Kaboom

Smith’s everyday life in the dorms - hanging out with his arty, sarcastic best friend Stella, hooking up with a beautiful free spirit named London, lusting for his gorgeous but dim surfer roommate Thor - all gets turned upside-down after one fateful, terrifying night. Tripping on some hallucinogenic cookies he ate at a party, Smith is convinced he’s witnessed the gruesome murder of an enigmatic Red Haired Girl who has been haunting his dreams. What he discovers as he tries to find out the truth leads him deeper and deeper into a mystery that will forever change not only the course of his young life but the destiny of the entire world. “What matters about KABOOM, other than its exceptional directorial control of outrageously over-the-top material, is that Araki is able to reveal beautiful moments of human emotion against the backdrop of a manic tableau. Great sadness and joy inflect even the silliest of scenes; the confusion and pain of the onset of adulthood is felt deeply throughout, and Araki evokes just the right amount of wistfulness for a more carefree time. It’s also really freakin’ funny. Corrosively so. And sexy, in an about-to-get-busted kind of way. In fact, Kaboom just might be the first great paranoid, dystopian sex comedy in the history of cinema. Bravo!” Noah Cowan, Toronto FF