If you were a 90s kid or a 90s teen, this will definitely take you back down memory lane. However, I thought it left a lot of things vague and much to be desired. Still worth the watch.
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CriticsVoiceVideo13 March 2021
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burlesonjesse511 May 2021In 2021's Kid 90, the "kid" I guess is child actress Soleil Moon Frye. Frye was on a hit TV series titled Punky Brewster. I haven't heard from Soleil in quite some time and now she's resurfacing as a reflective 44-year-old. I also didn't realize that Frye was once involved in a romantic tryst with bad boy Charlie Sheen (who knew).
So yeah, Kid 90 is a documentary where people mumble, indulge, and pander. It's heavy on archive footage, heavy on zigzagging, heavy on F-bombs, and slight on narrative. Said footage is fascinatingly grainy yet gimmicky and plodding. Actors like David Arquette, Brian Austin Green, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, and Stephen Dorff show up to do present-day interviews about their relationship with Frye. It seems Soleil had a lot of Hollywood buddies despite being off the A-list since well, '88.
Showing 90s footage of teenage actors partying and revealing that 8 people associated with Moon Frye died at incredibly young ages (20-30 give or take), Kid 90 chronicles Soleil and her circle of friends through video, voice messages, pictures, and revealing diary notes. It's obvious that Soleil got permission from almost everyone involved. Otherwise there'd be no movie.
Kid 90 has Soleil Moon Frye's commitment and the stunted footage she accumulates over time is quite impressive. But hey, where's the story here? And where's the focus? And what are we the audience suppose to feel about Soleil?
Are we suppose to make out sympathy for her even though she's worth about $5 million? It depends on your views I guess. And is her plight about wanting the viewer to see something of yore suppose to make a statement? I'm not sure.
Kid 90 is not a vanity project per se. It just feels unnecessary and moot considering that Moon Frye never broke out of her Penelope shell. Mixed review "kiddo". -
melbarretttt13 March 2021I always find it amazing when you come across someone who keeps EVERYTHING. Soleil did that. You hear voicemails, see diary entries and photos as well as videos of her whole life...but the videos are a trip to watch. Soleil does a good job narrating and piecing together all of her memories. The most heartbreaking was to see her read her diary entry of her rape. Her young self not realizing she was indeed raped and on top of that telling her rapist she wouldn't tell because she "knows" it was partially her fault. You could see as she reads it how she would have liked to shake some sense into her young self. The pain across her face as she reads her own words... I mean, we all mistakes in life and look back thinking, "WHAT was I thinking?!". Here's a woman who sadly gets to read exactly that. And you feel THAT pain with her. This is what the documentary is like as she visits and sees now the pain some of her friends were in and, like all of us in life, we wonder if we could have seen or sense their friends pain to help save them. You share this journey with Soleil. It's well done.
I didn't rate it higher because I kind of wish we could've seen or learned, in her own words, of where Soleil is now. She glosses over her pregnancy and birth of her kids. Suddenly I was thrusted into present time then it ended. -
shep-carl10 October 2021It's great access, but it's kinda like most teenage stories without wealth & Charlie sheen.
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superkat-1528128 March 2021I thought it was good, I enjoyed listening to the other actors' perspectives and for Ms. Frye to save all that media was awesome.
I found the literature she wrote through the years to be poetic. You can clearly see the shift of how right and wrong becomes clearer with age and experience.
Great to travel back to the late 80's/90's for a while. -
voldiway14 March 2021There are many documentaries about child stars, but very few made by the star themselves. She could have spun it to make herself look like a hero, but instead, she presented unfiltered glimpses into her life in the 90s, complete with all of the raw emotions she was experiencing at the time. Nowadays, every teenager has video footage of their life that could later be edited into a documentary, but for a teenager to capture video footage like this in the 90s was extremely rare. Self-made documentaries of this type will likely become much more common in the future, especially now that there are vloggers recording every moment of their lives, but this may well be the only one of its kind from before the turn of the millennium.
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xvzhnmnw26 May 2022Insightful coming age footage of a teen celebrity that filmed her days parting, and traveling. That includes awesome unseen cameos of pubescent up and coming future celebrities. Also unfortunately some video of late actors who are no longer with us as well.
I think that any good film is like a wave on the ocean and this one just never seems to make it to shore. You are left with a similar feeling of watching home movies in your uncles basement.
