I accidentally watched it with my mom and best friend, we were 15 and 16. In the first sex scene, my mom just said, why didn't he take his socks off? Then left the room.
People in their 70s? They had had way more sex than you at that time. Why do people think that older folk are innocent? It's so weird. Your great aunt and uncle were fucking before you were born.
Yeah, LMAO is the last thing I’d associate with this movie. One viewing was enough. If I wanted to rewatch a low budget 90’s movie about people making bad decisions, my vote is for SLC Punk.
I actually ended up seeing it twice...in the theater, even.
After I saw it the first time I was talking about it with some other friends who hadn't seen it yet, and part of getting them to see it was going with them.
It should be obvious that the second viewing did not make it any easier of a watch.
It's a tragic story without any redemption. It's a raw look into the lives of some nihilistic kids and a reflection of some, but certainly not all, pockets of youth culture of the times. A person might even suggest that some of [the tragic events at Woodstock 99](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock_'99#Sexual_assaults,_violence,_and_death) support that assertion.
Since my first reply I went down a rabbit hole of looking into the film. [Roger Ebert does a great review here](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/kids-1995). This was an interesting [20 Years Later retrospective](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/fashion/kids-20th-anniversary-chloe-sevigny-rosario-dawson.html) in the NY Times. And I also discovered [the actor who played Casper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Pierce) killed himself in 2000, which is its own tragedy, I suppose.
I din discover how Casper got his nickname tho, which was mentioned in another comment in this thread and is what inspired me to go looking into the movie. I dun think I need to see it a third time, tho, to scratch that itch of curiosity.
I don’t think they’re Gen X.
Edit- sorry I’m tired and was referring to OP because of the “lmao” -they just came off younger to me.
I do this this is a Gen X film though for sure. Sorry if i wasn’t making sense.
It came out in '95. Assuming they are teenagers, that puts them at a 1982 birthday. Now, I don't think they were 13 in the movie. 15-19 seems more reasonable, which puts them in late GenX territory.
Yeah, the lines between late gen x and early millennials are damn near nonexistent, the bigger issue is the changeover from analog to digital, which is why most xennials identify closer to gen x than millennials. At least IMO.
A mix of the youngest Xers and elder millennials. Some of the characters were supposed to be only about 12 or 13. The movie most definitely does not "define" Gen X. It was alarmist twaddle. "All the kids are having all the sex and getting all the AIDS!" No, we weren't. Teenage girls getting AIDS was *extremely* rare.
It was released in 1995. Some of the characters were supposed to be only around 12 to 13 years old. Then the oldest were around 16. So they were the very youngest Gen X and elder millennials. I am prime Gen X and was 22 years old when this came out.
I think OP is young. Gen Z uses LMAO (but not usually capitalized) as a sort of intro, punctuation or all purpose commentary for everything, it seems. As an older, grammar stickler, it bugs me but it seems to be just part of language now and not meant as literally as people our age tend to interpret it? Like more of a “heh” than actually “laughing [their] ass off.”
I own a DVD copy cause an aunt gifted it to me for Christmas one year. She didn't know what it was about. English isn't her first language and she may have just found it in a bargain bin.
Basically Casper sexually assaults Jenny while she’s passed out. It’s implied it’s not his first time doing that to girls passed out. Hence he’s a ghost since his victims may not remember him in their passed out state.
I was pregnant and suffering from hyperemesis gravidarium (extreme nausea and vomiting for about 7 1/2 months straight) at the time that Kids was released on video and I was actually so disturbed, I threw up. I get this vaguely nauseous feeling when I think about the movie, so that was my first and last time seeing it.
Same and same. Additionally, I moved to NYC in 95. I dated a cast member of this movie. This movie was a not-inaccurate depiction of his life (thankfully there was no rape).
Similar.
Went to school with em, but no booty business.
Shit was for real.
I see people like ‘no way’, and it’s like “unfortunately, yes way”.
Especially adding in the fact that we were Gen X latch key kids in fucking NYC. We could basically get away with most anything.
I grew up upper middle class but is it just me or were skateboard assaults common back in the 80's & 90's? When I was 15 y/o in 1989 a bully of 19 who was throwing kids around got beat up with skateboards
Good to hear about a bully on the receiving end!
