James Duval

Six queer teenagers struggle to get along with each other and with life in the face of varying obstacles.Read More »

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Gay, alienated Los Angeles teens have a hard time as their parents kick them out of their homes, they don’t have money, their lovers cheat, and they are harassed by gay-bashers.Read More »

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Six queer teenagers struggle to get along with each other and with life in the face of varying obstacles.

Fernando F. Croce wrote:
Gregg Araki once described Totally F***ed Up, his follow-up to the 1992 New Queer Cinema staple The Living End, as a “rag-tag story of fag-and-dyke teen underground…a kind of cross between avant-garde experimental cinema and a queer John Hughes flick.” The statement attests not only to Araki’s committed radicalism, but also to his sense of how the politics of pop culture play to alienated youth. He probably loved a rave from a San Francisco paper hailing the film as “a ‘90s version of The Breakfast Club.”Read More »

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A road-movie about two friends, Peter and Chris, in their late 20′s, one incredibly idealistic and optimistic; the other cynically nihilistic and negative. They pick up a Vespa in South Dakota and travel with it to Los Angeles. As they travel through the northwest to the southwest, they see their country through different eyes. Chris has high expectations and romantic notions of America. Peter sees the emptiness of America with lost ideals and lost people. While they do not discover the identity of America on their road trip, they ultimately find themselves…Read More »

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“Described by director Gregg Araki as “A Beverly Hills 90210 episode on acid” (with no suggestions of what it might be cut with), Nowhere is a companion piece with Araki’s previous meditations on youth gone wild in the 1990s, Totally F***ed Up and The Doom Generation — Araki’s self-described “teen apocalypse trilogy.” Nowhere follows 18-year-old Dark Smith (James Duval) as he goes through a fairly typical day in Los Angeles. Dark needs, but rarely gets, emotional support from his girlfriend Mel (Rachel True). Mel, however, is also involved with a girl named Lucifer (Kathleen Robertson), while Dark moons over hunky Montgomery (Nathan Bexton). Dark’s best friend Cowboy (Guillermo Diaz) has troubles of his own, as his boyfriend and bandmate Bart (Jeremy Jordan) is back on drugs and spending most of his time with his dealer. Mel’s friends include sugar junkie Dingbat (Christina Applegate), doomsday poetess Alyssa (Jordan Ladd), and Egg (Sarah Lassez), who is being unexpectedly wooed by a Famous Teen Idol (Jason Simmons). Egg’s brother Ducky (Scott Caan) has a crush on Alyssa, but she’s keeping company with a biker named Elvis (Thyme Lewis). Alyssa’s assignation with Elvis gets a psychic boost by her twin brother Shad (Ryan Phillippe) and his tryst with Lilith (Heather Graham). Read More »