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The colorful, in-your-face youthfully brash poster for Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers
Four young college girls must get away for their spring break; away from their depressing dorms to sunny Florida, even if their vacation is only made possible through a violent robbery. During their time there, they wallow in drink and drugs and send reassuring messages home to their families.
Spring Breakers, by writer-director Harmony Korine (Gummo (1997)), is a visually persuasive and impressive argument. - But for, or against, what? It seems too sophisticatedly made to be just a trite scare story about the dangers of guns, crime, drugs, uncontrolled partying and Miami spring breaks. One can easily project a lot of oneself into an analysis of the film, which doesn't stand out as strongly as related predecessors like Requiem for a Dream (2000) and Irréversible (2002).
The visually sensory-based, light-stressing universe is reminiscent of a Nicki Minaj music video (with cinematography by Benoît Debie (Get the Gringo (2012))) and, - together with the almost constant, wavy music (score by Cliff Martinez (Drive (2011)) and Skrillex (Smog City (2012, documentary))), - weigh up for the fact that the story moves slowly and at times feels secondary to the stunning visuals. It is incredible that Korine has managed to get the four promising young actresses to join him in this wild movie. SPOILER Their characters are mostly deeply unlikable, but so are the people that they kill, so any major reaction to these misdeeds remains absent. James Franco (Howl (2010)) is great and gives perhaps his career's most transformative performance as the silly-idiotic drug dealer Alien.
[Spring Breakers premiered September 4 (Venice International Film Festival) and runs 94 minutes. Korine has said he wanted to make the film to make up for his own missed spring breaks, which he used on skateboarding instead of pursuing hedonism. Emma Roberts was in talks to star in the film. Filming took place in Florida in and around March 2012. The film opened #27 in just 3 theaters to a huge 263k $ first weekend, peaking at #6 in 1,104 theaters in the US, where it grossed 14.1 mil. $ (44.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 4.6 mil. $ (14.5 %) and Canada with 1.7 mil. $ (5.4 %). Rapper Riff Raff has announced that he would sue the producers for "sampling" his life in Franco's character, but the suit doesn't seem to have materialized, perhaps unsurprisingly. Many critics included the film on their top 10 of the year lists, and Franco campaigned unsuccessfully for Oscar attention for his performance. Spring Breakers is fresh at 67 % with a 6.3 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
Elle Fanning looks glamorous, sprinkled in gold on a poster for Nicolas Winding Refn's The Neon Demon
The Neon Demon is the 10th film from Danish master co-writer/co-producer/director Nicolas Winding Refn (Pusher II (2004)), who has written it with Mary Laws and Polly Stenham (Eleanor (2015), short). Jesse is a young, beautiful girl who has traveled to Los Angeles to pursue her dream of becoming a supermodel. But she meet a ferocious, cynical world there that's gonna chew her up and spit her out, if she doesn't make sure to take care of herself. Neon Demon is a bit of a disappointment. It doesn't live up to the heights of Refn's recent spectacles like Valhalla Rising (2009), Drive (2011) or Only God Forgives (2013). For me it's his weakest since Bronson (2008), which I've never been able to really like. But as an avidRefn fan, I still liked Neon Demon, which is as appropriately vacuous (for a film about the modeling world), slow and periodically transgressive as to succeed in getting people to inevitably form opinions about it, (as Refn's movies usually do.) There are many things to critique about it: It's first of all too slow, I think. The long periods of faces in lights and music, (Cliff Martinez (Drive) has once again created a spine-tingling, cool, electro-score), often don't contribute enough to justify their length, and this time they bog the film down. - I'm sure I'm not alone in having wished for more story and action instead. We get very little knowledge about Jesse, and the demonic aspect (illustrated by a mysterious triangle and crystals, which seem to signify the attraction of beauty and attention that gobble up our protagonist in the course of the film) is also understated to put it mildly, (underdeveloped if you want the harsher version.) The film references The Shining (1980) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and is a slow, artsy meditation/very dark satire of different beauty standards, ideals and methods today, until it picks up a bit of pace and becomes more of a horror film.
