Kids

Rating:
Summary: As real as it gets
Review: Ignore the reviewer who called this "unrealistic", she's obviously led a sheltered life and the fact that she suggests all teen conflict come from racial tension leads me to conclude that we at least know someone isn't color blind. In closing, see the film for yourself. It is about street kids in NY written by one who lived the life in NY and does not apply to all parts of the country. Take it for what it is...REAL.

Rating:
Summary: best documentary
Review: The first itme I saw this movie, I was probably about 12. It taught me about the consequenses of unprotected sex. And it's fun to watch, I have never enjoyed a documentary so much. It it actaully realistic, compared to most cheesy, homemade docs. I will always like this movie.

Rating:
Summary: Conventional, boring, unrealistic
Review: Where to begin? This movie is an overrated load of nonsense living off nothing but hype. Conventional, boring, and unrealistic. Why? Let's tick off the reasons.

Conventional-- Wow, teenage nihilism. Like we haven't seen this before. Is there anyone under the age of 80 who's really shocked to find out that teenagers are having sex and taking drugs? This stuff has been going on since the Beatniks in the 1950s. "Kids" presents nothing particularly disturbing compared to earlier movies, like "West Side Story" [What does it say that a 50's musical has almost as much edge as this movie?], "Clockwork Orange", "Colors", and "Menace 2 Society". The worst violence here is a brief, gang-style beating of another kid. Hey, go rent "Children of the Corn", made ten years earlier, and watch 13-year-old kids slitting people's throats.

Boring-- The "plot" about Jennie trying to find Telly consists of almost nothing but Jennie wandering around saying "I need to find Telly" over and over again. In-between, we're treated to painfully-long, pointless, and mind-numbing "dialogue" that literally goes nowhere. I understand that this is supposed to be the point, but why do we have to watch 90 minutes of it? I got the message after about five.

Unrealistic-- "Kids" does not have a single drop of racial tension. I was in high school only a couple of years before this movie was made, and admittedly I didn't live in New York, but in San Diego at least, among the young, dumb, and violent, things were generally divided along racial lines. There was more mixing than in our parents' generation, yes, but still not a whole lot. "Kids" is supposedly a gritty and unflinching view of youth, and at the same time it tries to pretend that teenagers are living in some wonderful color-blind utopia. I half-expected the cast to start skipping down the street singing "It's A Small World After All".

If it's any sort of plus, I agree with the reviewer who said that this movie might be good for high school sex-education classes. It IS better than the usual educational movie, slightly. For everyone else, you'll never get back the ninety minutes of life you wasted watching this movie. Don't say you weren't warned.

Rating:
Summary: Where to begin?
Review: Well it's definitely not a movie for people who aren't open minded. It is very raw and thought provoking. I love this movie just because it's so real. I mean I know that alot of times we never want to believe that anything could happen to us but this movie makes you realize it can. The characters are great and you really get into the movie. If you like movies that don't hold back and show it like it really is then you will love this movie like I do. Growing up in the city before I moved to TN it really hit home to me and reminded me of how things were and it reminded me of alot of people that I knew. I give it 5 stars! KEEP IT REAL!

Rating:
Summary: I'd like to thank my Sunday School teacher!
Review: Sometimes I wonder whether I have any fun in my life, and whether work and school compromise my muse. I wonder whether I didn't do enough sowing of my oats, or squandering, or doing something deserving of the "prodigal son" title during my youth.

And then I saw "Kids" and I wonder whether I should look up my Sunday School teacher and thank her, or give my mom twice as many roses next year on Mothers Day for getting so angry with me for staying out too late with my girlfriend when I was 17. It's hard not to moralize when seeing this film, and middle-class values gasp while watching it.

What I saw was a lack of direction or a complete and total dissonance between reality and hedonistic bliss. I would compare them to dogs, but even dogs have respect for owners and care about where their next meal comes from. These New York City kids have little, but don't work for anything but what they enjoy, and even that work is illicit. They shoplift, steal, and share the substances and people that bring them happiness. There is complete lack of any sort of true authority. Even though you see many public places, relatively nice NY apartments, and people on their way to work, there are no parents, police, school-teachers or administrators, even older children don't shepherd the younger ones. The scenes in this film show nothing but kids abusing and having sex, essentially gratifying themselves for the short term, since they don't even think about the long term. (...)

The film was particularly shocking. What we saw were kids that have been brought up to think of themselves, of happiness, of bliss, and not the sacrifice necessary that shows them how to get there. They have no reason to try because bliss is right there for the taking, and there isn't anyone to tell them about the importance of diligence. They can get and take whatever they need to be happy. Telly even tells his friends this prophetic statement: "Aids doesn't exist, and if it does, I'm gonna go out (...), you know what I'm saying!" Nothing is going to get in their way. And as the cabby that took Jenni to the rave said, "if you can't make yourself happy, then why go on? Don't think about what makes you upset." How do you convince these kids about sacrifice? About how hard work will pay off? It makes you wonder whether we will be able to bring these kids back to earth, where people struggle to grow food and work to feed families, and eventually take a look at the fruit of their actions. As Casper says in the final scene (...), in a hung-over stupor, after flashing scenes of Tai Chi in the park and Moslem prayers, "Jesus Christ, what happened?" It's difficult not to moralize, and just a difficult not to ask yourself: "who am I to moralize?"