Was it fun? Yes! Was there lots of weird pointless footage mixed with cool stuff? Yes! And that's fun too! But, it can feel empty and pointless at the end vs. If it had an editor (which this feels it really still needed despite being edited!). -
NickBOKC20 February 2022In the summer of 1990, I turned 16 years old. This documentary hit me hard with sad nostalgia. I was sad that certain things happened and sad that I can't go back to relive it. All of these young stars were having fun but also going through difficult life situations. One of the crushes of my youth was Jonathan Brandis when he was starring in SeaQuest. That part of the documentary hit me really hard. Most of us think that Hollywood stars are immune to pain because of the fame and money, but that's just not true. You get to see the human side in this documentary. There are no Hollywood masks outside of a film shoot. These were kids being kids before the age of social media and instant judgments from jealous haters. This footage is important. It was as if the universe wanted her to record these memories to share in a future documentary. I was very anxious while watching it because of the nostalgia of my youth, but it was worth every minute to get a glimpse into the lives and struggles of these young stars. If only the ones who left this world too soon were still with us today.
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miqbal94917 November 2021The film in it's entirely is not bad. Hence the 6/10 I gave it. Like others have commented, although there is a lot of archival footage of other 90s actors and the viewer gets a sense of what it was like to grow up in 90s Hollywood, make no mistake, this film is about Soleil Moon Frye. One major criticism I can give is that at times it seems like the film is just one big pity party, with Soleil repeatedly airing her grievances about how she is unhappy with the way her career (or lack thereof) turned out post Punk Brewster, and how various men wanted to have sex with her when she was a teenager. Almost MeToo-ish. I thought it was a bit classless on her part to reveal that Charlie Sheen was the one that took her virginity without exactly spelling it out for the audience. It's worth watching but the film is probably not what you are expecting it would have been.
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cpaulcanaday14 March 2021Watched the documentary Kid 90 on Hulu last night. The premise - Soliel Moon Frye, aka Punky Brewster - explores her experience of moving from child to teenager to adult during the 1990's by diving into her vast collection of of surprisingly intimate and personal homemade videos and journal entries. It includes clips of many other teenage actors and celebrities at the time - her co-hort and community - and contemporary interviews with those who made it to adulthood. Tragically, a number did not. It promises to be really interesting, personal, vulnerable and insightful. Unfortunately, it ends up being only minimally any of those things. Personal? Yes, absolutely. But not particularly insightful. It manages to be vulnerable and superficial at the same time. Like a Hollywood map of scars. I got this scar from the time that this happened and that scar from the time that that happened (oh my god we were so effed up but it was so amazing), and coming up next on the right...
It's too bad because she touches on so many things, so many deep veins that deserve exploring, so many things that I was willing to spend time exploring with her. But she never seems interested in exploring, just pointing things out. It's frustrating.
Toward the end, thinking back on the friends who tragically took their lives, she talks about how much she sees now that she missed twenty years ago. What she doesn't say is that she missed so much because she couldn't see very far outside herself. By the end I was left with the impression that she still can't.
Rather than exploring someone's journey with them, I instead just spent the last 90 minutes with someone while they waxed nostalgic over their old photo albums. And I still haven't gone grocery shopping. -
AdrienneGrayceMusic12 March 2021It was a dark documentary. I loved seeing the old videos and flashbacks of all of my favorite celebrities from the 90s but it left me feeling emotional the whole time. She has lost a lot of people in her life like i have, especially to drugs and suicide so I feel for her. Soleil did not hold back anything in this film and you got to see her and her celebrity friends raw, uncensored and up close and personal. A great trip down memory lane. RiP jonathon Brandis. His death still saddens me til this day. I wish she would have done an update at the end and bring things up from the darkness but its all good. I still enjoyed it. Even teared up a few times
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This is an interesting story of how live is lived when you're semi-famous, plenty of money and connections, but a complete disconnect to Christ. Good story and raw. It ends with increasing the focus on finding and elevating "self love". These people continue to miss the point of why we're here.
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bethlcoleman15 March 2021I LOVED Punky Brewster as a kid and grew up watching all of the teen stars in this documentary, so I was really looking forward to it. The footage is interesting, but there is absolutely no story here. It's just Soleil Moon Frye meeting up with her old friends and awkwardly asking them if they remember things the same way she does. It's really unfortunate, because there would have been a lot of potential for something great with the amount of footage she has but it just goes nowhere and falls flat.
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po-3444 November 2022Obviously the film is still about her and her story, so it's basically self-absorbed. I am not really interested i her, I am interested in the nostalgia and looking back at the period.
The film is a sad reflection of what happens in life when we are given everything. We often lose meaning. We need something bigger than ourselves and perhaps she is realizing this now. I don't know if that's true or if that's for the purpose of looking good for the documentary.
There are so many sad stories like the ones in this film.
If we can gain anything from this film, it's that people are struggling and too often we are selfish and don't notice until it's too late.
