Famous Teens: News
Young & Famous
What’s up with McLovin? Where was Miley immortalized?
She’s an American Teen
Meet Hannah Bailey (pictured above), a high school senior in Warsaw, Indiana. Hannah is liberal, artsy and an atheist. Warsaw, on the other hand, is not.
Bailey’s one of five Warsaw High seniors who agreed to be filmed as part of director Nanette Burstein’s documentary American Teen. She’s the “rebel” of the film’s tagline: “They were five total strangers, with nothing in common, except the school they went to. A heartthrob, a princess, a jock, a rebel and a geek.”
If that tagline sounds familiar, you’ve likely seen John Hughes’ 1985 flick The Breakfast Club, which starred Ally Sheedy as Bailey’s sort-of counterpart, and used an extremely similar tagline. In fact, the film’s poster is a darn-near perfect recreation of that for The Breakfast Club.
Director Burstein and her camera crew trailed Bailey, jock Colin Clemens, geek Jake Tusing, princess Megan Krizmanich and heartthrob Mitch Reinholt every day for 10 months, detailing their new relationships, break-ups, basketball games, home life and cliques.
The documentary was one of the most popular movies at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize.
If you want to read what other students who were at Warsaw while the movie was shot think of the project go to the movie’s Facebook page, facebook.com/americanteen.
American Teen hits theatres in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver in August.
—Marni Weisz
Missing McLovin
Where have you gone Christopher Mintz-Plasse?
After being immortalized as McLovin in last summer’s Superbad,
the actor (who turns 19 this month) has all but disappeared. His
co-stars Michael Cera and Jonah Hill are superbusy — Cera starring in
the massive hit Juno and Hill appearing in four films, most recently Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
Mintz-Plasse, on the other hand, has been showing up at major movie premieres in plaid shirts. But fear not, the adorable nerd has three projects on the go. First up is Little Big Men,
which co-stars Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott as a couple of
partiers forced to join the Big Brothers program. It should be out
later this year. Then he’s the voice of Fishlegs in next year’s
animated Viking comedy How to Train Your Dragon (which co-stars Hill). And finally he’ll play a high priest in the Judd Apatow-produced, biblical-era Year One (also 2009), which co-stars Cera and Jack Black as a couple of lazybones turfed from their village.
Until then you’ll have to satisfy your McLovin cravin with a hilarious spot on the Funny or Die website (funnyordie.com),
in which he and Kristin Bell explain the McLovin Fund, a charity set up
to help the young actor who, after his one big hit, will clearly never
work again.
—Marni Weisz
Ever Hear of Pen and Paper?
Melissa Burech obviously thinks autograph books are for losers. The 25-year-old is famous for getting the signatures of celebs tattooed on her body — she has more than 40 — and she added to that total when she recently ran into Miley Cyrus and her mom in Malibu, California, and asked Ms. Hannah Montana herself to sign. Miley shouted a “Shut Up!” when she heard the autographs were permanent tattoos, and was excited to sign Burech’s upper right arm (the star wanted a prime spot).
Although the paparazzi that photographed the event heard Burech say she may wash off Miley’s name, the obsessed fan decided to keep it, and went to a tattoo parlour to have the autograph inked for life.
—Ingrid Randoja
Three-for-one Pants
It’s funny. Warner Brothers has said that the seventh and final Harry Potter book will be split into two movies — all the better to prolong the magic. Yet the same studio went the opposite way for The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. The first movie was based on book one of Anne Brashares’ series of four novels about four best friends. But the sequel combines stories from the second, third and fourth books into one movie.
So what’s the diff? For one thing, this ain’t Harry Potter and four Sisterhood movies may be a bit much. But also, unlike the stars of the Potter pics, the girls in the Sisterhood have been extremely busy with other projects. Blake Lively stars on TV’s Gossip Girl and then there’s Ugly Betty herself, America Ferrera. So, never mind the audience, who knows if the actors would’ve stuck around for two more flicks.
—Marni Weisz