Monthly Archives: March 2020

RIORI Presents Installment #176: Javier Aguirresarobe & John Hillcoat’s “The Road” (2009)

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The Players…

Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee, with Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, Garret Dillahunt, Micheal K Philips, Molly Parker and Robert Duvall.

The Basics…

A planetwide catastrophe has destroyed Earth’s ecosystem, and like the ancient dinosaurs humanity is gradually circling into extinction.

Fate means nothing to a desperate father doing his damnedest, by wit and grit, to protect his son in the aftermath. An endgame of no food, no bullets, no shelter and cannibalism eating away at what remains, figuratively and literally.

All that really remains is the road, a way towards some nonce of civilization. Location unknown, perhaps near the coast, if there is such a haven to be found.

It doesn’t matter, reality does, to a father driven to protect his son at any cost.

It’s something to live for. If only that.

The Rant…

Well, isn’t this timely?

I read something once by my wingman Stephen King when he re-released his ur-COVID-19 epic The Stand. The novel was published anew cleaned up and uncut, resulting in an sprawling tome of Armageddon clocking in at give-or-take 1200 pages. You get your money’s worth. It’s a very cool read, and a very accurate and sobering tale about the human race—what’s left of it—trying to adapt to the fact that civilization at large is gone. Now it’s time to start from scratch. Oh, and there’s a lot of weird supernatural hokum wrapped up in the culmination of the forces of good taking a stand against the forces of evil. Hey, I told you it was a Stephen King novel. Whad’ja expect? A quilting bee/unicorn cotillion?

What I read that stuck in my craw from King’s director’s cut didn’t come from the story proper. Not some pithy meditation from the hero about survival. Not a cautionary metaphor about science run amok. Not even some religious mumbo-jumbo about the Wrath of God and why those packets of airline peanuts are so gosh darn hard to open. Nope. I read it the foreword.

We’ve either read and/or seen a lot of stories about the end of the world. Some sociopolitical like The Day After. Some nihilistic and/or existential like the Mad Max series. Some metaphorical like The War Of The Worlds, Children Of Men, Deep Impact and countless in between. Some dumb as f*ck like Armageddon. All these movies have one factor in common, and King hit on it perfectly in his novel. Well, the intro actually.

I’ve long since lost my copy of the uncut version of The Stand (chances are the thing just feel apart after too much abuse), and the author penned the phrase perfectly, but the years have worn on and dammit I can’t remember it properly. Some of you might ask, “So why don’t you go out a buy a fresh copy?” Like everything else these days, from economic ruin to dandruff, thank the coronavirus. My workplace, like many, is closed indefinitely. A fresh book would be nice. Already had enough comics, dicking around in the kitchen, laundry, YouTube feeds and working my way through the Resident Evil series on my Nintendo, Zero thru 4. Things are so scattered these days little wonder why I can’t recall the quote. Besides, my online bank account was hacked twice in one month, so the PayPal balance is zero. This happen pre-quarantine, BTW and I fixed it which I why I didn’t call you. So don’t worry yourself none.

But I’ll try my best to recall that sentiment. King commented in the intro to his massive “dark chest of wonders” that when considering a story about the end of the world that you yourself would survive. That cast of imaginary thousands you argue with in the shower? Gone. All gone. Save you. Whenever we watch The Road Warrior, On The Beach or even A Boy And His Dog in the back of our minds we scream “This could never happen! Not to me!” Welp, a nasty, highly communicable virus is—at this time of writing—stirring up the soup all pandemic-like. King is being plagued, so to speak, about the allegory of The Stand all over the Net. Something akin to “Not me!” is feeling a little Pollyanna these days, and there was no kind of procedure to fix her legs back in 1913 by way of 1960, despite what Uncle Walt wanted you to believe.

It could happen. It has happened. It is happening, but not in a Captain Trips kind of way. 99.99% of humanity will come through this pandemic unscathed, the latest iteration of Mother Nature cleaning house. “You” will survive, but here’s the hairy dilemma about end-of-the-world scenarios. Sure, you made it. Now what? Everything you knew is gone. Friends and loved ones are gone. Hell, your job and your car and your online streaming and your f*cking Nintendo Switch is offline! Again, now what? It’s to be likened to the comic book super villain who finally conquers the world. So now what? Garden? Your robot horde did scorched earth to all the crops, and you’re f*cking Nintendo Switch if offline to boot!

