Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers

e_e

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVvn9T6bqls

Korine's a very interesting filmmaker. Although those expecting a Project X type movie will likely disappointed. I've heard this film is so much more interesting than the marketing will lead you to believe, just one to definitely go in to with an open mind.

Fysh

The early reviews I've seen have been positive, and the trailer at least exudes enough style that even if it's a friday-night-brain-at-door affair, it should at least be an entertaining one

duckworth

Looking forward to this one big time, love his films.

It's clearly satire though - it's definitely not a brains-at-the-door affair.

Gummo is showing tonight at the IFI, would love to see it on the big screen, but I won't be able to make it.

e_e

Yeah the fact that's playing the IFI/Lighthouse should be proof that it's not gonna be just a dumb party movie.



An arthouse film in disguise then, I'm in.

Fysh

I dont know those people. For all I know they love films that I'd consider complete two-flushers, so I won't take their opinion seriously.

There are certain people whose opinions I value, but none of them are randomers on Twitter.

bnt

I thought Gummo was very interesting, and I'm interested in seeing this, but I'm a bit concerned that I'd be seen as a dirty old man, since I typically go to movies by myself!

CastorTroy

Because all the marketing material has been sure to highlight the likes of Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens in bikinis?

And going by those tweets, I don't think I'd take the word of a Bieber fan.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

I'm kind of interested to see this.

The people who are disappointed with it seem to be people who seemed to be expecting some sort of teen comedy type thing.

A lot of reviews seem confused by it. They can't say whether they actually liked it or not. This review for example http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/spring-breakers/25089/spring-breakers-and-the-problem-with-film-reviews

Makes me want to see it for myself.

Fysh

Fysh wrote: »

I dont know those people. For all I know they love films that I'd consider complete two-flushers, so I won't take their opinion seriously.

There are certain people whose opinions I value, but none of them are randomers on Twitter.

I never understood why people post up images of twitter comments when discussing a film. Random strangers opinions mean nothing to me, which I suppose is ironic considering that boards is full of random strangers opinions.

I was at the cinema a few weeks back and met a friend and his girlfriend. They were heading to see some random rom-com and when I said that I was heading to see Cloud Atlas his girlfriend chipped in to say that she had seen a tweet that it was a piece of crap and that I should save my money and see something else. She mentioned the person who tweeted and I had no idea who she was talking about, turns out that it was someone from some show called Geordie Shore which is not as I had hopped a show about Geordi La Forge opening a surf shop. Really kind of sad to think that educated people (she's studying science in NUIG) would not only watch such utter crap but actually think that opinion of the participants was worthy advice.

JP Liz V1

James Franco as a Lil Wayne wannabe drug dealer could be good :P

NegativeCreep

I'm a slut for a harmony korine film! Can't wait for it

e_e

I wasn't taking those twitter comments seriously. They were from an article about people going to the movie expecting the wrong thing entirely.

Anyway I saw the film earlier. Still a little flabbergasted but I was really wowed by it at the same time. Think some strange combination between Drive, Enter the Void, Project X and a Terrence Malick movie. It's a really draining, overwhelming experience but it's definitely to the film's benefit. I'm still pretty amazed that a Harmony Korine film is playing in screen 1 of The Savoy, haha.

Kylo Ren

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

James Franco as a Lil Wayne wannabe drug dealer could be good :P

Riff Raff, not Lil Wayne.

meoklmrk91

Mad to see this since I heard about it last year.

HerbSimpson

I saw this today and did not enjoy it at all unfortunately, I found the characters were totally flat and there was almost no plot.

The only positive for me was James Franco who played his part very well

e_e

In fairness it doesn't even try to be about plot.

BArra

Has it had a limited release? No sign of it in any Cork cinema..

HerbSimpson

I saw it in the IFI but it seems to have a fairly wide release from what I can see. I can't say that it was a terrible movie just that I didn't enjoy it.

I was trying to understand what the movie was trying to say so was having a look online and found an AMA (ask me anything)on reddit from the director, I'm none the wiser, some of his replies are bizarre.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1at6kp/im_harmony_director_of_spring_breakers_ama/

LuckyLloyd

Meh, a lot of the film feels like an extended music video. I read it as an exercise in taking the bad aspects of youth excess to an extreme. The main characters get their dreams and fantasies realised to the full extent, and each get to drop out when they've crossed their personal threshold. There are never any real lasting consequences to be faced.

People should know that plot and standard dialogue is thin on the ground. It is very well shot with a wonderful dream like quality but ultimately I thought the underlying message wasn't substantial enough. None of it was particularly interesting to me.

