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25 out of 27 people found the following review useful: The Revival of trash! Sweet ‘n pure TRASH!!, 25 February 2004 Author: Coventry from the Draconian Swamp of Unholy Souls
What Gregg Araki presents to us here is nothing but good old-fashioned trash! Giving us a taste of the glorious Russ Meyer reign during the sixties and seventies, which is a terribly ignored field of cult-cinema. Simply put, this film is extremely COOL to look at! The title is very appropriate because this film indeed leads to nowhere and it's Gregg Araki's view on the subject of teen-alienation. Without even trying, he beats that other overrated director Larry Clark who takes himself way too serious anyway. Nowhere constantly introduces kinky and eccentric characters, each and every one of them suffering from modern diseases and problems like drugs, eating disorders, nymphomania, hallucinations, aggression and even suicide! Araki even touches the more daily problems like popularity and faithfulness. The pivot in this hysterical bunch is Dark, an utterly confused, bisexual young man who's convinced that he's going to die soon. Dark is played by James Duval, an over-talented young actor and building up a solid cult-reputation through starring in other goodies like ‘Donnie Darko' and ‘May'. Duval also was the key figure in the previous entries of Araki's apocalyptic trilogy, carrying the very imaginative titles `Totally F***ed Up' and `The Doom Generation'. Both films that come with my highest possible recommendation as well, but I'm strongly convinced that Nowhere is Araki's best and most personal achievement. It just is a magnificent series of hilariously messed up conversations and actions, leading towards a truly insane anti-climax. I can easily imagine that mainstream film-audiences will absolutely loath this film, but I'm a giant fan…and Araki can be sure of the fact that his film already built up a cult-following by now. It's truly remarkable how Gregg Araki managed to work with such an overly well-known and talented cast. Practically every little role in Nowhere is credited with a famous name of the young and upcoming Hollywood generation. In the tiniest, most meaningless figures, you'll recognize faces like Heather Graham, Shannen Doherthy, Stacy Keanen, Scott Caan, Ryan Phillipe, Jordan Ladd, Mena Suvari and many, many more… The absolute highlights however, are the cameos by multiple veterans like Beverly D'Angelo as Dark's slutty mother and especially John Ritter as a religion guru on TV. You hear it, there's so much to discover in this film…I can't praise it enough!
19 out of 26 people found the following review useful: An artistically exquisite comment on the lives of 90's kids..., 30 November 1999 Author: Slanky-2 (thewarrior@juno.com) from United States
Nowhere is the type of film that you either get and love, or don't get and hate. Aside from it's brilliantly artistic cinematography and art direction, it's a pretty accurate representation of life as a modern-day adolescent. As strange as this comment may seem, it does hold true. The events presented are, in fact, realities of the lives of today's young people: sex, drug use, suicide, and mental illness are all dealt with in some way or another. For some, it is truly like being on acid. For those of us that have blocked out the traumatic parts of growing up, then it is understandable why you don't understand this movie. The way each issue is presented is the genius of the art: Each character and their emotional impact is presented artistically as well as dramatically. Although the entire movie is not relevant to everyone, I would strongly suggest watching it for at least the artistic merit. Even if you don't understand it or it doesn't apply to you, understand that it is relevant to some.
22 out of 35 people found the following review useful: A masterpiece, 17 October 2003 Author: one4now4 from Ft. Worth, TX, USA
This, along with "The Doom Generation", is one of my many favorite films. I remember showing this to quite a few people at different times, and two things seem to upset people the most: the bisexuality/homoeroticism and the loads of sex scenes that, depending on the scene, serve various purposes. One person I watched it with (she thought she was an intellectual and felt it was beneath her to sit through it) said there was no way this film could be saying anything important and called it a "porno movie". Naturally, since this film shows not one exposed genital organ or even a bare female breast, her argument was ridiculous. As for the homosexual things that go on in the film, I think that that makes people upset because it depicts these characters as human beings with emotions (which homosexuals and bisexuals are) and/or because it turns them on. I love this movie for many reasons. It's very schizophrenic, always going back and forth from harsh realities to gutbusting humor, and sometimes managing to blend them together in a strange and equal mix. It seems that Gregg Araki was trying to defy expectations of him here, and that he was trying not to make a film easily judged as "exploitation". This movie has more sex scenes than "The Doom Generation", but they are not explicit at all. The reasons these scenes are erotic and entertaining is because Araki works with the characters and dialogue to make the sex interesting without showing any nudity other than the occasional male butt. Also, where there would be so many people to call "The Doom Generation" garbage for its constant use of obvious profanities, the dialogue in "Nowhere", if you'll notice, was done without hardly any cusswords, unless you count the myriad of VERY creative slang terms poured all throughout. And as for the gore, there's one big scene and one brief, minor scene. What I find amazing is that even with these differences, "Nowhere" is no less fascinating and brutally effective than "The Doom Generation". I love them both, and, no matter how many disagree, I believe Araki is a very important, skillful, and versatile cinematic artist. I've decided to include no spoilers, but I do want to add one more thing: If you don't see any meaning to this, that still doesn't mean that it is completely meaningless and without a point.