Perhaps we need to look outside ourselves for happiness and purpose. -
thorndamien3 September 2021It was a fun ride. Great to see young actors in the natural. My only disappointment was When we had the now interview. For me Soleil was clearly acting instead of being herself I did not feel the same from the others.
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Stay_away_from_the_Metropol26 March 2021Wow. I didn't know quite what I was about to watch when I started this. What I knew was that it would be relevant if you were a kid in the 90's like I was. I had also heard that it's very heavy. What I didn't know is that precisely what it is is basically an honest dive into the video diary of late 80's/early 90's child star Soleil Moon Frye (Punky Brewster) and her slow burn out of child stardom and into...well, the harshness of reality.
The 90's were the last decade before the internet and social networking would change our life experience forever. There was a magic in the energy of society and in our human existence that will never be there again. If you were like me, and apparently Soleil was, we brought our video camcorders with us as often we could, and we recorded as much as we could. For about 2 decades, Soleil put all this footage away, and didn't touch it - but now she's decided to take it all out and bring us a story from her experiences.
Now, I'm gonna be honest, there's not one true focus with this documentary - it's not that simple, but it's one of the most from-the-heart, personal things I have seen put into the format of film in quite some time. The primary thing that I took from this personally is that even movie stars are no different than a lot of us when it comes to the experience of growing up - we're naive, we find our people, then we slowly drill our way into the abyss of conscious reality together without even realizing what's happening. Though this movie is only 82 minutes long, it brings you on the most touching, nostalgic, and eventually tragic rollercoaster so, so quickly, and effectively.
The tragic part is that when you're a star, you're generally enabled - you're able to stall out on letting reality catch up to you. Generally, drug use is tied to that. In this case, that all leads to deaths, and in Soleil's case, so many of her friends died it's actually insane. There's a lot to take in here - those who are still alive feel like they are so lucky to be, and a lot of them seem to have a very deep understanding for the suicidal.
I can't say much more, but I always thought Soleil Moon Frye was extremely likable - now I think she's an angel on Earth, and I'm very happy she's still alive. I feel some of her pain, and through watching this, I stop and think less about my own pain, and more about the pain of every single person on this planet.
Really, everyone should watch this - but even more so if you were a kid in the 90's or gave even the slightest interest in 90's pop culture. After writing this, I almost want to watch it again already. I feel like these people are my friends now. I had no idea that all these young 90's actors were homies who partied together full time. I mean, I used to lie to kids when I was little and tell them Brian Austin Green (90210) was my older brother, and he's one of the leads in this. I feel so connected somehow. It's emotional as hell and completely beautiful. Watch it. -
This was clearly a very personal story for Soleil Moon Frye. I was expecting more a general 90s nostalgia documentary. Instead, the movie is a deep dive behind the curtain for a group of young people in Hollywood growing up in the 90s. It was raw and poignant at times. Thoughtful overall. Decent film.
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caslater-6075625 September 2021The 90's I remember was, for the most part, a pretty good period of my life. But I realize that it wasn't always great for everyone. The kids who grew up in the acting business had it tough because they wanted to be normal kids, but when you're in the spotlight, it's hard to be yourself. The diaries, the filming, the photos, the voicemails, etc were all great ways to get up close and personal with how things really were back then. I'm sorry for the kids who lost their friends to suicide and other issues. That is truly heartbreaking.
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Belle47516 November 2021Soleil Moon Frye (Punky Brewster actress & the director of this doc) has opened up her personal video diary to the world to share what the experience of coming of age was like for her as a famous child actress. Every person, famous or not, has their own coming of age experience that sometimes you can only fully understand in retrospect, so in that regard this film is relatable to anyone. At the same time, it's different because most people do not transition from beloved child TV star into a teenager in front of the eyes of the world. This film documents not only her experience of that and those of her famous friends, but there are also shared themes amongst her peers, including mental health issues, the highs and lows of creativity, struggles with self-esteem/identity, addiction or abuse of drugs/alcohol, and other traumas. This documentary strips away the shiny pages of Teen Beat to show you the exciting house party and the devastating the morning after (literally and metaphorically), for better or worse. Hollywood is a fast place that many people struggle to navigate at any age. That is magnified for young actors.
The perspective of this film is always that of Soleil. As a viewer, you get the feeling that making this film is a cathartic experience for her, an attempt to heal things of the past. There's lots of home video footage with her now adult observations of the impact of who she was then on the person she is now. Because of that, it feels at times like the documentary meanders with no concrete premise in mind, but that's also kind of the point of it. It's meant to be a raw, real exploration without easy answers. Overall, I found it very interesting! -
timmyhollywood22 November 2022It's a line from Jurassic Park. Just because we *can* clone dinosaurs, doesn't mean we *should*. Here, just because you can stitch together a bunch of video footage of famous people in the '90s and sell it to Hulu, doesn't mean you should.
