Mysterious Skin [WS] [Unrated Director's Edition]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Two young men are haunted by similar events from their past, though the effects manifest themselves in very different ways, in this powerful drama from independent filmmaker Gregg Araki. In the summer of 1981, Brian (George Webster) and Neil (Chase Ellison) are both eight years old and playing on the same little league baseball team in a small Kansas town. One day, after a game, Brian blacks out after getting caught in a rainstorm, and five hours later he finds himself sitting in his basement with his nose bleeding and no memory of what happened to him. Over the years, the event -- particularly the missing five hours -- weigh heavily on his mind, and he becomes convinced that he was kidnapped by space aliens. Teenaged Brian (now played by Brady Corbet) becomes friends with Avalyn Friesen (Mary Lynn Rajskub), a woman who claims to have been abducted by aliens on several occasions, and she urges him to look to his dreams for patterns that might suggest what happened to him. Meanwhile, during the same summer, Neil developed a powerful crush on their little league coach (Bill Sage), who appeared to have also taken a shine to Neil. Neil's mother (Elisabeth Shue), seeing nothing wrong with their friendship, lets the coach look after Neil while she's off on one of her many dates, and before long Neil begins sexually experimenting with the older man. Neil's introduction to sex inspires him to become a hustler when he grows into his teens, and after burning his bridges in his hometown, Neil (now played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and his close friend Wendy (Michelle Trachtenberg) move to New York, where he continues to cruise for a living but under significantly more risky circumstances. One day, Neil is contacted by Brian, who after seeing one of their team photos from their days in little league suspects he might have some clues as to what happened to him in 1981. Mysterious Skin was based on the novel by Scott Heim, and marked the first time Gregg Araki made a film that did not originate with one of his own screenplays. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Number of Discs: 1
• Screen: Letterbox for TV
• Audio: DTS
• Features:
  • 16x9 feature
  • Motion menu
  • Commentary track with Gregg Araki, Joseph Gordon-Levitt + Grady Corbet
  • International trailer
  • Mysterious Skin book reading
  • Actors' audition tape
  • Deleted scenes
  • DTS 5.1 soundtrack

AWARDS

• Independent Spirit Awards

•     Nominated Best Director - 2005 (Gregg Araki)

• Toronto International Film Festival

•     Film Presented - 2004

• Venice International Film Festival

•     Film Presented - 2004

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Brady Corbet - Brian Lackey
       Joseph Gordon - Levitt - Neil McCormick
       Michelle Trachtenberg - Wendy Peterson
       Jeff Licon - Eric Preston
       Bill Sage - Coach Heider
       Mary Lynn Rajskub - Avalyn Friesen
       Elisabeth Shue - Mrs. McCormick
       Chase Ellison
       Lisa Long - Mrs. Lackey
       Chris Mulkey - Mr. Lackey
       Billy Drago
       Richard Riehle
       Trieste Dunn - Blood Prom Cast/Crew

• Director:

  Gregg Araki

• Producer:

  Gregg Araki, Mary Jane Skalski, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte

• Screenwriter:

  Gregg Araki

• Book Author:

  Scott Heim

• Cinematographer:

  Steve Gainer

• Composer (Music Score):

  Harold Budd

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  Howard Paar

• Composer (Music Score):

  Robin Guthrie

• Editor:

  Gregg Araki

• Production Designer:

  Devorah Herbert

• Co-producer:

  Josh Zeman, Hans Christian Ritter

• Executive Producer:

  Wouter Barendrecht, Michael J. Werner

• Costume Designer:

  Alix Hester

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  Trip Brock

• First Assistant Director:

  Alex Korp

• Casting:

  Shannon Makhanian

REVIEW:

• With its complicated plot, multiple unreliable narrators, and subtle interplay between fantasy and reality, Scott Heim's Mysterious Skin doesn't seem like an easy candidate for cinematic adaptation. But alt-pop auteur Gregg Araki has fashioned the novel into a mournful, lyrical rumination an lost innocence, abandoning only a few nuances along the way. Continuing to erase memories of his embarrassing sitcom past, Joseph Gordon-Levitt completely inhabits the role of Neil McCormick, a gay hustler forever haunted by the purity of his childhood relationship with a handsome baseball coach. Brady Corbet proves equally compelling as Brian Lackey, a UFO-obsessed college student with very different memories of his Little League days. The facts lie somewhere between Neil's hard-nosed cynicism and Brian's damaged flights of fancy. But Araki is more interested in the emotional truth of these boys' experiences -- the way their individual coping mechanisms protect them from a shared past even while endangering their divergent futures. The director's previous films revelled in an overstuffed visual aesthetic, but here, with the help of cinematographer Steve Gainer, he fashions an entire world of forlorn childhood nostalgia and haunted suburban spaces. Araki's casting, impeccable as ever, allows talents as disparate as Elisabeth Shue, Mary Lynn Rajskub, and Michelle Trachtenberg to contribute to his remarkably consistent vision. Audiences put off by the bratty pop excess of Araki's earlier films may not recognize the mature filmmaker of Mysterious Skin. But fans will have glimpsed this film's heartbreak before, beneath the candy-colored surfaces of Nowhere and The Doom Generation. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi