Toronto. Smiley Face.

"
Gregg Araki plays a very special role in my personal cinephilia," begins
Matt Riviera. "
The Living End,
Totally F***ed Up and
The Doom Generation were my introduction to independent queer cinema. They played a key role in my own coming of age, sexually, intellectually and politically.... It took 2004's
Mysterious Skin to establish Araki as an A-list director, perhaps America's answer to
Almodóvar."
Smiley Face "is not the complex multi-layered follow up to
Mysterious Skin I was hoping for. If that film was a step towards maturity, this one is pure regression."
But for
Cinematical's
Monika Bartyzel, this one shows Araki "can leave many of his usual, challenging themes behind and make an easy-to-serve, and completely fun, mainstream comedy." And just now,
Christopher Campbell passes along news that, after a brief run in LA, this one's going straight to DVD.
Posted by dwhudson at September 26, 2007 1:51 PM