The Living End (1992)

dir Gregg Araki

Journal entry for May 14th:

Day like any other. The first day of the rest of my life. I had coffee for breakfast, hung with Siouxsie, and played that old Lou Reed album, Transformer.

Now I just have no idea of what the fuck I’m going to do.

Yesterday was my birthday and I’m being extraordinarily weird about it. Thankfully I had plans to watch The Living End for days now so I could roll out of bed this morning, all puffy-eyed from crying, and not have to think too hard about what to do next. I was worried about The Living End because I feared I would miss James Duval too much to enjoy anybody else’s performance, but this one’s pretty damn fun.

I’m obviously obsessed with the nasty murderous lesbians who pick up hitchhikers and shoot them. Araki took a page out of John Water’s book here and it totally works. The rest of the film works too, for the record. Lots of swirling thoughts on feeling like your life is over before it really is and never getting to truly to connect with someone and settling for what you think may be the best you can get. Human connection is messy and intense, isn’t it?