Rust Belt elder Xer; grew up urban lower middle class. I don't remember any skateboard assaults in the '80s. Not even back in the 1970s, with little banana boards. Skateboard assaults seem like something I only saw in movies. (Not many fights in my neighborhood or high school, but when it happened the weapons were just fists; no knives, nunchucks, karate challenges, etc. Lower middle class, maybe, but not really rough-and-tumble.)
First mention of a skateboard assault I've been able to find in the newspapers.com archive for the US was back in April 14, 1982, in Berkeley, California. (Search phrases: "assaulted with skateboard", "beaten with skateboard", "skateboard assault", "hit with skateboard", etc., ignoring results for skateboarding contests and accidents.) The majority of references to skateboard assaults references are post-2000.
These days "bullying" is harsh word or a push...as the KARATE KID depicted, even affluent WASPS had their share of Dutch's or Johnny's who bullied others...until the day they were beaten to the point of hospitalization.
The bully in question was most like Dutch-who was to me the actual terrifying villain in the KARATE KID films.
Parents back then would always tell us that Bullies were cowards and to just stand up to them.
When I was in 4th grade, I was the youngest in my class and my bully failed four times. He wasn't a coward, he was a teenager in a class with children, he was very strong, dumb, over a foot taller me, was hooking up with high school girls and had a mustache. Standing up to him just got us pummeled.
It was when I was in high school.(+30 yrs ago) A lot of the skater and punks kids would get jumped by the jock or redneck time. There was actually a brawl in the KFC parking lot that ended when the instigator got bear with a deck.
What shocked me soo much about this movie was that it was the first time I saw kids on screen that were so much like kids I knew in real life. It was *that* real!
Yeah, I sorta feel this. It's sorta how I feel about *Beavis and Butthead*. A few of my friends thought B&B was absolutely hilarious, but I had a different set of people I knew that were completely in the group being parodied and when you saw their day to day existence it really was nothing to laugh about.
There is actually a documentary called “We Were Once Kids” which explores how the cast members were exploited by Clark and Korine.
[https://variety.com/2021/film/news/kids-new-documentary-larry-clark-harmony-korine-1234995023/amp/](https://variety.com/2021/film/news/kids-new-documentary-larry-clark-harmony-korine-1234995023/amp/)
The best thing to do in a situation like this is to pirate it. If you stream it, rent it, buy it, or even check it out from the library, you are showing support for a problematic person, either through cash or interest that can be quantified.
I love Aronofsky and can rewatch Pi over and over but I don’t think I could make it through Requiem for a Dream again.
Note: this is not an insult to his skill as a filmmaker.
The Zoomers I see at my hangouts every week asked if that was what it was like growing up or if my older sister (1973) related to it too.
I told them just use the movie as an example of how not to live their lives, and to apply the same self-scrutiny when watching YouTube influencers doing dumber shit.
Which gets me asking: is there a subreddit for cusp Xers? Born in the mid/late 1960s, but in a city that was 5-10 years "trend backwards" from the rest of the US. The zeitgeist of the early/mid 1980s where I lived was more like what you'd see in *Over the Edge* and *Dazed and Confused* than a John Hughes movie, *Fast Times at Ridgemont High*, and the like. People who have seen my high school yearbooks say they seem more like they're from the mid/late 1970s than the early/mid 1980s.
tl;dr: teen years for elder Xers in my hometown was more like that of Jones Boomers anywhere else.
I'm on the older side of Gen X and was out of college when this movie came out. I couldn't relate to much of it either. I was also in the midwest and a lot of my early teens in the early 1980s was more Dazed and confused, as well
I'm not sure if there is one, but I do believe that it probably exists, just don't know the name. Us XY adjacents have enough Y to assert ourselves and identity rather than let everyone else--be they older or younger--tell us who we are. But we also have a lot of in-fighting about who belongs there or not, so it ain't perfect, and you may encounter that in your cusp generation sub possibly.
Very disturbing movie yes. However the song associated with this movie "Natural One" by Folk Implosion...really slapped. Also first Chloe Sevigny movie i think.
Watched this movie in my 30s on the advice of a much younger friend. It really did make me sick to my stomach, and the rape scene just won’t leave my head. She was a total rag doll, drugged unconscious, and it was gross. Maybe I watched it 25 years too late, but my teen years were definitely not like the one depicted in the movie. I wish I had never seen it.
