Review: Spring Breakers

2012's Spring Breakers is hard to review as a Brit who has no concept of what Spring Break can really be like. It is a beautifully shot but grim film.

Four college girls want to go on Spring Break to escape their repetitive normal lives, but haven't the money to pay for it. Three of them resort to robbing a restaurant to remedy this and Spring Break is theirs... only their trip goes in unexpected directions when they befriend a drug dealer.

The film's gaudy advertisement is deliberate; these girls are airheads of the modern generation, grown up on MTV and broken pop idols, they act with vulgarity and complete ignorance of consequence and their surroundings. Supermodel looks, yes, but utterly unlikable.
The dislike I have for he characters (while quite deliberate of the film) not withstanding, I found the film's screenplay too obvious for the most part. One of the four girls is somewhat reluctant and is a Christian, being told early on that "she will have a means of escape should things go wrong in life", and that her friends had "demon blood" and shouldn't be trusted.
Yikes, foreshadowing much? 
From the beginning we get gratuitous shots of bikini clad bodies (it would make Michael Bay blush) nudity, drug and alcohol abuse, during which the scene edits are often exaggerated with the sound of a pistol being reloaded or a gun being fired.

This film is not subtle, nor is it ever light. Spring Breakers is a Natural Born Killers-esque dive into psychosis and depravity. We watch as outsiders as four thoughtless, stupid girls are lost because they don't understand the gravity of their situation.

It is a hard film to like. Critics praise it and the public despise it. On the surface it may appear to be heartless, empty and shallow... but those problems are central to the characters, the girls are all of those things and the film embraces it. 
You could also argue that it is a film designed by someone who hates "spring breakers" and extroverts who, to them, deserve what's coming to them; that the story being a direct message towards rape culture.
James Franco plays the drug dealer who befriends them after he bails them out of jail, and he looks like he's having a lot of fun with the characters, the film's climax was not what I expected.

It isn't a film I will watch again. It is extreme and full of deliberately unlikable characters, as well as glamorising lifestyles far, far removed from my own even though it does everything to trash them.

  

Review: The Wolf of Wall Street

Martin Scorsese's three hour epic dive into the corrupted, misogynistic and power hungry world of one Jordan Belfort's career as a wealthy stockbroker.

Jordan Belfort started out with a incurable lust for money, so it was only fitting he should seek a job at Wall Street's stock market. Only a few days into his time there, after learning the ways of conning and pilfering money through shorthand methods, the Wall Street crash of 1987 occurs. Without a job, Jordan starts his own stockbroker company with a ragtag selection of salesmen. 
But with his skills and natural confidence, the company explodes into a riotous, drug-fueled yet successful business, and soon Jordan's (and his co-workers') excessive lifestyle begins to shrink the ground beneath his feet.

Martin Scorsese is one of the great directors in modern Hollywood, and his affinity with our lead actor Leonardo DiCaprio here has never appeared stronger. DeCaprio oozes self confidence and roars with egotistical nonsense at every turn, so sincere and compelling that he both disappears into the role and keeps you invested for the film's entire run time. This confident director/lead actor synergy pours into its supporting cast, Jonah Hill (someone I never really focus on) surprises with every scene he's in.

The script is almost Tarantino in its brutality and pacing, and this coupled with Scorsese's very honest directing style, makes the film fly by.

But it isn't exactly an easy film to watch. Jordan Belmont is a drug and sex addicted warmonger of the financial sector. While you find yourself amused and often sympathetic for his cause, his actions are insane and reckless. The film is crammed with sex, drugs and a litany of misconduct, not for the faint hearted! But the film balances its recklessness with a lot of levity through the unhinged humour of its characters. Midget tossing, anyone?

I guess if I had to dig at something, it is only that the story is relatively straight forward, you won't be too surprised where the characters' directions are going, but you will be taken aback by the moments they have. That and the editing seemed off slightly, I would see little inconsistencies between cuts. But, that is me being cynical.

Shock value aplenty here. Highly recommended for the performances of everyone involved, everything else is incredible window dressing of the worst, most indulgent kind.