Seriously though, considering the apocalyptic films mentioned above, with the assuredness of survival in some form dare grants the certainty of solitude. Being all alone, separated from the things that once made you whole, rudderless and craving fellowship. Few and far between in those movies. Good motivation, makes for good tension. There’s a lot to lose in such films about losing everything. Would you want to survive, and to what end? Many storytellers, not unlike King have tackled this penultimate existential matter: where to go from here? The ultimate answer is finality: giving up, remorse, regret and death. Not a pretty picture, but it sure does make for some compelling stories.

Me? At the end of the world? I think I’d be holed up in a subterranean bunker retrofitted from an abandoned missile silo in Kansas living off Spam canned during the Truman administration and still kicking around with my Nintendo (the NES. No Wi-Fi, remember). Or just plain dead, beaten to a pulp with empty bottles of bleach by loonies upset that by finally having to accept there will not be another Avengers movie.

Fatalistic? Yes. Realistic? Maybe. It would probably be better than the alternative. Meaning aimlessly wandering towards some scintilla of lingering civilization where you can be…what? No longer alone? No longer in exile? Free craft services? Nope. Human again, which got blasted to smithereens barely days ago that feel like years. Those imaginary years take their toll, and smirking at “Not me!” is a curse and not a boast.

For a sense of finality, Samuel Delany claimed, “Apocalypse has come and gone. We’re just grubbing in the ashes.”

And what are ashes? Spent. Nature’s final regard for all things spent.

*tumbleweeds skitter across the dusky webpage*

Bleak enough for you? You drink your daily dose of Purell this morning? I opt for Metamucil myself.

Now who wants s’mores? Better yet, how ’bout an inoculation?

Slow down there. Before we get to the usual cinematic thrashing it would be remiss for me to not spout some opinions about the outbreak itself. Everyone else has. WordPress is social media after all, and what good is social media if not for smearing panic, fear mongering, disinformation and cute cat videos? Everyone has an option on the nationwide quarantine thanks to our COVID-19 party crasher. I do too, but it’s not about infection and potential death lurking on every doorknob. I’m not worried about getting infected. Not really. I’m more concerned about people’s irrational behavior surrounding the virus, and what fear and ignorance can do en masse. I’d rather be laid up in an oxygen tent in some hospital than be trampled under foot getting the last bale of Charmin, dig?

Viruses are highly communicable, but relatively easy to avoid. You catch a virus by coming into physical contact with it, namely shaking hands or being sneezed on by the infected. All viruses are transmitted via physical contact. Be it the flu, the common cold, corona and let’s not forget HIV all travel alike. Avoid sick people and keep yourself clean and you’re more or less golden. All that hand sanitizer you be laving your body in? Doesn’t work. Doesn’t do squat against viruses. Read the bottle. It says antibacterial, not antiviral. I know that sanitizer is a quick fix when you can’t properly wash your hands, but it’s hardly a substitute. In fact, too much sanitizer is bad for your skin; dries it out, kills off good bacteria you need and renders your hands more susceptible to possible infection, and viruses love a good open wound.

And those surgical masks? You’re using them wrong. Apart from the fact that the majority of said masks are manufactured in China, they are not meant for fending off viruses. Surgical masks are meant for surgery, and it might be safe to claim that those are a final precaution when a patient goes under the knife to prevent infection. You know, in case  of the sniffles or the sterile environment of an OR with all those chemicals and filters might not be enough. You’ve seen on TV some throng of Asian people going about their day wearing masks, right? They’re not afraid of getting sick. They already are sick. Coughing and sneezing on people is a keen way to spread a virus, so using a mask is not just a courtesy but also alerts others to stay back. “Hey, they have a mask on. Give them a wide berth. It’s flu season, you know.” A surgical mask with protect you from corona as well as catcher’s mask would. I saw a guy at the store the other day wearing a safety mask, the kind a carpenter would wear to avoid accidentally inhaling sawdust. Insert facepalm here (along with the other guy pushing his cart wearing woolen mittens. It was 65 degrees that day). The only benefit those masks may have is keeping your gooey fingers away from your infectious gob so you don’t accidentally wipe a booger on a sick person.

