You won't be disappointed!

A Disappointing Continuation

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

You have to see the DVD extras to get a glimpse of how this movie, part drama and part documentary, was made. A number of schools were scouted, and when this Indiana high school was chosen, a number of students were interviewed for the featured roles. Once chosen the students and their families and friends were filmed throughout the school year in typical situations. Footage of basketball games or marching band practice are clearly authentic, but some of the teen "scenes" seemed at least partly contrived, or perhaps "recreated". Nevertheless the sum of the whole makes very interesting viewing.Hannah Bailey is a pretty, smart, unconventional girl. She is not part of the "in crowd" and lives with her grandmother because her mother is manic/depressive and her father works in another state. Hannah doesn't have a positive self-concept even though she is prettier and smarter than most of the high school girls. She wants to escape Indiana and the boring life she sees living there offers. Instead she wants to go to film school in California. She wants to make films that she will will remembered for long after she dies.Colin Clemens is the son of a former star athlete, and he himself is now the star of the high school basketball team. His dad tells him they can't afford to send him to college without his getting a basketball scholarship. He has dreams of a college career with a "Final Four" appearance, and a pro contract with the Pacers.Megan Krizmanich is a pretty, smart, and popular girl at school, and in a family with a long history of attending Notre Dame. Part of her drama is to see if she can get in, even though she gets into some trouble at school.Jake Tusing is your typical geek, slightly shorter than most guys, with somewhat of a monotone delivery and acne. He plays in the band, longs for a girlfriend but has trouble finding a match. But he tries.At the end of the movie embedded in the credits are short descriptions of what happened after high school to each of the five. Hannah was moving to San Francisco at the end of the movie, hoping to work for a year, establish state residency, then attend film school. But after 8 months she gave that up and moved to New York for film school.Colin received a scholarship to a smaller Indiana school and is doing well there, academically and athletically.Megan by her own admission grew up a LOT after high school and is at Notre Dame studying medicine.Jake is at his second college, still trying to find where he fits in.

I like how in the movie they show all the cliques, because even with everything that goes on in the world. People stick with cliques and what they know because sometimes differences can be fear. A fear of what other people might think if they try something new or hang out with a new person who is not from their clique like Mitch. I love the part when Hannah is on the stage and you hear his voice saying I have been here for four years and I have never met Hannah. Watching him, watch makes you wonder would he actually hang out with her before school was over because he was a jock and she was like the rebel she did things her own way on her own time. Which honestly I wish I could of done in high school just a little.Anyway they actually started hanging out and enjoying each others company until she hung out with him and his friends and it looked like none of them even decided to talk to her which was rude. Like it was like she was not even there. How rude I thought but then again it is high school and it was obvious that his friends didn't want her around and she felt out of place.

Winning a place on the guest list to American Teen was not a high priority for me. When I heard the title, I thought it must be a teen movie, and when I read that it was a documentary, I was even less interested. I could not have been more wrong.This was the first time I've watched a documentary in a cinema, and it was well worth a Monday night. The stories of these five adolescents from Warsaw, Indiana were absolutely compelling, and wonderfully hilarious, as the raucous laughter from a near-empty cinema attested. Nanette Burstein has edited their experiences in their final year of high school with a deft hand, developing a rich, interwoven story well worth telling.Watching these young Americans over-experience every emotion imaginable was fascinating not only because of the universal comedy of youth, but also because it reminds you just how much better our own education system is. Which is quite an accomplishment when your audience is a cynical old ex-teacher like myself.American Teen is not ground-breaking or unique, but it is one of those rare pieces of film-making that exemplifies the best of the art form: simple storytelling, with characters that are easy to relate to, an awesome soundtrack, and an image of ourselves. Well worth a Monday night. Or even a Friday. Go see it.

Hats off to the A&E Network for bankrolling this slight, but interesting slice of life at a mid Western high school, where cliques, depression,peer pressure,sexual/chemical experimentation is ever a slice of life (I know, as I went through all of it,myself in my own adolescence). Nanette Burnstein has taken a handful of subjects that we've all seen before (a basketball jock,a band nerd,a mall queen,an artsy introvert,etc.),and show one year in their lives (their senior year in high school)on screen, complete with various interviews of the subjects, all done in a semi cinema verite fore mat (always welcome). The film also features some animated sequences,that manage to crawl into the psyches of some of the subjects (another nice touch). I guess if I have but one tiny quirk about this film, it pretty much manages to only capture one aspect of the American teen experience (as it takes place in the heartland of America,no black,Hispanic or Asian kids are depicted). I'm hoping that if Bernstein decides to produce 'American Teen 2', it will be filmed in an East Coast, urban setting (just to balance things out a little more). Apart from that, I was pretty impressed by it. Parents should see this,to get a view on how their youngsters are conducting themselves when they're not always around (or just don't want to be bothered---until it's too late). I'm talking about teen drinking,smoking,sexual experiences (although,illegal street drugs--i.e. Heroin,Cocaine,Meth,etc.are never mentioned here,but you know they're out there). The film is given a PG-13 rating,due to language & situations mentioned above.