Tag: James Franco

Fucking finally. Those are the words I said when I sat down to watch The Interview. I mean…fuck! What month is it? September? 2015?

The Interview was supposed to come out on Christmas of 2014 (after being pushed back from October to re-edit a little bit to make it better for NK), and I first saw a trailer for it way before all this North Korea bombing controversy happened. I was stoked to see it. I was sad when my screener was cancelled. I cheered on the good fight from Alamo Drafthouse saying that they would still show the film. And then it was on VOD like, right away and Netflix probably within a month of that. So it has been easy for me to consume and watch an review for over 9 months.

And I am just now reviewing it. What the hell happened? Why did it keep leaving my point of view and get pushed back? As a real answer, January I specifically put a lot of effort into finishing my best/worst of 2014 year lists, then I had to worry about watching all the rest of the Oscar nominees. Then I just forgot.

So without to much more delay, I am presenting you with a review of The Interview to kick off my “Fucking Finally” review week! Not just a bunch of movies I should have watched a long time ago, but movies that have been super available to watch and I somehow just didn’t do it.

I just couldn’t handle the fake smiles and forced friendships

Dave Skylark (James Franco) is the host of Skylark Tonight. He is very outspoken, in your face and not much of a professional. The good news is that he doesn’t have to be professional, because all he does is interview celebrities and talk gossip. He is an entertainment journalist, the lowest of the lows. Kind of like being a movie reviewer!

Aaron Rapaport (Seth Rogen) is his very good producer who has recently reached 100 episodes with the show. Wow, 1000 episodes of making technically shit TV, but it used to be even bigger shit before he came along. He never thought he would be doing this. He thought he would be a serious producer for serious news programs that actually made a difference in the world.

That is when they find out that North Korean leader, Kim Jung Un (Randall Park), is a big fan of Skylark Tonight! He also recently secured nuclear warheads and is waving them around like a metaphorical dick to the rest of the world. By just making a few phone calls, they are able to set up an interview with the Supreme Leader and a free trip to North Korea! Sure, they have to ask pre-approved questions and are limited what they can talk about, but it might elevate Skylark Tonight to be an important news program! Sure this interview will suck, but other political people will have to accept their invites if they interviewed friggan Kim Jung Un!

Enter the FBI (Lizzy Caplan, Reese Alexander). They want them to kill Kim Jung Un, using advanced poison technology that will in no way bring it back to them or the USA. Oh what a fun trip this will now be!

Also featuring Diana Bang as the NK Chief Propagandist, and Timothy Simons as a worker on the show who is just a super yes man.

Radio communication devices are always 100% effective next to each other.

If there is one thing The Interview had going against it, it could in no way ever live up to the hype that began to surround it. North Korea allegedly threatening to bomb movie theaters if they showed the film? (This of course, unconfirmed, as it was a message from the Sony Hackers, who probably weren’t actually North Koreans and just fucking with people). I mean, we had the POTUS speak out about free speech and wanting the movie to be shown! If a movie threatens the security of America, it better be the funniest, most crass piece of work ever done!

And guess what? It wasn’t. When boiled down to the essentials, it is only mildly offensive (barely) and average in humor. People judge comedy films much harsher if they aren’t full on spectacles, so an average comedy is generally seen as bad or a waste of time. Remember The Guilt Trip? Of course you don’t. That was an average comedy forgotten by time. The Interview won’t be quickly forgotten thanks to the months of free press the film got. But it definitely wasn’t a huge Sony conspiracy either. They lost millions upon millions over the hack and probably didn’t make all the money they had hoped for The Interview either. Although, it is their biggest movie in terms of money made through online distribution, so it has that going for it.

Ahem. Where were we? Oh yeah. The acting in the movie is fine, Franco was a completely different person (or a more exaggerated Franco, hard to say). Rogen was his normal self. Park did an interesting Un (is that the last name? I have no idea how it works in North Korea). Bang was pretty good in her role and the FBI was more or less irrelevant.

There are a lot of long scenes, a double edged sword. If you don’t find the current joke funny, it will stand out and be awkward. I don’t have to finish the second half of that statement I think. You get it by now.