James Franco's performance is very interesting, and Hugdens and Gomez achieve their clear objectives out of proceedings. If you like the director, are in the mood for something different or are simply curious - sure, go see it. If you like your films straight up this should definitely be avoided.

NegativeCreep

In fairness, a lot of korines films are about teenager excess. Kids being the leading example.

LuckyLloyd

NegativeCreep wrote: »

In fairness, a lot of korines films are about teenager excess. Kids being the leading example.

No, I know. No real insight or new ground covered in this film though tbh.

Da Shins Kelly

The trailer wouldn't really be calling out to me, to be honest.

johnny_ultimate

Thought it was very often a beautifully made, engrossing film, albeit one that was a tad uneven. While some of the film's more memorable sequences come in the second half, it was the first forty minutes or so that I felt offered the strongest, most hypnotic film-making. The Terence Malick comparison isn't off the mark, albeit with neon soaked visuals, endless debauchery and much more nudity. There's a dreamlike feel to it, aesthetically rich and scored to a intense, dynamic soundtrack (constantly eerily punctuated by gunshots). Indeed, the audiovisual language of the film - reliant on echoes, recurrences and foreshadowing - is simply wonderful, and it's a flawlessly edited piece of work. Sorry, To The Wonder, this is easily the most vibrantly crafted film I've seen thus far this year.

When the film becomes more concerned with plot following Franco's entrance, I felt it took a bit of a tonal shift and didn't quite retain the dreamy atmosphere of what came before. Not to say it isn't engaging - it still looks & sounds gorgeous, and there's some brilliantly weird setpieces

(the Cribs rip-off and the Britney Spears montage are some of the best cinematic moments of the year

). But some of the feud stuff is dare I suggest a little dull, and it is fairly predictable where the film is going. For a film whose presentation is so spectacularly jarring, the content probably isn't as provocative as it thinks it is. The narrative decision t

o have characters return home once their limit was reached was a smart one, though, especially when it came to Gomez who was being groomed as our central protagonist. Her complete departure was the right move.

The film's relatively straightforward themes of excess and the American Dream runamuck are examined with tongue happily in cheek, and Franco's performance is hilariously off-the-wall. While some will undoubtedly find sections repetitive, IMO it all came together to craft a largely bewitching experience. Even if the plot is purposefully thin and the whole thing an exercise in draining, overwhelming excess, it's the kind of unmissable 'cinema' experience you're lucky to get once a year. The film's mood demands to be experienced in darkness of a theatre, and how wonderful that it has managed to sneak into multiplexes and hopefully catch many by surprise.

Kinski

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

how wonderful that it has managed to sneak into multiplexes and hopefully catch many by surprise.

When I went, there was an old woman with a cane in the front row, accompanied by someone who appeared to be her carer. Presumably a lady who can't get out much being brought out to the pics for the evening. She was still there when the final credits rolled; fair play to her!

EdenHazard

Terrible, Selena '4/10' Gomez offers nothing, the only good things are Vanessa Hudgens and some Franco moments, just too weird of a movie.

Fysh

I finally got a chance to see this and really enjoyed it. I'd agree with pretty much everything johnny_ultimate posted above.

I felt that a couple of the dreamier sequences dragged slightly, but at the same time I suspect that was intentional given that part of the film's theme seemed to be the uniformity and relative banality of the festivities with which most of the Spring Breakers are concerned. I could have done with

the Britney Spears sequence being a bit shorter, but that's probably because I don't much like the song; I will admit that the imagery of the three girls wearing bikinis and pink balaclavas, dancing with rifles, was enjoyably weird

.

Overall, though, I thought it achieved what it was trying to do rather well; we get to know just enough about each character to understand their story, without melodrama or too much silliness (

well, except perhaps the closing sequence in which every one of the gangster's thugs are revealed to have graduated from the Stormtrooper School of Marksmanship, allowing two inexperienced and practically naked teenage girls to gun them all down

). Certainly it felt leaner and more tautly edited than any big production I saw in 2012 (hereby known as The Year Every Hollywood Release Was About 30 Minutes Too Long).

e_e

This is definitely growing on me, and even some of the excessive scenes are starting to make a lot of sense giving the film's themes and satirical tone.

For example Alien's sudden death makes a whole lot of sense given how his character idolized the gangster lifestyle but had none of the toughness or upbringing for it.

A lot of people are worn down by the repetition, noise and bright colors but that's kinda the point. It's flagging up the hollowness and tedium of it all. I had a similar experience with Julien Donkey Boy. A film that seemed confusing and disjointed at first but worked given the character's dysfunctional viewpoint, there's a lot of heart in that film too that I think's overlooked.

