Metrograph

Described by its director as a “kinda twisted cross between avant-garde experimental cinema and queer John Hughes flick,” Totally F***ed Up, the opening salvo of Araki’s Teen Apocalypse Trilogy, introduces viewers to six co-habiting queer Los Angelenos, vignettes of their daily lives interspersed with video interviews by the household’s aspiring filmmaker—played by Gilbert Luna—in which the kids candidly vent their frustrations and give voice to their dreams. A radical and raging ragtag dispatch from the gay underground, shot with Super-8 camcorder and 16mm handheld by Araki himself, and a defiant middle finger to the rampant homophobia of the ’90s Culture Wars.