Either way, I think the main reason I avoided it for so long is because I knew it couldn’t live up to the hype and knew I might not like as much as I had hoped.

2 out of 4.

True Story is a True Story! And given the cast, it is going to be a hilarious romp about a real life situation that is probably grossly exaggerated!

Or or or or! No, maybe this is a pseudo-sequel to This Is The End? Our main characters playing themselves, maybe pre-Apocalypse!

Wait. What? This is a Drama/Thriller? But but…the cast. This doesn’t make sense.

I think I need a moment before I write this review. Please close the page and come back in ten minutes to finish it to let it all sink in.

We can wait all day.

Michael Finkel (Jonah Hill) is a reporter for the New York Times and Christian Longo (James Franco) is a prisoner who maybe murdered his wife and three kids!

Basically twins. Finkel only learns about Longo after he was found in Mexico, using Finkel’s name as an alias. Finkel had his own problems, like maybe fabricating details of a story about African refugees to make it sound worse for one guy. But at least his problems don’t involve murdering his family.

So Finkel heads over to Longo in prison to figure out his story. Figure out why he was using his name. Figure out what lead him to his current situation. You know, the mind of a killer. Or the mind of someone in a terrible situation. Hey, that’d be a good book probably. Finkel should write it. Yeah.

And Felicity Jones is in this movie! The main 3 all Academy Award nominated people! She is Finkel’s wife. And Ethan Suplee is in this movie! Not nominated though. And not a wife.

If prison movies have taught me anything, men can be wives as well.

This movie is directed by Rupert Goold. Haven’t heard of him? Well, this is his first movie, his only other directing coming from two TV shows of British TV. I think for a first time movie, he did a good job.

Now, the first third to maybe even half felt incredibly slow to me. And a drab boring. It was reducing me to close my eyes quite frequently. Despite that, throughout the film the shots were normally set up beautifully. Good framing and a lot of longer shots allowing the actors to act.

At times, it did feel like too much though. Too much time of characters just staring off into distance, feeling angsty, with dark brooding music. Too much of the film trying to turn it into a bigger mystery than it really ended up being. It doesn’t help that Franco’s character has the slowest talking voice ever.

It was an okay movie, and again, some of the acting was top notch at some point. Felicity Jones felt mostly wasted outside of one pretty intense scene. Some very good visuals. But really a movie I probably wont want to see again for a long time.

Shit. Do any pictures of this movie exist that aren’t just of these guys talking at a prison? Looking accross the internet that is basically it, minus a courtroom picture or two of Franco, but they look the same as well given the outfits.

Oh here’s another.

2 out of 4.

I can’t believe I almost forgot about Homefront! Maybe because it doesn’t feel like a holiday movie? No idea. But this was the last movie I had on my mind when I went to go see movies coming out before Thanksgiving.

I guess what I am really saying is that a Red Dawn remake made a bit more sense than Homefront for the holidays.

Don’t stare too long. You will start assuming the smoke is some sort of strange facial hair.

Phil Broker (Jason Statham) is a former DEA agent. He is an excellently skilled fighter, in hand to hand combat and in gun shooting, sure, but really he was terrible at his job. The movie opens with him undercover in a Biker gang, four years of work. They are doing a drug bust finally, and from what I can tell as a movie viewer, he does everything wrong. Like reveal that he is undercover to the people he is bringing down, instead of pretending to get arrested too. He goes on a full on chase, and it ends with the death of the leader’s son, and the leader locked away.

So of course Phil goes into retirement and hiding. It is actually unclear if it was necessary, I guess. Because it isn’t witness protection, he just moves to a middle of no where place in Louisiana (which is somehow still in that same biker gang’s turf). So I don’t think he is hiding too hard.

Well, he lost his wife, and is now a single dad, with his daughter Maddy (Izabela Vidovic). He just wants to live a peaceful life, but there are rednecks here who hold grudges over the smallest things. Like when Maddy beats up a Bully, after warning him. So his parents (Kate Bosworth, Marcus Hester) hate Phil now.

