The Funky Conglomeration of Culture and Icons in Spring Breakers

Today marks the expanded premiere of the latest film helmed by Harmony Korine, Spring Breakers (2013). You may recognize Korine's name from such delightful romps as Gummo (1997), and Trash Humpers (2009). Or if I just say he's the dude that wrote Kids (1995), you'll probably have some idea of his propensity towards unpealing veneers of good taste in order to elucidate a more truthful depiction of youthful struggle, namely the conflict between naïveté and an undeserved, forced maturity, and the disillusionment that often comes from achieving the latter. This usually brings a ton of controversy to ol' Harmony.

So into this pot let's stir three young starlets, rapper Gucci Mane, James Franco thoughtfully following up Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), and a ton of real-life wackiness filmed in St. Petersburg, Florida, and you've got one of the crazier movies to hit theaters in a while. Seriously, St. Petersburgh is on the Gulf Side - no one likes the Gulf Side.

So let's first talk about these four young women who star bikini-clad front and center. At the height of it all is Selena Gomez (20), previously known for the Disney Channel show, Wizards of Waverly Place, her band, Selena Gomez & the Scene, and for dumping Justin Bieber. Her face is on prepubescent lunchboxes everywhere. Selena plays Faith, the quiet voice of reason throughout this flick. Of course she is.

Next we have Ashley Benson (23), otherwise known as the hottest one, primarily known for the excessive trashy ABC Family show, Pretty Little Liars. In Spring Breakers she sluts it up to play Brit, a cunt, in as many words. Joining her is Vanessa Hudgens (24) as Candy. Even the names are stripper names in this thing. Hudgens secured her teen idol cred through the High School Musical movies, but has already cut her teeth on more sexualized adult fare like Sucker Punch (2011), and the upcoming Machete Kills (2013). Speaking of Sucker Punch, I suggested during its premeire that it would become the Greatest Jailbait Movie Ever. If only I could have seen Spring Breakers coming...

Lastly we have Rachel Korine (26) as Cotty. She hasn't really been in anything but Harmony Korine movies - she's his wife. What makes Harmony's film great is that this is a total wishlist for Pop Starlets. It's the Disney Channel version of The Expendables (2010). It's got every young hot actress with millions of followers (16.9 million combined on twitter - 14.5 of which belong to Selena) all in one movie together, wreaking havoc! Of course, all of their Twitter pages also have advertisements for Spring Breakers and plenty of gratuitously tantalizing bikini shots.

So, the big question through all of this, is what happens to Selena's kid followers when they're exposed to this stuff? There's a blurry line between allowing actresses to branch out and do whatever they want, which is pretty fair, and the legitimate fact that most of the fans of these girls are way too young to handle the insanity of a flick like Spring Breakers, but that's what they're exposed to from following the girls. It's a legitimate point between social expectation and individual freedom that has been raised this week from sources such as philosophy professor Evan Selinger of the Rochester Institute of Technology.

On that note, it's also worth examining what this does to the brands of both the girls and their respective kiddie franchises. Can we look at High School Musical the same after Vanessa parades in a drunken drug-fueled daze in Spring Breakers? Can we accept Selena's recent return to Wizards for a special episode? Sure. My guess is that a couple of twenty-something girls with bright futures in Hollywood aren't really worried about it. There are new sexy markets to conquer, after all.

I for one, think this concept is awesome. It's dark and dangerous and weird. Real weird. Nothing ever really goes away on the Internet. Once harmless Selena Gomez image searches now bring up some great sexy pics to disturb all of her loyal fans, but there's something very freeing in that. What's also freeing is the fact that most of Spring Breakers is straight-up real. Ashley Benson claimed that the only actors in the film were the four girls, James Franco, and Gucci Mane. Harmony Korine and crew took the little starlets around St. Petersburg and just filmed them mingling in the shadiest corners of the Spring Break Mecca. It's spectacular.

There's a lot more to this movie. I haven't even mentioned much of James Franco, I mean, there's Oscar buzz around this guy. Between this and Oz, he's having one hell of a month! His spring will likely be only overshadowed by The Rock, who will put out four films in four months (Snitch, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Pain & Gain, Fast & Furious 6). That and the omnipresence of Britney Spears music leaves an even deeper reading of the film.

At any rate, this is a nutso combination of bits and pieces of Disney culture spun and blended with the wickedness of a spring break gone to hell. The fact that the contemporary tabloid journalism that follows the likes of Ashley and Selena don't seem to realise that and continue their marketing of the film towards the same demographic just makes it all the more awesome. Props to Harmony for turning a lot of our pop culture on its head and twisting around the careers of just about everyone involved. There may not be a film with more inspired casting this year.

