8A - Monday, March 25, 2013

The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

FILM REVIEW
Korine'
'Spring Breakers'
blends commentary R
with excess
By ANDREW MCCLURE
Daily Arts Writer+
Everyone should leave life with
one spring break footprint - a
deep, mistake-laden, brain cell-
curbstomping
footprint.
We're not talk-
ing about mis- Spring
takes that lead Breakers
to insightful We're ac
reflection and At Quality16
wiser decision- and Rave an escai
making. Rather, a whim,
we're talking A24 decides'
about Harmony pink skir
Korine-style mistakes: no reflec- Rock
tion and no introspection. In his The
fleshly neon-porno "Spring Break- Petersbu
ers," director Korine ("Gummo") you'd ex
force-feeds us panache and begs embellis
us to listen closely. except o
Further, he doesn't see mis- floatsup
takes as mistakes; they're all motel b
imperfectly perfect. An interview sands of
extracts how he feels toward his lawlessn
cinema: They are what they are - the cops
they mean everything and nothing. vails wi
"Breakers," Korine's first com- (James I
mercial rodeo, isn't for the faint- bail fort
hearted nor the reactionary. He decide w
deftly montages a 93-minute to explo
music video, full of hallucinogen- they left
ic aftereffects, hypnotic slow-mos Firstt
and lewd excess. The film polar- it, art or,
izes and disrupts once you finally terfully.
get comfortable. But that's where into an
Korine shines: seizing all plot con- loaded<
ventions ... then shovingthem in a the pass
wood chipper. and the
Say hello to your dormhood age satir
coeds Candy, Cotty and Brit (Van- both blip
essa Hudgens, "High School Musi- his narro
cal," Rachel Korine, "Septien" backs, o
and Ashley Benson, TV's "Pretty bikinis-s
Little Liars," respectively). Follow- The:
ing the archetype, their missing altogeth
fourth is the angelic Faith (Selena home ca
Gomez, "Aftershock"). They want lievable.

seye candy
en:.

VIDEO GAME NOTEBOOK
The 'FIFA' conundrum

tually all out of 'Spring Breakers' jokes.

pe, but are penniless. On
the desperate threesome
to rob a diner under neon
masks. Faith doesn't mind.
'n' roll.
awaited arrival in St.
urg, Fla. depicts what
xpect from your buddy's
hed Mardi Gras recount -
n steroids. One crane shot
from apool to multi-story
banisters, boasting thou-
faceless boozers. Absolute
ess. The fiesta ends with
and jail time. Hope pre-
hen rapper-kingpin Alien
Franco, "127 Hours") posts
the girls. Now, they must
whether to return home or
'it Alien and reach what
home to find: free rein.
things first: Like it or hate
porn, Korine directs mas-
His lens transports you
over-sexed, locked and
dreamscape. He pleases
ive viewer via eye candy
active viewer via teen-
e. His use of fluorescence
nds and lures. He disjoints
ative with peppered flash-
off-screen audio and all-
all-the-time dress code.
foursome's performance
er lacks. Their phone-
lls ring sappy and unbe-
Their explicit "bitchezzz"

dialogue fails, feeling contrived
- like middle school curse-word
experimentation. But ultimately
that's what Korine strove for; he
wanted deliberate excess, even
if it sacrificed credence. "Spring
Breakers" is precisely that: real,
modern, dangerous excess.
Tonight's main event ... Mr.
Franco. Cornrows and platinum
fangs, Alien pushes drugs, and
his Camaro's license plate reads
"BALLR." He fronts an unafraid
ego: "I'M the motherfucking
Death Star!" Alien's vulnerabilities
are only squeezed out through his
newly found darlings. He feels the
need to inarticulately brag about
his guns and threads in front of the
girls: "Look at my shit!" Crazier
than anything, though, is how we
forget that Alien indeed is James
Franco. Even outside his timeless
quips and goofy delivery, Franco
embodies the soft thug.
The opening sequence still tells
all: beachfront hopping, grind-
ing, tit flashing, beer bonging and
popsicle nursing. A meditation
on millennial debauchery? Hm.
Hyperanalysts will beat "Break-
ers" to death with a symbolic
bludgeon. Maybe they're right
and maybe they're just hyper-
analyzing. One thing's certain -
Harmony Korine could give two
fucks whatyou think.

