Spring Breakers

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When I purchased my ticket to see Spring Breakers, the girl at the counter issued a verbal warning that the movie contained "Much nudity, sex and violence." "Keep going," I replied. "You got my attention." She should've instead warned that this movie is a bring-down. At first, it's like a high-quality version of the Girls Gone Wild videos. Stunningly-beautiful examples of young American womanhood getting it on, and it's superbly filmed. That's the best idea for a movie since . . . since . . . Girls Gone Wild! How could anything go wrong? Primarily, there's the script. It may have been written on the back on an envelope or a cocktail napkin. Or they may have taken it from one of those dreadful 99¢ amateur Kindle novels. A movie consisting solely of scenes showing Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens . . . uhm . . . "showing affection" would've made me happy, but after the scenes of drug and alcohol use, the girls meet up with a local gangsta who wears gold prosthetics on his teeth. James Franco is deliberately made-up to irritate one's retinas. At this point, if only they had concentrated on the girls, the movie could morph into a Floridian version of the X-rated 1999 French film *Baise Moi* (banned in Awstralier), but the pace is more like *My Dinner With André* -- without the dialog. It's suddenly a chix-with-guns movie, and I'm down with that, but for a violent shoot-'em-up flic, it moves painfully slow. A slow action-movie? That's like 3-D in black-and-white or a horror movie with cute, cuddly bats. How can it be that scenes of the girls fondling firearms make you wonder when the movie will end? The crippled dialogue becomes more-and-more annoying, and the apologetic ending induces dismay. It would be silly to complain that such a movie is unrealistic and not even plausible, but the scenes of the holdup and then the girls wearing bikinis to court are absurd. Each quarter-hour becomes progressively worse, and I began to suspect that the the movie was covertly funded by the clergy in an effort to turn youth away from sin. Leaving the theater, a kid in the group of youngsters ahead of me exclaimed, "That's the worst movie I've ever seen!" Spring Breakers may thus induce young men to join the priesthood. *See?* it says, *Give into temptation, and this is what will happen.* The wages of sin are tedious to watch. Anyone can make a bad movie, but it takes a perverse genius to ruin fine T&A.

Faith, played by Selema Gomez, and her three very close friends plan to escape their boring college dorm lives to attend a massive Spring Break party. In order to pay for their getaway, her three friends commit an unthinkable act of terror. Their Spring Break vacation turns out to be a non-stop party of drunken drug use and sexual perversion that lands them in prison. This is when Alien, played by James Franco, bails them out and a new type of party begins. With a dub-step softcore * music video opening sequence, it is uncertain if Spring Breakers is glorifying the demoralizing activities portrayed or if it is a satire. Even when the film is not flashing to what looks like stock footage of a Girls Gone Wild Spring Break special and we are with the girls, the framing seems to have been done by a sex addict. This will be one of the most uncomfortable experiences Selema Gomez's fans will ever experience. For parents, this will be an absolute nightmare. Younger male audiences, on the other hand, will think they've found their new favorite movie. When the girls are introduced to Alien the film feels like it gets a new director. The feeling of a Girls Gone Wild narrative feature film is lost and we are filled with a great sense of dread. Who is this guy who calls himself Alien? We even find ourselves afraid to find out what he has planned for these young girls he has bailed out of prison. As we continue through the second half of the film, it becomes very clear that we are in fact watching a satire. A horrific and effective satire. This is done though exposing the character of Alien and much credit must be given to James Franco, this is him at his best. Through the course of the film we go from fearing him, to laughing at him, to feeling sorry for him. The film is worth watching just for Franco's performance. The girls do an excellent job as well. These are easily two of the most frightening female characters ever put on-screen. Spring Breakers is written and directed by Harmony Korine, the writer of Kids and director of Gummo. If you've seen anything he has written or directed you already know what you are in for. It has the core of a Natural Born Killers story wrapped in layers of what would be if Terrence Malick directed Girls Gone Wild. What ends up becoming an annoying distraction is the repetition of dialogue we hear over and over again, playing in a loop. It's understood we are in the girl's shoes, things are spiraling out of control and the editing helps get that across. Some of it works but in the end, we've heard the same things so many times it is as if Korine is hammering the message of his satire into our heads, almost desperate to prove it has a point. Through the story it's meaning is made clear, no reason to over-use certain Malick-like editing techniques to over-state what the story has already made obvious. The core story is genius. The way in which the story is told is split between things that play out like a master at work and a new filmmaker still experimenting.

