg got to sample James Duval or Jonathan Schaech?

One hopes so.

R27 reads like a monologue in one of Araki's films.

Bad scripts and shitty acting, plus incompetent cinematography, audio recording and dismal lighting are not the fault of "mainstream" moviemaking, Gregggggy.

They're the fault of a precious dolt who had his time in the spotlight, fortunately one operated by a competent technician, unlike ANYone on his film crews.

[quote]Apparently no movie project can rely on good word of mouth during the festival circuit anymore.

That's why a genuine gay movie like [italic]God's Own Country[/italic] gets suffocated despite good word-of-mouth and overshadowed by an inferior, creepy, and not actually gay movie.

R29 - I am thinking Araki might have sampled James Duvall. He was the muse in Doom Generation, Nowhere & Totally Fucked Up. Schaech was married to Christina Applegate back then.

May I ask what the appeal of his movies are?

I'm not too familiar with his collection but from what I understand every movie is about a sexually conflicted young man who has a girlfriend but desires sex with another man, then upon receiving that satisfaction is immediately punished for it. It's like every movie is a lesson in "This is why you shouldn't be gay, kids."

I thought The Living End was way too amateurish, but The Doom Generation and Nowhere had a nice Waters-lite sense of humor. I wonder if any of these movies hold up. They seem very 90s.

brewer twins own an insurance agency down by the water in LA......(not making this up).........sell car, boat, and house insurance........still live together, one of them at least is married...............shut the place down and go surfing everytime the surf is up..........

I remember enjoying some of his films, especially The Living End and Mysterious Skin. One disappointing hallmark of his films was that they always promised more sex than they delivered.

Also: always thought Bill Sage (the guy at R18) was cute. He was in a lot of Hal Hartley's films.

I remember seeing one of his earliest films, Three Bewildered People in the Night, on an off night at the Gay & Lesbian Film Festival in LA around 1986. It's super low budget, grainy black-and-white and set in LA (of course). He was at the screening and various industry types (of sorts) were coming right up to him praising his work and making offers (of sorts) right there. I loved the movie but my more critical friend Tom wasn't as sold. He probably thought it was pretentious.

James Duval on Araki

[quote]I met Gregg while I was working at a cafe and trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life. He came up to me and just said, "Hey, I'm this low-budget independent filmmaker and I've got this film that I think you'd be great in. Are you an actor?" And I said, "Sure, you know? If you want me to be."

"Pretentious" is a word semi-literates throw around a lot, isn't it?

R34 I remember seeing THE LIVING END on late-nite.cable, and as a young teen living in a small homophobic town thinking “is...this what gay men are?”. For context I had never spoken to a gay man prior to that and did not encounter gay people in everyday life. It was a baffling introduction to say the least.

By high-school graduation I had seen it again and appreciated it more for what it is, a lurid escapist fantasy of separatism. I get where Araki was coming from more now, and honestly I’m a closet-fan of his work as I’m into films with that ‘fuck you’ sensibility.

I refuse to support any cinematic movement that embraces anti-gay hate speech. Fuck New Q***r Cinema and just say gay.

"antigay hate speech"

DLers are so ridiculous. Queer cinema is what the genre was called.

I thought Johnathon Schaech was hotter than FUCK in Doom Generation. Dirty mouthed, dirty fingernails, belching, nasty and fucking sleazy. Araki certainly tapped into something in MY psyche.

Mysterious Skin is brilliant.

He knew what to do with Ryan Phillippe. Bury his stud face in Heather Graham's pussy and smear it with chocolate. Fuck this was hot as shit, dude.

[quote]DLers are so ridiculous.

They are trolls, not DLers. DLers know how to throw shade, trolls just troll like haters just hate.

i was team Hal Hartley in those glorious days. Araki's movies looked good but were very empty and not as edgy as they sold them

R45 - This is why I loved Araki. Always an awesome soundtrack, beautiful actors, and just total WTF hotness.

R43: Yet African-American movies are called that and not a racial slur.

11 Best Films of the Queer Cinema Movement

Loved his stuff ! The hustler in The Living End was so smoking hot. I looked him up a few years ago and hes still built but bald and the mug is rough.If I remember correctly hes big onto martial arts now.

R50: Thanks for giving me a list of films to boycott for helping to normalize anti-gay bigotry.

Two words:

Matt Keeslar

How I loved Araki (and Todd Haynes too) films. They were the angry youthful opposite of middle-aged white HIV flicks like Jeffrey, Longtime Companion, and Love! Valour! Compassion.

I thought White Bird in a Blizzard was very average but Eva Green was fantastic as always

I had James Duval sign a copy of Doom Generation for me at a con 2 years ago....I thinks he's still hot...I told him I appreciated his fearless male nudity in the film. His response was, "You mean my balls? (laughed) That's on my demo reel!" He was a fun person to talk with.

Remember how fun it was Greg Araki gave press to the idea of being gay is a choice and came out as bisexual and in a relationship with Kathleen Robertson?

Remember how fun that was?

Why do some DLers get incensed at the idea that some guys who like men are not 100% gold-star gays.

And that's why I've always preferred John Waters' films, R57. He's never denied being gay nor has he tried to pull shit like that.

Gregg Araki on his sexuality

[quote]Do you identify as bisexual? I don’t really identify as anything, I guess. I have a male partner—we’ve been together for three years—but I don’t really identify. I’d probably identify as gay at this point, but I have been with women.

Matt Keesler is a nurse in Portland Oregon now..........not making this up........widely available info on the web........married with kids....(to a woman).......