This low-level fear I can tolerate, barely. Whet gets me in a twist is hearing about how Cabela’s can’t keep ammo in stock, or morons have quit drinking Corona cerveza mas fina for reasons other than it sucks, or “religious” groups come oozing out of the sociopolitical sewer with hatespeak about (insert disenfranchised minority group here) is the cause of this plague, beating their Bibles with the Book of Revelation all gone over with a highlighter, or our Prez and his cronies really starting to feel a tad silly about certain budgetary cuts to educational and scientific resources. This isn’t The Andromeda Strain, but I’m pretty sure the CDC’s version of pre-flight instructions got lost in the shuffle.

There. Still not bleak enough? No fear, now we come to movie part. Ready?

The Story…

We have a father (Mortensen) and we have his son (Smit-McPhee) at the edge of the world. The end of the world. What life remains is hard and terrible. There is no government, no order, no medicine, no food, nowhere.

We have this fragile family shuffling down a road in search of some sanity. There’s a shortage of that also. We have roving tribes of survivors out for food, ammo, gasoline and preying on the weak and the halt. We have a father guiding his son along the ways of this ruined world, where starvation and suicide is standard operating procedure as are the lost ideals of a republic of men as only fantasy for his son in the wake of the apocalypse.

We have this bonding endure, because we all have an undying faith in when the right people come together, community may thrive.

For now, we will have to get by eating dead insects and keep on moving down the road.

The Breakdown…

Not so fast.

Watching The Road reminded me of something about directing a film. I’ve always been kinda confused about how a seamless film gets made (save editors) with two directors, like The Road did here. I’ve seen a few of these movies, and to merit they’ve all be pretty good, if not sometimes great. Wayne Wang’s collaboration with author Paul Auster with Smoke, Faxon and Rash’s The Way, Way Back, George Miller teaming up with George Ogilvie for a kinder, gentler, weirder Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and the Wachowski Brothers’ Matrix series (well, the first one anyway). Most Disney and Pixar animations work this way as well. There are many more collaborations I haven’t seen, but they got done. How? How in synch do two filmmakers have to be in order to have a shared vision about what their final product should be? A lot of creative vibes and a lot of compromising is my guess. Probably a lot of hair pulling, too.

So how’s it get done? I stumbled onto this forum on Quora that was pretty spot on. Yes, fair compromises must be made, as well as more than a few concessions. If the directing pair have a good rapport—kind of like between the Coen Brothers—then the final product is paramount, not egos clashing. Guess overall it requires focus.

Boy howdy, co-directors Aguirresarobe and Hillcoat were very focused in constructing The Road. After watching this, I got the serious impression that they read the McCarthy novel many times, and labored over recreating the harrowing tale of survival on film. No easy task, and I never read the book, but I feel without their shared focus this movie could’ve fallen apart like a house of cards slicked with Vaseline. That falling apart feeling is the feel of the film and the feel of the direction. It’s all a good thing, to tell a story like The Road‘s.

These co-directors do. Okay, if you wanna get technical Aguirresarobe was ostensibly the cinematographer, and there is a bit of debate about his actual directorial contribution to the movie. I feel the credit is due because how crucial using landscape was in telling the story. Framing everything just right? Duh, that’s a cinematographer’s job and savvy. With The Road, the blasted landscape of scorched earth is every bit as essential to telling the story as is the story proper. The Road is a survival tale, but all that monochrome was sickening (in a good way), and who else makes sure the camera work flows seamlessly. Right. A great portion of the movie reminded me of the third act of Full Metal Jacket, what with all the burnt out buildings, smoke and scree everywhere. “I am in a world of sh*t,” Private Joker stated. If you think about it Kubrick’s Vietnam epic is a tale of survival, too. Washed out and grey makes for good grimness it appears as well as a dreadful feeling of no way out. The Road never suggests one. That’s its design.

