Why The Mandarin needed to be portrayed as he was in Iron Man 3
or, why the MCU didn’t ruin your favorite supervillain.
below the cut: Iron Man 3 spoilers, discussion of cultural appropriation, narrative arc, and analysis of how ridiculously, wonderfully meta the advertising scheme of IM3 was.
(via duke-fartknocker)
men who pass around/publicize naked photos sent to them by someone who trusted them are literal garbage. & if you shame the girl for sending those photos which they thought were going to be kept private, instead of blaming the guy for being a scummy asshole and betraying his partner, you are just as bad.
(via duke-fartknocker)
Spring Breakers
Harmony Korine cut his artistic teeth with the screenplay for ‘Kids’. Like many of the ‘slice of life’ productions from the early 90’s independent film boom, ‘Kids’ was ostensibly about nothing, and left many viewers (and more non-viewers who’s only exposure was the evening news) with the task of deciding for themselves what the story meant.
To me, ‘Kids’ had always been about the shadow of consequence; not the actual consequences of the actions but the possibility of what they can become. Especially since we never see what becomes of these lives, we have to assume that only the moment that was lived in was what mattered.
In Spring Breakers, Korine no longer lives in a shadow of consequence, but his characters are now removed from it. The reality they inhabit no longer carries the possibility of further consequence, it can simply be checked in and out of whenever the leads desire.
The four young women taking leading roles are mix of established industry veterans, most with a squeaky clean past that is both stripped clean and strangely preserved in the course of the film. Selena Gomez, playing the sheltered, optimistic good-girl-Christian Faith is established as the star of the first half of the film, and captures the detached boredom of young adults who are trapped between adolescence and adulthood in college. Her friends, Britt and Harmony (Ashley Benson and Vanessa Huddgens), hatch a plan when the girls are short on money for their Spring Break escape, and with Cottie (Rachel Korine) as their driver, rob a restaurant to achieve their goal of Spring Break.
What follows is a mix of friendship and debauchery; sweet moments of honesty and ugly truth as the girls engage in stereotypes both earnest and sinister. Their actions lead them to the wayside of the law, and the movie takes a darker tone with the arrival of of James Franco in a role even more fantastical than the journey he took earlier in the month in ‘Oz’, Alien.
Alien will be immediately notable in pop culture for his quotability and unabashed commitment to a flashier lifestyle we adored and aspired to before ‘The Recession’. Charming and menacing, genius and sophomoric, Alien has plenty to say but rarely anything original. He leads the girls to discover who they really are, both in the world removed from Spring Break, and and in the Forever they ha ve come to inhabit.
The story arch from the time the girls meet Alien is destined to be tragic, but it’s only in the final moments, when you’re left to consider the copy/paste style of editing Kroine has laid out for you over the last 85 minutes do you have to ask if it’s real or not. Characters have gone as the consequences have become too real, and a final day glow sequence mirroring the opening lectures back in college combine with the narration to further muddy the outcome. The rallying call from the last line to the hashtags is ‘Springbreak Forever’ … but forever has consequences this spring break doesn’t.
The soundtrack is a marvel of the modern music industry, encompassing everything from dub step to ‘the classics’ (which in the world of spring break is the 2004 Britney Spears song ‘Everytime’), and speaks to the ipod DJ in all of us. The music is a eclectic as the editing, which rivals the tone changes of Richard Linklaters ‘Slacker’, and from the moment the final credits roll and ‘Lights’ by Ellie Goulding plays, I wanted more … I felt that the forever wasn’t fulfilled.
You guys want to know who feels special?
My boss took me out to lunch today for my 8th anniversary with the company. He used gift cards he got from a friend, and only invited me after his boss turned down his invite.
BUT, GUYS! FREE LUNCH!