Kinski

Fysh wrote: »

we get to know just enough about each character to understand their story, without melodrama or too much silliness

Really? I thought there was almost nothing but silliness. And three of the four girls were almost indistinguishable character-wise.

Though I also felt that perhaps that was the whole point - doing a dumb-trashy movie in an arthouse style.

Kinski

e_e wrote: »

there's a lot of heart in that film too that I think's overlooked.

Edit: nevermind.

e_e

You're talking about Julien Donkey Boy right? Because I was.

That film really humanized a mentally challenged character without either being mawkish or exploitative.

Kinski

e_e wrote: »

You're talking about Julien Donkey Boy right? Because I was.

That film really humanized a mentally challenged character without either being mawkish or exploitative.

Erm...yes, yes I was.:pac:

Fysh

Kinski wrote: »

Really? I thought there was almost nothing but silliness. And three of the four girls were almost indistinguishable character-wise.

Though I also felt that perhaps that was the whole point - doing a dumb-trashy movie in an arthouse style.

Ah, but I didn't say that their stories were different

I agree that they aren't hugely differentiated as characters - personality-wise, we've really only got three different people spread across four bodies in the film; and two of those three are only differentiated by their willingness to put themselves in danger.

They all seem to be shaped by a combination of boredom of the place they've grown up and a lack of imagination to dream up any kind of better prospect for themselves than prolonged periods of getting blotto and partying. That doesn't mean that examining their lives and how they progress as a result of these two factors that shape tehir decisions won't be interesting (at least, if presented in the right way, which is true of most stories).

johnny_ultimate

Fysh wrote: »

(

well, except perhaps the closing sequence in which every one of the gangster's thugs are revealed to have graduated from the Stormtrooper School of Marksmanship, allowing two inexperienced and practically naked teenage girls to gun them all down

).

That scene has to be ridiculous.

At that point the girls have achieved this absurd level of enlightenment and purity - it was incited by depravity and debauchery, but in their way they have come to believe that this is indeed "the most spiritual place" they've ever been. By the the time they've become a two person army they've transcended the world they've found themselves in. The key is in that oft-repeated chant that "pretend you're in a video game... or a movie". These two girls are briefly immortal, the lines between fantasy and reality long since blurred. They're living this ugly, violent, horrible American dream and nothing can stop them. It can stop Alien, of course, but even he achieves euphoria and is gunned down in a moment of pure bliss. "Spring break forever", he endlessly repeats, and no doubt in his own way he's gotten that wish.

That all of that spiritual stuff occurs in a barrage of neon, violence, sex, drugs and alcohol is just one of the film's many mad contradictions! And it further perhaps reinforces comparisons to The Tree of Life - but where Malick is completely sincere, Korine is operating on various levels of irony, satire and even pure disdain. For those reasons, that sequence needs to operate on an extra level of fantasy and absurdity. But even then in the strange, hazy experience that is watching this film, there is something horribly beautiful about it all.

Kylo Ren

Easily one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Four people, a few rows ahead of us, actually got up and just left before it ended.

Just after seeing it and far as I'm concerned it's the film of the year to date for me.

It's one of the most beautiful films I have seen in a long time and the closest comparison you could make is to the work of Terrence Malick or the criminally under-seen I Come With the Rain. The visuals were hypnotic and the repetition of images and dialogue/sound was brilliantly implementation, helping create a dream like atmosphere.

The narrative is straightforward albeit told in a somewhat nonlinear narrative that relied heavily on foreshadowing to create a constant sense of uneasy. Once Franco was introduced and the rivalry was brought up it was clear where the film was going and cliched as it was, Kormine managed to infuse it with some originality in the manner in which enlightenment was reached by our pink balaclava wearing anti-heroes. It's a film rich in imagery and one that I will be retuning to time and again.

The_Gatsby

I thought the fact that they kept mentioning "pretend it's a game/movie" was pretty important. I thought this in tied well when

at the end, the two girls gun down most of the other guys crew. Also, when Francos character gets shot the two girls don't bat an eye lid.

It was a game to them, something that had to be done.

Watching the trailer before going to see the film, I thought it was going to be a trashy teen project X type film but in the end I loved it. I thought it showed what teen culture is like and attitudes among young people towards crime, drugs and money. No consequences or forethought in any of their actions. Even when

the second girl to leave got shot in the arm

the other two weren't ever going to change their minds. It was a game and they had to finish it.