The Road is certainly grim enough. The “post-impact” world Viggo and Kodi journey through is a washed-out, ruined ecosystem of a planet that is dying. It’s implied at the film’s outset that some natural cataclysm occurred—a massive meteor strike like the Chicxulub impact event that wiped out the dinosaurs—and the ensuing landscape the two traverse sure seems that way. Trees broken in two like matchsticks, dust storms, always cold and always in half-light. Humanity is going by way of the dinosaurs: slouching towards extinction. It’s a harrowing movie to watch—the Nick Cave/Warren Ellis soundtrack sure goes the distance—and our star Viggo is eloquent in reciting McCarthy’s story of survival and loss.

You ever see a film that starred a certain actor that no one else could’ve more ideal for the part? Al Pacino as Micheal Corleone. Judy Garland as Dorothy Gail. Heck, even Heath Ledger as the Joker? Viggo was built to play his part. Literally. According to the IMDb: “To live the role [he] would sleep in his clothes and deliberately starve himself. At one point, he was thrown out of a shop in Pittsburgh, because they thought he was a homeless man.” Truth be told, Viggo didn’t exactly starve himself. He started shooting at a base weight and just ate less and less as the filming went on. That’s dedication, and the gaunt lines and grime on his face shows it. Some ideal actors relish their roles and as the audience you could not pick a better Randall P McMurphy in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest than Jack Nicholson. Viggo looks like his role hurts, not enjoying it at all and making it look natural. That homeless man story I find curious because the cafe owner’s didn’t recognize him? I thought the Lord Of The Rings movies were big ticket, that or the man got his, pardon the pun, road work down pat.

Sorry. Moving on to the other side of the Father’s coin.

Kodi was a very good foil for Viggo. Father is all worn out, sick and still able to remember Earth as it was before the vastator arrived and ruined everything, which beyond parental obligation is something that he tries to cling to as a vestige of his humanity: the way it was. The Son was raised in this world, so abnormal has always been the norm for him. He’s always wide-eyed, questing, always seeking guidance from his Father who is all too grave to not tell his son the truth. Or what he makes it out to be. Truth is there are no rules in this trashed world, just survive. To what end is ambiguous, and the Son is constantly probing. Are they the good guys? Father isn’t so sure, but at least that notion is keeping his only child holding on. One on the ascent crossing one on the descent, and neither the twain shall meet.

If there were any messages in The Road (intentional or accidentally) they totally depended on your view of humanity at large. I’m pretty cynical, but not a pessimist. What’s the difference? Here’s where I draw the line: a pessimist thinks the world sucks. A cynic thinks the world could do better. That’s a slight message The Road might’ve been aiming at. Despite all the pervasive gloom and doom The Road traffics in there is an undeniable glimmer of hope in the ashes. That might be a ruse just to keep the tension up and be baited, but I think the palsied optimism Viggo had and Kodi was searching for allows us to keep up the chase. Perhaps it’s the relatable aspect of family. Namely, being a dad is tough. I’m one, and we’re always kinda second-class citizens to moms. Well, the mom here REDACTED in the first act, not long after REDACTED, so the Father had to fill twin roles, provider and nurturer. Viggo is clearly stressed about going it alone, but Kodi (who has more than a slight resemblance to Theron) is his mother’s child, and reminded Viggo of this with every clutching question about where to find the next meal or maybe a tank of gas for a non-existent vehicle. Viggo’s Father serves one purpose: provide, beyond the pale. By the second act I stopped taking notes and just watched. There was a lot to take in.

The Road must’ve been the most unglamorous end-of-the-world epic ever. And one of the best I’ve ever seen. Sure The Road lacks any elan of Mad Max, The Matrix or even The Day After. It needs none. It’s dismal, brusque, unassuming delivery is enough. I watched most of the film with a hand covering my mouth. Not out of getting nauseous (and there were plenty of scenes that invited that). According to the dictionary of body language “the hand covers the mouth as the brain subconsciously instructs it to try to suppress the deceitful, or in other cases unintended, words that are being said.” Namely, I did not want to believe that what The Road was informing me was correct. The film was an unfortunate and terribly realistic image about our extinction as a species yet still struggling to matter as being human. The human factor was never lost with The Road. Unlike other post-apocalyptic films, the “end of the world” is merely a backdrop to serve as a McGuffin (EG: Mad Max again, or the re-iterations of I Am Legend) to drive the story. We are in the belly of the hungry beast in The Road. Consequences are dire, life is cheap, survival is terrible and the endgame is…what? Hopelessness? Despair? A journey to the coast?

