Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Executscan Expected more

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Haven Kaycee It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

gavin6942 "Beyond Clueless" is a dizzying journey into the mind, body and soul of the teen movie, as seen through the eyes of over 200 modern coming-of-age classics.Unfortunately, this "documentary" consists of nothing more than plot summaries. No actors or directors talking about the films, no film critics trying to analyze them. Just Fairuza Balk talking over the top of film clips, apparently sharing the opinion of one writer (though even this is unclear).It was great to see such films as "Idle Hands", "Ginger Snaps" and "Doom Generation" appear beyond the more mainstream high school films. Even "Jeepers Creepers", which has little to do with high school at all. (Though they are spot on to call out the gay theme.) So that was nice, even if the film as a whole is rather worthless.And why the focus on the 1990s? There is something to be said about teen movies of the 1990s, to be sure. But this film never made it clear about how they differ from the 1980s, 1970s or any other decade. What was the point of this selected focus?

C_Gee Save yourself and find something else to watch. This "documentary", excuse me, "essay film", as director Charlie Lyne calls it, was so terrible that I feel it is my duty as a human being to warn others to avoid it at all costs. The director just stitched together 200 clips from movies somewhat related to adolescence and then pretended that simply describing the plot of each movie counts as deep analysis. The viewer is dragged through five insufferable chapters in which Lyne spends about 30 seconds on each film and then brusquely switches to another one without you even realizing it, so you're just confused most of the time. And the montages dotted throughout the film are just a jumble of random scenes weakly connected to each other and set to angsty music. It's like Lyne said, hey, I found a bunch of movies with scenes of people swimming in pools, so here's a five minute montage of that! And now here's a bunch of clips of people dancing around a fire! Ta-dah, film theory!Anytime Lyne does attempt any kind of actual analysis, it fails. He forces these deep analyses on movies that don't merit them. He also uses this ominous, horror movie-esque soundtrack throughout the film to add an in-your-face layer of angst to the whole thing. Most times it's laughable because it doesn't match the tone of what's actually happening in the clips, like in the "Euro Trip" section. I mean, it's "Euro Trip", not "28 Days Later", so chill. Also, please know what you're getting into. The description for this "essay film" should advertise that it's about horror/slasher teen flicks, because that's where the majority of clips in this film are from. If you don't like gore, don't watch this. There's little critical reason for including the bloody sequences from "Idle Hands", "Jeepers Creepers" or "Final Destination". There's also a desperate-to-be-subversive montage of violence that makes no sense in the context of the film and is just unnecessary and immature. The whole thing reeks of a desperate attempt by its director to be hip and angsty. But in his attempt to be deep, Lyne instead succeeds at making the movies he chose to include seem even more superficial and shallow. And to top it all off, the narration by Fairuza Balk is terrible. Her voice drones on and on, with this know-it-all, smug tone that matches the attitude Lyne probably had making this movie. She sounds like that pretentious self-proclaimed genius that sat in your Film Theory 101 class who thought that everything that came out of their mouth was just beyond the comprehension of mere mortals. This film just misses the mark in so many ways. I don't know how it was so popular in the festival circuit, but I really do hope this is not indicative of the future of film analysis. Because with this film, Charlie Lyne is just beyond clueless.

cameron-p-shaw This movie pretends to be a documentary- in the description offered at the Sonoma International Film Festival, it listed a "superstar cast" of people like Leonardo DiCaprio and Jake Gyllenhaal, when it fact it is merely a boring series of clips from movies those people were in. It's like watching a book report on teen movies. Fairuza Balk narrates in a flat voice with zero inflection that makes me wonder how she ever became an actress. The film makes no attempt at a central thesis, has no original footage or interviews with experts in any capacity, and should not be afforded any sort of attention whatsoever. Please do not spend money on this drivel.

Andrew McGinnigle I saw this at Branchage in Jersey and was very disappointed. I was expecting behind the scenes footage, interviews with actors, directors and writers. Instead, we got hit with the plot and supposed subtext of each film, most of which were obscure and crap. I even thought they might link back to the classic teen films that actually had value but no, they stuck with the crap like Cruel Intentions 3.First off, giving subtext to films that have no subtext is a futile exercise i.e. She's All That has nothing interesting to say at any point, the characters are as deep as a paddling pool, it was crap then and its even worse now. It's about vanity, we get it.The next thing is discussing subtext that is actually the context i.e. Josie and the Pussycats. The plot revolves around brainwashing to sell things, for the 2 people (I think I was one of those) that actually saw the cinematic release we got this. We don't need you to tell us that again, it was painful enough the first time.The Q&A with the director informed us that most of the budget was spent on lawyers in LA authorising the clips, they must have been rubbing their hands when you came a-knocking.Avoid unless you wrote any of the crap films used in this doc so you can have a good laugh as they over-complicate your one-track stoner comedy/girl takes off glasses and is now hot/girls being out of order to each other/jocks having a sensitive side screenplay.Mean girls is a good movie though.