Spring Breakers

Plot synopsis:
Childhood friends Faith (Selena Gomez), Brit (Ashley Benson), Candy (Vanessa Hudgens), and Cotty (Rachel Korine) seem to be the only people left on their college campus. The rest of their classmates have migrated south to Florida for spring break, and the girls are desperate to join them. Brit, Candy, and Cotty decide to rob a local fast food restaurant to get the money they need to take the vacation. Cotty drives, and Brit and Candy bust into the joint with a hammer and a fake gun. They steal hundreds of dollars, and after burning the car, the trio brings their loot to Faith. Faith, who demonstrates a bit more of a conscience than her friends, overlooks her horror at their crime in favor of a free vacation.When the foursome arrives in Florida, they quickly immerse themselves in spring break culture: drinking, drugs, and never-ending parties. Faith feels as though Florida is the most spiritual place she has ever been; she feels as though she has found herself. The days melt into a blur of alcohol, swimming at the beach, and grinding against fellow "spring breakers." The only uncomfortable moment arises when Brit, Candy, and Cotty describe the robbery to Faith. Brit and Candy terrorized the people in the restaurant by threatening to kill them if they didnt give them their money. When Faith sees how much her friends enjoyed stealing and scaring people, she is taken aback.The four girls attend a beachside concert and see Alien (James Franco), a drug-dealing rapper, for the first time. Alien claims to come from another planet and also revels in the spring break culture. Later, the foursome goes to an out of control party at a motel. They snort cocaine, damage the motel, and are eventually arrested by local police. They spend the night in a county jail and appear in court the next day still dressed in their bikinis. The judge gives them a choice: pay a fine or spend two more days in jail. Brit protests that they dont have any money, and for a moment it looks like they might go back to their cell. Luckily for them, two of Alien's grunts were arrested at the same party, and he has come to post their bail. Something about the foursome appeals to him, because he bails them out of jail too.Alien greets Faith, Brit, Candy, and Cotty as they exit the jail. He wants to show them around town. While Brit, Candy, and Cotty jump at the chance to ride around in Alien's sleek car, Faith is suspicious of him. Her misgivings about Alien grow when she learns he sells drugs for a living. That evening, when Alien takes the girls to a party where older men, most of them African American, leer at them. Faith breaks down crying and decides to go home, even after Alien tries to convince her to stay. Faith heads back to college (thus is never seen again in the film), and the remaining three girls move in to Alien's house.Brit and Candy, even more wild than Cotty, giggle as Alien shows them his bedroom, which is packed with guns, Scarface memorabilia, and stacks of money. The pair take two of Alien's guns, both loaded, and playfully point them at him. He tells them to stop, but Brit tells him to get on his knees. She and Candy force Alien to fellate the barrels of the guns, which he does with gusto. When he finishes, the three begin kissing, and Alien tells him theyre his soul mates.Later, Alien takes the trio to a strip club. He gives them wads of cash to toss at the strippers and points out Big Arch, his former mentor and current competitor. Big Arch (Gucci Mane) menaces Alien and tells him to go back to ripping off spring breakers; he owns the drug trade in town, and he doesn't feel like sharing. Alien pretends that Big Arch's threats don't bother him. He buys Brit, Candy, and Cotty matching bathing suits, pink ski masks, and sweatpants. Together, the four of them bust in to spring break parties and rob the people there. The robberies become more violent, and Brit and Candy especially seem to become more depraved.Meanwhile, Big Arch is still angry that Alien sells drugs. He and an associate drive past Alien's car one night and warn him to back off; then they open fire into the car, and one bullet hits Cotty in the arm. She breaks down afterwards and sobs in the shower. Cotty also wants to go home, and she leaves the next morning.Alien wants to exact revenge on Big Arch, and so do Brit and Candy. The trio has a threesome in Alien's pool, and Alien tells Brit and Candy he loves them. Brit and Candy both call their mothers and tell them what an amazing time they're having on spring break; they pretend they are back at school and that now they want to be better people.Brit and Candy, clad only in neon bikinis and ski masks, climb into Alien's boat and drive to Big Arch's waterfront mansion. One of Big Arch's bodyguards opens fire and shoots Alien in the head as he charges down the dock. Brit and Candy return fire and kill him. The pair proceeds to shoot and kill the rest of the bodyguards at Big Arch's mansion. They find Big Arch in his bathtub and shoot him dead.The murderous and deranged Brit and Candy watch the sun rise in Florida one last time before driving out of town for places unknown in Big Arch's sports car. A flashback shows the two girls kissing Alien's corpse before running down the dock.

