Movie-A-Day #4: Kids (1995).

Today is writer/director Harmony Korine’s 38th birthday. Which means it’s as good a time as any to check out his first (and best) feature, “Kids,” which he co-wrote with famed photographer Larry Clark, who also directed. It’s a gritty and uncompromising – or should I say, bleak and depressing – look at the blighted lives of aimless kids in New York City. It’s not light fare, but it’s far better than any of Korine’s subsequent work, and it features breakout performances from an ensemble cast of then-unknowns that includes Chloë Sevigny and Rosario Dawson. And then there’s the great soundtrack put together by Lou Barlow of Sebadoh and the Folk Implosion.