Spring Breakers (C or 2/4 stars)
Last week, James Franco played Oz, one of the more child-friendly roles that there is, in Oz the Great & Powerful. But then THIS week, to show his range, Franco plays a corn-rowed, gun-crazy, drug dealing rapper with metal teeth who bails out 4 college girls from jail for his own sinful reasons in 'Spring Breakers', Harmony Korine's artfully made, yet repellent film that's meant to condemn the shallowness of today's youth.
Besides Franco, the only real acting chops come from Justin Bieber's recent ex, Selena Gomez. She plays Faith, a religiously devout college student who stays put when her 3 other girlfriends don ski masks to rob a store to finance their upcoming spring break trip. Still, Faith has no qualms about joining her slutty friends Candy (Vanessa Hudgens of the High School Musical), Brit (Ashley Benson) & Cotty (Rachel Korine) for the trip to sunny Florida. For 90 minutes, these 4 young "Girls Gone Wild" cavort in Day-Glo bikinis. That sounds great on paper, but this vile movie almost felt like a "short film" padded out to feature-length by feverishly repeating the same scenes & dialogue, sometimes 3 or 4 times. At some point you have to figure: what's the point of that?
The foursome's HARD partying in the land of sun, beer, bongs, cocaine, sex, guns, & topless women - lensed by Belgian cinematographer Benoit Debie - predictably lands this annoying quartet in jail on a drug rap. As mentioned above, they are bailed out by 'Alien' (Franco) who packs them into his tricked-out convertible & houses them in his sleazy beachfront crib (I was reminded of Scarface) replete with guns, ammunition, & millions of dollars. You can tell Franco is having a blast with this character. One moment he's fellating a revolver as a form of foreplay. The next moment, he's serenading the (masked) girls with Britney Spears' "Everytime" while tinkling a white piano on his outdoor terrace. Funny enough, that was my favorite scene in the whole movie. It was artfully done, funny, yet creepily dark all at the same moment. I didn't know whether to laugh or recoil in horror. Either way, it was one of the few times I wasn't disgusted.
At one point, Faith bails on the group & decides to take a Greyhound bus home; fed up with the behavior she had been witnessing & exhibiting. And later, Cotty decides to depart after being accidentally grazed by a bullet during an altercation btwn. Alien & his main business rival/ex-best friend. The other 2 dingbats (Hudgens & Benson) stay-on to plan an AK-47 shoot-out with Alien against said business rival. These 2 girls just don't plan to continue their week of hedonism ... there's something much darker going on. They are sick, twisted, soulless psychopaths. Watching them lace up their bikinis, put on some face masks, and gun down people left & right for Alien is just so ... absurd. These girls are rotten to the core. The performances are unsettling. But then, I guess they were intended to be.
You know, I remember watching a documentary from 10 yrs. ago called The Real Cancun; it's akin to a 90 minute "Real World" Spring Break special where bikini-clad girls & bronzed guys traipse around a Mexican resort while partying, swimming, having sex, chatting, making friends, & departing. I was entertained, to a degree. But this film, a mock cautionary tale about how our youth is really going down the toilet bowl ... is just trashy for trash-sake. There is no plot. There is no character development. It's dull, despite the nudity & violence. The whole thing is just off-putting. And yet, and YET, I can't completely dismiss it because of Franco's out-there portrayal, some visual panache, & because the movie - for better or worse, emphasis on worse - got a rise out of me.
Besides Franco, the only real acting chops come from Justin Bieber's recent ex, Selena Gomez. She plays Faith, a religiously devout college student who stays put when her 3 other girlfriends don ski masks to rob a store to finance their upcoming spring break trip. Still, Faith has no qualms about joining her slutty friends Candy (Vanessa Hudgens of the High School Musical), Brit (Ashley Benson) & Cotty (Rachel Korine) for the trip to sunny Florida. For 90 minutes, these 4 young "Girls Gone Wild" cavort in Day-Glo bikinis. That sounds great on paper, but this vile movie almost felt like a "short film" padded out to feature-length by feverishly repeating the same scenes & dialogue, sometimes 3 or 4 times. At some point you have to figure: what's the point of that?
The foursome's HARD partying in the land of sun, beer, bongs, cocaine, sex, guns, & topless women - lensed by Belgian cinematographer Benoit Debie - predictably lands this annoying quartet in jail on a drug rap. As mentioned above, they are bailed out by 'Alien' (Franco) who packs them into his tricked-out convertible & houses them in his sleazy beachfront crib (I was reminded of Scarface) replete with guns, ammunition, & millions of dollars. You can tell Franco is having a blast with this character. One moment he's fellating a revolver as a form of foreplay. The next moment, he's serenading the (masked) girls with Britney Spears' "Everytime" while tinkling a white piano on his outdoor terrace. Funny enough, that was my favorite scene in the whole movie. It was artfully done, funny, yet creepily dark all at the same moment. I didn't know whether to laugh or recoil in horror. Either way, it was one of the few times I wasn't disgusted.
At one point, Faith bails on the group & decides to take a Greyhound bus home; fed up with the behavior she had been witnessing & exhibiting. And later, Cotty decides to depart after being accidentally grazed by a bullet during an altercation btwn. Alien & his main business rival/ex-best friend. The other 2 dingbats (Hudgens & Benson) stay-on to plan an AK-47 shoot-out with Alien against said business rival. These 2 girls just don't plan to continue their week of hedonism ... there's something much darker going on. They are sick, twisted, soulless psychopaths. Watching them lace up their bikinis, put on some face masks, and gun down people left & right for Alien is just so ... absurd. These girls are rotten to the core. The performances are unsettling. But then, I guess they were intended to be.
You know, I remember watching a documentary from 10 yrs. ago called The Real Cancun; it's akin to a 90 minute "Real World" Spring Break special where bikini-clad girls & bronzed guys traipse around a Mexican resort while partying, swimming, having sex, chatting, making friends, & departing. I was entertained, to a degree. But this film, a mock cautionary tale about how our youth is really going down the toilet bowl ... is just trashy for trash-sake. There is no plot. There is no character development. It's dull, despite the nudity & violence. The whole thing is just off-putting. And yet, and YET, I can't completely dismiss it because of Franco's out-there portrayal, some visual panache, & because the movie - for better or worse, emphasis on worse - got a rise out of me.