Admired by some, reviled by many, Larry Clark and his films range from frighteningly honest to quizzically gratuitous. With Kids, he shocked moviegoers (especially parents) with his group of smooth-skinned city teens humping like mad, partying to disgusting excess, and spreading death. In last year's explosive drama Bully, Clark adapted a true-life tale to illustrate a microcosm of violent peer pressure. With Ken Park, the movie Larry Clark has wanted to make since the late 1980s, the to-hell-with-it-all filmmaker gives us more screwed-up kids, equally deranged parents, and sexual acts teetering on the precipice of boring pornography. Ken Park has something to say -- it just doesn't say it too clearly.Clark teams up with co-director Ed Lachman (lauded cinematographer of Far From Heaven) and his bad-boy Kids screenwriter Harmony Korine to tell us that young people are the most tension-filled, powder keg group in the country. Witness the film's opening credits: the title teen (red-haired Adam Chubbuck) skateboards through a suburban town, enters his local skate park, and puts a bullet through his own head. Roll movie.
Continue reading: Ken Park Review