The latest batch of online store additions is ready to go live. Today’s slate includes Jack Arnold’s “Tarantula,” Johnnie To’s “Office,” and Gregg Araki’s “Kaboom.”
At the time of its release, critics generally saw Gregg Araki’s “Kaboom” as a return to his more freewheeling, libidinous films of the 90s (a development that some who really liked 2004’s “Mysterious Skin” — his most “serious” and critically acclaimed picture — lamented as a step backward, though it was not a sentiment that was not shared by many who were fans of the earlier stuff). The film starts off as an uninhibited college sex romp that, as often as not, weaves between various states of fantasy and reality. As the narrative unspools around its main character, an “ambi-sexual” soon-to-be nineteen year old named Smith, the introduction of such elements as a needy witch with no compunctions about unleashing her furious powers, a shadowy crew of figures who lurk about campus in plastic animal masks, and a co-ed’s mysterious disappearance gradually transform this from a loose sex comedy to something that feels more like “Donnie Darko.”