{"id":527,"date":"2014-01-20T15:42:15","date_gmt":"2014-01-20T19:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ekrap.com\/?p=527"},"modified":"2026-03-02T02:35:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T06:35:28","slug":"expectation-breakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ekrap.com\/?p=527","title":{"rendered":"Expectation Breakers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"james-franco-alien-spring-breakers\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Who would have thought that Harmony Korine’s candy-colored fleshfest “Spring Breakers” would be so unsatisfying? \u00a0But that seems to be the point. \u00a0While watching the movie I kept searching for ways to “make it work” but couldn’t. \u00a0Not as a bacchanal – I found the quick cuts clinical and unsexy. \u00a0Not as a gangster movie – James Franco was more clown than crime boss. \u00a0Not as a parody – it’s too dreamlike and not funny enough. Not even as Korine’s standard detached documentary – the characters have no depth, there are no real connections.<\/p>\n

“Julien Donkey-Boy”, a previous Korine film also featuring dysfunctional weirdos, \u00a0offers moments of real emotional connection. \u00a0There’s a touching scene where Chloe Sevigny is pretending to channel the deceased mother of Julien (Ewen Bremner). \u00a0 But in “Spring Breakers” everything is detached and suspect, you can never quite believe what is happening onscreen. \u00a0Would four naive-seeming co-eds don ski masks and rob a restaurant with squirtguns and a mallet? \u00a0Would they exalt afterwards?<\/p>\n

Throughout the film Korine has you asking such questions. \u00a0Every time you think the film is hewing to a narrative type (coming-of-age, redemption, documentary) you are thrown off base. \u00a0So James Franco’s “Alien” character initially seems ridiculous, then briefly menacing. \u00a0The next time you see him he’s jumping up and down on a bed while holding on to two machine guns saying “Look at my shit!” in a very non-menacing, non-gangster way. \u00a0This is not an organic change, it’s just an inconsistency.<\/p>\n

Motion in this movie is created by the scrambling of these filmic conventions, rather than through character development. \u00a0This feels unsatisfying, and throws into relief the tacit agreement we ordinarily make with films: a willingness to trade the enjoyment that comes from having unspoken conventions met – for example the revenge narrative – in exchange for accepting poor writing, no semblance of real life, and a conventional, cowardly point-of-view.<\/p>\n

Other disruptive films, for some reason I think of atmospheric French films, simply deny the viewer the usual pleasurable sign-posts. \u00a0Spring Breakers shows them in brightly-colored glory, only to have them fade and blur in close-up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who would have thought that Harmony Korine’s candy-colored fleshfest “Spring Breakers” would be so unsatisfying? \u00a0But that seems to be the point. \u00a0While watching the movie I kept searching for ways to “make it work” but couldn’t. \u00a0Not as a …<\/p>\n

Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,14],"tags":[110,109,137],"class_list":["post-527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-americana","category-bling","tag-james-franco","tag-korine","tag-movies"],"yoast_head":"\nExpectation Breakers - eKrap - Roy Zornow<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Expectation Breakers - eKrap - Roy Zornow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Who would have thought that Harmony Korine's candy-colored fleshfest "Spring Breakers" would be so unsatisfying? \u00a0But that seems to be the point. \u00a0While\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ekrap.com\/?p=527\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"eKrap - 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