By ELLIOT ALPERN
Senior Arts Editor
Before entering college, I'd
only played one game of "FIFA"
in my life, a match I was coerced
into entering by a friend on our
high school's soccer team. Even
though I, like a growing majority
of today's youth, actually played
soccer in elementary school, I
quickly realized that Ihad no idea
what I was doing. I faintly recall
collecting three or four red cards
by the end of our match and was
never invited to play again.
To be honest, I didn't really
care - though a number of my
high-school friends played some
iteration of the "FIFA" franchise
after school, I stuck to other clas-
sics: "Call of Duty," "NHL," per-
haps even "Mario Kart" or "Super
Smash Bros." I never expected to
see or play the soccer game again.'
That lasted until my freshman
year at Michigan, when a room-
mate (and growing pressure from
the other Oxford dormmates)
coerced me to pick up the control-
ler.
It was a hard few months, but
slowly I learned - I'd say now, as
a junior, I'm ... OK. It's hard to tell
when playing against the same
opponent rotation.
But I'm still astonished by how
many gamers - or, at least, sports
gamers - list "FIFA" as one of, if
not the most played games in their
dorms. It's pervasive as a unify-
ing form of entertainment in the
college-age demographic - and
at that, it's immensely popular as
a stand-alone video game.
In the current gaming industry,
sports games have grown from a
niche to a major chunk of the mar-
ket: Three of the 10 best-selling
games of last year were sports
games, and "Madden NFL 13" fol-
lowed only "Call of Duty: Black
Ops II" as the second-biggest
moneymaker of the year. "FIFA
13" ended up rounding out that list
at No. 10, with Take-Two's "NBA
2K13" floating in between at No.
6. So, it makes sense that - con-

sidering what appeals to college brought international soccer to
kids - games like "Madden" and an American audience. According
"FIFA" become obvious enter- to Bleacher Report, five of the 50
tainment choices with 25-minute most popular athletes in the U.S.
time commitments. are international soccer players.
But how did soccer start out- Lionel Messi clocks in at 16th -
pacing other, more popular which is pretty hard to believe. Of
sports? Financial records from the innumerable amount of ath-
2011 show that America's most letes in the NFL, MLB, NBA and
popular soccer league, Major NHL, Messi is more popular than
League Soccer, was dwarfed by all but 15.
the "Big Four" leagues in terms And so far, we've ignored the
of total revenue. The NFL made most important explanation for a
$11 billion as the obvious favor- game's popularity: how fun it is to
ite, with the MLB, NBA and NHL play. Metacritic, critical reception
collecting $7, $4.3 and $3.3 billion, aggregator, seems to tell the story.
respectively. "Madden NFL 13" 's score of 81
MLS pulled in a paltry $300 is relatively impressive until you
million - so how did "FIFA 13" realize that "FIFA 13" ended up at
suddenly surge ahead as a major 90 (indicating an obscene average
juggernaut in the gaming indus- review score of 9 out of 10).
try? Its ease and fluidity of play has
turned "FIFA 13" into a sports
game with broad appeal, in large
M LS is poised part because it takes everything
seriously. Attention is paid to the
to explode in most minute details: Teammates
from the same country work bet-
popularity. ter together to simulate bond-
ing over language. Players that
slide or run into each other suffer
realistic falls and injuries - I've
Well, there may be one expla- seen a player stop dribbling a ball
nation. According to the ESPN because he pulled a hamstring at
Sports Poll conducted by Univer- the end of a game.
sity alum Rich Luker last year, The takeaway from all of this
soccer (which groups together seems to be that we shouldn't
the interest for MLS, FIFA and be surprised that "FIFA" is so
other governing bodies of pro- popular, but rather that the MLS
fessional soccer) is now the sec- is so unpopular. But even that
and most popular sport among should be poised to change, with
12- to 24-year-olds, trailing only a growing domestic market for
professional football. Baseball, the sport as current students
which was once as popular as land jobs and become more dedi-
football less than 20 years ago, cated customers. Once the dol-
has drifted to fourth. The sports lars are there, the international
audience demographic is shift- stars will come - how many
ing. NHL players are from the Unit-
Luker cited a number of factors ed States? Even the most opti-
that explain such a widespread mistic estimates say less than a
change. For one, it's been grow- quarter. The world's talent will
ing steadily as a common athletic finally start seeing the MLS as a
option for children: There's now legitimate option to consider.
at least one soccer player in 30 And when that day comes, we
percent of American households. can finally settle in, launch up the
And despite the anemic amount newest "FIFA" and realistically
of attention paid to the MLS, EA play as American teams on the
Sports's "FIFA" franchise has global stage.

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