SPRING BREEEEEAAAKKKK

What do you think of Selena and her scene here? Sound off below-

2011: Looking Back on Looking Forward

Way back last January we here at Norwegian Morning Wood posted the 11 Things We're Looking Forward to the Most in 2011. At Year's End now it's time to look back on what we looked forward to and see if any of it was worth it. A cursory glance suggests we were waaaayyy off. Let's start with #11:

#11: Battle: Los Angeles (03/11/11) - Terrible. What a mishmash movie that could never quite get its act together. Some impressive battle scenes that showed up already in the trailer, but outside of that, this was not worth the wait. At least it was better than Skyline (2010) in the fact that it didn't make me want to punch babies until my knuckles bled.

#10: Drive Angry (02/25/11) - I didn't actually even end up seeing this. From what I heard it wasn't all that great, although Amber Heard is still a babe. Nothing can slow the Cage down though, if Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012) means anything. Something's got to pay off the IRS, after all.

#9: The Thing (10/14/11) - Some people liked it, but this prequel just couldn't faithfully emulate the spirit of the original or add anything new to the concept, which is something all great remakes, sequels, or prequels need to do. The original The Thing (1982) after all, was a remake itself. You just can't touch classics like this and put this little into it.

#8: Cowboys & Aliens (07/29/11) - Can you believe we looked forward to this? It's starting to look like a trend here. This had everything nerdy going for it, a superb cast, a good director, and an intriguing genre mash-up. It could never get past those surface details though and ended up getting beat-out at the Box Office by The Smurfs (2011). Ouch.

#7: Sucker Punch (03/25/11) - haha fuck!

#6: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (07/15/11) - I think this was a worthy capstone to the Harry Potter Experience over the past decade, but there were some glaring problems and leaps of logic that the sheer emotional catharsis of the series ending couldn't cover over. All in all it was a very cool flick though and as far as Harry Potter films go, taking this and Part 1 together makes the most complete of any film in the series.

#5: Transformers: Dark of the Moon (07/01/11) - A tremendous improvement on the second installment and one of the better Alien Invasion flicks of the year, Transformers 3 really does capture the oppressive mood of a technologically superior occupation (stay with me here), even if the first half's awkward Sam and Rosie moments are pretty forgettable. These movies are at their best when they stick to the explosions, although admittedly Optimus Prime is just too awesome to contain and the rest of the Autobots still suck complete balls.

#4: Year of the Portman - This wasn't as big a deal as it seemed like it would be. She wasn't a huge presence in THOR (2011) and her other movies bombed hard. No Strings Attached (2011) was actually decent, but it left almost no pop cultural impact. Nothing else major except some Dior ads the rest of the year. Not great.

#3: Detox by Dr. Dre (February?, 2011) - "Kush" and then...wait was this even released? Last January this was slotted for February 2011? Are you kidding me, Dre? "I Need a Doctor" isn't even that good! Maybe that's why it's "back to the lab again." Keyshawn Johnson would give a big "C'MON MAN!" for that!

#2: The Return of Parks and Recreation (01/20/11) - Thank goodness, finally something on this list that turned out better than we even expected. This is not only one of the funniest shows on television, it's one of the best written, character-driven and genuinely warm and fuzzy half hours on the tube. It's that rare show where every single character is awesome and likeable and the humour doesn't come at the expense of anyone. Not even Jean-Ralphio.

#1: THOR (05/06/11) - This was pretty awesome. I enjoyed THOR tremendously despite the rampant commercialization, Avengers-tie ins, and worthless Kat Dennings characters. It kicked off Summer, along with a nice string of Marvel Property hits and could have easily slipped into Green Lantern (2011) territory. Ouch. I'm not sure a sequel is as necessary as Chris Hemsworth's ubiquitous presence in The Avengers (2012), but it's inevitable.

First Impressions: Sucker Punch

Alright, I saw this one. Zach Snyder's Sucker Punch (2011) is exactly what you expect from his directorial history, the trailers and hype. You may have a little doubt that it looks like a good movie, perhaps too much style over substance, a muddled plot and lots of sexy ladies. This is all absolutely true. This may have been the worst Zatch Flick I've ever seen (And I've seen all but that Owl Movie. What the hell), but that's not to say it's totally without merit. There are some interesting things going on here, I only wish they could be supported by a good film crafted around them.

