Spring Breakers

Spring Breakers is one of those films, you keep wanting to switch off, but have to get to end, it's not exactly a good film, but the story is such that you have to know what comes next.

It's so outrageously over the top, that it pretty much belongs in the fantasy genre, however there are a few concepts which are sadly all too realistic.

James Franco is good, but is like a parrot with gold teeth, he repeats many lines over and over. Selina Gomez does a fair job.

Nonsense, but watchable, the ending is at least bold. 6/10

Harmony Korine is a strange one. I've seen 3 of his other films, Gummo, Mister Lonely and Julien Donkey Boy and I thought they were decent to good. I can often see what he's trying to do but its lack of character and substance hurts it. Spring Breakers is perhaps his most mainstream effort given the concept, stars and the slick production but it's probably his least interesting. With MTV style cinematography and editing, a dubstep soundtrack and drama distant from the camera, the result is an unpleasant nightmare. I'm not sure who this film is aiming at, the type of person the film is about or the art-house crowd where the the techs are the furthest to their taste? It wants to be a comment on contemporary party culture but its unrealistic characters make it unbearably tedious. Every time a character starts to becomes sympathetic, they leave the film, and far too easily at that. Why are we even trapped in this nightmare if the characters are deliberately raising the stakes? It's a film that relishes on forced juxtapositions such as singing Britney Spears over robberies and it ends up obvious or pointless, nulling its effect. I still don't really know what to make to Spring Breakers but it definitely isn't my thing.

5/10

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.

This is a strange film. On the one hand, it looks likes an extended music video, filled with mindless scenes of teenagers having one big party. On the other hand, there's clearly more to it. Some characters are so one-dimensional and cartoon-like, that the whole film becomes a sort of mockery of the modern teenage culture. This ambiguity is very clever, because the film appeals to a teenage audience as well as to the art-house audience Harmony Korine is usually associated with.

But at the same time, this ambiguity stands in the way of 'Spring Breakers' being a really good film. Unlike other serious movies about teenage culture, like 'Thirteen', 'Ghost World', Korine's own 'Kids' or the recent 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower', this film looks too easy. The temptation of showing lots of girls in bikini has been stronger than the ambition of trying to tell something meaningful.

Still, there are some nice moments. The hold-up in the restaurant is beautifully filmed from the window of a car slowly passing by. It's nice that, later on in the film, the director shows some short moments of what happened inside the restaurant. I would have liked more ambitious film making like that, and less footage of wild parties.

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.