Ken Park

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Audience Member I love Kids and Bully as much today as when they came out. They rank high up in the List Of Films That Matter to Me. Ken Park, unfortunately, left me cold. I felt no attachment to any of these young people whatsoever. I felt more emotionally invested in their parents (even if most of that emotion was loathing). Clark and Korine have created some of the most legendary teenage characters of all time: Kids' Casper and Telly and Harold, Bully's Ally and Bobby and...well, all of them really. But the Ken Park kids just feel like victims, empty shells you never really come to know or care for. They're never funny or clever or even appealingly depraved. Also whoever did the costumes should get an Oscar for "least appealing selection of mens' underwear in a feature film." Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 12/12/24 Full Review Renee D Weird movie. Just weird. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 01/22/23 Full Review Audience Member If your childhood and teen years were troubled, you will love the story and psychology behind it. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/20/23 Full Review Audience Member Heaps of potential, largely wasted. The lives of a group of skateboarding teens in the city of Visalia, California. I had low expectations for this film. It is directed by Larry Clark, who specialises in gratuitous sex and nudity for shock value, and seems to creepily delight in making films about teenagers. However, the movie started very well with an incredibly powerful opening scene. Having grabbed my attention, Clark and writer Harmony Korine then proceeded to retain it with fairly engaging scene-setting. So far, so good. Everything was set up for a good exposition of modern teen life with a profound ending. However, Clark can't help himself and, as the movie progresses, he starts to throw in the gratuitous sex and nudity he is known for. It is all for shock value and here it is over the top. No wonder this film is so controversial. The explicit scenes cheapen and divert what was shaping up to be a good drama. Instead of a well-thought-out and crafted examination of teen life we have extreme and weird plot developments, just for shock value. It's not all bad though: some of the sub-plots (e.g. the Tate one) remain interesting and the ending is quite powerful and ties the movie together. Overall: better than expected, but disappointing because it could have been great. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/20/23 Full Review Audience Member Ken Park did not do for me what the likes of Kids, Gummo and Bully did. I didn't feel like there was much of a connection between the characters and the audience compared to Clark's and Korine's previous work. Worth a watch if you are a fan of their films, you may enjoy it more than I did, but for me the other films are more powerful/meaningful. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/18/23 Full Review Audience Member Ken Park is a very provocative film. It has never been released in the U.S. (Due to music licensing issues) and you can be arrested in Australia for trying to screen this film (It's still banned there). The story follows the dysfunctional lives of various teenage characters in Visalia, California and oh, boy, does this film certainly show dysfunction. In fact, the most well-adjusted character in the film is a kid who skips school to bang his girlfriend's mother and the film also ends in a threesome. Hell, the film even begins on a provocative tone when Ken Park (named after the film) goes to a skate park, pulls out a camera and a gun, and while smiling and recording himself, shoots himself in the head. It's a film that deals with abuse, religious and familial hypocrisy, adolescent struggles, and so much more complemented by unsimulated sex scenes (The actors were legal age, mind you) including a scene of auto-erotic asphyxiation (Choking yourself to achieve the ultimate orgasm). It's not pretty, it's vulgar, and does everything in its power to shock and offend, but Ken Park is a strangely compelling film nonetheless about the confusing nature of youth. Just know what you're getting into if you ever try to watch this film. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/26/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Ken Park

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