I WAS unprepared for a movie this bad

As you're undoubtedly aware, I had a decently dim outlook going into this film and it didn't disappoint. This has become pretty divisive among the same spectrum - ultimately is this flick exploitative of women or empowering for them? Some interneteers strongly fall in the exploitative camp, others side with Zack's female defense. Go read both of those and then come back.

Welcome back. We'll get into that Lady Topic later, but let's first examine this film like any other film. Regardless of its message, it's really just not that good. The acting is pretty terrible and painfully flat, the script has a lot of problems, the dialogue is painful and the narrative is extremely weak, requiring layers and extended action sequences that are essentially hyperbolised metaphors to sustain the running time. It is just structurally a poor movie. This of course hurts its goals of showcasing a strong feminine action romp.

This should have been a great opportunity to display some strong female butt-kicking characters but none exist in this movie. Spoilers aside, Baby Doll, Sweet Pea and Rocket are the only substantial characters. As this film is built upon heavy obvious symbolism and various dream or false reality sequences, it is clear that Snyder symbolises their importance by giving them much more to do in the dream sequences. Blondie and Amber aren't more than plastic dolls, symbolised by Amber existing only to pilot various craft and Blondie having nothing to do ever. Their deaths aren't important. Carla Gugino is also worthless until the end. A film can't be empowering that features exchangeable female characters who die without the audience feeling anything. It's as if Zack is fridge-stuffing for girl power.

Let's even repeat those very distinguishing names again. Baby Doll. Sweet Pea. Rocket. Amber. Blondie. Absolutely interchangeable, mostly pet names (a man, Blue Jones the primary antagonist gives Baby Doll her name) which strongly implies that they are dependent on a world dominated by males. This is of course true in the context of the film, but since Zack's stated goal is female empowerment it's just too easy to call out bullshit. If they were empowered couldn't they very easily give each other different proper names? This akin to Black Slaves rejecting the names White Owners gave them for more African ones (and the brothel the girls perform in is easily likened to slavery - there are very easy allusions to be made here, Zack). I mean, Sweet Pea and Rocket are sisters - why don't they call each other the names their parents gave them? This may seem like a basic complaint, but names are everything, controlling names and world a the most basic forms of power. Thus at its most basic level, the men in this film have all the power. Again, this is clearly Zack's point and his goal is to have these ladies rise up and t
ake that power - but they need to start by changing the basics that the men have laid down.

Meet the disinterest stare of the new action hero

There is so much wrong with this movie. This is going to take forever. Baby Doll herself hardly speaks for the first thirty minutes and there isn't that much to her character at all. She's just this blank, pale slat. This is perhaps why at the end she literally deigns her existence as nothing more than another object to allow a more developed character (Sweet Pea) to escape. She also freely admits that this wasn't her story at all. Good enough - but if this is all true she's still incredibly uninteresting to watch for two fucking hours, Zack. That's one of the core issues here - as any review on the net has said - it's style over substance. The problem really is that good movies in this genre have both.

So at its core, the Characters in this film are terrible. What about the story though? Sucker Punch is a succession of weak narratives and extended metaphors to cover otherwise uninteresting plot points. The film exists as a few overlapping realities that connect to each other through symbolism and metaphors - such as the Map that exists in the same place in both the Mental Institution (Primary Reality), the Brothel (Secondary Reality) and World War I Front Lines (Tertiary Reality). The problem is that the crossover between these realities seems very arbitrary unlike the great importance it has in similar films like The Matrix (1999), Identity (2003) or Inception (2010). Hell, its basically a sexualised and heavily violent and cruel version of I Am the Cheese. I think I read that for my 7th Grade Language Arts class. Remember when English was called Language Arts and History was called Social Studies? Golly Gee.

Anyway, basically, it's very clear that the Primary Reality would have been more difficult to accept than the more real threat of the Secondary. Girls in a Mental Institution have less freedom than those in a Brothel, and it's harder to believe that the girls would have the success in retrieving their necessary items for escape. Actually now that I'm thinking of it, what the hell did they do in the Mental Institution to grab the lighter...or anything - is Baby Doll doing sexy dances to distract the male orderlies in the Hospital? Or is she really just being excellent through an extended Will Ferrell-like blackout. Back on track, all the Secondary Reality seems kind of pointless other than to support a weak core story. Ultimately there isn't much here - the core plot of Sucker Punch is a girl retrieving four objects in five days then sacrificing herself so another girl can escape. The thing is, tho it all seems dangerous, it's really not that difficult to retrieve each object. Thus we can say that the Fantasy Action Sequences while by far the most entertaining parts of the film aesthetically, are equally pointless. It's uninteresting that Amber just leans in and snatches a lighter from the Mayor's breast pocket. If Baby Doll pretends it's a dragon through super-metaphor power though, it becomes much cooler. In all it is really just a blanket for a weak story.

