Brew Views: Spring Breakers

Disney gone wild.

SPRING BREAKERS
By MICHAEL NORDINE

The words "spring break" are repeated so often in Spring Breakers that the phrase takes on a mantralike quality. Still best known for writing Kids and directing Gummo, backwater auteur Harmony Korine teams up with a Disney-centric cast led by Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens to turn up the decadence and sleaze to 11 in a candy-coated vision of the American Nightmare. Neon lights, blinged-out cribs and James Franco's white-trash gangsta rapper Alien make this akin to an art-house installment of Girls Gone Wild crossed with Scarface—with all the surface allure and occasional vapidity that licentious description implies. That said, an utterly sincere rendition of Britney Spears' "Everytime," performed by Alien and set to a violent montage, is an early contender for sequence of the year, and nearly enough to forgive the film's shortcomings.

  1. Showing at: Laurelhurst, Academy.
  2. Best paired with: 10 Barrel Hop Rye’It IPA.
  3. Also showing: Mud (Hollywood).

WWeek 2015

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