“American Teen,” the celebrated Sundance documentary about high school seniors growing up in Warsaw, Indiana is getting a musical makeover aiming at hipster, indie-cred.
The film was shot way back in 2005, and won the documentary Directing Award at Sundance at the beginning of this year, but back then it apparently never included songs by MGMT, Black Kids, Does It Offend You, Yeah? and The Ting Tings which are all proudly displayed on the film’s Facebook page.
Our sources tell us the album is coming out on Almost Gold/Columbia which makes it seem like a perfect dovetailing marketing awareness opportunity for both film and label (the freshly signed Black Kids and Does It Offend You, Yeah? are both signed to the Columbia offshoot). But wait, the story gets a bit more involved.
According to, L.A. Times music blog Extended Play (who attended a recent screening), the new version of the film also features the New Pornographers’ “My Rights Versus Yours,” the Unicorns and backpacker hip-hop duo Blackalicious. Micheal Penn – husband of Aimee Mann and composer of the music for “Boogie Nights” and “Last Kiss” also wrote the score for the film, which you can hear in the trailer (which also features I Am Barcelona’s “The Painter,” but it’s unknown as of right now if that’s in the film or the soundtrack disc).
However, one thing: all the bands featured in the aforementioned graphic? None of these bands were in the cut that EP saw. So does that mean the soundtrack disc is going to be one of those “music inspired by the film,” meant to capitalize on the film’s younger demo? Extended Play says there’s still tweaking to be done, “expect [the music] to change before the film opens for the public this summer.” A Paramount Vantage spokesperson (the film’s distributor) told EP that all these bands would “most likely find their way into the movie” (let’s hope so, “inspired by” discs are weaksauce).
“American Teen” was directed by Nanette Burstein (co director of “The Kid Stays In The Picture” with Brett Morgan) the film follows the story of five Indiana adolescents in their final year in high school getting ready to take the leap into adulthood and it’s is being marketed in the easily classifiable way: the jock, the heartthrob, the rebel, the princess and the geek (hence the “Breakfast Club”-like poster). No other elements of the film have been tweaked aside from a new coda updating the current whereabouts of the doc’s teens.
With the musical-angle of “Juno,” clearly having benefited the soundtrack and movie, the producers of the film are obviously hoping to recreate some of that success (as you’ll see many films with a teen angle do the same in the upcoming months). The documentary comes out July 25 in limited release and is expected to go wider in August.
Watch: “American Teen” trailer
Watch: MGMT – “Time To Pretend” (fan clip)