Also subtle Anime allusions

On that note, the action sequences are good but there's hardly any sense of danger. If you take some similar films I mentioned earlier like The Matrix or Inception that rely on dream sequences or otherwise alternate realities, they preserve a sense of constant danger. In The Matrix the Agents and Machines are established to be a constant fearsome threat. In Inception there is also constant danger mostly because the characters don't have super-abilities like in The Matrix or Sucker Punch. Their only advantages are planning ahead, making puzzles and not much else (that's why Inception tho dealing with dreams is still a very good movie - the danger and stakes are always present). Nothing seems frightening in Sucker Punch from the first time that Baby Doll single-handedly whoops the Three Samurai to her killing steam germans (a cool concept) and dragons. The only time it starts to unwind is when the circuitry fails when retrieving the knife and Rocket actually dies (figuratively and actually). This kind of scene should almost have happened earlier instead of later in the movie. That would demonstrate that their plan actually could go wrong and present something other than a straightforward cadence to the narrative. The movie sets up its stones so precariously though that if this were to happen early and the characters responded accordingly, the movie would fall apart. It's just a sign of really terrible writing.

Those are all some major problems. There's nothing smooth here anywhere to make up for it though. Zack goes out of his way to establish that they aren't killing any real people. The German steam zombies, the Orcs, the weird stone samurai and the Mechano-men all come conveniently without blood or guts. Was this to secure the PG-13 rating in an attempt to boost profits that would seemingly be lost if this was R? Studio pressure? It hasn't really had a whole lot of success anyway. The problems with this film are very very deep and the attempt at covering them up is laughable.

Also the nature of the film is very straight forward for the kind of film it is. Again, you're left feeling curious what the point of all those alternate realities were. There isn't a lot of room for ambiguity or a major reason to not believe that the Primary Reality was anything but the truth. The Bus Driver at the end played by The Wise Man is the only thing that may show that there's more to this movie than meets the eye as he exists at that moment outside of Baby Doll's imagination which seems to conflict with the predetermined rules of the movie (or does he? does she fabricate Sweet Pea's final escape? who knows, it's poorly written).

I hardly touched upon the sexuality here - in general, I don't really understand Zack Snyder's accusation that Geek Culture is sexist - they're just afraid of girls, man. Lay off. In my preview post I wondered outloud how this movie would be treated with an All-Male cast instead of an All-Female. Actually, keeping the same exact Brothel idea with all-boys is kind of interesting. Would escape be any less pertinent? More so, likely, but the gay joke would be far too easy in sloppy hands. If the genders were wholly exchanged, well, we know what happens.

Yeah but you should see it in Autumn!

And lastly can I just say this - why the fuck does everything need to be CGI? This flick was ridiculous, at this point I'm wondering if it really helps the atmosphere at all or detract from the suspension of disbelief. I'm really frustrated with this movie. I do think that the cultural concepts of his film deserve some more addressing, which seems to be all over the internet at the moment. As for now, regardless of its message...this is just a terrible movie in every way.

Although the battle scenes were pretty cool.

Will Sucker Punch Rise to Become the Greatest Jailbait Movie Ever?

Today we see the premiere of Zach Snyder's latest March Opus, Sucker Punch (2011). Needless to say we've been swarmed in their marketing the past few weeks and a few important aspects stand out to me. One is the highly impressive visual feast this flick promises. It looks like a Fanboy's dream: constant slo-mo, ninja, robots, dragons and some kind of classic hero's journey as far as I can tell. This last part is a bit more oblique though - how much of this story is really congruent and makes any kind of sense? In classic Snyder fashion, I doubt the story or characters will have all that much depth. The biggest thing I notice in this film, however, is the simple fact that this is ridiculous jailbait.

