Two Documentaries: American Teen & Encounters at the End of the World

AMERICAN TEEN

RATING: 3/5

DIRECTOR: Nanette Burstein

TAGLINE: In high school, the toughest thing to be… is yourself.

THE GIST: A docu-drama, shot “The Hills” style, featuring the queen bee, jock, super geek, lady misfit, and a bunch of high school seniors in Warsaw, Indiana.

RICHARD ROEPER SAYS: Compared to the contrived junk we see on MTV masquerading as a reality series, I think this is very authentic.

I SAY: Makes us reminisce our pre-adolescent ambitions, acne, raging hormones, first love, and first heartbreak. And by the way, the illustrated simulations kick ass.




ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD

RATING: 2.5/5

DIRECTOR: Werner Herzog (Rescue Dawn)

THE GIST: Stunning footages of what’s it like to be living at the point where all the lines in the map converge.

ROTTEN TOMATOES SAYS: Encounters at the End of the World offers a poignant study of the human psyche amid haunting landscapes.

I SAY: Despite rousing insights about penguins wandering off-course and icebergs bigger than the country that built Titanic, this documentary feels clunky and cluttered. However, it made me ponder on my own philosophical questions about man’s abstract journey to find reasons behind our existence. Why do men keep trying to unearth the world’s greatest mysteries through charts and graphs? Why do men keep trying to explain the unfathomable? Can’t the world just exist as it is, that there are no stories or theories of creation.

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