OK, so I saw "Spring Breakers" last night at the Gothenburg Film Festival and it's still fresh in my mind. My first reaction was one of absolute elation after witnessing an extraordinary piece of transcendental art. The film feels somehow beyond the postmodern dichotomy of good/bad or high/low - rather - it reads like some sort of hyper-simulacrum that reflects contemporary culture in an extremely complex manner. The themes of the film are similar to what Korine has touched upon before: mundane reality vs. an intense "heightened" or elevated existence beyond good or evil, where reality is replaced by a (or the) dream that goes on forever and ever. But in "Spring Breakers" those themes are presented in more dimensions than in for example "Mister Lonely" or "Trash Humpers". The liquid colorful cinematography is spectacular throughout, though some scenes especially stand out, for example the robbery and the montage that goes along with Britney Spears "Everytime", spectacular examples of great art. There is a method of repetition that runs through the film (which I'm sure will annoy quite a few people), dialogue is repeated, scenes are repeated, images are repeated, the sound of a gun being loaded (used brilliantly as poetic punctuation) is repeated - every time eschewing the original meaning of said occurrence - thereby adding another level of analytical value and another point to the already complex sentiments. It really speaks volumes of contemporary culture where the "dreams" of the populace is nothing but representation and spectacle in its purest form. With "Spring Breakers" Korine has really managed to reflect, deconstruct and subvert (the way the great fun of it also becomes the grim menace of it, I find genuinely subversive) what some might see as banal popular culture and escapism and turn it into radical poetic hyper-cinema, and I truly found that masterful. I look forward to the general reaction to the film once it gets a wide release, but I doubt it will be a hit with either mainstream audiences or bourgeoisie film critics. I think it will appeal mainly to fans of art-house exploitation or experimental genre-cinema.

I have to say, that watching this movie was a total spur of the moment decision on my part and I walked into this completely unaware of what I was getting into. While watching it, I felt my senses were assaulted, but there was more to it than what I was able to discern viscerally. Therein lies the greatness of this movie. It makes you think about what images are being thrown at you and why. The image is obviously that of what the youth of our age are sold as 'the good life': money, drugs, sex and partying. This is the American Dream. This movie follows 4 girls who do despicable acts, who behave with such depravity and who are shallow to the core, that watching this can be painful at times. But that is the whole point and people who walk out of this feeling as though they have had their time robbed of them or are too disgusted by what they see are missing the point. I am not an elitist movie critic in no sense of the word either, but I know a shock movie when I see one. I have to say that visually this movie is beautiful (and no, I am not referencing the nudity here, ha-ha). It is a dark, dreamy, neon- nightmare. I give credit to the movie for this because it is candy for the eyes. Production wise this movie is solid, as is the direction. You feel as if you are in a dream, with it's poignant use of slow motion, and I suppose that is the effect they were looking to achieve. In this aspect they succeeded with flying colours - literally. There's also a beautifully crafted scene during their robbery of a restaurant that features one of the girls rolling the car around the building, catching glimpses of what they were doing inside. A very good piece of cinematography. The cast were great too. I can't really say too much for the female cast as they did all act well in their respective roles. James Franco on the other hand really stood out and delivered a superb performance in what I would say is one of his more challenging roles, because the character himself is just so unlikable and unlike anyone he has portrayed before. He definitely made this movie, and without him in it it would seem to be missing a magic ingredient. Time and again Franco proves his worth as one of the great actors of his generation. He obviously knew that this movie's worth exceeded the majority of our expectations. It seems the point of this film is lost upon most, which is a shame, though I can understand why. On the surface this appears to be a shallow and uninspiring piece of crap theatre with no motive beyond showing us some tits and ass. It is so much more. I love movies that make me think, even if they are at the time disturbing to watch. Well, this is what we are supposed to enjoy watching, after all. This is what our media, our 'culture', our idols depict as the epitome of what constitutes the good life. We are told to live our youth to the full. Is this not what they do throughout the movie? Are you not entertained? No? Isn't that just it though? The truth hurts. This is the truth of what our youth aspire to. Sad, ain't it. Maybe I should give this a 1 star rating. I'm sure that's what the director would want me to do.

Spring Breakers tries so hard to be like Natural Born Killers. It tries the hyper-violent fantastical approach. It tries the over-the-top approach. It tries the fever-dream visuals. It tries to have characters worth caring about but it fails in so many ways. Harmoney Korine is as much of a hack as Darron Arnofsky whose films have a small, but strong cult status. The script is so childish that it seems like a 13-year old wrote it. There is nothing smart or witty about it. There is no plausibility to the characters motivations or redemption. The acting is horrible. Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgins are atrocious. There is a reason they have not done any major Hollywood films since being Disney stars. Most Disney stars are not cut out for true acting, and it rings true here. James Franco... god what happened to him? It seems ever since he gained major popularity in the Spider-Man trilogy he has been phoning in his performances. His character is a cheap ripoff of Gary Oldman's jaw dropping Drexel in True Romance and what's sad is, Drexel isn't a pretender. The visual style of the film is numbing. It tries to go the route of Natural Born Killers but fails. Oliver Stone's film was smart as it was a satire on media sensationalizing violence, whereas this film tries to glorify it with neon bikinis and black lights. A theme in NBK that was smartly used was the green lighting. Oliver Stone said the green lights signify the sickness that lives within Mickey and Mallory. What does the neon and black-lights in Spring Breakers represent? Nothing. This movie is a major reason why Hollywoodnis considered a joke.

Spring Breakers is a film that'a shear intention is to tick anyone off who wastes 9.50 on it at the local theater. The acting is extremely under-par, the story line isn't really that good, the constant repeat of the same scenes over and over gives the movie a budget film feel, and quite frankly it makes you wonder if the producers made this movie for someone with downs. James Franco has forever been banned from my film collection for even agreeing to do this movie let alone the horrible acting he did in it. I've never given a film 1 star before... But believe me, spring breakers earned it. I highly recommend seeing this when they throw it on Netflix in the coming months just to see what this generation deems a "6 out of 10" or above. America, we have serious problems.