It's not just me, right? I'm almost embarrassed to get excited for this movie.There is thus a few things to discuss: First, let's talk about Jailbait. Urban Dictionary sums up the term quite nicely. Let's admit that in some genetic circumstances a young girl will biologically mature faster than her Chronological Age. Thus a 16-year old could really have the body of a 19-year old, but legally that girl's untouchable. Jailbait is thus a great tempter of older men who get these strange feelings in their balls but morally know that they shouldn't indulge (Well...ideally they know they shouldn't). Yes, the best answer is to wait, Ryan Reynolds. There are of course incidents involving men attracted to biologically 16-year olds babes but let's try not to admit that exists (fuck...it does). Let's quickly move on.

Now, throughout this post thus far I've been one-sided in describing the Jailbait relationship. Could this swing the other way - that is, older women creeping on younger guys? Yeah, this happens all the time, they're called Cougars, there's a fucking show about it, everyone's cool. It's an insane double standard to think about, really. Culturally, this practice is not only generally accepted but praised. See? I'm not sure if this facet fits into a male-dominated society, we still shun ourselves when we bang younger, but not older women. Of course in realty legally speaking there is no difference and if you're fucking a 15-year old of any gender, that's bad news bears my friend. Morally speaking as well.

So let's get back to Sucker Punch. The Official Synopsis offers a journey into the imagination of a young girl imprisoned against her will. There are some creepy connotations there but in all fairness it seems like more of a Journey of Independence than anything sexual. Then there's this trailer:



We already know that Snyder is a visual dude. Needless to say this film will rely heavily on the visuals and editing and the trailer's no different. There are many instances in these two and a half minutes of the sexualisation of a young girl, occasionally explicitly in the company of older men (0:22). Boobies (0:57) and mid-drifts (1:53) aside, most of this trailer implies an orphanage (0:44) or school (1:06) over a mental institution. What kind of mental institution has this may babes inside anyway? It's about the reclamation of power and escape from a male-imposed power structure. Part of that power, as I hinted at earlier, is the sexualisation of the girls.

The school girl uniform and pigtails really clinch it here. How can Zach be saying anything different? Now at this point it's worth our while to note that every young lady in this film is in fact the Age of Legal Consent. The youngest stars, Emily Browning and Vanessa Hudgens were born within a week of each other in December 1988 (You're damn right I made sure to look that shit up a long time ago), meaning when filming this flick they were pretty securely legal. What does that mean though anyhow? We have the right to ogle? To put their heads on other chick's naked bodies and sell them to Mr. Skin? Is it still wrong to be turned on by of-age girls clearly playing underagers? None of this gives me a great feeling in my testicles. Actually it's giving them an incredible feeling which is why my brain is so worried. It's basically the same as that Glee GQ shoot. The average age of a typical Glee Actor is closer to 30 than 20 but should I be popping a boner for this? Wait, I need that bigger.

That's better. Should we feel dirty, gentlemen? I'm not really sure. The actress is 24, the character is in High School. Uhhh....I just won't watch Glee. If you recall back in 2004 though, about the same thing as Sucker Punch happened with a little movie called Mean Girls, until recently widely known as the Greatest Jailbait Movie Ever Made. Like Sucker Punch, every girl in the movie is actually above 18 (Lindsay is actually borderline...Consent is actually 17 in New York, right?) and all of them have incredible racks. See - I feel dirty even saying that about a 26-year old playing a High Schooler! This isn't proper ground to tread.

I'm sure I'll get into this more after I actually see Sucker Punch, because it does look like a very cool film if not one that I feel comfortable getting as excited for it as I am. Considering Gender-Swapping, which can be enlightening, a movie about a group of boys that use their imagination to escape a mental institution seems interesting yet familiar. The young girl angle serves as empowerment against a male-dominated institution rather than a couple of boys bruising it out and the idea of an action flick starring a bunch of cute girls that truly isn't a chick flick sounds pretty awesome. I don't think it's truly gender neutral or anything, but like Toy Story 3 (2010) isn't necessarily a kiddie flick rather simply enjoyed by all people. Maybe (See also, Women in Trouble [2009]).

So after all this will the film do well with audiences? Like I said, no matter what the visuals may suggest or what momentous assumptions we may be able to glean from even a couple minutes of trailer footage, this film really doesn't look like it has much of a plot when you get down to it. Someone with...obviously no job actually made a nicely edited trailer starring Disney Princesses to the beats of Sucker Punch, and to be honest it makes an exactly equal amount of sense. Take a look. Love that Zep by the way, can't believe my favourite Zep song fits so well in this trailer. I'm really not sure who Sucker Punch appeals to. Little Girls? College Boys? Creepos in the back row with conveniently-placed boner-hiding popcorn bins? With any luck it's all three! Hey oh!

Sucker Punch opens everywhere today.