Tags: comedy, boring, murder, cult, violence, flashback, satire

Review:
Mr. Korine is a strangely unique director that uses this film to bore you into understanding how a generation growing up with MTV and girls gone wild has deeply mutilated the pursuit of happiness with nihilistic extremity — however his satirical exploration leaves you uncertain whether to laugh, cry out in horror, or stare in disbelief at its overwhelmingly artistic beauty.I watched this opening night and was shocked at how good of a movie it had turned out to be.
No surprise from the sound department either; the sound design and music brought to us by the brilliant Clint Martinez (Drive) makes what seems like a never-ending soundtrack that compliments the visuals masterfully.Under all that the movie still manages to hit its theme, just in a way that a lot of people will miss and I believe this is the key to enjoying the film.
The guy wrote the 1995 drama "Kids" directed by Larry Clark, which was the most controversial film of that year, dealing with hard and difficult themes to portrait on film (such as teenage, sex, drugs, street life etc...) and treating of problems people didn't want to face.
The poster and the trailer for this film were a parody of these easy-selling films that the Hollywood industry makes every year, who don't have anything particularly original (and that's on ALL levels : directing, script, acting, score are all very similar to any other film made by the studio), but instead of seeing the parody of these posters with those good-looking girls, people took it seriously and thought this was just going to be another teen movie about spring break with some fancy action scenes and a seen-before plot.
Now, some parts of this films aren't perfect, this isn't the best movie ever made or anything, but it is true work of art and not just a mix of drugs, sex, profanity and violence made by a crazy director in order to sell it.
No, this is a very well-thought film, made by a director who actually has the balls to keep his own style no matter the audience is, and who uses sarcasm and reversed psychology in its storytelling in order to transmit its message, which (lets be honest) isn't the most common way to do things in modern American cinematographic industry...To sum it up, this was an extremely underrated movie, mostly watched by a lot of dumb teens and young adults who thought it was just going to be another Hollywood style flick starring old Disney actresses who want to break their image, but instead of that they got a weird art-house film that didn't follow the "rules" of the filmmaking industry and therefore disappointed them because it wasn't particularly funny in the way that most films are, and it showed sex, drugs and violence in a real, strange, and (too) explicit way for them to enjoy.
This is truly the best deconstruction of modern culture I've seen.The movie starts with our main quartet of female characters struggling to find a way around the fact they don't have enough money to travel to Florida for that much-hyped, almost mythical annual rite of passage nearly every college kid in the country has to face at some point: spring break.
Any film that can provoke this type of uncomfortable self-contemplation deserves to be praised.In the end, I left the theater feeling like I'd just come off an intense acid trip into the darker recesses of modern culture, emotionally exhausted and ready to get in my car and drive home in silence, reflecting on what I'd just seen.If you're not expecting to have fun and aren't afraid to look inside yourself to that aspect of your personality that craves materialism and vapid entertainment at the expense of losing some of your humanity, go and see Spring Breakers.
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.
There is booze, sex and drugs but you need something of substance to make even a half decent film, this doesn't even come close.Acting is poor, girls are largely annoying and there is nothing happening whatsoever, it makes no sense, it just dwells on the over importance of spring break, there is no character development and it's a total waste of time, I was bored.
It plods along pointlessly for an hour gets decent for 10 minutes and finishes off with a meaningless ending.I haven't seen After Earth and yes it may be disappointing but it will never be this bad, it's a shame a film like that would get such bad reviews, I mean at least they have tried something, Spring Breakers doesn't even do that, the plot has more holes than a string vest.If I was to think about a top 10 worst films list this would most likely be on it, it is definitely one of the worst I have seen in years I would have gave it a 1 but it does have a catchy soundtrack for the younger crowd, some scenes are well shot and James Franco does pretty well for his part which does however start becoming repetitive like everything else due to the poor script.
I thought that since this movie had a lot of well known actors like James Franco, Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, and Vanessa Hudgens that it would have some sort of quality but I was wrong.
The acting is extremely under-par, the story line isn't really that good, the constant repeat of the same scenes over and over gives the movie a budget film feel, and quite frankly it makes you wonder if the producers made this movie for someone with downs.
This movie was brilliant in breaking down what's fundamentally wrong with our current society in terms of greed and "I WANT IT NOW" culture, in a unique style format.I've read people complain about too much nudity but if you have ever been to Spring Breakers, it's much much worse, just see Youtube.Also, has everyone forgotten that to be famous now unfortunately, you basically have to act like a porn star?