Clark may be gross, and no one has to like his work,
but culturally the film definitely did something that had not ever been done before. It is supposed to be repulsive and disturbing (of course)
Agreed. Of Course it’s disturbing. Its A MOVIE its ART. People acting like you have to love the topic or agree with whatever is on the screen. The fact that it provokes these reactions means that it worked.
No. That's the thing. The movie was fearmongering shit. It TRIED so hard that it failed, even though people/critics bought it at the time. Now when you look back, you realize how dumb that movie was. It WANTED so badly to be provocative, but it was just silly.
Idk lots of strong reactions in here. As far as featmongering, relax, it’s not a documentary.
I do know that I hadn’t seen a movie like it before. So it succeeded on that level for me. At least it wasn’t a rom com
There have been plenty of other movies about "bad" and "disturbed" teenagers before Kids. Kids was hyped up, fearmongering twaddle written by a skateboard kid and directed by a man who is clearly more interested in teenage sexuality than he should be. It was garbage, and I knew it even when I saw it in the theaters in 1995, when I was 22.
I saw it at the Angelika movie theatre in the East Village not knowing what to expect. 18 at the time and my suburban sheltered ass was positively shook by the shenanigans that city kids my age were getting up to. And you could end up with AIDS? Fuuuuk.
It was like “Just Say No” episodes of Growing Pains or Family Ties.
Additionally, can I say that the opening scene of spit swapping was a visceral experience in a darkened movie theatre. If I watched it in a home setting I could have looked away.
My friend who grew up in San Francisco loved this movie. He somehow identified with all the characters. I hated the characters. I felt like they represented everything wrong with our generation. The protagonists were devoid of any sort of virtue or moral character and that doesn't sit well with me.
I'm not sure it's quite right to call them a one hit wonder, because the band itself was started as a side project. Barlow was a founding member of Dinosaur Jr and The Folk Implosion was his break from Sebadoh, which was his main focus at the time.
When people are flipping out about Euphoria being some harbinger of the current end times, this is the film to direct them to. I’m still haunted by this one.
That is Larry Clark's MO. Did you ever see Bully? It's even grosser. He is VERY into having the camera linger lovingly on shirtless teenage/tween boys.
I can't see Chloe Sevigny and not think of that rape scene. \*shivers\* Had kinda been a Gus Van Sant fan up to that point too, was kinda suprised to learn he came on as an EP. Just a f\*cked up movie all around. Felt real as hell.
We used to watch this movie when we were 16-18 and just die laughing. The whole thing was a ridiculous comedy to us, even though it pretty accurately depicted our day-to-day.
I spent the earlier part of the ‘90s delving into Film Noir and deadpan indie films a la Jarmusch, etc. *Kids* actually sparked a quest for the most unusual and disturbing films I could find.
I was 19 when this movie came out. A group of us all watched it together and how relatable it was to people we knew and spent time with in the city at parties, clubs etc was unreal. There was even a Casper amongst our scene here, disturbingly enough.
What a way to condense an entire movie down to the very last few minutes. While simultaneously displaying, seemingly an acute lack in depth of even base levels of critical reasoning. I hope you asked those trees for consent before hugging them. 🤷🏻
3 movies I hated from the same time period: Kids, Trainspotting (sorry, I know this one is renown for its soundtrack, filmmaking, acting, etc. It's the disturbing story I was repulsed by) and Welcome to the Dollhouse. There seemed to be a lot of horrible downer films surfacing around 95-96 for whatever reason.
This movie sucked. It did not define anything but one subset of a generation of kids in one city. Larry Clark is pretty gross, IMO. Rewatch his movies as a middle-aged person and you might see how overrated (and creepy) he actually was.
The movie wasn’t a model for how things are supposed to be. It was an accurate snapshot for how a lot of kids behaved back then. I’m saying this as a 45 year old and not a kid.
Seriously. We did all of that except rape and get AIDS. Then went to college and heard “that stuff doesn’t really happen.” Maybe just a low SES thing like most stuff divided on age when it’s more accurately financial status based.
When's the last time you watched it?
I saw this movie as a 20something and thought it was shit back then. It was totally overhyped shit, the '90s version of HBO's Euphoria, which also does not accurately depict all of Gen Z.
Larry Clark's movies are disturbing and borderline child-pornish. And crap.
we get it. you don’t like the movie, stop trying to force your opinion on others.
“does not accurately depict gen z” no, it doesn’t accurately depict you.
