SPRING BREAKERS (2013) GUCCI MANE, SELENA GOMEZ & JAMES FRANCO (as Riff Raff?) DIR. BY HARMONY KORINE

lol gr8080

I mean I wish the movie fetishized male nudity but

franco probably does too

I wouldn't have minded

so many critics afraid of being tricked. they're like little kids. do i like this? is it okay to like this?

otm

I mean I wish the movie fetishized male nudity but

What about that whole scene with the dudes standing around Korine's wife in their jockstraps?

i agree with scott re: critics about trickery though at the same time he's just some web board crank going off about a movie he hasn't seen

since when does a jockstrap = nudity

Jockstraps ain't fetishizing.

yeah, the movie has boobs and cool images, and I def liked more than Gummo, mostly thanks to the James Franco comedy bits. but it also has interminable, cliched, portentous loops of dialogue along the lines of "pretend it's a video game". part of the reason you have critics who didn't like the film are hand-wringing about whether the film was "intellectual" or "subversive" or not is that a lot of critics who liked the film have come up with bullshit "study of nihlism"/"state of america today" reasons to like it.

tv edit of this movie is just going to be selena gomez ruminating in voice-over for the first hour

i need to see this but no one i know will go with me so now i have to be the creepy guy seeing it alone. I'd like to think im gonna get the full intended experience that way.

regarding scott's comments about critics above, i've often thought about starting a "state of film criticism" thread here but i don't really have a thesis about it other than it really sucks.

i feel like rotten tomatoes is a more appropriate place for people who haven't seen a movie to shake their fists at critics who didn't like it.

part of the reason you have critics who didn't like the film are hand-wringing about whether the film was "intellectual" or "subversive" or not is that a lot of critics who liked the film have come up with bullshit "study of nihlism"/"state of america today" reasons to like it.

Well that was part of Scott's point I thought. So much of what currently passes for criticism is just defensive, pre-emptive posturing against other people's opinions rather than having anything interesting to say. There's an adolescent insecurity and spinelessness about it.

totally, i just think it's funny that a) it's coming from someone who hasn't even seen the movie and b) it's movie that's basically like one of those roger corman movies by a director who wins an oscar 10-20 years later.

So much of what currently passes for criticism is just defensive, pre-emptive posturing against other people's opinions rather than having anything interesting to say.

haha, but enough about anthony's posting. bomshaakala!!!!

BALLR

are you trying to say "boom shakalacka" or are you quoting borat or something?

oh I counted at least three moments when I almost walked out.

I love young bodies but you have to inhale the movie's vaporousness deep to think it's compelling for 90 minutes. Would totally have loved a 70-minute cut.

yeah but i kinda already know i'll love this movie and its not just reviews of this particular movie. its so many reviews of so many movies. like people writing about movies don't even know how to watch a movie anymore. not that there's one correct way to watch a movie, but their little heads are stuffed with so many preconceived notions before the lights even go out. they need to take a class. in movie watching. and writing. and thinking.

more movies need to be 70 minutes

yeah but i kinda already know i'll love this movie

...their little heads are stuffed with so many preconceived notions before the lights even go out

who knows? maybe you'll surprisingly bored with selena gomez' monologues

i dunno my beef is that too many seem eager to demonstrate some position of superiority in regard to the film. so many reviews boil down to scolding or patting the head of the filmmakers. if i never have to read "this movie isn't as smart as it thinks it is" again I think I'll die happy.

xpost or maybe you'll be like, i can name 15 exploitations movies about teen girl rampages where the dialogue isn't monotonous and doesn't loop and the film doesn't depend on james franco showing up as a goofy rapper to keep us awake

xposts! and anyway yeah i get that criticism needs to defend its prerogative to designate artistic quality but at the same time that's basically the organizing principle of making interesting observations and arguments about those observations, and not really terrible interesting when that judgement is sorta the "point" of the review.

yeah but i kinda already know i'll love this movie and its not just reviews of this particular movie. its so many reviews of so many movies. like people writing about movies don't even know how to watch a movie anymore. not that there's one correct way to watch a movie, but their little heads are stuffed with so many preconceived notions before the lights even go out. they need to take a class. in movie watching. and writing. and thinking.

