Spring Breakers

I watched this film on Amazon Prime where its genres are listed as "comedy, drama", which does such a huge disservice to what this film is.

It is in no way a comedy at all so get that idea out of your head before you watch this film. In reality it is a dark crime drama which has an incredible tone and vibe to it.

At times tone and vibe are favoured over plot and storytelling, but having digested this film a bit I don't think I mind. There were some wildly good visuals in this film and the direction from Harmony Korine was top notch.

I loved the performances from all of the cast. Franco's character was very out there but it worked in the context of the film.

A wildly underrated film which was probably hampered by the fact that people were expecting a frat bro comedy, when in actuality this is a much more elevated and stylish affair.

Harmony Korine created a cult classic for the early 2010s that captures the decade through hazy, atmospheric scenes. The film features a cast including his wife, Rachel Korine, and THREE 'It' girls-Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, and Ashley Benson-all in the midst of transitioning to R-rated projects. It encapsulates the abrasive yet optimistic tone around the time of its release, full of florescent lights, neon clothes and dubstep music.

While it has the hyper-sexualized party scenes that contemporary films like Project X were built around, Spring Breakers arthouse ambition allows it to stand out from similar-seeming films and allowing it to improve with time. As one of the first films released by A24, it is an important step in the direction that the company would follow: prioritizing artistic decision-making, not shying away from explicit content and having a dope ass lighting/color palette.

Spring Breakers highlights the mindless popular culture that surrounds youth of this generation. The reason for its controversy stems from the fact that its target audience found its plot to be pointless, even though that was the point. This film depicts the shallowness of the modern definition of what is 'cool', like idolizing people that suck, those that contribute nothing to society but cheap entertainment. This sort of fascination blindly controls youth, the main reason so many did not understand the meaning behind this movie: they are blind to its influences. They think week long drinking binges, whoring themselves out, and having no goals is cool, because YOLO. However, this film is based off of these components and its audience deems the plot as pointless. Funny. Spring Breakers is like this generation looking itself directly in the mirror.

Overall, Spring Breakers is full of outstanding graphics, bright colors, provocative scenes, and young Disney turned Hollywood stars. It was fun yet hard to watch, depending how serious of a reality check you need (assuming you even understood that it was one)

Very creative stunning shots. Watching the violence and crime scenes mixed in with the spring break experience, brought back that sense of shock I felt as a kid watching spring breakers party for the first time. Lots of beautiful girls and there's a sense of comedy and irony. I loved when the heavy gangster is playing Britney Spears on the piano.

Spring Breakers (2012)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Four college friends don't have the money for spring break so three of them decide to hold up a restaurant. Now with the money they head down to Florida to drink and experience life but soon they run into a gangster (James Franco) and their future hits a bumpy road. I understand SPRING BREAKERS is getting mixed reviews but I'm going to just flat out say that I hated the picture. I thought it was a rather confusing mess with unlikeable and annoying characters, a horrid story and an ending that's so bad that I really wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. Director Harmony Korine makes 90% of the film about style as we get all sorts of strange camera shots, bizarre editing and slow motion shots of bodies giggling and for the life of me I can't understand the point. It certainly doesn't add anything to the story but I will admit it was a "new" way to tell this type of story. With that said, just because it's new doesn't mean it's good and in fact it's just downright annoying. Even worse is the so-called story, which I've heard from some was supposed to be a satire while others appear to be taking it very serious. To me it wasn't clear what the director was trying to do with the material but if we were supposed to like these characters that certainly doesn't happen. I'd say they're all rather hate worthy but at the same time if we were supposed to hate them then the film really lets all of them off easy. The ending was just a downright joke and whatever "meaning" we're supposed to take from it is even worse. The film's selling point seems to be the "Disney Girls Gone Wild" aspect as Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson and Heather Morris all tease up the screen. Performance wise they're fine but their characters are just so bad who cares about anything else? Franco chews up the scenery as if he's the son of Max Cady (the Robert DeNiro character in CAPE FEAR) but it's hard to take the character too serious. Again, I understand some are finding deep, haunting meanings to this film but to me it's just a complete joke from start to finish. If you want to see a much better movie about social media and today's culture then check out GOD BLESS America.