Next time you see your folks, thank them for grounding you. Thank them for telling you not to give up. And reward yourself by either running five miles or reading a Victorian novel. No wonder morals exist.

Rating:
Summary: Four stars for the emotions it provoked
Review: Parents watch this movie when your children are not around!! It will change your perspective on a lot of different issues. I would NOT recommend it to young people. It is a mature film with good acting and realistic notions. Anyone who thinks AIDS is not a reality or that morals are not important needs to check this out.

Rating:
Summary: Tsk-tsk
Review: "Kids" made out when I was nine. Then, I didn't want to see it nor did I know anything about it. My parents saw it in 1999, and their sheer reluctance to me watching the film told me that it was NOT for kids. I finally saw it and was I ever shocked! This is not a 'brutally honest' look into kids today. Real kids are not as stupid as these were. The girls that Telly deflowered were pathetic and the only sane character in the entire film was the taxi driver. As a virgin myself, I would never want to lose my virginity to someone as UGLY as Telly. And besides, Darcy knew Telly for like, what...two hours before they had sex? Who is really this stupid? I'm not saying it's a bad movie, but it's NOT real. Probably one out of every five hundred kids are really like these idiots. All I saw in the movie were carnal boys and spineless girls. One life lesson for all girls: "IF A GUY TELLS YOU EVERYTHING YOU WANT TO HEAR, HE'S FULL OF IT".

Rating:
Summary: A Very Good Movie
Review: Larry Clark's KIDS is a film that many people will not like do to the exsplist scenes in the film and I am shere there are many other reason people will not like this film. But I like it its so true and honest there are times you will want to turn away from the film but you just can't thats what gives the film a surrel feel. But this is a film I think aduls should see it will surprise them.

Warning: This film is unrated for extremly strong rape scenes including sex scenes,graphic drug use,extremly strong violence, and other thematic elements.

Rating:
Summary: One way or another you'll remember this 1995 movie ....
Review: as you would have remembered the Stanley Kubrik movie 'A Clockwork Orange' this film is like screen burn on your monitor it will leave it's mark.

The movie is compressed into a 24 hour period of time and the main characters; Telly, the aids infected looser whose total aim in life is deflowering as many virgins as he can, and, Jennie, one of his conquests that just found out she's postive and has only slept with Telly.

Unfortunately, as much as the viewer would like to deny it, the movie is a very true to life 'hardcore' look at a much too large segment of our disaffected urban teens of today. One does not have to go too far to remember the NY Latin day festival in 2000 when raging bands of teenage youths attacked young women on the street scandalously right in front of the cops. (...) On a tchnical note, don't expect your wide screen TV to shine since the video resolution that this movie was shot in does not really allow for more than the letterbox version on the DVD. The sound is pretty boring too and comes across as a two channel mono, and, the director sure saved money on the soundtrack too since there is none ....

Rating:
Summary: Disturbing but lacks depth
Review: As a teen, my life was very sheltered, but I knew people who lived like this. I went to school with them, I was friends with a few of them.

For me this wasn't really a drama, but more a horror film, with the AIDS virus as Freddie Kruguer. Although it isn't meant to be a "race against the clock," for me, that's how it ended. I was left very disturbed, but only because this movie shows plain as day how simple the AIDS virus is passed around. I was always horrifed when I'd meet girls or guys who had sex with multiple partners, or who lost their virginity to people they hardly even knew. I wondered how they could do such a thing, but the fact of the matter is teenagers think they are invincible, and as disturbing as the film is, I think teens need to see this movie for that very reason. Some of the more for gone kids won't get it and will become fixated on the debauchery, but teens who were like me, or teens who had been followers rather than leaders, or teens who were just uneducated, but sensible with get this movie and may alter their lifestyle.

This movie is also important because most films show sex, but not the consequences of it. Part of the reason why teenagers think its OK to have lots of sex is the image Hollywood and television and music present of sex. The casual attitude towards sex is really a leftover from the "Sexual Revolution" and "free love" of the '60s, before things like HIV were running around threatening to ruin your entire life. The problem is, Hollywood still promotes the pre-AIDS view about casual sex. And since most young people interpret TV as reality they aren't thinking about getting AIDS.

Now while I think this film is important, it still is flawed. The beatdown of the guy in the park was unrealistic, the scene with the man with no legs was out of place and the whole movie left me screaming "Where are the parents?" It lacks depth. You're left with a lot more questions than answers, which may be the purpose. I think another movie like this needs to be made, but it needs to have more depth. This was a cinema verite-style movie, meant for the viewer to interpret that what he or she is viewing is real and really happening, and it does feel that way. I don't necessarily want to see a more "Hollywood" glossy version, but I'd like to see something similar with a plot and some parents so we can learn how these miscreants got this way in the first place.

And they really should have explored Ruby's character more. I went to high school with a girl just like her, but I know why she was that way. I think the viewers would have liked to know why most of the characters in kids were the way they were.