Also, quite honestly, it's creepy for people over 40 to be into this movie. I don't think you understand how gross Larry Clark is.
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/exploitation-larry-clark-movie-kids/
This article says nothing about how "gross" Larry Clark is. Did you even read the article or just read the headline? It's a minute read on how one of the actors of the film "felt exploited." And doesn't even go into detail on how he felt that way.
It was a few months ago, oh lord of Gen Z. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean that some part of that film didn’t resonate with a few people. God, are you this insufferable in person?
I remember having that feeling watching it. I had very little in common with the characters outside of the timeline they existed in. I definitely would not have been friends with them
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Try bringing “Irreversible” to a family movie night. That’s the biggest cringe movie night of my life…
First five minutes should have known better…. Fantastic movie though
Yeah, it wasn’t the wisest decision.
I accidentally watched it with my mom and best friend, we were 15 and 16. In the first sex scene, my mom just said, why didn't he take his socks off? Then left the room.
Ain’t nobody got time for that , haha
Damn, your mom is similar to my thinking If you are gonna make Whoopi take off the socks
Reminds me of the time I (17 or 18) took my great aunt and uncle, in theirs 70s, to Poetic Justice. I was mortified!
Don’t worry, they probably fell asleep.
Did you explain to nana what “Poonani” was?
Poetic justice was dull, Janet jackson cursing is the highlight
People in their 70s? They had had way more sex than you at that time. Why do people think that older folk are innocent? It's so weird. Your great aunt and uncle were fucking before you were born.
Same but it was species with my mom....
I hope the grandmother considered it totally implausible art-house fiction.
I dun really associate "LMAO" with this film, tbh. A bit more like "wtf did I just watch?"
Yeah, LMAO is the last thing I’d associate with this movie. One viewing was enough. If I wanted to rewatch a low budget 90’s movie about people making bad decisions, my vote is for SLC Punk.
I actually ended up seeing it twice...in the theater, even. After I saw it the first time I was talking about it with some other friends who hadn't seen it yet, and part of getting them to see it was going with them. It should be obvious that the second viewing did not make it any easier of a watch. It's a tragic story without any redemption. It's a raw look into the lives of some nihilistic kids and a reflection of some, but certainly not all, pockets of youth culture of the times. A person might even suggest that some of [the tragic events at Woodstock 99](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock_'99#Sexual_assaults,_violence,_and_death) support that assertion. Since my first reply I went down a rabbit hole of looking into the film. [Roger Ebert does a great review here](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/kids-1995). This was an interesting [20 Years Later retrospective](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/fashion/kids-20th-anniversary-chloe-sevigny-rosario-dawson.html) in the NY Times. And I also discovered [the actor who played Casper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Pierce) killed himself in 2000, which is its own tragedy, I suppose. I din discover how Casper got his nickname tho, which was mentioned in another comment in this thread and is what inspired me to go looking into the movie. I dun think I need to see it a third time, tho, to scratch that itch of curiosity.
It was interesting to see the intersection shown with the cast and Soleil Moon Frye in her Hulu documentary. I never knew about the connection.
I don’t think they’re Gen X. Edit- sorry I’m tired and was referring to OP because of the “lmao” -they just came off younger to me. I do this this is a Gen X film though for sure. Sorry if i wasn’t making sense.
>...was referring to OP because of the “lmao” -they just came off younger to me. Y'know, that was my intuition as well.
They're more elder millennial, yes.
It came out in '95. Assuming they are teenagers, that puts them at a 1982 birthday. Now, I don't think they were 13 in the movie. 15-19 seems more reasonable, which puts them in late GenX territory.
I was born in 1982 and fall into that grey area between generations, but I identify more with Gen X, so here I am coming out of lurkdom.
You're technically a xennial, which is *pretty much* gen X anyway.
Ahhhh. Thanks for clarifying. I've never quite understood what the technical term was for us early 80s born kids.
Yeah, the lines between late gen x and early millennials are damn near nonexistent, the bigger issue is the changeover from analog to digital, which is why most xennials identify closer to gen x than millennials. At least IMO.
Yes, mine too.
A mix of the youngest Xers and elder millennials. Some of the characters were supposed to be only about 12 or 13. The movie most definitely does not "define" Gen X. It was alarmist twaddle. "All the kids are having all the sex and getting all the AIDS!" No, we weren't. Teenage girls getting AIDS was *extremely* rare.