No. Retaining some sliver of the “nobility” of being human. We’re the only species (maybe barring elephants) that are aware our existence is fragile and finite. If we’re wise, we know that every moment matters. Every warm meal, every soft bed, every orgasm, handshake, favorite band, good book, memory matters. Ultimately Viggo and Kodi remind us of that for going without and within. No matter what the terrain.

Oh BTW, heaven forbid I get do sick: you were right, I was wrong, I’m outta TP and Corona is still a sh*tty beer.

The Verdict…

Rent it or relent it? Rent it. Not the definitive post-apocalypse movie, but pretty close. Now go wash your hands.

The Stray Observations…

  • “Why are you taking a bath?” “I’m not…”
  • I liked the small details in the first act of things getting increasingly dire, like the stocking up of batteries and other non-perishables. Minor details that helped build tension.
  • “Two left.” Grim.
  • Literally caught with his pants down. The only vestige of humor here.
  • Piano. Out of tune.
  • “It’s foolish to ask for luxuries in times like these.” And how.
  • The weevil bit. Not that subtle, but effective for the curious.
  • “Are we still the good guys?

The Next Time…

We hit the slopes a la Meatballs at a ski lodge where the resident slashers are usually knocked Out Cold on beer, weed and dwindling lift ticket sales.

Who’s up for double diamond?

 

RIORI Presents Installment #175: Harmony Korine’s “Spring Breakers” (2013)

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The Players…

Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson and Rachel Korine, with Gucci Mane and James Franco.

The Basics…

Spring break. It’s when all the lucky college kids get cut loose from their classes for an idyll on some sunny seashore drenching each other in suntan oil, alcohol and semen. Good, wholesome entertainment to let the pent up collegiate steam loose. If you can afford such debauchery on the beach.

Faith and her friends can’t. They’re broke, but they get it into their heads that unless they have a proper spring break they’ll be nothing but the outcasts they claim to be. But how to get some fast cash and get the hell outta Dodge?

Easy. Knock over the local Tex-Mex joint and abscond with the loot all the way to Miami. Or Aruba. Or jail?

Talk about getting away with getting away with it all.

The Rant…

I never had a proper spring break in college. By proper I mean never a vacation to sunny climes. I either went home or visited my girlfriend. Why? One: I was always broke, and; two, free laundry. I said I was always broke. Could never afford a week-long jaunt to sunny Hawaii. Truth be told I never saw the point. Just to get a week off of school was nice. That and getting stains out of things.

Yes, I visited that girl on occasion. She lived in rural Massachusetts, and no, there wasn’t any beach nearby (and if there was it was March in rural Mass. Wanna go count the mounds of slush on I-95?), but she was a spit away from the college/mafia town of Providence, RI. When Brown University let out its sigh, there were lots of cool shops to hang out at without the usual clogging. There’s something about the shopping district around a college that oozes with possibility of finding something neato in the underbrush that would usually be teeming 51 weeks out of the year. Cafes. Record Stores. Army surplus. May not have be Ixtapa, but I could locate a few pairs of Chuck Taylors in colors that forbade a sensible purchase, which came to around $25. That’s a month’s laundry money, BTW.

Did I want a “proper” spring break? Nope. Beyond the financial matters, I couldn’t justify the need to travel afar only to get pished, laid and sunburnt in some Olympic fashion as R&R from a syllabus. Minus the laurel crown I could do such dissoluteness at school, or rural Mass come to think of it. Sure, getting really away from it is all is great, even necessary once in a while, but when I go on a rare vacation, I don’t want to bring home (as well as the routine there) along for the ride. I travel light, thanks.

