Spring Breakers

An artistic rendition of a girls’ trip to Florida or a perverse probe into the world of booze, drugs and weapons? Korine wants to film art, but emptiness filled with repeating scenes or whole sentences, strange lighting and filters (at least imho) just isn’t art. Empty prattle about friendship, supported by emotional imbalance and a freaky ending that brings the young generation a message involving a really good slapping. A huge positive role is James Franco’s Alien who overacts as much as possible, enjoying the caricature of a white black gansta/rapper to the last drop. Ingenious manipulator or stoned nut-job? I’d like to see a prequel showing his rise. (2013-09-01)

Spring Breakers catches your eye with its perfect visuals and sound design, the neon aesthetic, the nudity, the summer fun and the cool sounding phrase “spring break”. But in reality, they are just intermediaries of the emptiness and shallowness of party boys and party girls. It’s a lure to trap the viewer; pretty depressing art, basically. But I feel that everything important it has to say is said in the first half hour and the rest just recycles it (engagingly so), although it’s likely that there’s also some meaning in that. “Everytime” is hands down one the movie scenes of the year. (2013-06-27)

The final form of the film is the polar opposite of what I originally expected from it. I went into it expecting pure teenage masturbation over the backside of Selena Gomez and her friends, which someone like Stifler would have summed up simply with the words "boobs, titties, hooters, knockers", but in the end I got a truly serious criminal plot with an execution so provocative, novel and ironic that it was simply irresistible. Korine laughed in my face, filmed it in his own way and according to his own rules, and did it extremely well. It's a pity that by the end he went a bit overboard with the laughs and that he repeated some of the "jokes" so often that they lost all credibility. And it's a shame that Selena packed up halfway through the film and never showed up again :-) Quite an interesting surprise, but unfortunately it doesn't deserve more than 55% after the first viewing. (2013-06-29)

Maybe a little more alternative than would be appropriate. From the audience's perspective, it’s a very confusing and "unpleasant" film that says quite a lot and even makes sense, but it’s poorly executed (the dramaturgy, the dialogues) and confusingly shot and unfinished (the editing, a number of wtf scenes) that only few will grasp and extract some of that film gold that is somewhere in there. Basically, a definition of today's era and youth, but the viewer could easily overlook it and end up thinking it was just mindless rubbish. (2013-08-22)

Enter the void of masturbation fantasies of lovers of beach bitch parties, tits, beer and guns aesthetics. A fluorescent dream on the edge between anti-thesis and interest in the artificial mythology of MTV clips. Hypnotic, engaging, provocative, subversive (Britney Spears meets Pussy Riot) and most importantly - James Franco was born for the role of the Alien. "This is the fuckin' American dream. This is my fuckin 'dream, y'all! All this sheeyit! Look at my sheeyit!" (2013-03-30)