― scott seward, Sunday, March 31, 2013 5:30 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

why do u even read that shit, man

if i never have to read "this movie isn't as smart as it thinks it is" again I think I'll die happy.

― ryan, Sunday, March 31, 2013 5:33 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

same, which is why im killfiling da croupier. his reign of tedium has come to an end... tears of joy on this amazing day

you lie

I don't know if I could have gotten this movie down to 70 minutes but I definitely could have gotten it down to 80:

- fewer/no repetitions of dialogue, especially the "are you scared"/"scaredypants" part and one or two other sections where one or two lines of dialogue were repeated four or five times;
- end early, so that as the girls and Franco get off the boat and are walking toward the house for the climactic shootout, it just smash-cuts to closing credits as their asses are bouncing along the dock; not one shot is fired on-screen

In general, though, I loved it and am totally in agreement with Scott about the worthlessness of film criticism. Especially David Denby, who is just a tedious moralistic scold. Can anybody recommend a movie critic who focuses on how a movie looks rather than its message? That's the writer I'm constantly searching for, just like I'm constantly searching for music critics who write about music instead of lyrics or an album's presumed socio-cultural context (within the critic's circle of peers and friends, though that's never explicitly acknowledged—it's always just assumed that the entire world is made up of a few dozen critics who all follow each other on Twitter and Tumblr).

Glenn Kenny often does. So does Dave Kehr.

I really like Kenny because he always seems totally willing to accept a movie in the same spirit it's given.

I definitely wish there were more critics that wrote well about the visual experience of a film, but any writer whose primary goal was to discuss that would probably hate being a weekly movie critic in 2013.

Yeah, I read Kenny's blog and reviews. Don't know Kehr's work, though - where does he publish?

Can anybody recommend a movie critic who focuses on how a movie looks rather than its message?

not that you can really untangle the two, but... vishnevetsky could be your guy. bordwell's blog, too

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/author/45
http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/

beaten to vishnevetsky, he's one of the few newer guys i really like. seen some people passing around the negative edelstein (to name one) review of this accusing korine of being a creepy letch like "SEE I HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE BUT THIS IS HOW IT IS" which is mildly annoying.

we know korine is a creepy letch. what does that have to do with the movie?

have you seen the movie

yup!

I guess I mean, "why is that relevant in reviewing the movie"

i agree that it isn't

it's there but it's pretty tangential to the movie korine actually made

seen some people passing around the negative edelstein (to name one) review of this accusing korine of being a creepy letch like "SEE I HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE BUT THIS IS HOW IT IS" which is mildly annoying.

― ta-nehisi goatse (fadanuf4erybody), Sunday, March 31, 2013 7:15 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

yeah that review is awful. im normally cool with edelstein, hes not the most insightful guy but he can be glibly amusing sometimes, but that was such phoned-in garbage.

I like Edelstein if we're on the same hate page but I forget what a snob he sounds like when he derides things I like

i dunno my beef is that too many seem eager to demonstrate some position of superiority in regard to the film. so many reviews boil down to scolding or patting the head of the filmmakers. if i never have to read "this movie isn't as smart as it thinks it is" again I think I'll die happy.

As with some Girls criticism, some of the reviews are bound by the idea that there's nothing to learn from a woman under 30.

Also, it wouldn't be hard to cut The Tree of Life or Einstein on the Beach to an even hour.

One unexpected corollary result of having seen this movie: the sudden desire to give the finger to all cameras.
What's with the camera anyway -- who's behind the camera? Lots of footage that was playing to the camera, but did we ever see who was operating it? Is that part of the movie and I just missed it because I'm dense?

ilx sure loves to complain about how long movies are

i love long movies