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American Teen (2008)
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All reviews for American Teen
Kung-Fu Hamlet's Revolutionary ...
by
dibot
in
dibot Blog
liked it.
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"American Teen is an interesting documentary following a group of kids as they go through their senior year of high school. It doesn't get too in depth on any of the four main kids, but gives enough that I remembered why I'm glad high school is over. Intercut with the teens interviews and clips of them in their daily activities, are cartoons symbolizing their hopes and fears. I enjoyed the movie, but I didn't love it. Some of the scenes felt too scripted to be a real documentary.Hamlet 2 has several laugh-out-loud moments, most of which come at the expense of Steve Coogan ("Tropic Thunder")'s pride. Coogan stars as a failed writer/actor who now teaches high school drama and must write a great play to save the program from cancellation. No cows are sacred in this movie and that mostly adds to the humor. Sometimes, though, it's too over the top. A funny movie, but not the year's best comedy.I was really entertained by Kung-Fu Panda. Jack Black ("Tropic Thunder") voices the title chara ... "
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American Teen
by
mconrad3
in
mconrad3 Blog
is neutral about it.
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"I'm only a few years out of high school so a lot of the memories from those four years are pretty fresh in my mind. It was a mix of a lot of different moments ranging from amazing to horrible, but overall a fun four years if it hadn't been for the homework. When I see documentaries about high school and the kids that attend them, I often find that most of them don't really represent the experience my peers and I had. That bein said, I didn't grow up in a rural town or a big city. Suburban New Jersey life may be extremely different from the way the rest of the world is run, I don't know, but I know now that it's still different from Indiana. American Teen follows the lives of a group of teenagers during their senior year of high schools. There's the usual triumphs and tragedies that accompany the final year of high school, but there aren't a whole lot of surprises. If the director saught out to find the stereotypical examples of the kids you'd find in a high school, then she certain ... "
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American Teen Review
by
Karina
in
Karina on SpoutBlog
hasn't rated it.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
[What do you think?]
"Nanette Burstein’s American Teen has become ubiquitous since its Sundance premiere, both on the festival circuit and, thanks to a poster carefully calibrated to target Gen X nostalgia, online. Its title suggests a wishful universality, as if to say, “This is it! This is an unfiltered portrait of averageness!” Certainly, its semi-rural Indiana location was chosen for its middleness, both geographically and demographically––or, at least, to conform to a coastal idea of what that looks like. Certainly, in choosing to focus on a cross-section of subjects playing into our media-fed concepts of high school stereotypes, Burstein manages to show life at the same high school from a variety of different angles, whilst simultaneously playing up the idea that all American Te "
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American Teen Review
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SpoutBlog
in
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hasn't rated it.
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"Nanette Burstein’s American Teen has become ubiquitous since its Sundance premiere, both on the festival circuit and, thanks to a poster carefully calibrated to target Gen X nostalgia, online. Its title suggests a wishful universality, as if to say, “This is it! This is an unfiltered portrait of averageness!” Certainly, its semi-rural Indiana location was chosen for its middleness, both geographically and demographically––or, at least, to conform to a coastal idea of what that looks like. Certainly, in choosing to focus on a cross-section of subjects playing into our media-fed concepts of high school stereotypes, Burstein manages to show life at the same high school from a variety of different angles, whilst simultaneously playing up the idea that all American Te "
[More]
SilverDocs Diary: Alternative A ...
by
Karina
in
Karina on SpoutBlog
hasn't rated it.
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"Nannette Burstein’s American Teen has become ubiquitous since its Sundance premiere, both on the festival circuit and, thanks to a poster carefully calibrated to target Gen X nostalgia, online. Its title suggests a wishful universality, but in fact, when looked at alongside two less-lauded films about American teens against which it screened here in Silver Spring, its document of five white high school seniors in a semi-rural suburb of Indiana seems as niche as it gets. World premiering here on Friday before beginning a run on HBO Monday night, Hard Times at Douglas High is a fly-on-the-wall work of activism documenting a year in the life of an all-black Baltimore high school, as teachers, st "
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SilverDocs Diary: Alternative A ...
by
SpoutBlog
in
SpoutBlog on spout.com
hasn't rated it.
