‘The Living End’

Gregg Araki’s savagely comic, deeply romantic 1992 release wastes no time in getting to the point. Within its first five minutes, Jon (Craig Gilmore, left) learns that he has tested HIV-positive. In order to head off an inevitable mood of gloom, Araki moves swiftly away from Jon to another young man, Luke (Mike Dytri), a well-muscled drifter caught up in a series of outrageous and comical street adventures. By the time Jon and Luke meet 20 minutes into the film, Jon, reeling from his bad news, is so vulnerable to the reckless Luke, who’s also HIV-positive, that he’s soon on the run with him. The film is perhaps most important as an expression of rage over the catastrophe of AIDS, the Reagan-Bush administrations, in particular, and, in general, a revelation of just how profoundly dislocating a positive result for the HIV test can be (Cinemax Wednesday at 10 p.m.).