Example, look at twitter or facebook and the idiots who post naked photo's of themselves, whether famous stars or not, yes - it's wrong, because there is a time and place for everything but Korine just created what's happening now to the extreme and I thought it worked perfectly.The performances were alright by the four leading ladies, they didn't really have enough to play with in terms of story but the whole movie still worked with the amazing soundtrack.James Franco deserves an Oscar for his role (such a versatile and method actor), and I hope the Academy finally gets something right, as I feel the role of Alien (inspired by a rapper named Dangeruss mainly, who should be getting much more media attention) will become iconic and should be rewarded.If you don't know Korine's work before going into this movie, then yes, you will be extremely disappointed or in shock, so best to check out his previous work beforehand but for those who do, then enjoy the ride it works.Clearly, this movie has already divided people's attention, regarding some saying a classic vs.
Try, watching it a second time and breaking it down further, this might help (so many different interpretations you can take away from this movie, if you just open your mind).Anyway, I truly enjoyed it and will never consider Britney Spears "Everytime" the same way again, that alone deserves the Oscar win for Franco.Well done, all involved and a cult classic for sure..
With "Spring Breakers" Korine has really managed to reflect, deconstruct and subvert (the way the great fun of it also becomes the grim menace of it, I find genuinely subversive) what some might see as banal popular culture and escapism and turn it into radical poetic hyper-cinema, and I truly found that masterful.I look forward to the general reaction to the film once it gets a wide release, but I doubt it will be a hit with either mainstream audiences or bourgeoisie film critics.
It's something unlike anything I've seen in years.The plot follows Faith (Selena Gomez), Brit (Ashley Benson), Candy (Vanessa Hudgens) and Cotty (Rachel Korine, writer/director Harmony Korine's wife), lifelong besties who decide to ditch their monotonous lives to hunger for something bigger and badder over spring break.
Happy viewing.NOTE: My video review of Spring Breakers, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7qUTpYRQ6oStarring: James Franco, Selena Gomez, Rachel Korine, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, and Gucci Mane.
(These things are apparently lacking in the average "movie buff").Like Korine's other films this is part performance art piece and part documentary.
Reasons to watch Spring Breakers:1) Korine used composer, Cliff Martinez, who also composed the music for Drive, (which had great music and you know it.) Skrillex is also a composer for this film.
I can only imagine how many people saw this movie sitting on the shelf with it's cover portraying Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine, and James Franco in beach-mode and thought, "Well this movie looks like a fun time!
Franco does a great job here, and it's one of his most strange performances.SPRING BREAKERS isn't for everyone and I'd hope most people would know what they're settling in for if they decide to watch it.
This is one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen due to its surreal neon party atmosphere, its extremely moody vibes and music, and of course, its bikini-clad characters who don't change their clothes very often, and that's a good thing.James Franco is almost unrecognizable in this role, because he plays such a unique character compared to anything else he's done, but he gives an absolutely phenomenal performance and completely steals the show as the hilarious and endearing gangster with the heart of gold.As a fan of Harmony Korine's work, I was expecting to like the movie, but the promotion of this movie doesn't prepare you for the trip it takes you on.
Not only is it my absolute new favorite of Harmony Korine's, but perhaps the most beautiful 90 minute experience I've ever witnessed.I think this movie is going to stick with me for a very long time..
There is a scene sequence when Alien (James Franco) takes the girls to the pool hall filled with "people from the hood" and it was one of my favorite parts of the whole movie because of Selena's convincing performance.
The extreme hype over this film bought in a crowd of people who came in with expectations of a movie that is all sex, drugs, and etc, all done by former Disney stars that are trying to shed their good girl image.
it does have an underlying message that I think people will find is the overall moral of the story.Here you have 4 girls who are bored with their lives and just want to get away from their college life and experience spring break like everyone else.
You will sit and watch these girls supposedly having the time of their lives and if you understand it you should say to yourself "This world is seriously effed up." I have seen people review this movie and say that it is unrealistic and it lacks creativity.
Im pretty sure any kid that gets accepted to college can see the red flag when a character like James Franco's invites you into his Camero, but a film that tells the truth of spring break and the real life consequences of a manic week at the beach would have been much more effective, and endurable..
