spring! spring! spring!
War during springtime is a very odd thing. Pretty precious blooms pushing up through the dirt make my eyes explode with happy springtime goodness, but each bud only reminds me that half-way around the world bombs are falling, and people are dying. So how about a Spring movie to cheer me up? I’ll simply overload my senses with Spring! Spring! Spring! until there’s no longer a trace of that mean, nasty war… yeah, that’ll work.
• Babe (1995)–This pig movie screams SPRING! From it’s Tele-Tubbies-like set to its sing-song approach to story telling, the pig delivers the goods. When Babe decides his destiny is to be a sheep dog, nothing can come between him and his goal. The film explores changing one’s course in life, even when the cards are against you. Bacon was never so sweet and endearing as manifest in Babe, the pig who would be king, or at least a dog.
•Enchanted April (1992)–Four women rent an amazing villa in Italy in post WWI. A slow, but rewarding study of interactions between women with different points of view. Director Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral) shows us the extremes of gray and light. The action starts in the dreary confines of rainy London, but suddenly, with the simple opening of a window on the morning after the ladies arrive at the villa, color and light are introduced with dizzying results.
• Spring Break (1983)–This is what I imagine a spring breaker in Ft. Lauderdale would say to the MTV cameras: “Like I know there’s a war and all… but it’s Spring Break! That’s why the girls of Tri-Delt are doing our part by having the biggest, best, and drunkest spring break ever!!! Go USA!!” This movie, about a bunch of horny jerks drinking a shit load of beer and chasing every piece of tail that passes by, made me nostalgic for the type of cinema rarely seen in wide release today–the stupid drunken misogynist college movie. Now there’s a genre worth reviving! BRIAN BRAIT