“Oh man. This whole theatre thing is really taking over. To the point where I consciously decided to skip doubling so that I could have a couple hours at home, and still postponed my write up. Oy.
I’ll spare you the intense thought process I went thru in deciding which one of the 3 new releases I had interest in I was going to. Sorry Admission, but Spring Breakers had a better show time. Croods, I wasn’t gonna hang around for 20 minutes, plus previews to see you afterwards. Sorry.
So why did Spring Breakers even make my list? I’ll be honest, from the initial talk about it, it was hardly on my radar. A couple of Disney princesses trying to be bad girls. ‘Kay. No thanks. But then the buzz started to build. Apparently the director, Harmony Korine, is pretty legit. At least that’s the word on the street. I haven’t seen any of his other films. Then I started hearing that this film was really dark and subversive. Okay, I’m in.
Kinda mixed feelings all around on this one. First of all, Korine, yeah kinda awesome. I’ve already put some of his other stuff on my wishlist. Sometimes I like the kinda pretentious indie vibe. Sometimes I don’t. More times, I don’t, really. But I really liked that here. The repetition, the shots of foreshadowing mixed with the past shots. A lot of shots of just letting the characters be themselves. That was all really cool. Yes, I concur that this film was dark, although a lot of it seemed either obvious or contrived. Then again, it takes a lot to shock me.
The mixed feelings continue towards the cast. James Franco sketched me the \m/ out. That’s a good thing in that he was convincing, but a less good one in that I was just uncomfortable watching him. Our Disney babes weren’t as out of place as I expected. I actually kinda liked Selena Gomez (or at least I didn’t dislike her) and I think her being the most conflicted of the group fit her well. Vanessa Hudgens, however, was trying too hard. I much preferred Ashley Benson and Rachel Korine.
At some point towards the end of the film, I reached a strange conclusion. I wondered if the things I found out of place and kinda silly (ie, James Franco constantly repeating “”Spring Break, spring break””) were hints that this whole thing wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. Like it was some sorta deep satire I just wasn’t cool enough to be in on. That’s the only way I could possibly explain some of the insanity. Maybe it wouldn’t have started to lose me if I’d picked up on that before.
Spring Breakers – \m/ \m/ \n