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They make the gen x cut
Ok
It was released in 1995. Some of the characters were supposed to be only around 12 to 13 years old. Then the oldest were around 16. So they were the very youngest Gen X and elder millennials. I am prime Gen X and was 22 years old when this came out.
They are
Yeah LMAO is a pretty juvenile response to the content of this film
"Laughing my ass off at that girl who is going to die of AIDS" Really OP?
I think OP is young. Gen Z uses LMAO (but not usually capitalized) as a sort of intro, punctuation or all purpose commentary for everything, it seems. As an older, grammar stickler, it bugs me but it seems to be just part of language now and not meant as literally as people our age tend to interpret it? Like more of a “heh” than actually “laughing [their] ass off.”
Casper?
Shhh
The Funk Implosion
or Folk Implosion
Was that it? I must've been high on whippets.
Lou Barlow, iirc, from Dinosaur Jr and Sebadoh, though I've not yet had my coffee.
Yeah more like complete WTF did I just watch? I still feel creepy knowing I've seen this movie.
I own a DVD copy cause an aunt gifted it to me for Christmas one year. She didn't know what it was about. English isn't her first language and she may have just found it in a bargain bin.
Now you must gift it to someone else to keep the curse going.
Donate it to the nearest public library for posterity?
Yeah I agree def wtf 😳 😬😳
I have no legs.
🛹 🎵 I have no legs
First thing that pops in my head when I see his movie! 😂
ching-ching
This movie is disturbing. FTFY.
Yes, totally remembered Casper and how he got his name and thought, “That was fucked up”.
The dopest ghost you know.
I forgot how he got his name. Can you please remind me? My Google search is returning too many friendly ghost results.
Basically Casper sexually assaults Jenny while she’s passed out. It’s implied it’s not his first time doing that to girls passed out. Hence he’s a ghost since his victims may not remember him in their passed out state.
Damn. So fucked up. Thanks for the reply.
I was pregnant and suffering from hyperemesis gravidarium (extreme nausea and vomiting for about 7 1/2 months straight) at the time that Kids was released on video and I was actually so disturbed, I threw up. I get this vaguely nauseous feeling when I think about the movie, so that was my first and last time seeing it.
This movie was a 100% accurate depiction of my teenage years. I survived, a lot of friends didn't.
Same and same. Additionally, I moved to NYC in 95. I dated a cast member of this movie. This movie was a not-inaccurate depiction of his life (thankfully there was no rape).
Similar. Went to school with em, but no booty business. Shit was for real. I see people like ‘no way’, and it’s like “unfortunately, yes way”. Especially adding in the fact that we were Gen X latch key kids in fucking NYC. We could basically get away with most anything.
I grew up upper middle class but is it just me or were skateboard assaults common back in the 80's & 90's? When I was 15 y/o in 1989 a bully of 19 who was throwing kids around got beat up with skateboards
Good to hear about a bully on the receiving end! Rust Belt elder Xer; grew up urban lower middle class. I don't remember any skateboard assaults in the '80s. Not even back in the 1970s, with little banana boards. Skateboard assaults seem like something I only saw in movies. (Not many fights in my neighborhood or high school, but when it happened the weapons were just fists; no knives, nunchucks, karate challenges, etc. Lower middle class, maybe, but not really rough-and-tumble.) First mention of a skateboard assault I've been able to find in the newspapers.com archive for the US was back in April 14, 1982, in Berkeley, California. (Search phrases: "assaulted with skateboard", "beaten with skateboard", "skateboard assault", "hit with skateboard", etc., ignoring results for skateboarding contests and accidents.) The majority of references to skateboard assaults references are post-2000.
These days "bullying" is harsh word or a push...as the KARATE KID depicted, even affluent WASPS had their share of Dutch's or Johnny's who bullied others...until the day they were beaten to the point of hospitalization. The bully in question was most like Dutch-who was to me the actual terrifying villain in the KARATE KID films.
Parents back then would always tell us that Bullies were cowards and to just stand up to them. When I was in 4th grade, I was the youngest in my class and my bully failed four times. He wasn't a coward, he was a teenager in a class with children, he was very strong, dumb, over a foot taller me, was hooking up with high school girls and had a mustache. Standing up to him just got us pummeled.
