Review of American Teen (2008) by Kody N — 29 Sep 2009

I opened a Blockbuster Online account just to rent this movie. Needless to say, I expected a lot. First, I love documentaries but I love documentaries that capture and not documentaries that are scripted (Michael Moore). This movie CAPTURES and the magic of this movie is it covers a wide range of teens. You can see yourself as one of them separately or you can identify with something in all of them. You can relate to all of them. This movie captures a high school that I knew (except for the text messaging). Each relationship in the movie seems really big (like in high school), college seems really big, and it really portrays how big of a step your senior year can be. I was incredibly touched by one teen's story of when he stopped feeling confident in himself. He was eating lunch one day and chili was spilled onto his lap. He had to get up and ask the supervisor if he could go home and change his pants. One kid yelled out, "Hey Jake, what happened? Did you get your first period?" Since that point, says Jake, he was never the same. He became shy and scared. It changed him for life. The movie is well paced, not too long, and is engaging the whole time. I guess you could say it was worth opening a Blockbuster Online account. 8/10.

PS>This movie really proves that girls are evil.

PSS>Notice the music. It freaking opens with "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend to Dance with You" by Black Kids and ends with "Kids" by MGMT. Awesome.