So the brother in law, Gator (James Franco) gets involved, a local meth dealer boss here. So of course he knows people, has connections, blah blah blah. The tiny event turns big, and now the biker gang knows where he is, and people might die.

Annnd that’s about it. Winona Ryder plays a former crack whore (that’s the movie term, not mine), Omar Benson Miller a friend of Phil, and Clancy Brown the local sheriff.

Believe it or not, his character is not high right now.

So, right from the beginning, this movie began to disappoint. The undercover bust was one of the worst attempts at catching a criminal base that I ever saw. First, somehow their tactic included kill, not apprehend, as many of the gang members as possible. They took out the lights way before they were in position. The only prisoner they got was the leader, which is almost pointless. And of course Phil gave himself away at the first opportunity and didn’t even try to stay undercover.

I guess they had to find a bad way to get the movie started.

But after that, this was mostly a bad drama/action movie without a lot of the thriller moments implied from the trailer. With the trailer and the title being Homefront, they showed a lot of Statham in his house, preparing to defend it from a huge amount of attackers. A nice home invasion story, which would be the conclusion. Well, it wasn’t the conclusion, and he didn’t stay in the house. Right when they got there, he left the house, and then they did a bunch of shooting in the woods. The shooting itself went super quickly, and was in the dark, so we couldn’t see a lot of how it went down, depriving me of the action I deserve.

The drama components were bad. Too many scenes were tense for no reason. Statham was a huge dick to the local sheriff, who just wanted to know what was going on. Absolutely no reason.

He was a dick. And he wasn’t entertaining for me. That is all. Waste of potential of a movie. Franco was decent though.

1 out of 4.

It took me a long long long time to finally watch Milk. Which is stupid, because I am also trying to watch movies nominated for Academy awards, and it was the last film 2008 for me to see. I wasn’t sure why it took so long originally, but now I definitely know.

Last year for Thanksgiving I reviewed the movie Butter, because it made sense in my head. So clearly I was meant to review Milk, for Thanksgiving this year. Arguably Milk has less to do with thanksgiving than Butter, but fuck it. Milk at least goes in the Mashed Potatoes y’all.

Basically, I am saying I have no idea what I want to review for 2014 Thanksgiving. Come on, we need some more food-ish based titles. Get your act together Hollywood.

We also need more movies set in a time where hair ruled all.

Harvey Milk (Sean Penn) was the first openly gay man elected to a public office, in 1978 in San Francisco, California. In terms of a biography, the movie starts eight years earlier, when Harvey meets Scott Smith (James Franco), his first big love, and their decision to move to San Francisco. As soon as they do, they buy a property on Castro street and open up a camera shop, but they find that they are still not really welcome in the area.

Over time, Harvey becomes more and more of a political activist, and his shop becomes a sort of center of the gay community in the area. The police harass them though, despite no law breaking, so he decides it is the last straw and he must do something about it. He wants to run for City Supervisor, and introduce change in the area, and end the discrimination against gay culture.

But becoming an elected officially isn’t actually that easy. Since its a biography, you know he achieves it eventually, but you don’t know how hard it was to get to that point.

Victor Gerber plays the mayor, Josh Brolin another city supervisor named Dan White, Emile Hirsch plays Milk’s protege of sorts, Diego Luna another of Milk’s lovers, and Alison Pill as a lesbian campaign manager.

His name is Harvey Milk, and he is here to recruit you. For his army.

I am a bit disappointed that this movie didn’t feature Sean Penn drinking milk, like, at all. It seems like the obvious scene to have. But I guess this is a serious film, honoring a man’s life, so they don’t want to do shit like that.

At the start of the movie, it took me awhile to really get in to it. A lot of events happen quickly to get the story set up properly, with Harvey, talking about his earlier life. But once the political activism started, that is truly where it got interesting for me. Where you see a man who knows he is doing the right thing fail over and over again, each time getting stronger after every loss. Getting smarter too, some of the tactics used were amazing. I am a bit surprised that the community kept going for Harvey after he failed a few times, because it shows many different individuals who probably would have been just as good as him, but they must have believed in him that strongly.