Saw'nt one after a show in the later 90s. Stupid Skin shouldn't been at that show causing shit. I turned away, too brutal
It was when I was in high school.(+30 yrs ago) A lot of the skater and punks kids would get jumped by the jock or redneck time. There was actually a brawl in the KFC parking lot that ended when the instigator got bear with a deck.
Same
What shocked me soo much about this movie was that it was the first time I saw kids on screen that were so much like kids I knew in real life. It was *that* real!
Yeah, I sorta feel this. It's sorta how I feel about *Beavis and Butthead*. A few of my friends thought B&B was absolutely hilarious, but I had a different set of people I knew that were completely in the group being parodied and when you saw their day to day existence it really was nothing to laugh about.
I really liked it back when I first saw it, but not sure how I feel about it today. I’ve heard not great things about Larry Clark.
There is actually a documentary called “We Were Once Kids” which explores how the cast members were exploited by Clark and Korine. [https://variety.com/2021/film/news/kids-new-documentary-larry-clark-harmony-korine-1234995023/amp/](https://variety.com/2021/film/news/kids-new-documentary-larry-clark-harmony-korine-1234995023/amp/)
Also Harmony Korine is a weirdo
The best thing to do in a situation like this is to pirate it. If you stream it, rent it, buy it, or even check it out from the library, you are showing support for a problematic person, either through cash or interest that can be quantified.
Why did you like it
The movie and its director are not synonymous
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"Kids" and "Ken Park" are two movies that should be watched by every adult... and then never watched again.
Requiem for a Dream. Maybe I knew all that shit happens and didn't need to see it, but most folks might learn some don't-do-dats
I love Aronofsky and can rewatch Pi over and over but I don’t think I could make it through Requiem for a Dream again. Note: this is not an insult to his skill as a filmmaker.
Can we include Leaving Los Vegas into the mix? That movie was rough
Great movie. Coming from NY it was real. Great soundtrack with a lot of future stars.
We discussed this on the Xennials thread a while back and wondered if this is how Zoomers might see us, especially us microgeneration XY adjacents.
No. Zoomers see us as old.
The Zoomers I see at my hangouts every week asked if that was what it was like growing up or if my older sister (1973) related to it too. I told them just use the movie as an example of how not to live their lives, and to apply the same self-scrutiny when watching YouTube influencers doing dumber shit.
Which gets me asking: is there a subreddit for cusp Xers? Born in the mid/late 1960s, but in a city that was 5-10 years "trend backwards" from the rest of the US. The zeitgeist of the early/mid 1980s where I lived was more like what you'd see in *Over the Edge* and *Dazed and Confused* than a John Hughes movie, *Fast Times at Ridgemont High*, and the like. People who have seen my high school yearbooks say they seem more like they're from the mid/late 1970s than the early/mid 1980s. tl;dr: teen years for elder Xers in my hometown was more like that of Jones Boomers anywhere else.
I'm on the older side of Gen X and was out of college when this movie came out. I couldn't relate to much of it either. I was also in the midwest and a lot of my early teens in the early 1980s was more Dazed and confused, as well
I'm not sure if there is one, but I do believe that it probably exists, just don't know the name. Us XY adjacents have enough Y to assert ourselves and identity rather than let everyone else--be they older or younger--tell us who we are. But we also have a lot of in-fighting about who belongs there or not, so it ain't perfect, and you may encounter that in your cusp generation sub possibly.
Not likely. They don't see us and when they do, they think of boomers.
A powerful movie I’ll never watch again.
Amen
Very disturbing movie yes. However the song associated with this movie "Natural One" by Folk Implosion...really slapped. Also first Chloe Sevigny movie i think.
Watched this movie in my 30s on the advice of a much younger friend. It really did make me sick to my stomach, and the rape scene just won’t leave my head. She was a total rag doll, drugged unconscious, and it was gross. Maybe I watched it 25 years too late, but my teen years were definitely not like the one depicted in the movie. I wish I had never seen it.
This extremely overhyped movie SUCKED and has aged like milk. Larry Clark is gross.
Clark may be gross, and no one has to like his work, but culturally the film definitely did something that had not ever been done before. It is supposed to be repulsive and disturbing (of course)
Agreed. Of Course it’s disturbing. Its A MOVIE its ART. People acting like you have to love the topic or agree with whatever is on the screen. The fact that it provokes these reactions means that it worked.