The_Gatsby

The_Gatsby wrote: »

I thought it showed what teen culture is like and attitudes among young people towards crime, drugs and money. No consequences or forethought in any of their actions. Even when

the second girl to leave got shot in the arm

the other two weren't ever going to change their minds. It was a game and they had to finish it.

I don't think that it's the least bit representative of how teen/young adults views crime, drugs and money. It's a fantasy that isn't offering an indept examination of youth culture but rather it's Kormine having a little fun. The film is pure escapism and that many scenes feel like extended music videos only adds to this. There are thematic similarities to Kormine's other work, the broken dreams of youths, indulging in excess in order to alleviate the day to day boredom of their lives, etc but much like it's characters it's a film that is there to revel in the excess rather than explore how today's youths view the world.

The_Gatsby

Deleted User wrote: »

I don't think that it's the least bit representative of how teen/young adults views crime, drugs and money. It's a fantasy that isn't offering an indept examination of youth culture but rather it's Kormine having a little fun. The film is pure escapism and that many scenes feel like extended music videos only adds to this. There are thematic similarities to Kormine's other work, the broken dreams of youths, indulging in excess in order to alleviate the day to day boredom of their lives, etc but much like it's characters it's a film that is there to revel in the excess rather than explore how today's youths view the world.

I don't know much about films at all but I thought it showed an exaggerated version of things that rappers like Alien talk about in their songs and things that are seen as a gangster lifestyle, which a lot of young people idolize and aspire to have. Alien even says in the film that that lifestyle is all he's ever wanted

Vito Corleone

Big fan of Korine but I did not like this film at all. It just seemed... empty to me.

meoklmrk91

I thought this was interesting film, when I first saw it I was a bit perplexed and thought it was quite vacant but over the last couple of weeks it has started to resonate with me more and more. I actually found it quite tiring to watch, you are bombarded by the visuals and audio.

I will be giving it a repeat watch, the thing I have come to realise is that you don't actually really have to "enjoy" a film for it to be good, for instance I really didn't enjoy Schindlers list, I found it tough to watch, emotionally tiring, but it resonates with me on a level that 99.9% films don't.

The performances were really interesting, James Franco was almost unrecognisable. I found Gomez quite good as well as Hudgens but I think Ashkey Benson was the stand out among the girls.

Vito Corleone

One thing I love about Korine's films is there is a realism to them. Kids, Gummo etc... are shocking and controversial yet they are believable. They show something that many people may not know about but it exists, it's real and that's why it's powerful. Spring Breakers doesn't do this. It's overly exaggerated and lacks any real substance. I don't care about plots, some of the best films I've seen have had no plots, but this film, personally, I feel was Korine throwing eggs at the mainstream.

BTW, I'd really recommend you guys watch Korine's interviews on Letterman. They're very entertaining, he's an interesting guy. Here's him in 1995.

Sad Professor

It treads a very fine line between being a satire and a celebration of the cultural hedonism it depicts, which will prevent many people from embracing it. But like Scarface and other controversial films that seem to encapsulate a particular time and place, it will probably grow in stature in the years to come.

I thought it was absolutely superb. One of the best films of the year.

In oddest announcement of the day it seems that we will be getting a Spring Breakers sequel written by Irvine WWelsh and directed by Jonus Ackerland. Title Spring Breakers: The Second Coming it'll be a standalone film which only alludes to some of the characters in the original and will follow a group of girls going up against religions fundamentalists.

e_e

Out of all the mainstream films that took on the American dream in 2013 I still find this to be the most provocative, beautiful, challenging and layered. I feel it's been harshly misunderstood in some circles.

johnny_ultimate

Wouldn't blame someone for thinking it falls on the wrong side of the aforementioned fine line: I disagree, but at the same time if its dreamy rhythm doesn't hook you then there's a lot of neon filth and ugliness to wade through

Odd choice for a sequel, though. Suppose it would be interesting to see what some other provocative directors do with the material, but that fine line is just waiting to be tripped over in glorious fashion.

They'll never top Everytime, though, which might me the pinnacle of cinema as an artform thus far.

Hopefully the sequel will be an independent, stand alone tale that's a sequel in name only. The first film was something of an unexpected hit and if interesting filmmakers can get some otherwise risky films up and running simply by adding Spring Breakers to the title then I'm all for it. Long as we don't get some retread of the original or some visually flat, low budget direct to disc venture this could be a winner

Tomagotchye

Spriiiiing breeeeaaaaaak yooooooo! "Bikini's and big booties yo. That's what life is about!" Deeply interesting film