Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

ironhorse_iv If you thought, the movie 1995's Kids was controversial disturbing; this movie is worst. Honestly, when you think about it, the movie by director Larry Clark and written by Harmony Korine isn't presenting anything new, here. It's basically Kids: Part 2. Ken Park is a melodrama-erotic film that are based on Larry Clark's journals and stories. For a film, titled 'Ken Park', the film has little to do about teenager Ken Park (Adam Chubbuck) life, and the reasons that lead him to commit suicide. It more revolves around the teenagers friends of the demise, and how abusive or dysfunctional their lives are. The first friend, Shawn (James Bullard) is the most stable of the four main characters. He's playing a dangerous love-affair with his girlfriend's mother, Rhonda (Maeve Quinlan), throughout the story. Next is Claude (Stephen Jusso) whom getting physical and mentally abuse by his alcoholic father (Wade Williams). Then, there is Peaches (Tiffany Limos) who lives with her extremely religious father, who way too fixates on her. Last is Tate (James Ransone), an unstable and sadistic adolescent living with his grandparents, whom he resents and frequently verbally abuses. The film badly intercuts frequently between the characters, with no overlap of characters or events until the end. The movie makes it look like they're all friends, but we rarely see them interact with each other or Ken Park. It's one of the bigger faults of the film. It felt like four different movies. The movie tries really hard to have stylistic elements to connect these scenes, but it's so badly executed. A tennis metaphor for a man beating up a kid tied to a bed, and that of a kid autoerotic asphyxiation beating off his man part. WTF? The movie doesn't have a resolve or conclusion to any of the problems, these teenagers are going through. After all, the movie end with a threesome orgy as a solution. It's really hard to care about these unlikeable characters. When we empathize in a sad tragedy movie. Our brain are supposed to releases oxytocin, which engages brain circuits that prompt us to care about others. Instead, this movie just made me, hate them more. After all, most of these characters are the cause of their own faults. At less, that's what I think. The movie doesn't bother, giving us much exposition. Honestly, what is the point of watching this movie? I watch it, because I thought, maybe it would be as good as portraying real life troubles like the movie 'Kids' with something new. Instead, I got a movie that just recycle the same old plot-line crap behavior towards sex as the last movie. The new things that they try to add are just too outrageous. Honestly, how many children have to deal with incestuous wedding rituals or wanting to kill your parents after a scrabble game? Why couldn't the movie, dealt with the struggles of teen depressing and have somewhat a positive message? After all, it felt like the movie was trying to do that, but it went horrible wrong. The movie went on without any sense of message. If it did, it kinda got lost in the mess. The entire movie can be viewed as an argument for abortion, as everyone is a complete jerks, but come on. Abortion wouldn't stop people from being idiots. I think the writers and director overkill the film by having so many unlikeable situations that it turn off most of the movie theater audience, from picking up and watching the film. What is left are, just the people that are mentally disturbed, watching loathsome characters. Indeed, the film felt like dark erotic porno. I felt like I had to take a shower, after watching this crap. No wonder, why this movie is NC-17. If you want to get your kicks off, there is plenty of full frontal nude scenes of realistic cunnilingus and other sexual positions with hardcore shots of ejaculations. I think most people know this movie just due to the film's most-famous scene with Maeve Quinlan. I doubt, they know the movie is really about. Fanservice or not, there are better movies to jack off; to. Unless, you find middle aged men urinating, sexy. The movie was banned in a few countries. One of the biggest banned came from Australia. The film has not been released in the United States since its initial showing in 2002. Director Larry Clark says that this is because of the producer's failure to get copyright releases for the music. Overall: The movie is indeed going for shock value, but the delivery of it, made the film, more like schlock value. It's a horrible film.