.....and that is kicking us right in the nuts, from the first moment on, until the credits have rolled out...and long after.Only, this time this isn't a good thing.From the writer of the critically acclaimed "Kids" and the director of "Gummo", you just know, that it's going to be brutal, it's going to be sadistic, and most shockingly-it's always going to be real-just as the emotional overload Chloe Sevigny was going through in "Kids".But here-unlike his previous works-it's all to blurry and sugary and colorful, and thus Korine is unable to send us the right message about nowadays teenagers and the sheer downfall some of them are experiencing, while nobody's keeping an eye on them.And just like Franco's character Oz....ooops, i mean Alien(after all he's kinda used to the situation, where he has 3 or more (w)itches at his disposal)the movie is nothing, but an alienating attempt at hitting the right social strings and giving the American audience the punches it needs, in order to change the dystopian societies youth creates for itself.Sadly, it all looks so stylish and so outlandish in the same time, that at the end one feels like he has witnessed a low-budget sci-fi movie set in the near future after a war or a plague of some sort-that's how otherworldly it feels at times.And that's the script to blame-Korine has done a terrible job at portraying a world, for which one needs more than just inside information to portray-it all feels overloaded with color, rap, chicks, but most importantly-this world lacks the severity and the raw, serious nature of the typical world of a "Lord of War"-something that both Franco and his friend- turned-nemesis aren't.The cold-blooded nature of a person, who's willing to do everything and anything to stay alive just isn't present.You would say that it wasn't an attempt at a crime movie, yet all of the components are here.So, the assumption that one could make after seeing this mess is that's it's actually pretty genre-less.And that, for me, is the worst place a movie can go.Now, on a lighter note-movie, that has teen-queens Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez (albeit marketing's done a good job to cover the fact Gomez is absent for a big chunk of the movie), should be fun, right?Right?Wrong.First of all-the likes of Disney Channel princess Selena Gomez don't have a place in such a movie-either you go all the way, showing you are no longer a 10-year old's wet teen-dream, or go home, because you take the part of a person, who's willing to do a performance of Spartacus-proportions here.I'm not saying i wish to see her naked, i'm saying it is stupid to give the role to a teen, that does not even know what she wants to be associated with-being a good girl on Disney Channel, or a bad girl in adults-oriented movies.In Spring Breakers she does neither.And that's maybe why her character looks so oddly in place-because she really just didn't want to star in this movie, just as her character Faith does not want to be around Franco and his friends, therefore in the center of the events in the movie.And she has no reason to go bad-girl-she definitely has in mind her fans.But, sadly, most of them, don't know what a quality film means yet, so they certainly don't know what a low-budget, B-grade, R-rated movie is, as they fill the PG-13 quote(let's face it-Gomez's fans are essentially low-teen teens), in the best case-scenario.So, Gomez can't get her people to the theater, her cast is totally unneeded.And i probably won't end up talking so much about her in my life...again...The more interesting subject here is Vanessa Hudgens-she is the right Disney Channel-cast and she's definitely up for a transition to adults-oriented cinema, as she showed with films such as Sucker Punch or Beastly.I actually think she has some potential to rise above her teen-star-wet-dream-status and no 13-year old would like her in the role of the twisted devil she plays in this movie, which is-in my opinion-a good thing.It's time for her to do the leap, and so far she has been bold enough doing it.Now, back to Alien for a moment.I don't want to discuss Franco's performance any further, 'cause i find words even harder.As a Francophile, i'll just say that in any other day, i would crucified him, but in such a blunt, blank, train wreck of a movie, he would be the only memorable thing in mind after a few hours have passed...he and the 175 pairs of boobs of all kinds and shapes we get to see, mixed with the music Korine thinks young people listen to...well, do we not?So, a couple of nice and stylishly-shot scenes and interesting soundscape don't make for an otherwise surprisingly dull and empty- shelled movie you'll have a hard time remembering in a few days.Voiced over, designed to be repulsive and thought-provoking with a certain social element to rise awareness of the problems of the youth system as a whole, this attempt at a movie feels empty on the subject and just falls short.My grade:5/10.
Or, you can look at it as a caricature of Spring Break culture that you might have seen on MTV back in the early 1990s, and an expose on small town life versus "the real world." I promise, I will not dig that deep into this movie, because if you go into "Breakers" looking for deep meaning or a reason why the movie was made you are going to miss out on a film that is super fun, super awesome, and super stupid, but stupid in that way that you might have said back in the 1990s, ie, STUPID FRESH!In case you heard, the plot is simple.
Bailed out of jail by a small-time gangster named Alien, played by James Franco in probably his most memorable role to date, things go from bad to worse for the four friends as they leave behind their dreams of the best Spring Break ever, and it turns into a nightmare.....or does it?Part of the fun of "Breakers" is not knowing fully what the film is about.
However, it isn't as if this comes as a surprise to the viewer, the movie was promoted this way and you can surmise that Spring Breakers will have these sort of things simply from seeing a poster for the film.