Sean Penn acted really well in this role, as he tends to do, so I guess at this point it is just standard.

The film also used actual footage of real events spliced into the real ones, normally I find it pretty tacky, but it was extremely well done this time. Footage of riots and interviews. At the end, they did the standard thing of showing what happened to the real individuals later on, and they spliced actual footage of the actors with their real life counter parts, which just looked great.

Milk is a great story, with great acting, and a great part of history that a lot of people might not know about.

3 out of 4.

I first heard about As I Lay Dying a few months ago. I mean both this movie, and the book version. Don’t think I ever heard of the book, despite being on a list of best American books of all time.

No, I first heard about because James Franco directing it became a pretty big deal. I thought it was his first directed thing too, but turns out this guy has directed a shit ton, mostly shorts, but there are movies in there too. Go figure. What a secretly passionate man, that Franco.

Dat passion.

As I Lay Dying is a sad movie. You might be able to figure it out from the title. Or by reading the book.

Addie Bundren (Beth Grant) is dying, and her wishes are to be buried in Jefferson, a town nearby, but one that requires some travel.

Her husband, Anse (Tim Blake Nelson) tries to take care of her, while the eldest son, Cash (Jim Parrack), builds the coffin. The other two sons, Jewel (Logan Marshall-Green) and Darl (James Franco) continue with their job, but of course, she dies almost as soon as they leave.

It is their only wagon, so it sets their journey back a few days already. The daughter Dewey (Ahna O’Reilly) also joins the trip to Jefferson. Basically, everyone who goes has selfish and non selfish reasons, and enough shit hits the fan that it is basically a modern Odyssey. Also, Danny McBride is in this movie as a small role, and is no way comedic.

Also, split screen. This split this movie in half time wise I think.

The movie was supposed to come out to theaters sometime this fall, but I guess they changed their mind and went straight to DVD. Poor Franco.

I also found out this book was written as a steam of consciousness thing, with about fifteen or so narrators, often switching between them without a moments notice. That means you constantly get different points of views and don’t have to guess the true intentions of any single character. Which brings me to my main point: this movie was shot in a really weird way. You see that split screen? A lot of the film is in split screen, and I think it is to represent the constant different point of views represented in the book. To see multiple reactions after the same event. To tell the story in a better way.

Shit, that was really smart. Well done Franco. And creative.

I will say this story took a long time for me to really get into it. A lot of fucked up things happen by the end, a lot of which I did not see coming and definitely kept my interest. But the first half is what killed me. I hate it when a film doesn’t keep it interesting the whole time.

All of the people in this movie acted great though, which is a shame. I wonder how it would have fared if it got a theatrical release versus just a straight to DVD situation. I can’t say whether or not the movie follows the book closely or not. If it does, then the book must be pretty boring early on, and if it doesn’t then I guess it is Franco’s fault.

Probably best watched by people who love the book, and want to see it visually. Shit, if you have read the book, let me know how it compares. I know I won’t ever read it.

2 out of 4.

A ha, my first review of a movie that has been guest reviewed! Here I am, following up someone else’s opinion, on my website. Not even mad. I try not to read opinions about film before I write my own, so obviously, my review of The Iceman breaks that creed unfortunately. If you want to read their review of The Iceman, click that link I just linked.

The flipped across the vertical line version of this picture exists on the internet. I…I don’t know which one is real.

The Iceman tells the true story of Richard Kuklinski (Michael Shannon), a famed Polish man who killed over 100 men as a contract killer in NYC. He was arrested in 1986, much to the surprise of his friends and family who did not know he was leading a double life for so many years to provide for his loved ones. Well, not his brother (Stephen Dorff), he was a dick and in prison already. For killing a man. What a criminal.

Of course, he didn’t start as a contract killer. He had a small time job, and came from humble beginnings. He met his future wife (Winona Ryder), and somehow charmed her into marriage, and had two kids. But when he accidentally fails the wrong customer, Roy Demeo (Ray Liotta), he has to repay a debt and does so through a nice assassination or two, which come with nice bonuses.

