Spring Breakers

[The Third Man]

[SHOW]

(Vaguely NSFW-ish poster)

I finally got to catch this last night after what feels like a year-plus of hyping it up. And it delivered on all my expectations, despite being a pretty different experience than what I anticipated. It's bold, bizarre, hilarious, totally skeevy - all of which were to be expected from a Harmony Korine film about Disney pop princesses Going Wild™ - but, surprisingly also completely earnest and genuine, beautiful, and even wistfully nostalgic and sad. Which might be understandably hard to believe, but if you're on the same wavelength as this film, you'll get it.

For the resident Malick fans, imagine Badlands (which, in a stroke of awesome coincidence, I watched on blu-ray not 24 hours before seeing Spring Breakers) with a white gangsta rapper subbing in for Martin Sheen and four stoner bad-[expletive] teenyboppers subbing in for Sissy Spacek. Korine is a professed Malick fan, listing both Badlands and Days of Heaven among his favorites, and even went so far as casting Linda Manz, the star of the latter, in Gummo - but even with that in mind, the parallels between the two films were incredibly striking.

Both feature adolescent girls ditching normalcy in exchange for a bad boy/criminal lifestyle, both allow for the appeal of the latter while recognizing the dangers and knowing things can't possibly keep up like this (and consequently have a feeling of inevitable doom casting a shadow over the sense of freedom/bliss that comes with their hedonistic/reckless lifestyles), both have a dreamy quality that make the film feel like a memory instead of something happening in the narrative "present" (an effect enhanced in Spring Breakers by the elliptical editing and flashes of past/future events), both feel both distinctly of a time and timeless...and of course, Badlands features Malick's most unaffected and banal narration, to the same humorous and ironic effect that it's employed in Spring Breakers. And Badlands, of all Malick's films, is the only one with any particular sense of humor, but it's a very bizarre sort of humor - and Harmony Korine could hardly be said to have what most people consider a normal sense of humor.

Of course, the vibe from Spring Breakers is a helluva lot different than Badlands, replacing fairy-tale quaintness and Mickey & Sylvia/Nat King Cole with hyperstylized, candy-colored neon boldness and Britney Spears/Skrillex. To say nothing of James Franco as Alien complete with cornrows, a gold grill, and chromed out guns as opposed to Martin Sheen and his James Dean good looks, or Vanessa Hudgens talking about how stacks of cash make her panties wet in place of Sissy Spacek's storybook-romance naïvete. But as wild and ridiculous as the movie is (and it is - if anybody offers a better comedic performance this year than Franco, I'll be shocked), it still earnestly portrays the appeal and allure of the spring-break party-all-day get-money drink-and-fight-and-eff-all-night lifestyle, while still recognizing that done to excess it's pretty horrifying and that, either way, it can't last forever. (Though, the hilarious "Spring break...spring break forever" whispers chanted by Franco on the narration aren't completely ironic. Spring Breakers points out that while this experiment in hedonism may have to end for any one individual, for the masses it goes on and on. Once again like Badlands, it feels both distinctively of a time and weirdly timeless.)

One last thought: the montage set to "Everytime" by Britney Spears is seriously the best pop music montage I've seen in a movie since "Layla" in Goodfellas. I've been trying to think of anything since then that would prove me wrong, but I'm completely stuck on an answer.

So yeah, here's too many words about a movie most people know as "that movie where Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez go wild." But, y'all should go see it. It's fantastic.

[The Third Man]

I guess this is a Rave, but I totally meant to put this in Social. WHATEVS

[Freed Roger]

Comps to Badlands is high praise.

[The Third Man]

Comps to Badlands is high praise.

I don't wanna jump the gun and suggest that anybody will like it near as much as I will, or that it's on the same plane of artistic achievement, but Korine really wears the influence on his sleeve. I love both.

[heyzeus]

but...do you see their boobies?

[cardsfansince82]

And here I was ready to congratulate you on some brilliant satire.

[thrill]

"Dubstep Badlands feat. Riff Raff" is either the worst or best movie pitch I've ever heard.

[lukethedrifter]

Was in or near St Pete beach today. It is spring break. Saw nothing interesting at all.

[go birds]

John McClain, writer for the Houston chronicle is the judge in the movie.

The more you know.

[heyzeus]

but...do you see their boobies?

The truth will never be known.