Way, way back in The Way Way Back installment I spoke of how vacations, especially those with family, can become a real drudge. You can’t really cut loose and be yourself when mom and dad have you in tow (along with several other generations of unknown relatives, strangers and hangers-on from the parking lot). That must be what the idea of spring break is so appealing, besides booze, babes and beaches. Sure, going to college is the first time “away” from everything for the lucky few, but the luckier few may afford spring break to get away from “themselves” for a while. Or worse turn into themselves for a week, and I ain’t talking nothing ’bout inner reflection.

I remember as a youth back when MTV blah blah blah was interrupted by going live to the scene of the crime: MTV Spring Break. Instead of getting the usual heavy rotation of Pearl Jam’s delightfully disturbing video for “Jeremy,” I had to endure Sodom by the sea with TLC’s sweet “Creep” oozing from somewhere out in the sand. Could’ve been Miami, could’ve been Aruba, could’ve been a sound stage for all I knew. What I learned from all this basic cable televised postcard from sunny bacchanalia was this: college kids’ll do all sorts of stupid things in front of a camera (and this being before social media, my catfishing friends) and the camera laps it up and spits it out. Then it was into my lap. I’m not badmouthing spring breaks, not at all. Let me tell you, due to lake effect climate any time to get away from the chilly gloom of overcast March in Central New York is always welcome, if not essential to maintaining a degree of sanity. It could get so grey somedays that I figured if I slugged a prof square in the nose I get to see some color ooze from his inflamed nostrils. Just saying. And since I was too broke or too afraid of melanoma I went back home to the sunny climes of Southeast PA, where there we fresh leaves on the trees and I could enjoy a Hershey’s Special Dark as a treat and not a K ration to ward off hypovitaminosis D. Did I mention that vital free laundry?

What I had to endure on MTV until my next fave video of the time came on (the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage,” natch) was a bunch of buzzed, well-tanned, gyrating co-eds wearing bikinis made of what appeared to be unwaxed dental floss. Again, not badmouthing. It just all seemed overrated. Vacations are a need now and again, and destination vacations can be something of an adventure. In the vein of The Way Way Back all that spring break had a lot of baggage to me. Besides escaping the drudgery of classes for a week, what’s the big deal? It’s akin to a girl’s Sweet 16 party; and the big deal is? Guys don’t get a sweet 16. You’re old enough to drive now, that’s good. Cotillions went out of fashion when Hitler was a struggling art student. You don’t always need a vacation, but they sure are welcome in times of stress. You don’t need a reason to party, nor do you have travel afar and snort up Euros to have an “adventure.”

Must be some status symbol. It ain’t cheap to hog an entire Caribbean idyll for 7 days, but since the ‘rents are footing the bill go hog wild. Whether a camera crew will be there to cover the whole wad…well, no. That’s what smartphones are for: to document dumb things. And onto Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and the FBI fingerprint database we go go go. Must look good to all us yutzes with fresh sheets and nowhere else to go come springtime. Might make the underprivileged feel left out of the loop, all that sun and fun and…well, freedom! Freedom to get trashed with impunity. Free to sleep (or at least pass out) on the beach. Free to get into all kinds of mischief, proper and/or unhealthy. Maybe even if you get lucky, it could wind up criminal.

Criminally free!

So for instance, let’s consider Faith and her posse’s dilemma.

The Story…

Everyone needs some time to blow off steam. A break from the norm. A break period. This goes for overextended parents, overworked social media specialists, overtaxed teachers and their burnt out students alike. Especially students at the college level what with day in/day out lectures, papers, study groups, insomnia, too much Red Bull and not enough White Claw. That’s what spring break is for. To get away from it all, break from the norm and blow off billowing clouds of steam. At least, that’s what Faith’s friends are all about.

Faith (Gomez) is understood to be a “good girl.” Studious, spiritual and unremarkable. She always seems just outside of her social circle of Brit, Candy and Cotty (Benson, Hudgens and Korine, respectively), who are privately wild but are too broke—all are too broke—to cut loose escape their humdrum coed lives. Typical. The good life always just out of their reach, or simply some time in the sun.

As spring break approaches, Faith gets it stuck into her head that unless she and her BFFs get a spring break themselves, regardless of their lack of funding, something’s gotta give. Faith has always been, well, one of the faithful, but her code of conduct has kept her from breaking loose for the past three years. Whether under pressure from her crew or the Word, Faith gets a hot nut to tear off to Sodom by the sea in sunny Florida. But there still is the more issue. How to scare up some cash fast? Ask Grandma for more birthday money?

