Spring Breakers (2013) Review

Spring Breakers has been making it's waves since the release in March of this year. I finally got my hands on it and I can honestly say that it gave me more than I expected. This is my first Harmony Korine film. As much as I like this movie, I have never had any desire to watch Gummo or Trash Humpers. After seeing Spring Breakers, I will continue to watch his films from now on. This is not a perfect film, but what it does, it does well.

I am not one for spilling the entire plot because you can read a summary anywhere. In a nutshell, this film is about four girls who want to go on spring break and once arriving they get arrested at a party. After the judge sentences them with fines and two days in lock-up, they get their bail paid early by Jame's Franco's Alien. When I watched the many previews for this film, I was ready to dislike Alien, but the film gives him plenty of room to show his various sides. He might be a drug dealer. He might be an avid collector of weapons. He might be a show-off...but he actually has a heart. Alien's life revolves around having fun and he is his own boss. He doesn't make waves for himself in the city and he lives in a quiet house on the water that seems to be his own paradise. In the end, I liked Alien more than the four girls that he takes under his wing. He is the product of the beach town that lives and dies by the spring breakers.

Korine never lets you forget that it is spring break. The many many montages and flashes of naked women on the beach, constant flow of alcohol and the presence of narcotics will keep your mind on the fact that St. Pete's Beach is the location and spring break is in full swing night and day. The four girls are seen in every sleazy, run down place the beach has to offer. For the all the reasons that Alien has to be the way he is, the four female leads seem to have no reason for being the way that they are. Throughout the movie they call home and speak of how their lives have changed and how the trip has been so amazing. Some of these phone calls are the truth and some of them are boldface lies. Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, and Harmony's wife Rachel Korine play their roles in great fashion. If you know of Selena and Vanessa outside of acting and you role your eyes at their film career, then I would push you even more to see this movie. They all have different characteristics to set them apart, and the actresses become these characters very well.

Make no mistake. This movie is not for everybody. There is genuine dark moments within this film that do show the dangerous side of the spring break lifestyle and then there are other moments of plain strange scenarios. The scene in the bed with Franco and two of the girls comes to mind. If anything is working for this film it has to be the soundtrack. The opening with Skrillex sets the tone perfectly for what is about to take place. It is mostly hip-hop and electronic driven, but the Black Keys and Britney Spears make appearances. The entire sequence with the Britney Spears song "Everytime" is my favorite moment in the film. Cliff Martinez's name is also in this soundtrack and he is becoming a huge part of Nicolas Winding Refn's films for good reason.

The shots Korine got in this film and way he decided to film some of the scenes will keep me coming back to this movie and to his future films. Come for Alien, come for bikini clad women, come for an original film, come for the music, or come just to hear Franco keep repeating "Look at my shit".

Elysium (2013) Review

I am very confused about my feelings for Elysium. It really seemed to give me everything I expected to get out of it. The action was reserved and not overdone. The emotional edge was a little weak. We still care about these people, but not to the point that we are going into tears over them. We hope things work out. The villain(s) are good enough. I gave this film a 4/5. If it deserves anything else, it deserves to go half a point higher.

Visually, the film is top notch. Nothing looked fake or CGI'd, though a lot of it was. Elysium itself looked great and Los Angeles looked bombed out, but still good. There was nothing there we haven't seen before in these type of film. Sand, dust, graffiti, and partial structures. Maybe I like Elysium more than others because I can see a version of this happening. The most far-fetched idea is the healing chambers. We don't possess that technology and I don't think it is from lack of funding; this is something the wealthy have no say about. The trailer does a great job of laying groundwork for this film. Matt Damon gets exposed to radiation and has days to live. His childhood sweetheart has a child this is dieing of leukemia. The hospitals are completely overrun with the sick and the even sicker. The only option for anybody with terminal illness is the healing chambers on Elysium. That is the main plot in simple sentences.

Elysium is the name of the structure that was built out in space by the wealthy to house them separately from the rest of the less fortunate. If these times did exist, Elysium is the place you would want to go, but most of us would not make it there. It is a very controlled population and it is built with defenses to keep anything away from it. Jodie Foster plays Elysium's Secretary of Homeland Security and it is her that seems to decide what comes into Elysium.
The whole plot of how and why I will leave out of this review. Everything makes basic science fiction sense. The weapons are spectacular. There is almost a new weapon every action sequence. As far as action junkies are concerned, there are 2 main sequences. The action is fast and it is well done, but outside of those two scenes you will little else for you action fix. This is not Pacific Rim. It takes a good approach to its pacing. You never bore of what his happening, but you might not care as much as the rest of the theater. I loved all the scenes and all the characters. I had more fun at Pacific Rim, but this film has more going on and a more plausible situation.

Most of us can identify with the issues it brings: the separation of classes. We truly feel for the sick people on Earth because we are those sick people. So many of us are those people that can't afford to get sick because we will lose our job. We are those people that need to stay strong for our children. We are the parents who look out for kids until the end. We are the desperate citizens looking for the money and take dangerous jobs. We are the people who would fight to get to Elysium.