Your Entertainment Ticket.net

The X-Files: I Want to Believe (The X Files 2)

2.5 Stars

I wanted to believe, but alas, I couldn't. The Truth Is Out There...this film is a huge disappointment. It's a slow boring piece that reeks of a bad episode of the popular series. I was hoping this film would offer something intriguing, something dealing with earthshaking or otherworldly concepts, as the best tv episodes did; instead I got a dull, slow-paced kidnapping story with poor acting by the series' stars. They should have hung it up years ago, instead they tarnished a great show's memory. Stay Home.


Alyn Darnay
Chaos Films

AMERICAN TEEN

Starring: Colin Clemens, Hannah Bailey, Jake Tusing, Megan Krizmanich, and Mitch Reinholt

Directed by: Nanette Burstein

Rated PG-13 for some strong language, sexual material, some drinking, and brief smoking all involving teens

By John Delia

Summing up American Teen in a few words I would have to say ‘unrealistic, yet interesting.’ It’s a documentary about teens attending high school and letting everyone watch their lives play out over a school year, but without the cameras in their faces, I don’t know if director Burstein would have achieved the same resulting responsiveness of her characters. It’s the chance you take when you document any subject, but I think she missed the mark in American Teen as to the teen’s believability and sincerity.

The documentary follows the lives of five high school teenagers of different popularity and aspirations who in some way or another affect each other. There’s Colin a jock and star of the basketball team with a college sports scholarship on the line who’s being pressured by his team and his family to perform; the attractive and smart Hannah who happens to also be an outcast; then there’s the school nerd Jake who seems to have a set future even if he can’t seem to fit in with his fellow classmates, but the most popular is Megan who as student council VP who on top of smarts has wealth and beauty; and rounding out the final five is Mitch another member of the basketball team, his popularity is clouded by the choices he makes, especially his attraction to Hannah. During the school year we see their trials and tribulations, as they get involved with school tasks, events and their private lives.

To me it was like having the students in a fishbowl and being an outside observer of five persons coming of age and living out their goals and aspirations. Even in their daily lives, the camera follows some of their most intimate moments forcing the viewer to become a spectator to their private world. It is hard to explain, that even though the film is interesting, it is also disturbing in that the teens were not ‘movie stars’ playing out a script but ‘guinea pigs’ in an experiment that for some of them should not be repeated.

And actually I really don’t know what Burstein accomplished with her documentary other than a possible teen audience that may or may not ‘see themselves’ in the characters on the screen. Was it entertainment, maybe, in a dull voyeuristic kind of way?

If you’re a teen and are forced to take your younger sibling along, please note that there is some strong language, drinking and sexual material in the film.

FINAL ANALYSIS: American Teen is an interesting experiment that may be fun for high school teens. 2 of 5 stars