First published in Big Screen.
Whether it’s Larry Clarke’s heartbreaking Kids or the existential angst of Donnie Darko, the goalposts of teen movies have shifted some distance from the days of The Breakfast Club. The central tenets of Mike Mills’ Thumbsucker – the concerns and values of the post-nuclear family – owe more to his debut Paperboys, than his (albeit leftfield) rockumentaries on Moby, Pulp and Radiohead, with Lou Taylor Pucci’s superb performance as Justin Cobb, complemented with an astonishing supporting cast.
First appeared in Stranger Magazine
Kingsley Marshall is an academic and journalist who lectures in film and contributes music and film criticism, features and reviews to Little White Lies, Shook and Big Screen magazines in the UK. He was appointed Technical Editor at Clash magazine in 2010, where he writes a technology and games column.