Nope. Let’s knock over the local taco joint. All four of us. Smash and grab. Whaddya say, girls?

To quote Elwood Blues: “We’re on a mission from God.” We need to get away with getting it all.

The four pull off their scheme, and now have enough dough for fun in the sun. However as we all should understand, power corrupts. The rush of being criminals have left the taste of wanting more in Faith’s friends, and Faith just wants to lie in. Nope. Not if demented, curious pusher “Alien” (Franco) has his way. And his way is very sketchy and very charismatic. These fresh pieces of chicken have had a taste of the wild life, and Alien wishes to utilize their “talents.”

Faith has had enough. Her ideal spring break has stretched beyond a week, and no one can say why we can’t all go home?

Power, corruption and lies. Like Cotty says, “Spring break forever, bitches…”

The Breakdown…

Oh. My Lord.

All right, let’s talk about trash films. I don’t mean “trashy” films, they all ramshackle, lo-fi and accidentally deviant. I’m talking about “trash films” as a genre. I’m talking (and bowing) to the likes of ugly auteurs—and their cinematic spawn—like Paul Morrissey, Andy Warhol and the godfather John Waters. Misfits who cooked up such bad taste to celluloid that you could never unsee them. And wouldn’t want to. “Deviant” as pejorative as a salute of respect. Such calculated garbage was both decried and embraced as art (not that they would ever agree). It was cohesive smut with a solid story, a keen acumen or purpose and actors willing themselves to be willing. The matter that the matter of their final product was about sh*t taking a sh*t and then consuming said sh*t cries…

Sh*t happens? Well, okay. Onto the next act. Wipe away any excess KY from your lobes. Smile!

Director Korine is a fanboy. Or as Warhol would utter, “a dilettante.” And trying too damned hard to offer up satire and trash as social commentary with all the nuance of a Karen Carpenter diet plan. My first hyper-judgmental reaction to Breakers that it was stupid, but maybe I might have been too soon to count it out. I mean, there was a bit of a hullabaloo when this thing got released, but as I watched and kept watching I learned that its content and story were the driving force behind all Breakers‘ reputation. Me? I found it trying very hard to pander to an audience that was sketchy at best versus Tarantino on estrogen.

No. The real deal squeal was that the sweet, little Disney darling Selena Gomez was in an R-rated movie about she and her friends doing bad, bad things. I’m not gonna expound on that…much. Look, the woman was 20 years old when she starred in Breakers, many, many miles away from Waverley Place. Deal. Even Shirley temple grew up to be an ambassador, a role even more mature that Selena cavorting about in a bikini for 90 minutes (all right, that and playing with illegal firearms). The whole shaming/blowback of Gomez’ script selection is akin to Nickelodeon’s Jennette McCurdy of iCarly infamy. Her spin-off show more or less hit the skids due to bad PR about the Internet leaking naughty images of McCurdy. What?!? On the Internet?!? That never happens, and she was only 21 at the time! For shame Sam fans, and quick! Clear your browsing history!

What is it about grown Disney actresses that they feel it necessary to star in a never subtle trashy flick to declare their independence as a “serious actor?” Not to mention crawling out from under the image of the House Of Mouse (EG: Lohan, Lovato and now Gomez and Hudgens)? I suppose it’s that years of portraying wholesome young Disney ingenues may result in typecasting. That and playing such roles can get pretty darn boring. Not challenging. What better way to cut all ties with a turn in a flick like Breakers? Or like Twisted Nerve? Or like The Canyons? All of these movies are a U-turn from their starlets Disney beginnings. Not all of those films are trashy, per se, but an extreme breakaway from family-friendly fodder. And a lot of those “grown-up” roles in “mature” films have a lot of creakiness and growing pains. You can take the girl out of the theme park, but…

That being said, in some respects Breakers is self-aware and anti-Disney…to a degree. We’re not busting on Herbie: Fully Loaded here, not trashing any Disney formula or legacy. Director Korine is (with a heavy hand) decrying all that is romanticized about spring break—if, based on my teen TV watching habits, there is such a theme—and plays the “very bad things” with the elan of an 80’s teen sex romp, complete with the jarring MTV editing and/or Tangerine Dream-esque soundtrack. It’s all been done before and a lot better. Subtly can go a very long way, rather than this ham-fisted cautionary tale.