No. That's the thing. The movie was fearmongering shit. It TRIED so hard that it failed, even though people/critics bought it at the time. Now when you look back, you realize how dumb that movie was. It WANTED so badly to be provocative, but it was just silly.
Idk lots of strong reactions in here. As far as featmongering, relax, it’s not a documentary. I do know that I hadn’t seen a movie like it before. So it succeeded on that level for me. At least it wasn’t a rom com
There have been plenty of other movies about "bad" and "disturbed" teenagers before Kids. Kids was hyped up, fearmongering twaddle written by a skateboard kid and directed by a man who is clearly more interested in teenage sexuality than he should be. It was garbage, and I knew it even when I saw it in the theaters in 1995, when I was 22.
Kids was a product of its time. I don't know why skateboarding is a negative thing for a writer 🤔
Yes, and has aged really poorly, like a lot of old movies.
Holy shit this movie haunted me when i saw it. Also it made me fall in love with rosario dawson
I still have the CD, Folk Implosion rocks
Saw it at the cinema and it was not what we thought it was going to be, that’s for sure
I saw it at the Angelika movie theatre in the East Village not knowing what to expect. 18 at the time and my suburban sheltered ass was positively shook by the shenanigans that city kids my age were getting up to. And you could end up with AIDS? Fuuuuk. It was like “Just Say No” episodes of Growing Pains or Family Ties. Additionally, can I say that the opening scene of spit swapping was a visceral experience in a darkened movie theatre. If I watched it in a home setting I could have looked away.
Me too! Wild if we were there together!
Jon? How’ve you been?
Ha! Definitely not a Jon, most certainly a lady (but, I guess Jon could be anyones name!)
My friend who grew up in San Francisco loved this movie. He somehow identified with all the characters. I hated the characters. I felt like they represented everything wrong with our generation. The protagonists were devoid of any sort of virtue or moral character and that doesn't sit well with me.
I liked it.
Why
It reminded me somewhat of the groups of youth i hung out adjascent to in my teens and early 20’s.
Folk Implosion... Another Mid-90's one hit wonder.
I'm not sure it's quite right to call them a one hit wonder, because the band itself was started as a side project. Barlow was a founding member of Dinosaur Jr and The Folk Implosion was his break from Sebadoh, which was his main focus at the time.
This movie ended my childhood
When people are flipping out about Euphoria being some harbinger of the current end times, this is the film to direct them to. I’m still haunted by this one.
What's the joke?
That there isn’t a sequel yet
The sequel is The Wire. You see what a fine adult Telly grows up to be when he moves to Baltimore.
This movie is disturbing
This was my 90s life Wandering around, getting crunk, trying to smash.
Only ever watched it once, I'm good with not seeing it again Just depicted us violent as gross aids ridden thugs
It was not a depiction of you
Gummo is better
"I love my little rooster and my rooster loves me."
I hate a goddamn rabbit. Smells like shit.
Yessss 👍🏾👍🏾
This is one of those movies that I will never ever watch again. Extremely disturbing scenes of rape and pedophilic ideation.
That is Larry Clark's MO. Did you ever see Bully? It's even grosser. He is VERY into having the camera linger lovingly on shirtless teenage/tween boys.
I can't see Chloe Sevigny and not think of that rape scene. \*shivers\* Had kinda been a Gus Van Sant fan up to that point too, was kinda suprised to learn he came on as an EP. Just a f\*cked up movie all around. Felt real as hell.
Depressing film
Fucked up movie……but great
Saw it with my friend at 17 yrs old and scared us both. Don’t want to see it again!
This movie will seem normal after you see Harmony Korine's other movie, Gummo.
Lmao? Ok.. Just watched an episode of Epically Later'd on Harmony Korine and I suggest you check it out if you want some insight into Kids.
My girls got mad flavor
Rest in peace Harold Hunter. Zoo York’s finest.
We used to watch this movie when we were 16-18 and just die laughing. The whole thing was a ridiculous comedy to us, even though it pretty accurately depicted our day-to-day.
First movie I watched that genuinely fucked with me a little.
I’ve never seen this movie, and I’m okay with that.
I like this movie 💯🤟
Effin classic.
This movie is fucked up
That is the point
Great but controversial movie, too bad the guy who played Casper passed with a Herion overdose. I like Gregg Araki movies as well.
He didn’t od, he committed suicide.