I grew up in the same decade and also always had a camera with me. VHS, VHS-C, Hi-8, and finally mini-DV. It all looks like crap. The '90s, unfortunately, straddled the line between shooting on film and shooting on high def. So here is a jittery mess of pixellated people.
But that's the least of the reasons why this documentary didn't work.
It didn't work because there was no story. Even a doc needs some narrative flow. This jumped haplessly from one thing to the next. Each time it started to get interesting, it backed away. Any sort of cohesion or narrative or insight just dissolved back into a hodgepodge of images. I kept thinking "And...?" There would be a build up, but suddenly nothing. On to the next shot of Soleil wiping a tear from her eye.
The modern-day interviews were very clipped. Perry Farrell would say one line, Stephen Dorf would grunt a couple of words. Mark-Paul Gosselear had some interesting things to say about not wanting to have his kids work in Hollywood, though. Should have been more of him.
But Even Soleil taking about her own rape (?), terrible as it must've been, was muddled and confusing. It seemed to blend, too, with the story about her losing her virginity. That's how confused I was. I shut it off. -
jfgibson7321 July 2021I was very excited to see what kind of 90s goodness would be in these home videos. For the first half of the movie or so, I was ok with it. The longer it went on, the more it just became all about Soliel. And I don't just mean that she was the main subject; she is the intended audience. As she reads through more diaries and poems and looks back on moments that are only interesting for her, it becomes clear that this project was put together solely for her "growth." That might have been ok if it was the least bit entertaining, and it first it seems like it might be, but that stops as things get more repetitive. You can see in her current day interview footage how proud she is that she has learned so much by looking back at these tapes, but we don't get much out of the deal.
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tobimmeyer20 March 2021I could so relate! I loved catching up with her. It reminded me a lot of different things throughout my life. Worth watching!
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marcag16 March 2021This had some cool footage but got boring quick. Never really goes anywhere. Kind of like watching someones home videos. Great for them but not interesting for anyone else. Still it was cool to see all the teen celebs from that time. They partied and had problems just like us regular kids. (I was 17 in 1990). Worth a watch if you're from that era but don't expect much. Soleil does seem like a nice person.
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Nostalgia. Time capsule. Beautiful times. Took me back to childhood memories I had forgotten. Thank you for making this film Punky Brewster.
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StoneKap14 October 2021The first time I watched this documentary I had no clue what to expect. I just wanted to fill my flight time with something entertaining. I graduated high school in 1991 and I recognized most of the actors in this film. So I figured I'd check it out.
I didn't expect that I would be impacted for days afterwards. It left a dark, heavy sadness in my gut. I couldn't describe exactly why I was feeling that. I just knew it was dark and heavy.
Later that day I read through the comments hoping to read something that would help me identify what I was feeling. Comment after comment was blaming, accusing and criticizing Soleil. People claiming she's selfish, self absorbed and bragging. There were many positive comments as well. But since the feeling I was left with felt more negative, I related to the negative comments at first.
Eventually I just had to move on, feeling like this "entertainment" was consuming way too much of my time and mental energy. I forced myself to stop thinking about it and move on. But it didn't take long before my brain started processing it again. It was a couple of days later and time for my flight home. I decided to watch it again. This time I saw it differently. This time it wasn't entertainment. It was a young lady baring her soul! The "why" and the "how" became less important to me. The exclusivity of something this special was amazing! I don't even know if it's art at this point. Maybe moving into the realm of therapy?.. I don't know... of course it's art! I don't want to minimize that. But this level of intense transparency is rare.
There isn't a person on earth that could open up like this and look like a saint. I don't know why Soleil made this. I don't care if she lives up to anyone's moral standards. I just want to congratulate and thank her for a job well done!
Soleil - You made a masterpiece that impacted me and will impact many others. I have no doubt about this! You made some powerful art! It was enough to dislodge me from my daily routine. I can't imagine a better metric of successful for a documentary. You captured days of my attention. Reflecting now, I know that dark and heavy feeling was the impact of your transparent sincerity! The intense life lessons that can be gleaned through this film are priceless. Living on the bleeding edge of popularity and passion is not common. This film cost so much more than time and money. You spent the equity of your lifetime experiences to make it. You were vulnerable. You put yourself out there for others to tear apart. Kudos to you! Of course there's a very positive side to this as well. I can see that you learned from your past. I can only imagine how that gets passed on to your children. I hope you get a return on your investment that is so much more than a check. You deserve it! Thank you!