Eventually, his lives start to collide, as he is forced to work with a rival contract killer, Mr. Freezy (Chris Evans), and work amongst all the mob bosses in the city. The film begins and ends with his confession on the witness stand, and a whole shit ton of remorse. Kind of. Also, James Franco plays a small role who totally dies, and David Schwimmer awkwardly a mob man, and he freaks me out.

The Iceman Cream.

Michael Shannon has been a good actor for sometime. He was arguably the best parts of Man of Steel and Premium Rush, so it is nice to see him again in a leading role like this one. He knocked it out of the park, going completely in character, and nothing like his other recent roles. Dude knows how to act, yo.

In the early 90s, HBO released a documentary on the subject, called The Iceman Tapes: Conversations with a Killer, with actual dialogue with Richard. Presumably this fictionalized version was made to tell the twisted story after his death in 2005. I haven’t seen it, but I think it is on youtube, and I really kind of want to now.

A lot of the assassinations they show are generally really well done, with lots of planing/details gone in to making sure they are perfect.

By basing this movie on a true story, it adds an extra layer of chill as you watch it, knowing that it isn’t just another mob movie starring Ray Liotta. The ending is especially the most chilling aspect of the film, his final courtroom plead and communication with his family. You felt sorry for the guy, even though he killed hundreds of people. Shit, that is rough.

Definitely a movie I’d recommend as well. Even if you have to see David Schwimmer’s goofy face.

3 out of 4.

Pornography!

Sex!

Clitoris in the neck!

No, I am not just doing all that to increase traffic. I am hear to talk about Lovelace, the true story of Linda Lovelace, who starred in Deep Throat and helped changed the porno world forever. Kind of.

I also just realized that Lovelace is also the name of the Guru penguin in Happy Feet. Huh, I hope there is no connection.

This Lovelace doesn’t share the same talent. He can’t with that plastic around his neck!

Linda (Amanda Seyfried) USED to be such a sweet little girl. She used to to dance and go to school, and obey her parents! Her parents (Sharon Stone, Robert Patrick), mind you, are the type who would scold her just for sunbathing in a bikini in her own fenced in back yard.

While Go-Go dancing with her friend, Patsy (Juno Temple), they meet up with Chuck (Peter Sarsgaard), who will change her life forever. See, Chuck sees something special in her. He sees a beauty that can go far, do great things, and maybe even make a lot of money. Mmm, money.

After helping slowly tear away her inhibitions, he is even able to make her go down on him, despite her initial embarrassment. Wouldn’t you know it, it turns out that she doesn’t have a gag reflex, and has a unique talent in the industry. I don’t even know why I am being subtle.

Well, they need money, and she gets put into the lead role of an X-Rated feature, Deep Throat. It has comedy and it has something people haven’t really seen before, so it becomes a huge hit, making millions world wide, and catapulting Linda into a spotlight she could never before imagine. But a life of fame is always not something you want, especially if it comes at such high costs. Such as being married to Chuck, an abusive husband who takes all of your money, beats you, and gives you emotional scarring for years with no place to turn to.

Ah yes, the Linda Lovelace story, one of porn, and one of abuse.

Hank Azaria, Bobby Cannavale, and Chris Noth play “industry” people, and James Franco has a small cameo as a much younger Hugh Hefner.

This is all you are getting out of me, you creepy internet people you.

Linda’s story is definitely a sad one. It is a story that should be heard so that women out there no that dangerous things CAN happen, signs to look for, and how to get out of those situations and find the help you need.

Unfortunately, Lovelace seems to almost downplay the amount of abuse she actually receives. I found that portion of the movie to be far too short. It needed to be longer to really experience how a large portion of her life was, before she was finally able to get police intervention. Her story was a powerful enough one to write a book about and have restocking issues due to its popularity.

I think the movie has its heart in the right place, but fails to deliver the right emotions that one should expect from this picture. There are two important parts to this story. Linda’s transformation into a porn icon, and the abuse she took from someone she thought loved her. This definitely seems to care more about the former, and not the latter, which is a shame.