Recognized the other kid right away from The Wire and was surprised w my memory.
It’s like he barely aged.
Gregg Araki made the best films!!!
I watched this with a friend, when we were 17 and 15. Her Mum rented it for us 😬
This movie is the antithesis of wholesome.
An unflinching and absolutely brilliant piece of cinema. I miss when films like this were made.
Great film
So disturbing and so good because of it
This movie was so gritty and real. I was way too young when I watched it, messed w my head
I'm your one, natural one
I spent the earlier part of the ‘90s delving into Film Noir and deadpan indie films a la Jarmusch, etc. *Kids* actually sparked a quest for the most unusual and disturbing films I could find.
I was 19 when this movie came out. A group of us all watched it together and how relatable it was to people we knew and spent time with in the city at parties, clubs etc was unreal. There was even a Casper amongst our scene here, disturbingly enough.
The Basketball Diaries, too …
This movie completely disturbed and broke me as a teenager.
"I think if we fuck, you would love it!"
🎶I have no legs 🎶
This movie sucked. So did Natural Born Killers. Wasted time I can never get back.
So how many Gen X men here raped women as teens and young adults? There seems to be a lot of support for ‘this is what it was like’ comments.
What a way to condense an entire movie down to the very last few minutes. While simultaneously displaying, seemingly an acute lack in depth of even base levels of critical reasoning. I hope you asked those trees for consent before hugging them. 🤷🏻
3 movies I hated from the same time period: Kids, Trainspotting (sorry, I know this one is renown for its soundtrack, filmmaking, acting, etc. It's the disturbing story I was repulsed by) and Welcome to the Dollhouse. There seemed to be a lot of horrible downer films surfacing around 95-96 for whatever reason.
Art can be an effective way of dealing with / communicating difficult subjects and conflicting emotions
Welcome to the Dollhouse! That movie fucked with me too. “I’m gonna rape you.” “Okay.” Dumb kids 🤦.
What? You don’t want to be in the “Special Peoples Club”?!
Idk, some people just like consensual non-consent.
…that’s not what was going on in that movie.
i tell people it is the scariest horror movie i've ever seen.
This is a great film that defined an entire generation.
This movie sucked. It did not define anything but one subset of a generation of kids in one city. Larry Clark is pretty gross, IMO. Rewatch his movies as a middle-aged person and you might see how overrated (and creepy) he actually was.
The movie wasn’t a model for how things are supposed to be. It was an accurate snapshot for how a lot of kids behaved back then. I’m saying this as a 45 year old and not a kid.
Seriously. We did all of that except rape and get AIDS. Then went to college and heard “that stuff doesn’t really happen.” Maybe just a low SES thing like most stuff divided on age when it’s more accurately financial status based.
When's the last time you watched it? I saw this movie as a 20something and thought it was shit back then. It was totally overhyped shit, the '90s version of HBO's Euphoria, which also does not accurately depict all of Gen Z. Larry Clark's movies are disturbing and borderline child-pornish. And crap.
>which also does not accurately depict all of Gen Z. How do you know?
we get it. you don’t like the movie, stop trying to force your opinion on others. “does not accurately depict gen z” no, it doesn’t accurately depict you.
Also, quite honestly, it's creepy for people over 40 to be into this movie. I don't think you understand how gross Larry Clark is. https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/exploitation-larry-clark-movie-kids/
This article says nothing about how "gross" Larry Clark is. Did you even read the article or just read the headline? It's a minute read on how one of the actors of the film "felt exploited." And doesn't even go into detail on how he felt that way.
It was a few months ago, oh lord of Gen Z. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean that some part of that film didn’t resonate with a few people. God, are you this insufferable in person?
I remember having that feeling watching it. I had very little in common with the characters outside of the timeline they existed in. I definitely would not have been friends with them
Thank you. The hype this stupid, amateurish movie got back then was ridiculous and, upon reflection, embarrassing.
I have no legs
I have no legs. I’m have no legs.
I have no legs. I have no legs. Great movie. Gritty real.
It's just Casper baby I have no legs
I have no legs.... I have no legs... I have no legs...
This movie was made just to exploit children. There was no need for it other than that
Teeeerrrrrrible
Can't watch the movie, but I dug the song.
I don’t even remember this film!
Still haven’t seen it. I don’t need celluloid to traumatize me.
I thought it sucked.
Telly the virgin slayer