Ken Park Review January 2004

Here comes another Larry Clark movie about suburban teenagers and adolescence. Ever since this movie was banned in Australia i've have wondered what the fuss has been about over the movie.

The movies opening serves an introduction to the cast of characters and the title of the film. Larry Clark has dipped into story's collected over the years from photographing street kids. During the 80s for the photo book Teenage Lust. Skipping some history about how Ken Park came about. Larry Clark has created another in your face based on reality movie. Some times I wonder if he just has a fetish for teenagers or wants to show how it really is for some teenagers growing up in the world.

One them that continues in Ken Park is just a chunk of unnecessary sex and sexual visuals in the movie. I don't know if it's there to shock the viewer or needed to tell the story.Of the main characters in the movie. Well known fact that most teenagers are sexually active. So nothing new is being shown to our generation just the uptight older generation. Or people who are thought to be out of touch.

Apart from this the story is fairly average most of the movie runs with out a hitch then close to the end it goes of the tracks. Still sticking to the story but just seems to be out of order. It tells the story of Peaches, Shawn, Tate, and Claude and shows a glimpse into their everyday lives. Harmony Korine I think did an fairly decent screen play for this movie. The characters work with each other but the story doesn't work at all in some areas. There are some holes in the plot. Which you need to figure out. One thing I didn't understand is one characters resentment for their grandparents and the resentment goes to some extremes.

Think of this movie as a more extreme version of Clarks first movie KIDS. I really have mixed emotions about this movie. I appreciate what Clark has set out to do with his movies. But it is getting old and he had to throw in some hardcore real sex to ad some sort of new angle and selling point. To be honest I wouldn't have bothered to buy this movie if it had not been banned. I really wanted to see what the fuss was about. It wasn't as in your face as I thought it would be but the story meet up with how I thought it would turn out. There are scenes that were behind the reason for banning andI have no problem them with along with the rest of the world.

The movie is only worth getting if you love Larry Clark and didn't mind Bully. I hope Larry Clark has some thing more original planned for his next movie. It's such a waste of talent. It had better change before he becomes a joke like Kevin Costner. I respect him for doing his own thing but every movie is just KIDS repeated over and over. I read he has a new photography book coming out. Better not have anything to do with teenagers at all seriously.

Ken Park is available on DVD and VCD at a China Town near you! or on eBay.

Side note: Hong Kong version contains blurred out genitals of both sexes in the sex scenes contained in the movie. I wonder what a mouth full of pixels tastes like.