Yes. Breakers is at its core a “trash film” with a conscious. There is nothing to glorify these nymphets criminal acts and hyper-sexed debauchery, but nothing beneath warning that Gomez and company are gonna get busted. No sense of retribution of any kind, which leaves the plot open-ended and rambling. Really, the whole wad got less interesting when Gomez—ostensibly the reason butts got into seats here—went up and REDACTED, and then the gyre began to widen. If there is a message Korine was reaching for here is a forced “say so long to your youth.” Trash film and social commentary don’t marry well. Unless they do, but they don’t here.

Overall, I had a difficult time understanding where director Korine was taking me. Granted I probably wasn’t the target audience; I dislike Meghan Trainor, find White Claw to be Kool-Aid for the Bukowski set, gave up on my Instagram account long ago and never saw any iteration of the High School Musical franchise. In short, didn’t really care that Gomez and Hudgens starring in this pastiche. Just wanted to see the fallout, and The Standard was screaming at my to obey. The pacing was languid—sluggish would be a better word—the girls had no personality (they call could be interchangeable) and the story didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense. This was a PG T&A cakewalk with some T, rudderless story that dies in the second act and a short bus version of a John Waters trash film ethos. The difference there is snappy trash and morbid, moribund trash. Gloomy does not equal edgy here.

On a bright note, Franco stole the (small) show with his turn as Alien. He had fun with role, chewing scenery with a Shatner-like aplomb, only creepier. And is he ever creepy, right down to those nasty trailer park dreads and his garish grille. Beyond creepy, he sure as sh*t was committed to the role; you can barely recognize him here. Perhaps a similar motivation drove Franco to take the role after being cast as a lovable goofball ever since Whatever It Takes. Heck, the only sorta edgy role prior to Breakers is his PG-13 portrayal of Harry Osborn in Spider-Man 3. If Franco was champing at the bit for a role of extreme makeover Breakers was it (and his play with Mane was delight, albeit dark but the most animation that came from this trifle). While Gomez accidentally stumbled onto edgy territory for just being herself (read: there), Franco threw the kitchen sink out of the window. He left a bad taste in my mouth, and that’s a good thing here.

The best description in the endgame I’d apply to Breakers is an attempt at Korine trying to be Michael Mann from the 80’s for the 21st Century. Grim, gritty and blurry with synths. But a lack of real substance in this trash film does not make it have substance. Granted, Devine eating doggie-doo does not have the cachet of Joe Pesci’s “how am I funny” improv rap, but both scenes are similar because they are both hard-to-take, kinda frightening and cannot be unseen. That, and they’re both relevant to the story writ large. Weak tantalizing does not a good trash film make, especially if making an obvious buck is sort overt with Breakers.

Look, truth be told, I didn’t want to watch Breakers. Yes, it fell under the aegis of The Standard and I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t curious about how Alex Russo/Beezus handled herself in a big girl role, but my cynicism demanded justification. It was justified and now I wanna watch that old ep of Walker: Texas Ranger when Gomez was just a glint in Disney’s cash register.

And remember, like RIORI Chuck Norris never sleeps. He waits. Hopefully for a better movie than Breakers.

The Verdict…

Rent it or relent it? Relent it. A hoodwink. Not only Gomez is still just Gomez, but the story is a lame MTV weekend.

The Stray Observations…

  • “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
  • The opening montage perfectly illustrates why other countries hate America.
  • Is that an El Camino?
  • Alien: the “anti-Wooderson.” Alright?
  • Every sort of sexual perversion, and yet—and yet—no dick shots.
  • Alien: actually the “anti-Logic.”
  • Makes my tits look bigger.” That’s it. We’re done here.

The Next Time…

We go on The Road with Viggo Mortensen, looking for America and unable to find it anywhere.

No. Really. Literally anywhere.