A retro-styled poster for Nicolas Winding Refn's The Neon Demon
Elle Fanning (Somewhere (2010)) does well in the lead, who is innocence arriving to be corrupted, it seems, but perhaps also an innocence that is already tainted from home? SPOILER As Jesse's ego-centrism and megalomania begins to become grating, she gets killed off, and the film thus seems to come to a very sudden finish. SPOILER - But there is more, and especially the pool scene that finishes the film was an effective gross-out cap, I thought. Jena Malone (10 Cent Pistol (2014)) gives an eerie performance with maximum yuck factor; Bella Heathcote (In Time (2011)) is an effectively icy über-bitch; Abbey Lee (Gods of Egypt (2016)) is chilling; Desmond Harrington (Dexter (2008-13)) is good as probably the most sympathetic character; Alessandro Nivola (The Eye (2008)) makes a fine, arrogant fashion designer, and both Keanu Reeves (Street Kings (2008)) and Christina Hendricks (Dark Places (2015)) are good as two of the city's regular scumbags, although we get precious little of them both here, regrettably. The Neon Demonhas cool photography by Natasha Braier (The Rover (2014)) and moves around in the thematic waters of narcissism, perception of beauty, youth vs. aging, dominance-subordination and abstinence vs. carnality.
Cost: 7 mil. $ Box office: Not known yet = Unknown [The Neon Demonpremiered May 20 (Cannes) and runs 117 minutes. The film was shot in LA from March 2015 onward. Its American distribution rights were acquired by Amazon Studios. The film was shown in competition in Cannes, where Martinez won an award for his music in it. The film will open in most of its markets in the course of the summer. The Neon Demon is rotten at 47 % with a 5.8 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
2 Time Film Excess Award Winner: Best Sound Best Score: Cliff Martinez 2 Time Film Excess Nominee: Best Sound (won) Best Score: Cliff Martinez (won)
+ Best Car Movie of the Year
Ryan Gosling looking spiff on the poster for Nicholas Winding Refn's Drive
Ryan Gosling (The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)) empathetically embodies the nameless driver, who is a stunt driver in the day and chauffeurs thugs at night, and who gets involved with an ugly story as his beautiful neighbor and her son get threatened by some people her out-from-jail husband owes money. Danish master filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn's (Pusher II (2004)) Drive is an adaptation of James Sallis' (Moth (1993)) 2005 novel of the same name by Iranian screenwriter Hossein Amini (47 Ronin (2013)). It is a supremely stylish, coolly subdued and yet very hard-hitting car movie/crime-thriller romance. The film has a cool sound side, brutal effects and juicy characters played by an exciting cast: Ron Perlman (Skin Trade (2014)) as a Jewish gangster, and Albert Brooks (I Love You, Daddy (2017)) as his reluctant partner are great, and Oscar Isaac (Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)) and Christina Hendricks (Bad Santa 2 (2016)) also give very good performances in smaller parts. It can be quarry figuring out what Drive says (if anything) under its radiantly cool splendor: It is essentially about loss of innocence, I think, which is smushed away by an ugly, criminal world, and this is why Carey Mulligan (Never Let Me Go (2010)) plays the one character who sticks out in it. - Everyone else is - or is getting - mired in the filth already. The film's celebrated synth-heavy, pop-electro score by Cliff Martinez (Spring Breakers (2012)) is an integrated part of the film's attractive, pulpy package: Drive often looks and sounds like that an adaptation of the popular console game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002) might be like, stylistically paying tribute to the 1980s with a story that might as well take place in that decade, (it is quite universal really.) For Refn, Drive is a recognizable continuation of his oevre about the knotty, violent-prone young man. It is also his international break-through, biggest triumph and most popular film to date, although it doesn't top three of his films in my book: Pusher II (2004), Valhalla Rising (2009) and Only God Forgives (2013).
Carey Mulligan and Ryan Gosling in probably the year's best movie kiss in Nicholas Winding Refn's Drive
Watch the great trailer for the movie here
Cost: 15 mil. $ Box office: 76.2 mil.$ = Big hit [Refn won the Best Director award at Cannes, where Drive begun its very strong French reception that totaled 13.2 mil. $ (17 % of the total gross). It opened #2 in the US, where it racked in 35 mil. $ (46 % of the total gross).] What do you think of Drive? What is/are Refn's best film/s in your opinion?
