palomitabird This movie does contain very explicit disgusting scenes, but in my personal opinion it is just daring to go where many others wont. It shows the effects of childhood abuse as an adult in different ways, and really rips apart the characters lives and souls scene by scene.An array of characters, who i believe are all fairly thee dimensional, and AMAZING ACTING. The truth is that it is hard to get something 'realistic' due to the subject area of the film - but i believe the writer really tried to understand how the characters would be shaped by their abuse.Some people say the film condones peodophilia etc and although i can see why someone could get that vibe at some parts its simply not true. He has obviously done research into the reality of child abuse and if anything is saying how catastrophic it can be for its victims whole lives.

Harry Waterman Sensitive and unflinching, a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt is on early peak-form as a victim of the advances of a paedophile and later on becomes a prostitute. Brady Corbet plays a UFO enthusiast and paranoid youngster, also a former victim to the same sex offender. This indie adaptation of Scott Heim's hard-hitting novel is quite brilliant in its approach to tender issues, however the film does fall short at times as the tone is often inconsistent and the film appears plot less at times. It annoys me how this film is often categorised as an LGBT film, when its really not.. It draws no attention to any LGBT issues, except a brief reference to the AIDS virus but apart from that its a film about child-molestation and the affects it can have on a fragile child.

videorama-759-859391 Mysterious Skin is unlike the other Greg Araki films, as it doesn't feel like one, where normally there's crude humor within the drama, and sick violence, not to say The Living End, his debut was the other great one, where here he's climbed back up, and redeemed himself, in what is his best film. Alongside Palindromes, with it's pedophile themes, here this excellent films deals with the issues and scarring effects, it can have on one victim, that chiefly being of Corbett's innocent and slightly vulnerable character, that he wonderfully plays. Corbett is one of those really elite young actors, who I hadn't recognized years later as the plump psycho in the Funny Games remake. Here his character was abused as a kid by a baseball coach, spoiling him with lollies and taking him to R rated movies. One night he's punished, locked in a closet. Now in his teen years, he's having nightmares of alien abductions, where his only cure, could be going back to that of the past, revisiting his childhood, where he hunts down another of the victims, now a hustler, played by a take notice performance as seen in the great Joseph Gordan Levitt, who makes the movie his. His character sets no boundaries, picking up dirty old johns, one moustouched guy, also seen in Palindromes, another of that, being the creepy and evily smiling Billy Drago (check out his teeth). The film is a beautiful and poignant drama, and one of the more affecting films that deal with pedophilia, where to think it was initially in talks of being banned, that itself, is sick. Like these films, or ones that are banned, all together, these which are in denial of being shown, are crimes against cinema, for MS which luckily escaped a banning, was one of the best films and drama of 2005, where Mr Araki, should be proud to put his signature on. When our two long lost victims, finally meet which at first is, ugly, that last comforting scene, last moment, is one for the annals of cinematic memory. MS is a beautiful and dramatic Art house film which deserves bloody attention from all, with fantastic performances all around.

Chris L Gregg Araki delivered with this Mysterious Skin a movie which subject can only shake you deeply, carried by a promising duo at the time, the excellent Joseph Gordon-Levitt and the late lamented Heath Ledger.Unfortunately, if Neil's storyline is poignant and captivating, the passages regarding Brian almost all turn out to be sterile and his character is terribly under-exploited. And if you step back even more, you just have to say those two story lines intertwine very badly, and this frustrating because with two or three very simple modifications, the story would have been much more suspenseful and intriguing.Moreover, even though the story is undeniably sincere and accurate, the point of the frontal approach of the director is debatable and you can't help but think the script would have benefited from a bit more suggestion and finesse.However, and to his credit, the movie chose to tackle a difficult subject and did a very honourable job at it.