12 out of 17 people found the following review useful: life is but a dream, 8 July 2005 Author: polexia_rogue from United States
Like an ancient poem the ideas, meaning and even aspects of the plot are left up to interpretation. This is a movie for anyone who has ever been so bored with his or current situation that he or she can just lay back and dream up a world of love, death,sex, drugs and aliens abductions and the end of the all life as we know it. Each character is kind one sided as we see the world through the eyes of Dark, the aptly named lead; these are not representations of all teens but only the annoying stereotypes as they relate to Dark's life. so taking all that in to account this is a great movie to share with friends (and confuse the heck out of them) or to watch when you're feeling a little bored yourself. With sets painted wild colors and out of place visuals it's clear that for Dark-life is but a dream.
9 out of 13 people found the following review useful: There's Something About..."Nowhere", 17 March 1999 Author: SamLowry-2 from Port Orchard, WA, USA
Gregg Araki can be faulted for not inviting the "main stream" audience into his "vision" of the world. But this probably isn't really a goal of his, anyway. As I watched "Nowhere" in the theater (twice in one week) I was filled with awe that something I had always felt had been so colorfully put on celluloid: finding love is all that matters, but the world isn't designed to make that finding easy. So when "Dark" finds an amazingly true moment amongst the usual Araki violence, hilarity, sex and clutter (a moment to simply relax and hold the person in the bed next to him) it rings true to the heart of experience. The movie ends in the next moment with an equally true touch. So, the sooner we find love, the sooner it can find its own reason to leave us. Araki's best film. If you don't get it, then he probably doesn't want you to.
8 out of 12 people found the following review useful: Sure there are alien abductions, but man, take a chill pill…, 24 February 2006 Author: Indigo_Perfect from Australia
Gregg Araki's film, "Nowhere", is a joke. It is pointless, superficial, and sometimes perverse. But it is a funny joke. It is a one-track, one punch-line film, and its degree of success can really be measured in how long it manages to sustain that joke – to keep it all at once interesting, intriguing and (above most other things), funny. If you're looking for answers or messages within the subtext of this film (and I use the term "subtext" lightly), then you will probably not find much in the trashy, nihilistic jerks who populate this trashy, nihilistic vision of LA. What you see is what you get; there is little subtly ("God Help Us" a large sign cries at one point while the main characters cheerfully ignore it). And yet somehow, despite most odds, Araki actually manages to construct a film around interesting, affectionate characters, and then pit them in an environment of illicite sex and drugs, disillusionment and disaffection, all while maintaining a level of pathos that (for the most part) is genuine. This is not an easy balancing act to achieve. To its credit, it manages to sustain this act for almost all of its 87 minuet run time."Nowhere" seems to borrow heavily from the literature of Bret Easton Ellis. Its characters – racy and ridiculously attractive 18-year-old LA yuppies, disciples one and all of pop-tart culture and rejectors of the status quo – could be lifted from the campus of "Rules of Attraction", or the drunken house-parties of "Less Than Zero". (Frankly, this film could almost be the film adaptation of "Rules of Attraction" – and honestly, this film does an infinitely better job of communicating the undiluted themes, ideas and characterisations of the novel than the actual film adaptation managed). Like "Less Than Zero", the plight of central character Dark seems to begin and end with who he's sleeping with, who he'd like to be sleeping with, and who he realistically can sleep with – all the while looking for a way of bettering himself in the belief that unconditional love should not mean loving everyone with a pulse just for the heck of it. Unlike the central character of "Less Than Zero", Dark doesn't have a comparison to this life on which to better himself – like the rest of his friends, he makes do with that he has: drugs, sex, and a video camera.The plot, such as it is, centres of a bunch of hedonistic and supremely superficial teenagers, all of whom have various attachments with each other, and appear to search (with varying degree of conviction and success) for an emotional connection with another human being. Some take advantage of the world and their place in it – others are taken advantage of. Some try to make sense of it, others to ignore it, and even more opt to simply go with the flow. In the space of 12 hours, a penultimate party will be attended, relationships will be tested, changed, negotiated and destroyed, and some of them will die. All of them are curiously bisexual, which does nothing to serve the narrative except to throw a few predictability curve balls into the narrative drive. This is hardly a criticism – while still on the unpredictability drive, Araki even throws in a large reptilian alien, just to see what happens. (Think "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and you'll be on the right track).While my plot summation may seem somewhat conventional, this film is far from convention. Araki's film is like a more literal adaptation of any of Ellis's novels. What his characters don't say about themselves physically he depicts for the audience in saturated colour, surreal sets and staging, and impossible lighting effects. (The walls of each character's room are a fantastic projection of themselves: in one, Dark, our pseudo-protagonist, has a massive mural of himself holding a gun to his forehead; on another, a suicidal rock'n'roller has angry lines of text printed endlessly around the room). The film looks like one big drug-induced nightmare of colour and light and is strangely beautiful to look at. To say there is a hallucinogenic mixture of extremes would be a colossal understatement.And, come to think of it, his characters are themselves reflections of these extremes: from the almost stoner-drawl of Dark to the palpably naïve, virginal Montgomery, to the insanely Bonnie/Clyde antics of Shad and Lilith and over-the-top pairing of dominatrix-like personas Kriss and Kozy Araki's characters are almost parodies of themselves. And, with all good parodies, we laugh at them as well as with them.The film is very funny, a little shocking (but not for the reasons you'd assume), genuinely surprising (in a sick, twisted, predictable kind of way) and wonderfully frivolous. Looking for any great answers to universal questions in this film would be like trying to draw blood from a stone. It assumes to be nothing more than it is, and assumes that the audience does, too. It is an ensemble piece, and all of them are good. In the end, it is a deliberately trashy, superficial throw-away film that won't enhance the quality of your life or make you a better person. But what Araki also manages is to elicit an emotional response from his audience, even amid all this hyperkinetic chaos and frenetic drug-fuelled sex.Even though he may take us down familiar roads and into slightly unconventional territory, "Nowhere" remains a stubbornly unique vision of youth and pop-culture. I, for one, found the ending both touching and hilarious – it's the ultimate punch-line to the one, big joke. But it's a joke you either get, or you don't.***1/2 out of *****. That's ******* out of **********.Sure there are alien abductions, but man, take a chill pill…
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful: I liked it, 31 July 2007 Author: AspiringDirector from Wisconsin
I caught this film on IFC on some late night where I couldn't sleep. This film is a trip and a half. The colors are bold and the film is really about teenagers figuring out their place in life. The dialog is absolutely hilarious. I, myself, am a teenager and the stereotypical script really seemed to fit. Every character in this film, in my opinion, is just part of a high school stereotype that you get placed into during that age. Whether it be the awkward girl who wants to fit in, sex rampaging freaks or just some young 16 year olds trying to find a hoppin party. I wish I could find this movie on DVD. Really generation defining in my opinion. Try to not listen to the people who bash this movie saying it's trash and all of that. Well ... it is trash but the movie "knows" it's trashy and low-brow; so I guess it can pull it off. I'm actually surprised I haven't heard of it until now. Find it and watch it.
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful: Trippy, yet very good, 27 July 2007 Author: Ryan Ahr (PyreworksShow) from United States
As was said above, this is basically 90210 on Acid. From the very beginning one can tell that this film is going to be a major head trip, and would likely be best watched while high on some manner of substance. Still...I'm no stoner, but was able to watch and enjoy it without difficulty. The movie chronicles a typical day of the average 90s teenager, but with perspectives from all orientations and view points: lesbians, gays, bisexuals, stoners, drunks, the whole nine yards. The acting was excellent, and the plot, though difficult to see at points, was quite good. The thing that threw me was the addition of the alien that apparently only Dark can see. It seemed to simultaneously interrupt and fit the story line. Conclusion: this is easily one of my favorite indie films, and I hope I can find time to see it again.
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful: A weirdly cool experience., 15 July 2007 Author: Damien Westfield (XxwestsydepimpxX) from United States : Stockton, CA
Nowhere is weirdly surrealistic and weirdly cool. I also enjoyed all the young, now-famous, actors in this film. This is all I really wanted to say about the film, however, since I need more lines, I'll just say certain aspects of the movie are alternately funny, sad, strange and still relevant today. It's hard to 'date' this movie. I'm betting twenty or thirty years from now, it will still seem up-to-date and probably still relevant. James Duval is always good and Rachel True is just beautiful. She's also a very powerful actress, turning in an excellent performance here. The whole weird, detached, alienated tone of the film made it entirely enjoyable.
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful: you guys missed the point., 29 May 2001 Author: JoshuaBlue
reading the reviews already posted for this movie... I am saddened that so many people missed the point. it is about nothing and it is nowhere... as is just about everything that is popular now-a-days. this movie is about the absolute emptiness of pop culture and the absolute emptiness of most people's minds. I think most of you that didn't like this movie.. are either those being made fun of... or are so far out of anything doing with popular culture for you to get the joke. secondly - this is a drug movie. i'm betting the average rating by people who've done acid is about 8.0 and the average for the others is about 3.0 --- check out the symbolism --- check out the colors --- check out the sound. this culture is absolutely devoid of meaning - and that's all - and that's all.
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