1 out of 4.

Some people will assume I watched About Cherry only because of its provocative DVD cover, of which I will leave up to you to look up on your own.

Those people would be right.

Seriously, that’s the reason.

You see, she has been a naughty girl, and people need to acknowledge that fact in this movie.

Angelina (Ashley Hinshaw) has recently just turned eighteen, and you know what that means! Time to throw away all responsibility and do what you want. Who cares if your mom is worried? Who cares about money? Oh wait, Angelina cares about money. That is why she agrees to do a sexy photo sheet for some necessary cash. Oh yeah, it turns out she likes it too.

So she convinces her friend (Dev Patel) to move to San Francisco with her, where they share a room and an apartment with another boy. Angelina goes to work at a strip club, not as a skeezy dancer, but as a waitress. That is where she meets Frances (James Franco), a rich lawyer who totally wants her. Woo, sugar daddy.

Oh yeah, and she starts doing adult films too. You know, solo stuff, strip scenes nothing too dramatic. Until she does BDSM with other women only. Not with dudes, that would be strange. Until she progresses to dude stuff too. Oh yeah. Penetration. Either way, her life keeps going up, her friend starts to hate her, her man starts to hate her, but Heather Graham doesn’t hate her. Heather Graham plays a director, who thinks she really has the “Stuff” despite only being eighteen.

Franco knows whats up. He loves the young ones. Francos a sick man.

Guess what, this movie has breasts in it. Ashley Hinshaw’s and some other women. But that is about it, really. It is a movie with some boobs and little else. The drama seems fake and forced. The message is uncertain, and the characters are lame. The ending is also a let down.

But boobs? But nothing. National Lampoon movies have boobs, but also occasionally they are entertaining. Yes through humor, but dramas can be entertaining as well. This one just isn’t. It is boring, and although I never moved to California become an adult star (that you know of), I doubt it happens that way so casually. Short review, for basically a short waste of time. Ashley Hinshaw is hot though.

1 out of 4.

It is hard to pull off a movie like This Is The End. The actors end up playing fictional versions of themselves, setting the film in “the real world” where the stars are stars and the random people in the background are real random people. I should also mention this film is part of my Apocalypse Week.

In fact, I’d say some of the funniest cameos in history have been actors playing fictional versions of themselves, such as Neil Patrick Harris in the Harold and Kumar trilogy. So here we have a movie using only that joke and setting it during the Apocalypse? I smell comedy gold.

Michael Cera smells pussy. Jay Baruchel (Jay Baruchel) is headed back to LA to visit his friend Seth Rogen (Seth Rogen). They used to be great friends, both being Canadian and growing up together, but now Seth is a lot bigger in Hollywood than Jay! So Seth he has new friends and seems to have moved on. Thus, Jay hates LA and all of Seth’s new friends.

But after getting high and chilling, Seth really wants to go to James Franco’s (James Franco) house for a killer party. He has a new place, it is supposed to be off the hook, and he promises to not leave Jay alone. They meet some of Seth’s new friends, like the ultra way too nice Jonah Hill (Jonah Hill), and the charismatic Craig Robinson (Craig Robinson). This might sound like a love story between Seth and Jay and in a way, it is.

Unfortunately during the party the apocalypse happens! Blue beams come out of the sky and take away the good members of society (meaning the actors are all left behind of course), leaving only the sinners and scum of the Earth left to wallow. We also get fires, sinkholes, darkness, ash, and maybe even the spawns of Satan roaming the streets, killin’ everybody in sight. Yay!

Too bad they also have Danny McBride (Danny McBride) stuck in their house, being the general unpleasant sourpuss that he is. For those curious, yes, he is identical to his Kenny Powers self.

We also a huge load of celebrity cameos, including Michael Cera, Emma Watson, Rihanna, Kevin Hart, Aziz Ansari, Mindy Kaling, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and more.

This movie was very aware, very funny, and very awesome. It had thrills, chills, laughs and gas. It wasn’t a straight up “stoner comedy” either, which was a big fear of mine. Was there drug usage? Yes. But it wasn’t the main plot point. After all, supplies run low really quickly during an apocalypse.

