Showing posts with label franco. Show all posts
Showing posts with label franco. Show all posts

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Spring Breakers - Corn Dogs in his Hair


Spring Breakers

This was a scary movie. It was not the gratuitous T&A movie I expected. However, there were lots of T&A and enough six packs to stock a bodega. This movie was every parent’s night mare of spring break. The debauchery was epic. Guys were snorting blow from a girl’s belly button. Other guys were pouring beer from their crouch into the open mouth of girls between their legs. There was also the classic metaphor of a girl sticking a gun barrel in her mouth. One young woman was blitzed and half wearing a bikini  in a room with five guys wearing nothing but jock straps. Gee what could go wrong?

The four chicks in the movie were desperate to go on spring break. They were at some nondescript college in a nowhere town. They did not have enough money go so they resorted to extreme violence (that would serve them well later in the movie) to get the money. The goody-goody, Salina Gomez, aka Faith, did not participate in the money scheme.

They arrived in St. Petersburg Florida, which they though was heaven. Long story short they wind up in jail and Alien, played by that human chameleon James Franco, bails them out. Franco looks like a bleached out Snoop Dog. He has a shiny grill in his mouth, corn dogs in his hair and lots of bling. He is a gun totting drug dealer and wanna be rapper with a white baby grand piano by the pool and sings Brittney Spear songs. Obviously he is not from the Bronx.

Alien comes on to Faith. She is the youngest of the group but has the good sense to want to go home. She leaves her girlfriends behind who become Alien’s posse. At this point the movie splits. The first part had some redeeming value as a pseudo morality play but then it spirals into a kind of violent video game. The girls are transformed; neither money nor drugs excite them. Violence is their drug. A surreal episode was when the girls went to a gun fight wearing electric yellow string bikinis (do they make Kevlar bikinis?), pink baklavas, sneakers and clutching Tek9’s. At this point the movie became a cartoon.

The movie was not what I expected; still it was not entirely disappointing. I never experienced spring break and from this movie I am not sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing. See the movie and judge for yourself.

Monday, March 18, 2013

Oz, the Great and Powerful - The Thin Man? Really???


It is not a terrible movie or a great movie, it is a Disney movie. It is signature Disney with a lot of happiness sprinkled with some evil touches to keep the audience awake. This a prequel to the original Wizard of Oz. The main character Oscar Diggs (aka Oz) is transported to the Land of pre Oz, meets three witches and has a great battle to secure a sequel to the prequel.

Acting in this movie was not a push. If over acting was a currency James Franco would be a millionaire. For the three witches, Mila Kunes, Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams, their acting is unremarkable, and almost interchangeable, but they look really good doing it. The battles between good and evil are spectacular and are fun to watch.

Regrettably there was not much humor in this movie. The camaraderie of the Scarecrow, Thin Man and Cowardly Lion is sorely missed. It is difficult to imitate a classic without duplicating it. This Oz does not do it.

See this movie if you are into fantasy or nostalgic for the original Oz. As for the audience this movie is a bit scary (it’s those dam flying monkeys) so kids should be older than twelve years old, except kids from the Bronx older than five is OK.