Kids

Rating:
Summary: I was truly shocked
Review: me and a group of friends (all in our teens), thought this was going to be another voilent and sexually explicit video. What we got was a deep message of how meesed up teenagers really are. After the final dialauge, we all sat in silence, realizing how uncool sex and drugs really are. This movie is a powerful tool in helping kids see reality.

Rating:
Summary: I think it is a wakeup call for every teen, and parent.
Review: This is a movie that i will keep, and watch with my children in their teen years, or maby preteen years.This is a movie that every parent, and teenager must see.

Rating:
Summary: This movie is incredibly real and disturbing.
Review: No one is trying to pull the wool over your eyes with Kids. It is as real as a movie gets, focusing on the frightening world that big city teens live in today.

Rating:
Summary: Real life movie very educational!
Review: Good flick for teens

Rating:
Summary: IT COULD HAVE HAD MORE GRAPHIC SCENES AT THE START
Review: ALL IN ALL I WOULD RECOMMEND PARENT'S TO SIT DOWN WITH THEIR KIDS AND WATCH THE WHOLE THING, IN ORDER TO GET THE MESSAGE ACROSS TO THE KIDS ABOUT DRUGS, AND SEX

Rating:
Summary: Extremely real and honestly painful
Review: This film is not made for "kids"--it's no Disney film; rather it shows a painfully accurate picture of a group of young adults. This film is about kids living in the drug-friendly, over-sexed, "just do it" world of the late 20th century.

I first saw this film in the theater. I knew it would be a hard film to watch; that's an understatement. You'll find some interesting parts of the film that may bring back some adolescent feelings of insecurity and curiousity about sex. I think we all harbored these feelings to some extent when when we were teenagers. What really hit me hard is the main focus of the movie: STDs. I won't spoil the plot for you because if I tell you any more I may risk destroying the experience this movie gives first time viewers. I hope no one else has spoiled the plot line for you.

Although it sounds unorthodox, I think they should show this film in ALL highschool (11th or 12th grade) sex/health classes. If I had seen it when I was 17 I would have had a better understanding of the consequences unprotected sex can bring.

This film is extremely real -- watch with caution and an open mind.

Rating:
Summary: Noice!
Review: Yooo this movie was off the chains. One of the best films i have seen in my life time. Writing from a suburban 15 year old's point of view i could relate to some of the ideas in this movie. It really shocked me to see how out of control these kids could get but it was still very believable. I loved this movie, I think it captures the scariness of what teenagers r up to now a days and its important to see what can happen when ur not careful--> the spread of AIDS. Peace da f out!!

Rating:
Summary: Uncompromising
Review: First off, "Kids" is a phenomenal movie in absolutely every respect. Harmony Korine's script is amazing (I can already tell I am going to run out of superlatives.) It blows me away that someone so young could write something so self-assured, so masterful. The performances are impossibly real. Add to this Clark's voyeuristic, documentary style and the result is some of the most uncompromising naturalism in cinematic history.

Kids is the kind of movie that makes mainstream filmmakers blanch. It is also the kind of movie that makes mainstream film goers confused and angry. Naturalism has never been a particularly popular style of theatre. If a viewer doesn't have an appreciation for the style, he/she may think the film lacking. Naturalism depicts life objectively, imposing no value judgements. The question of value is left up to the observer, the viewer. It does not shy away from ugliness or uncomfortable situations. Naturalism is often seen as nihilistic, but that is the challenge that is presents. Being truer to life than other dramatic forms, it's meaning is more obscured.

Many have interpreted "Kids" to be a "wake up call" concerning the growing menace AIDS poses to young people (I think it was even printed on the box cover.) That is one interpretation. I see a much more sinister theme at the heart of "Kids." For me, AIDS just served as a metaphor for a diseased culture. These kids are sick mentally and emotionally. To me, these hopeless characters represent an entire generation of lost youth. Their general apathy and animalistic hedonism is a perfectly understandable response to the empty, violent, plastic, consumer/commercial culture that raised them. Yes, they are contracting AIDS; but what about those that escape it? What are they going to do with their lives? Of course, this is just my interpretation. The film itself remains objective and impartial. In fact, I think Korine would disagree with me and that is why I love this movie so much.

Watch this if you like powerful, unflinching films that challenge assumptions and make lasting impressions.

Rating:
Summary: A refreshing dose of reality
Review: With the arguable exception of occasional movies such as "Thirteen," virtually all teen-oriented films are laughably sanitized compared to the shocking realism of "Kids." Although technically a work of fiction, "Kids" has the look and feel of an in-your-face documentary. As such, it shows just how animalistic and self-destructive kids can (and often do) become in the absence of good parenting.

Though some might consider that last statement a bit "preachy," it is not intended to be. It is simply an observation of cause-and-effect. Why else would a kid like Telly (played brilliantly by Leo Fitzpatrick) be so obsessed with deflowering 13-year-old virgins? Why else would the lives of the other kids portrayed in the film be so deeply entrenched in the non-stop pursuit of heartless sex and reckless drug use? And why, through it all, would they be so completely indifferent and oblivious to the consequences of their actions?

These are questions that "Kids" raises but thankfully does not attempt to answer. That is for the viewers themselves to do, hopefully with the realization that this movie is not nearly the exaggeration that many naive parents want so desperately to believe it is.

Rating:
Summary: MAJOR WAKE-UP CALL
Review: When it first came out, my daughter (then a teen) said "You don't want to see it, Mom"...so I didn't see it, I buried my head in the sand. Until a couple of women in an HIV prevention group I run encouraged me to see it...WOW...talk about blowing the illusion of "safety in numbers"...The movie is powerful, wonderfully filmed, raw and honest and terrifying. A young Latina, zealously guarded by her family ("don't get a boyfriend", but perhaps no explanation as to WHY to stay away from boyfriends) is easily seduced by a young boy who only has sex with virgins, so he won't catch any diseases. Later, one of his virgin victims learns she is HIV positive and you ask yourself, HOW? How,when he only does virgins and he was her first and only...the answer to that question blew me away. HOW can anyone REMEMBER what or who they do when they are high and drunk and passed out or in a black out? How can these, or any, kids survive and flourish in a place where parents are unavailable for whatever reason (work) or excuse (drugging, immature themselves) and the wolves come in peer-sized packages? Major wake up call, people...parents, teachers, friends, families, survivors, recovering people...UNITE...GET INFORMED, GET INVOLVED...SAVE THE KIDS.