Armand a town.few families. teenagers. large slices of sex. mixture between pornography and a kind of cry. or, only, a Rubick cube. it is, in same time, disgusting and cruel.bitter and chaotic. no moral, no message. at first sigh. young bodies and ambiguous story. but it is only a poor picture. because it is only a picture of society. frustrations, fear, lost of life sense, schizoid universe, darkness of soul and fake refugees, result - a honest film. too honest because it may be ironic drawing of every day facts, warning or only cold mirror. a difficult film for its bitter skin. because eroticism, at all levels, with each nuances is only a form to sensibles. or a trap. only the viewer has right answer. for himself.

tattoos-by-james-d First off, before I get into any detailed discussion, I would like to state that from my research on this title, and Clark's signature sub genre in general, I did manage to locate the age of all the actors ( who portray American legal-minors well enough to rise eyebrows across the globe)in this film. And let me say, none of them were still unwrapping 18th Birthday presents, and all were very legal adults during the filming of Ken Park. If not, then this film would have made more enemies then just movie critics and ratings boards. Also any person who could find any type of arousal from the sexual situations portrayed in this film, has much deeper-seeded issues, that were there before viewing it. That being said. The first thing I'll say is that if the viewer is not familiar with Larry Clark's 7 (to my knowledge) other films and his style, then Ken Park is absolutely not the first one they should see. To truly understand Clark's message (yes, nay Sayers, there is a message!) you have to be able to disassociate yourself with what your are watching. Many other reviewers, both on this site and others, claim that Clark's views of American youth are so extreme, and so vile that there's no way it can be realistic. If today's parent's and middle agers really think that this culture of violent, drug and alcohol using, extreme sexuality experimenting, inarticulately swearing, teenage angst monsters don't exist? Then, smile that blissfully innocent, ignorant smile, and run like hell from anything Larry Clark has ever made. I can confirm with no sense of pride other then to be alive, that such a culture does VERY MUCH exist, I grew up in it. From far to tender an age, drinking, drugs, excessive smoking, swearing, false maturity, and experimentation that I have yet to equal as an adult. Clark's incite into mine and to many other's coming-of-age stories is the most rawly executed, real, portrayal of this excuse-less, counter culture of semi-suburban hell there is and could only be told by someone who had lived it too. Maybe not the specific stories, but the characters are disturbingly to familiar. But, like I said, if you can separate yourself from Clark's semi-psychotic vision of today's youth, then you may see what the minority sees in Ken Park. Ken Park is the collaboration of Larry Clark, director of KIDS, Wussup Rockers, BuLLy, and few others with a screenplay by Harmony Korine, who wrote on KIDS. The first thing you will notice is Clark's signature gloomy vibe oozing through the over tuned punk rock, and visuals that lack specificity and is bled out through the flat colors and signature-less other the places passing by.***SPOILERS FROM HERE ON*** The first noticeable character in their short lived, but plot line based, appearance is Ken Park, maybe 16, who skateboards (a favorite activity of most Clark's characters) down the street to a skate park, rolls around the hips and bumps of white cement a few times, sits down, pulls out a hand gun, and blows his brains out. This was the most disturbing part of the film in my opinion and almost gave the warning (quoting Clark's sig. dialogue) "Dude, you better get ready for some really f*cked-up sh*t...". The simple, yet intricate plot begins to shape as we meet a few of the other kids who knew Ken Park to one extreme or another, who will become the base for the rest of the story. Shawn, our "real" main character by all accounts, is (portrayed as), about 16, and is having an affair with a much older woman. His first act of age-defiance in the film, is performing oral sex on his adult mistress while her young daughter sits alone down stairs and watches some semi pornographic day-time cable, unattended. The casualness of the situation is enough to make your skin crawl.Next we have Claude, 15 or 16, a semi-charismatic teen, with a helping hand for his mother, who appears to be in her first trimester. His stepfather, however, isn't so loving for Claude. In fact his action's toward Claude would be described as dominant, demeaning, emasculating, and as the story progresses, disturbingly sexual in nature. Our female lead, Peaches,15 or 16, is a at first seemingly innocent, wholesome girl. Who's first scene is at the table, with her seeming boyfriend, and over loving, religious father. Her mother has passed away, and is heaavvvillyyy mourned by her father. Only Clark could make missing someone's loved one creepy. Moments after this introduction, Peaches and Boyfriend are caught mid sex act, and the father ruthlessly beats the boy, and has something far more dark in store for Peaches.The third character is Tate, 15-16, (played by the surprisingly well known actor James Ransone) take the "f*cked up" cake for Ken Park. He is a right off the bat disturbed, abusive, angry boy who is constantly screaming obscenities and threats at his Grandparents, who most disturbingly, show the most realistic and absolute love for Tate, while showing ignorance for what he is at heart. Which is, a asphyxiation fetishist (which is not 'portrayed', but acted out fully *shiver*...), and in the end homicidal as he hacks up his Grandparents with a kitchen knife. The story line based upon these charters after the death of Ken Park, whom they all knew. From my simple description, you can see, Ken Park is not just for everyone, it is for a select few with an interest in peering into the minds of some "really messed up kids" (Another Clark Signature If your worried you may come across Ken park on accident, don't worry, it has been banned in almost all major countries, and banned from print or sale in the USA (which made my copy all the harder to find.)

