Larry Clark's
Kids was a revolution is cinema and culture. Not everybody liked the movie, but few had seen anything like it before--so gritty, so realistic-feeling, so honest (well, except the super-preachy ending).
Ken Park has a similar feel to it. I'm not sure if Larry Clark encourages his actors to improvise or if he doesn't work from actual scripts, but the dialogue and action feels "real." Nevertheless,
Ken Park lacks a direction, a conflict--it doesn't invest the viewer in the lives of the characters. I'm sure there must be some teenagers who masturbate to the sound of women's tennis while strangling themselves with a sash tied to a doorknob, but it seems, in this movie, Clark seeks more to shock than to entertain or make social commentary.
--A.Y.