Hacker Cinema
Kids
1995 · Film · 91 min
Directed by Larry Clark
A group of bored, disaffected New York City teenagers spend a day skating, smoking, drinking, partying, deflowering virgins, and getting into fights.
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14 comments on Hacker News
> I honestly believe social media, smart phones, and over-scheduling/over-protection does a lot less damage to the current generation than partying did to my generation.
Zuck, is that you? :)
> movie "kids" for a more balanced view how parties often looked like
Teens (and pre-teens) having sex, doing hard drugs and drinking liquor is completely unlike "how parties often looked like" for anyone I know but YMMV.
"It's really sad to me how we have completely fucked a lot of youth with social media, smart phones, and over-scheduling/over-protection."
I honestly believe social media, smart phones, and over-scheduling/over-protection does a lot less damage to the current generation than partying did to my generation. I can recommend the 1995 Larry Clark movie "kids" for a more balanced view how parties often looked like and which negative side effects they could have. Real life was not like in "American Pie" at all and that is where I guess Gen Z is getting their impression from.
When I see "gritty people", I think of, like, the movie Kids. Those were some gritty people.
> assumption - that the top talent pool largely begins and ends with the best known actors.
I don’t think anyone is making this assumption, and certainly not me.
What I’m saying is that in a show with such a big budget, not a single actor is well known or even decently known. That’s unusual and not a good sign. It’s possible that this show is unique in that it has all great actors and is not paying a ton for them. Certainly it’s possible.
But try to think of another show with even a moderate budget that was awesome with an entire cast of “unknowns.”
There are some movies, Kids comes to mind with a new director, writer, and stars like a then unknown Rosario Dawson and Chloe Sevingny. But that budget was like $400k and I think if they had had $40M they would have had different actors.
kids is a cool film, but not much of a cautionary tale. it's more like a 90s urban euphoria, in that the message is really more to adults: "this is what teenagers are actually doing right now".
what (imo) would make requiem for a dream really effective is that it shows the transition from the "honeymoon phase" of drug use to the "consequences phase" really well. I think this is the part that teenagers really don't understand (or at least I didn't). when you're starting out, it can seem like a lot of the anti-drug messaging is just fear mongering (and it is, to an extent). but most people that age don't yet have the perspective to distinguish between harmless fun and a slow motion crisis.
trainspotting is also great, and a bit more realistic than requiem for a dream. but if I had to pick one of the two to show to teens, I'd probably pick the former.
>is virtually child pornography disguised as a cautionary documentary
Ah damn, and we watched the movie with our teacher. Maybe the US is just different, having Cheerleaders with miniskirts and dancing like at Moulin Rouge that's ok, and children beauty contest (mostly in the conservative states)...no problem, but watching a disturbing and disgusting story like in Kids is called "child pornography".
BTW, i like that critic much more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/fashion/kids-20th-anniversary-chloe-sevigny-rosario-dawson.html
Dam, WaPo didn't, there goes my theory the Left have always defended art and culture. Unless WaPo was more conservative back then.
"Kids," a disturbingly voyeuristic look at adolescent promiscuity, is virtually child pornography disguised as a cautionary documentary.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/kidsnrkempley_c029f5.htm
>defended movies like Kids against the conservatives
Ahh, that movie that shows that rape is bad and HIV is a real problem?
Wow, this is Qanon, didn't see that coming.
The frontpage of Reddit got sucked into this and a quite a few commentators.
I have to admit, it was a change to see the Left being morally outraged, compared to 25 years ago when they defended movies like Kids against the conservatives, things the Left should be proud to had done.
I think they are so used to following what insanity they are told is 'woke' this week, Qanon played them quite easily.
Your comment made me think of a movie (which is off epic of these anime films) called Kids.
I saw it as a teenager and thought it was very sad, though I don't remember a lot of details today.
reminds me of the film 'kids'. good on the photographer for sharing the royalties.
In my experience, my favorite movies I find via glowing reviews. Rotten tomato completely obscures this view: if all the reviewers kind of like it, it'll get 100%, whereas polarizing films always suffer. I'll take "kids" over "star wars" any day for a better movie. Why? I'm gonna see star wars because i want to, not because I expect a meaningful aesthetic. But Rotten Tomatoes takes the opposite tact, pushing me towards crowd favorites rather than what i might rate highly.
Really this comes down to how terrible one dimensional comparisons are: it only measure popularity, which is a terrible filter for quality.
I guess my history is almost opposite while achieving similar results. However, I get bunched in the same group and expected to feel privileged and guilty.
I grew up in another country and went to end of junior + high school in a US school in the inner city where nobody studied in my class except for me. 65% of the class never graduated. My parents, although very educated in our home country never paid for school and worked very bad jobs initially here such as postal service worker and person who poses census questions.
Although I never did particularly well in school in my home country, I did extremely well in the US because everyone else wasn't doing anything. I was ranked 10th in a graduating class of 900 students and did well on the SATs except for the English section. However, I got into many fights to protect my image in school or things would have gotten worse for me there. This resulted in not being able to get into decent colleges since for whatever reason that is reflected on your "record".
Finally, this apathetic behavior of my classmates and friends transformed me a little and i did poorly first couple of years of college. However, impending struggles with job market made me get back to studying. I took more loans to pay for my undergrad + masters and graduated with a decent GPA + research. Then got a job in software and now almost finished paying off loans.
Let me describe what high school life is like in inner city public high schools:
People growing up in inner cities are treated like animals in the cafeteria and elsewhere. There are police officers with guns. There are literal metal bars on the windows and only plastic utensils are allowed in cafeteria. Fights happen where everyone jumps on the tables and cheers on. There are metal chains on doors for students not to escape midway during school day. There are metal detectors at the entrance in case students bring guns. You can go to the bathroom during class only 5 times in 6 months. You are taught how to add fractions in grade 10 math class. Guidance counselors never help you and always try to do the least amount of work possible. I had to talk to the principal to make them let me take a math test to test out of elementary school math. Had to switch math classes to get a math teacher to let me go to a math olympiad.
The experience for me closely matched what American movies would show prisons are like. The students themselves think "nerds" are incredibly uncool and the coolest people are rappers + sports stars. I think median amount of time people spent doing homework there is about 0 seconds. Almost everyone constantly talks during class and you can barely hear the teacher.
After escaping this circus, I'm expected to feel sympathy for some of the people who were my classmates.
So while I still think I got lucky in terms of intelligence, the solution to this problem is to change the culture. For example, in my old country, there is literally no commonly used word for "nerds" and people who get good grades are considered cool.
Additionally, going to college for vast majority of students especially those who come from high schools like mine is a waste of time. There should be trade schools. There should be a major high school reform. People who act like prisoners should be put in some sort of boarding school so they stop poisoning the well for others. People who participate in a fight by the virtue of being attacked by others shouldn't get detentions. It should be explained to their parents that this behavior is completely not OK. Media should stop idolizing singers + sports players. In fact, MTV programming should be completely remade into a subtle pro-education propaganda channel. Cancer like Jerry Springer et al should be canceled.
It is totally possible to graduate from these high schools and do well.
The problem is not money, but culture. Privilege has _nothing_ to do with it since tons of people in much much poorer countries with schools that have a lot fewer funds do a lot better.
I feel like most people don't understand what American education/school culture is really like in inner cities and what students are really like who go there. Here are a couple of movies that somewhat match my experience:
The Class (2008) - French film but similar (milder) situation.
Kids (1995) - Very accurate but little to do with education.
The media didn't help, starting (maybe before) with the film Kids then continuing on to news about school shootings and "catch a predator" shows.