Rodrigo Amaro Explaining "Ken Park" in simple words: A story about several a group of Californian skateboarder's friends, their lives and relationships with and without their parents. Watching the film is not that simple, it's a awkward tour-de-force where you have three choices: walk out of the film after some of its controversial moments; watch the whole film and hate it because of its controversial content; or watch it with and like it despite everything you seen here. I don't know how many people heard things about it but I know that many people will not want to see it, or will find a boring and empty film with nothing more to say. But it has something there that compels us to watch it and like it.The story begins when a teen skater boy named Ken Park (Adam Chubbuck) happily killed himself in front of other skaters. Then the movie presents us Ken's friends, Shawn (James Bullard), Peaches (Tiffany Limos), Tate (James Ransone) and Claude (Stephen Jasso) and their complicated and obnoxious lives with their families, or in Shawn's case without them, only with his girlfriend and her mother, being a sexually active boy with both women. Many viewers and reviewers here complained about the story's point, the nudity, the sex, about everything before looking to themselves and to what they watch in the news and asking themselves: Real life is that strange as this film? Yes! That's what made of "Ken Park" one of the best films ever made and one of the most shocking too, because it seemed real, actors were not playing around, they were not only physically nude but they were portraying life as it is to some people, in this case a group of troubled people. And all that comes as a hypocrisy. Hypocrisy because people do strange things, get undressed, their intimate parts appears, they masturbate (perhaps not in that way), sometimes they show to each other, big deal, but there's always someone who'll get offended with that. But heads exploding, death executions, mass killings both in films and in real life doesn't seem to disturb the same viewers that gets easily impressed with films like this. Something must be very wrong with mankind and that's what Larry Clark and Ed Lachman present to us in this film, I don't know if that was the intention but it certainly succeed it. I guess I've seen so many strange and freaky things in movies that this film didn't bothered me that much, in fact, it let me hypnotized, I wanted to see what was going to happen next, everything was surprising, there's no moments of "I had it coming". But I know that a regular viewer who'll watch "Ken Park" will be disturbed, disgusted, shocked, paralyzed and another adjectives, and all I can say is this: if you want to see something new and you think nothing can disturb you then watch it. It's that kind of movie that you like it but you can't suggest to everyone. I must say that "Ken Park" doesn't make too much for a great director like Larry Clark considering his other controversial works such as "Kids" and "Bully" who were less disturbing but they had one thing more that this film didn't have: a social critic that urges changes in societies and in relationships without having that denounce appearance, pointing fingers to the audience; he just shows us the situation and the rest is up to the audience think for itself. His documentary style works here, you almost won't even notice that veteran actors like Amanda Plummer, Richard Riehle and Julio Oscar Mechoso are in the film along with unknown actors. A memorable film, a different and incredible experience, just when you think you know something you must see in a different perspective, and for that and more I loved "Ken Park". 10/10