selected based on their application short essays. Participation is a one-year commitment and a paid opportunity. For their final program, the 2022–23 Teen Council has selected to screen Stand by Me (1986), in collaboration with the Academy Film Archive, from a list of dozens of favorites. This timeless tale of growing up and grief explores themes of masculinity, friendship, and letting go in a journey back to 1959, when the biggest problems were homework, bullies, and peculiar disappearances. Adapted from Stephen King’s novella The Body , this Rob Reiner-directed heartwarming story transcends time and generations. Notable for its superb cast, including River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Wil Wheaton, and legendary soundtrack, including Ben E. King’s song that informed the film’s title, the Teen Council chose to screen Stand by Me because it embodies the essence of what it is to be a teenager discovering the realities of the grown-up world. Programmed by the Academy Museum’s Teen Council. Note edited by K.J. Relth-Miller from contributions by Teen Council members Peyton Arthur, Chloe Loquet, Alexander McDaniel, and Francesca Varese-Riggen. DIRECTED BY: Rob Reiner. WRITTEN BY: Raynold Gideon, Bruce A. Evans. WITH: Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O’Connell. 1986. 89 min. USA. Color. English. Rated R. 35mm. New print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.
SPOTLIGHTS The Doom Generation Fri, Sep 15 | 7:30pm | TMT
NOWHERE
Nowhere Sat, Sep 16 | 7:30pm | DGT Restoration World Premiere
“L.A.’s like nowhere. Everyone who lives here is lost.” From the opening Slowdive music cue to its outrageous finale, Gregg Araki’s long under-screened queer cult classic reverberates with rage and sexual frustration throughout, though it’s tempered, naturally, by a healthy dose of 1990s ennui. Like an episode of “ Beverly Hills, 90210 on acid” or “California’s version of Kids ,” Nowhere’ s Los Angeles- dwelling cast of dozens—including an actual Baywatch star and a character named Jujyfruit—exchange sexual partners, discuss addiction, party their brains out, and grapple with an alien invasion accompanied by the era- essential tunes of Hole, Blur, Portishead, and Massive Attack. DIRECTED/WRITTEN BY: Gregg Araki. WITH: James Duval, Rachel True, Nathan Bexton, Chiara Mastroianni. 1997. 82 min. USA. Color. English. Rated R. 4K DCP. Restoration courtesy, Vincent Pirozzi, Roundabout Entertainment, Trip Bock, Monkeyland Audio, and Beau Genot, Supervising Producer.
Totally F***ed Up with The Doom Generation Fri, Sep 15 | 7:30pm | TMT Totally F***ed Up Inspired by Jean-Luc Godard, a 33-year-old Gregg Araki set out to craft his own 16mm version of Masculin Féminin (1966) with six gay and lesbian youth for his first color film, which features primarily non-professional actors for a piece Araki himself has dubbed “a kinda cross between avant- garde experimental cinema and a queer John Hughes flick.” With muse James Duval in his breakout leading role, Araki’s Totally F***ed Up is a paean to drifting, queer youth culture, a pseudo-documentary, Gen-X love letter to the “young gays and lesbians who didn’t fit into the cultural stereotype of the ‘gay community’” of the early ’90s. DIRECTED/WRITTEN BY: Gregg Araki. WITH: James Duval, Roko Belic, Susan Behshid, Jenee Gill. 1993. 78 min. USA. Color. English. Unrated. 4K DCP. Restoration supervised by Gregg Araki courtesy of Strand Releasing and Fortissimo Films. The Doom Generation Gregg Araki’s first film that he did not shoot himself— cinematographer Jim Fealy would also lens Araki’s later Splendor (1999)—delivers a vibrant-hued Los Angeles hellscape as experienced by an attractive triad drifting through life, one held-up convenience store at a time. The film’s at-times shocking violence and raw, unfiltered sexual energy are further underscored by a soundtrack jam- packed with songs by Nine Inch Nails, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Cocteau Twins, and other tracks from seminal indie and shoegaze artists. A film for a nihilistic generation by one of its most independent voices. DIRECTED/WRITTEN BY: Gregg Araki. WITH: James Duval, Rose McGowan, Johnathon Schaech, Cress Williams. 1995. 83 min. USA. Color. English. Rated R. 4K DCP. Restoration courtesy, Vincent Pirozzi, Roundabout Entertainment, Trip Bock, Monkeyland Audio, and Beau Genot, Supervising Producer.
Gregg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse Trilogy Sep 15–16 | 7:30pm | TMT In person: filmmaker Gregg Araki.
Born in Los Angeles to Japanese American parents in 1959, Gregg Araki entered high school concurrently with the emergence of punk rock and a cultural moment well-suited to his teenage angst. Araki enrolled in USC film school in the early ’80s, where his student projects were inspired by new wave music, the DIY culture of underground art, and filmmakers such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Jim Jarmusch, and John Waters. Considered an integral part of the New Queer Cinema movement in part established at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival, where his breakout feature The Living End presented unfiltered gay male identities on screen, Araki and contemporaries Isaac Julien, Todd Haynes, Sadie Benning, and Marlon Riggs would shape a new, rebellious language for queer cinema. Araki’s three subsequent features, which comprise his wildly influential Teen Apocalypse Trilogy, would inspire an entire generation of outcasts and queer folks to embrace themselves and throw a middle finger to anyone who dared judge them. Programmed and notes by K.J. Relth-Miller.
YOUNG SOUL REBELS
Special thanks to Marcus Hu, Strand Releasing.
Young Soul Rebels Sun, Nov 12 | 2pm | TMT Los Angeles Restoration Premiere In person: Isaac Julien.
STAND BY ME
Director Isaac Julien’s debut feature film is a fascinating look at London youth culture in the late 1970s. Set during the week of Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee in 1977, Julien’s part-thriller, part-queer love story infuses the raw energy of the early ‘90s into a period piece that emphasizes the tension among the punks, skinheads, and Teddy boys of Britain’s cultural scene. Together with his partner Caz, Chris, a young Black DJ, runs pirate radio station Soul Patrol from an East End garage. When a mutual friend is
The Academy Museum Teen Council Presents Stand by Me Sat, Oct 7 | 7:30pm | TMT Made up of 31 teens ages 15 to 19 from all over Los Angeles, the Academy Museum’s Teen Council works with the museum’s education team to develop programming for their peers. Council members applied in the summer of 2022 and were
TOTALLY F***ED UP
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