* I don’t plan to see Spring Breakers, so any commentary I render has inherently less credibility than the movie mavens at the Village Voice, Rolling Stone or Tampa Bay Times. But I’ve read enough to deter me–even though Ain’t It Cool News, a website that traffics in gossip, rumors and reviews, hailed it as “an electrifying masterpiece.” My favorite pull-quote is that of David Edelstein of New York magazine. “I think the movie is swill,” summarized Edelstein, “but I wouldn’t be shocked if a whole crop of cinema studies papers affirms the case for its genius.”
* Granted, G.I. Joe: Retaliation has obvious box-office appeal. But, still, couldn’t both local dailies have devoted less than those high-profile, nearly full-page reviews of it? Let’s face it, anyone interested in seeing an intensely violent movie based on a Hasbro toy isn’t reading those reviews. Those cinema old schoolers reading movie reviews are not the G.I. Joe crowd.
* I’m looking forward to the movie 42, the story of Jackie Robinson, the man who in 1947 broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier. Encouraging to hear positive feedback from the Rays’ senior advisor Don Zimmer, who recently saw a private screening. “I thought it was right on target,” said Zimmer, who actually played with Robinson–from 1954 to 1956–on the Brooklyn Dodgers.