The first time I saw the movie "Kids," I was 14.
I had heard all of the surrounding hype - an underground movie about a group of New York City kids who did a whole lot of drugs and had sex. Everyone's mother was trying to get the movie banned from existence.
I remember watching the movie and not being that shocked.
In fact, the characters were so believable and so un-Hollywood, they easily could have been the kids who lived down the block from me.
The 1995 movie directed by Larry Clark and produced in part by Gus Van Sant - director of "Good Will Hunting" and "Finding Forester" - is filmed almost documentary style. The plot surrounds two characters: Telly, a 16-year-old skater who calls himself the Virgin Surgeon and his best friend Casper, who is highly dependant on drugs and alcohol.
When they aren't stealing money from their parents, perfecting the art of rolling a blunt or participating in a beating that nearly kills a man, they are talking about sex.
Because that's what Telly is good at. And if you take that away from him, he's really got nothing, he says.
Then there is Jenny, one of his earlier conquests, who has just learned she was infected with HIV by Telly. She travels across the city looking for him, on the way stumbling through a rave and taking a drug which messes her up so bad she is raped.
In my high school years, "Kids" was the secret film not many people had seen. If you were a druggie or a theater kid, you more than likely could quote the lines. Other than that, it was unknown to most.
But the kids I hung out with basically were those characters: a bunch of 16-year-old boys who were wasting their lives away, showing early signs of drug problems, and even younger girls who would hang around hoping to be "deflowered" by the boys.
Sounds vulgar, right?
But that's what hits home about "Kids." These very real events aren't just an inner-city thing. Growing up in a conservative suburb, I knew kids who were perhaps worse than Telly and company.
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When I was young, I loved the film because it was fascinating. These kids are just babies, and their mentality reflects this. They get their younger siblings high and think it's cool. They can sleep with two virgins in a day and rob a convenience store without blinking an eye.
Even though Telly is disgusting physically and internally, there is something appealing about how he manages to woo young girls into his web.
Too me, it was always more than just a movie about teen sex. It was a glimpse into a lifestyle of so many kids I knew - who are now either in jail or still living with their parents.
The cinematography is one-of-a -kind, with grainy shots of the underbelly of New York. During the worst scenes, the director manages to capture some sort of beauty.
Take, for instance, the scene where the boys and girls sit around talking about sex. The things that come out of their mouths are X-rated beyond belief. The shots of the graffiti-laden walls in the boys' houses and the pink, girly pillows in the girls' remind you just how old these kids are. Throughout the conversation, an upbeat jazz song is playing in the background. It's poignant in the grittiest of ways.
Looking back on the film, you would think I would have grown out of it. Sex is no longer something you do in the back of cars, and because you don't have to sneak out of the house to smoke or drink a beer, a lot of the appeal has been lost.
But I still love the film. Now I see it through the eyes of an adult, and it is heart-wrenching, nauseating and brings up memories I would much rather forget. But that is the beauty of "Kids," I suppose. It's a film that eight years later, I still can't forget.
It's an honest and unrelenting take on kids of all walks of life, and it slaps you in the face and reminds you that just because you've moved on from that dangerous world, there are children who have only just entered it.