Was this review helpful?
[Be the first to tell us!]
"Nannette Burstein’s American Teen has become ubiquitous since its Sundance premiere, both on the festival circuit and, thanks to a poster carefully calibrated to target Gen X nostalgia, online. Its title suggests a wishful universality, but in fact, when looked at alongside two less-lauded films about American teens against which it screened here in Silver Spring, its document of five white high school seniors in a semi-rural suburb of Indiana seems as niche as it gets. World premiering here on Friday before beginning a run on HBO Monday night, Hard Times at Douglas High is a fly-on-the-wall work of activism documenting a year in the life of an all-black Baltimore high school, as teachers, st "
[More]
There Will Be a Wonderful Life. ...
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SpoutBlog
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"In response to Paramount’s consolidation of the marketing divisions of Paramount Pictures and Paramount Vantage, I went looking for a mash-up trailer that would give us a sense of what we’re in for. Because advertising for specialty films is typically different from advertising for major studio films. But seeing as Vantage has already done a fair enough job lately trying to make a documentary look like a teen comedy, the consolidation may not really be that noticeable after all. Anyway, I couldn’t find a good mash-up that re-cut a recent independent film to resemble a blockbuster, so here’s something else entirely that I found during my search. It’s a Wonderful Life “made "
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It reminded me how much I hated ...
by
dunedonkey
in
film phlegm
liked it.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
[What do you think?]
"Have you ever been catapulted head first into a brick wall at 150 mph? Now imagine that brick wall was high school, and imagine that catapult was American Teen. Last night, I was instantly transported back 13 years to my high school days. The nervous tick came back. The pain pulled from the very depths of my innermost, repressed soul came shooting to the surface. I was reminded of my own high school experiences, the same experiences that molded me, the tough love I received from my peers, and the thick skin I developed as a result. But I was also reminded of how unhealthy an environment adolescence can be in the US for those living it. Nanette Burstein documented the lives of Warsaw, Indiana high school students, immaculately picking out what almost seemed like caricatures of the different types of students we all knew in high school. We follow four main students: the jock, the popular girl, the artsy girl, and the band geek. We become intimately involved in all aspects their high ... "
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Sundance Picks: In Competition
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Karina
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Karina on SpoutBlog
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"Very, very early tomorrow morning, the Spout team will decamp for Park City, Utah, where we will spend the next week plus covering the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. I hope to see somewhere between 20-30 films before coming back to New York, but here’s a look at five of the titles in competition that I’m most excited about. Tomorrow, I’ll post about the films in the Spectrum, Premieres and Midnight sidebars that I can’t wait to see. American Teen (directed by Nanette Burstein. Documentary Competition) Excerpt From the Official Synopsis: “American Teen intimately follows the lives of four teenagers in one small town in Indiana through their senior year of high school. Using cinema v??rit?? footage, interviews, and animation, it presents a candid portrait of being 17 and all that goes with it. We see the insecurities, the cliques, the jealousies, the first loves and heartbreaks, the experimentation with sex and alcohol, the parental pressures, and the struggle to make profound decision ... "
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Sundance Picks: In Competition
by
SpoutBlog
in
SpoutBlog on spout.com
hasn't rated it.
Was this review helpful?
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"Very, very early tomorrow morning, the Spout team will decamp for Park City, Utah, where we will spend the next week plus covering the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. I hope to see somewhere between 20-30 films before coming back to New York, but here’s a look at five of the titles in competition that I’m most excited about. Tomorrow, I’ll post about the films in the Spectrum, Premieres and Midnight sidebars that I can’t wait to see. American Teen (directed by Nanette Burstein. Documentary Competition) Excerpt From the Official Synopsis: “American Teen intimately follows the lives of four teenagers in one small town in Indiana through their senior year of high school. Using cinema v??rit?? footage, interviews, and animation, it presents a candid portrait of being 17 and all that goes with it. We see the insecurities, the cliques, the jealousies, the first loves and heartbreaks, the experimentation with sex and alcohol, the parental pressures, and the struggle to make profound decision ... "
[More]
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