JinRoz For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

conannz When this documentary is at its best it uses short clips from literally hundreds of teen movies from '90's and early '00's to illustrate the underlying themes of 'high school life".What I liked most about it is the way it does a kind of stream of consciousness speed read on a bunch of movies I was aware of but never saw. I suspect many of the scenes used to illustrate each of the chapter themes are the best bits of some of those films.As such "Beyond Clueless" is a personal tour of film moments and themes by the writer. At times there are insights and narrator Fairuza Balk gets her film The Craft featured at the start. Clearly some chapters are more insightful than others. This documentary reminded my of Mark Cousins - 'The Story of Film' opus. That was an idiosyncratic romp through film history that at times delighted but could also be a bit annoying. By contrast 'Beyond Clueless" mostly hist the mark in the way that it deconstructs the themes and nuances of dozens of teen films ( 180-200).It is almost like if you wanted to make a teen film you could pick sequences from the same set of films to make something much smarter than the originals. I have watched parts of this more than once and will use it as a guide to see if there are some hidden gems in the teen related genres that I should see

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?

millie-monroe I watched this just two days ago and found it very useful in finding new teen films to watch! Maybe the purpose of this documentary should just be to provide film fans with some new ideas for something to watch on a night mid-week. The narration seems jarring at first but I soon got into it and found the flow of the whole doc very steady, there is nothing necessarily new said about the purpose of the teen film or the effect it may have on its viewers, but it is nonetheless fascinating to hear some of the film degree-type theory on the many films included. I'm trying to compile a list at the moment of all the teen films that I thought looked worthwhile watching in Beyond Clueless. I'm excited to start!

green_eggg Out of the 18 movies I have so far watched at this year's Bergen International Film Festival, Beyond Clueless var the most powerful experience. The documentary might be describes as a seamless, intuitive flow of poignant moments from well known and somewhat obscure high-school films (in all genres: drama, comedy, horror, etc) narrated with a heartfelt approach to considering the deeper content of these works. As such, it elevates the genre from the cheap and somewhat ridiculed slots of popular culture to become insightful inquiries on what it means to grow up, to go through puberty and to become an independent person. As a 25 year old, my experience of the movie was a violent rush though a huge spectrum of emotions, both unsettling and ecstatic, somewhat like that of being a teenager again, but having my entire teenage life pass through my senses in the duration of a regular movie. What I experienced was possibly some of the most genuine catharsis I have had at a cinema.The narration was eloquent, intriguing and beautiful. As an MA in comparative literature I am qualified to assess the quality and validity of interpretations and analyses such as those that the film was making throughout the entire spoken monologue, and I must say that I was very much impressed with the writer's ability to make his views quite clear and coherent without succumbing to subjectivism or far-fetched theorism. At a few occasions the narrative and the accompanying images would intensify to a point where I was struggling to follow the line of reasoning, but this was certainly not the case most of the time. My only disclaimer would be that since the documentary focuses on movies from the 90s and early 00s, it probably won't speak to your heart unless you grew up in this era. The director if fully aware of this though, as I heard him talk about it when asked at the Q&A after the screening in Bergen yesterday. Without a specific focus and certain limitations, the movie would never have been able to make such a deep dive into certain themes, and would easily have become a more general and perhaps vague film-historical survey.Finally, a serious take on a genre that no one takes seriously. I never even went to an American high school, and yet I feel as if my teens and adolescent years (a vital portion of my life) have been legitimized and made meaningful. If you're a nostalgic sentimentalist in their twenties, like me, you don't want to miss this.