+1
I watched Kids today, and I can definitely see the roots of where he would subsequently go in his own directorial efforts (specifically groups of people encouraging/pressuring one or more members to engage in some form of unsafe or anti-social activity). After watching it, though, I felt like something was missing in comparison to works like Gummo or Trash Humpers. I think those films had an almost whimsical quality to them that came out of the combination of their general weirdness and shared embrace of tap dancing/vaudeville, whereas Kids seemed more consistently realistic and almost documentary (apart from the score).