Independent Student Newspaper for the University of Texas at San Antonio

The Paisano

Independent Student Newspaper for the University of Texas at San Antonio

The Paisano

Independent Student Newspaper for the University of Texas at San Antonio

The Paisano

‘Spring Breakers’ proves that spring break doesn’t last forever

Girls just want to have fun—illegal fun.

Spring Breakers features ex-Disney darlings Vanessa
Hudgens and Selena Gomez shedding some skin while two friends, played by Ashley
Benson, from the “Pretty Little Liars” television series, and Rachel Korine,
join the fun for some good old-fashioned girl time. The flick, directed by
Harmony Korine, is a comedy-crime drama set in St. Petersburg, Florida during
Spring Break.

 

The flick, directed by Harmony Korine and starring Ashley
Benson, Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez and James Franco, is a comedy-crime drama
set in Florida during spring break.

 

Korine
has been making controversial films since he wrote the movie “Kids,” starring
Chloe Sevigny and Rosario Dawson, about an oblivious teenager with HIV, who
tries to have sex with as many virgin girls as possible.

 

Four longtime friends decide to spend spring break in
Florida. When they realize they don’t have enough money to go, Cotty,
Candy and Brit decide to rob a local restaurant to get the money they need
for the trip. After their friend Faith joins them on their adventure, the four
girls head to celebrate spring break where they get into parties and plenty of
trouble. Rapper/gangster, Alien, played by James Franco, helps bail the girls
out of jail and takes them in as a part of his crew where they all proceed to
get into more chaos.

 

The
film is full of erratic scenes of drugs, sex, nudity and alcohol. The direction
of this film is very sporadic, showing the end result before the initial
action.
This may have been purposely
done to give a sense of shock value and a small glimpse into the real
debauchery that occurs during many teens’ spring break.

 

Very little exposition of the characters is given. When
the characters start to get into trouble, the audience may be unsympathetic
because little is known about them.
The
vagueness of the characters is reflected through the way they speak, almost as
if they are speaking in rhyme and meter and not in a normal tone.

 

The film’s editing is not seamless and each scene
transitioned by the sound of a gunshot. Scenes appeared very pixilated to
illustrate the characters’ state while on drugs. This made scenes unfocused and
caused an uneasy sensation. Some of the images, such as in the final scene,
seemed fragmented.

 

The dialogue was so limiting and cryptic that there was not
much that could have been done by the actors to make it believable, and maybe
that was the point. It appeared to be an over-exaggeration of a teenager’s life
– when things are over the top and can easily spin out of control.

 

Overall, the movie took a while to get to the climax and
the editing featured quick cuts in between scenes to appear fast paced.
Although the film had a dramatic milieu, there were also
scenes that caused the audience to laugh at most of the scenes starring
Franco’s character.  The visual
effects in some scenes were very colorful and textured. These effects helped to
illustrate the characters on drugs and were effective in that they weren’t as
sharp as the rest of the film, but disoriented as if one were intoxicated.

 

A couple of chuckles were heard in the theater during
ridiculous scenes of girls dancing with shotguns while Britney Spears’ “Everytime”
plays in the background and a montage of robberies are shown, but the laughter
never lasted long. A couple of these “short chuckle” moments can be found
throughout this film, but overall the experience is not memorable.

 

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