Film Trivia is back at 7pm on Thursday, January 30th with our classic brand of infotainment quiz show fun, followed up by a special 30th anniversary screening of Gregg Araki’s The Doom Generation (1995). 

A controversial figure in the then already controversial New Queer Cinema movement, Gregg Araki followed up his queer Sundance hit The Living End (1992) with The Doom Generation, a more polished, yet equally nihilistic take on the American road movie. Still shocking to this day, this violent, bi-sexual love story takes the ugliness of American culture head on. 

With this being the 30th anniversary, it’s interesting to see how a film that was dropped by its initial studio due to content, as well as edited down without the director’s approval for both theatrical and home video release for the same reasons, has since achieved new canon status. With added legitimacy from its inclusion in the Criterion Collection, as well as a new 4K Director’s Cut – the first time the film has been seen in its original vision since the festival circuit – we can see The Doom Generation as a definitive example queer American post-punk angst at the tail end of the American Century. 

The film’s alt-culture pedigree is undeniable: a killer soundtrack featuring Nine Inch Nails, Cocteau Twins, Front 242, Aphex Twin, and Slowdive; on-screen cameos from Parker Posey, Margaret Cho, Skinny Puppy, Perry Farrell, and Heidi Fleiss. If John Waters captured the campy, proto-punk spirit of the ’70s, The Doom Generation is Araki’s ironic, nihilistic, queer answer for the ’90s.  

Don’t miss this unforgettable milestone screening – The Doom Generation like you’ve never seen it before.