Monday, December 9, 2013   Movie Review  Totally F ed Up (1993)
October 9, 1993  Review/Film Festival; Young and Gay, and
Opinionated About It  Published: October 9, 1993  "Everything
that homos are supposed to like -- disco music, drag shows, Joan
Crawford -- I hate," says one of the characters in "Totally
F***ed Up," Gregg Araki's fractured, corrosive portrait of a
group of gay comrades. Mr. Araki, who has described his film as
a "ragtag story of the fag-and-dyke teen underground," brings an
angry intelligence to bear upon disaffected characters, so that
his work plays vigorously as part movie, part manifesto.
"Formally, the picture's use of an exploded, free-associative
narrative and direct-to-camera address is as radical as the 60's
French New Wave (or its rip-off, 90's MTV)," Mr. Araki has also
written, none too bashfully, about his film. In its closing
credits, where friends and sponsors are usually thanked, he also
includes a colorful "no thanks" to "you all know who you are."
And the asterisks in th