MANGLEHORN [2014]

Director David Gordon Green does with Al Pacino what he did with Nicolas Cage in Joe and redeems the actor, who hasn't had a decent film in well over a decade, with a nice poignant character piece to work with.
Manglehorn tells the story of a socially inept man who's never recovered from the death of his wife and prefers the company of his seriously unhealthy cat.  DGG does a wonderful job at capturing the little moments in life and Pacino does an equally superb job making them all the more believable with one of the most restrained performances of his career.  The character grows and twists into a different creature than where the film began but it's never predictable and occasionally his lewd behaviour is both shocking and frustrating.  With all sorts of bizarre occurrences going on in the background it never distracts from the beautifully pieced together frame of sublime emotional arcs unfolding before us.  There's a few nit-picky moments and Holly Hunter's character is criminally underused but when all is said and done, it's an enjoyable film that does nothing to offend.

3 inconvenient beehives out of 5

SPRING BREAKERS [2013]

Writer/director Harmony Korine makes films that blurs the lines between exploitive trash and fascinating social commentary.
Spring Breakers tells a tale of the Facebook generation and the glamorization of alcohol & drugs, over-sexed youth, violence and material possessions.  Here it manages to propose a potentially interesting subject to dissect but then forgets about it and just milks it's allure to stupid youth for all it's worth.  Korine has a great eye for colors and scenery, as James Franco makes a wonderfully frightening psychotic but the rest leaves absolutely nothing to think about.  The biggest mistake is dropping the only sympathetic character so early in the story thereby leaving us with nothing but abhorrently repulsive characters.

2 silly bints out of 5