The last “meta”-esque movie that I enjoyed this much was Tropic Thunder. Although it wasn’t the actors playing themselves, it was at least actors playing other actors and extreme versions of actor cliches. However, I expect this movie won’t lead to anyone getting a nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Long story short, I laughed constantly throughout this movie. I am sure over half of it is ad-libbed too, and yet I was still surprised at times at how far they went. I am excited to buy this on Blu-Ray to see all the outtakes. In fact, I bet even the commentary will be pretty dang awesome. It should also be noted that Michael Cera was even better in his small cameo than the trailer let on. If I had to change one thing, I would have added a lot more Danny McBride, who was by and large the funniest part of the film.

This Is The End isn’t for everyone, but it was almost perfect for me.

4 out of 4.

Spring Break: a time for debauchery and nakedness! That is what I learned about it at least when I was growing up in the 90s, watching MTV six week specials. Seemed like the best time of everyone’s life, no worries, just party. Even Andrew W.K. would probably approve, although for different reasons.

But what if Spring Break itself offers some even darker and deeper undertones about society and the filth we ignore? That’s right. Spring Breakers is a movie with a message, and not just an R Rated Teen Sex-Venture. That means you have to get on your thinking (or artsy) caps before viewing!

But I will give you a minute alone first without your hat on if you’d like.

Four girls are from who knows where, USA. They are in college, lower middle class, and bored during spring break. They wanted to go to Florida, to live it up, to experience life outside of their normal boring mundane existence, to escape for once, but they just can’t as they have no where close to enough money. Until three of them decide to rob a local cafe, gain hundreds in cash, and go on the trip of a lifetime that is.

Faith (Selena Gomez), the morally sound one did not participate in the robbery, but still participated in its gains. Candy (Vanessa Hudgens) and Brit (Ashley Benson) perpetrated the crime with a mallet and a fake pistol, while Cotty (Rachel Korine) was their getaway driver. Drugs may have been involved as well.

But hey, whatever, Spring Break forever! Well, it turns out Florida isn’t just a party central where white privileged individuals can get their party on and do whatever they want. There can be consequences as well. Partying too hard gets them arrested, and they don’t have the funds to bail out of jail. Thankfully, a local, Alien (James Franco) is willing to lend a hand. But does he have ulterior motives (outside of hot girls needing some help) for them? Also starring Gucci Mane as another drug king pin in the area.

Let James Francos grill and corn rows sink in a bit before you continue.

Here is a plead. Don’t watch this movie without an open mind. That is all you need, I think, to maybe get something out of it.

The director is not a standard one, and the movie will maybe feel disjumbled and out of order (because it partially is). There is a huge lack of dialogue in terms of actual conversation between characters. Most of it can be heard as monologues during the events in the film. But a movie can have plot without dialogue — it can still tell a story.

Sure, there is a lot of repetition and not being sure of when certain events are occurring, but they aren’t that hard to get through. The music in the movie is there to help guide your journey, perhaps imitating a drug fueled trip on its own as our leading ladies experience the same.

But is that the point of the movie? Maybe. Depends on what you take out from it.

Personally, I think the point the director is trying to make is that white privilege is a real thing, college aged girls can basically get away with murder and still live out their lives, while other people of color or lower incomes are stuck where they come from and can never escape in America. Yeah, that is a pretty intense statement for a movie about Spring Break.

James Franco acted the hell out of his role, something I have never seen him in before. I am just mad he didn’t have that much passion (or creepiness) in Oz The Great and Powerful. He must have an On/Off switch somewhere. Don’t worry, this movie still features lots of naked women and dancing, if that’s what you want. It also had its problems, I only really knew one of the girls actual names in the movie, and couldn’t really tell Brit and Candy apart.

Most importantly, I think this movie offers something different than your normal cinema fare, and that excites me. It isn’t perfect, but I sure as hell think essays can be written about it later. Just not by me, I am experiencing my own post-Spring Break slothiness.

3 out of 4.