I'm just going to rehash what I said in another thread. viewtopic.php?f=2&t=43487

I found this to be just ever so slightly above average. Burnstein filmed a group of high school kids for 9 months and in the end had to creatively manufacture drama through extensive editing. For the most part the kids acted like normal high school kids would act if they had a battery pack taped to their ass, a mic in their shirt, constantly surrounded by cameras. The film explored nothing new in terms of the high school exprience, if you're going/went then you know what its like; which is bullshit and pointless. This is mediocre film making at it finest, following a simple paint by numbers approach. But the kids did manage to shine through enough to make the film an enjoyable experience overall. I wouldn't say rush out and see it but if you're bored why not.

Grade B-

AMERICAN TEEN - 8/10 (B+)

This was very entertaining! I wanted it to be longer. It made me wish it were a TV show so we could follow these kids more. I mostly just wanted more with Hannah, who reminded me of Julia Stiles. She was awesome and by far my favorite. I even watched the "Hannah Blogs" special feature on the DVD afterwards because I wanted more with her, and those just made me love her more. I'd love a reality show following her. She was very relatable.

Now, as for this being staged or not, I could see it being somewhat staged. It does come off a tad manufactured, and it would be hard for things to stay "real" when cameras are around. So I'm not sure how real it was, but I really enjoyed it as a movie, even if it was a bit slight. I feel more should have been explored with each character. I mean, you kind of come to realize when all is said and done that you don't know a lot about most of them. Though some of them I didn't really care to know more about.

I'm not really sure what I thought of this.

On the one hand, it's thoroughly engaging, with interesting characters, satisfying (if rather generic) storylines, and some truly innovative animated sequences giving us a break from the dry realism of the piece. It definitely feels like a feature film, with no need to incorporate talking head interviews or voiceover narration as creatively as possible.

Unfortunately, it's for this reason that it feels kind of artless and bland. It's almost as if the director crafted and edited it to make it seem as derivative and Hollywood as possible. Every storyline has a build-up, climax, and denouement, and it makes the whole film rather predictable. The basketball player hits the winning basket. The rebel without a cause escapes her boring lifestyle. The geek gets the girl. Etcetera.

So, I'm torn. On the one hand, it takes a special kind of talent to squeeze scripted drama out of the chaos of real life, but on the other, that's not exactly something to be proud of. The whole thing feels like an exercise in banality.

I guess I'm somewhere in the middle. Not great, not terrible. Just kinda there.

American Teen to me was nothing more than a little bit better made episode of MTV's Made, Laguna or whatever else. It's not even close to being anything like The Breakfast club. I think it had a great soundtrack but it was all to guvenille. The situations at times felt staged and others very honest, but it was edited to much that it was all over the place. The situations werent as involving and I don't think the teens were any more different than myself last year in my last year of highschool. It's worth a look but you can watch the same thing on MTV. B