Travis' Picks for the Worst Movies of 2014

Being a film critic is pretty awesome. Straight up, it's a lot of fun if you're someone who loves movies as much as I do. But damn, do I hate it sometimes, too. I always hear "Oh, it must be great doing what you do" and that much is true...when the movies are good. But when they suck so does this job because I can't simply go home and forget about it. I have to actually keep these movies in mind for longer than I'd care to. Want to sit around and think about Justin Long in a walrus suit? Me neither, but that's what I had to do after Tusk.

And in general I take no pleasure in tearing down another person's hard work, but sometimes the movies are so bad it's pretty tough. There were so many good movies this year that the ones which made me want to run from the theater screaming in agony stand out like a sore thumb.  The movies that appear on this list are what I consider the worst of the worst. Some are major studio efforts with huge budgets, others are smaller indie movies. No excuses; big or small if the movie sucked and I had to endure it then this is where it belongs. 

Be sure to check out the rest of our end-of-the-year review here!

Maladies (review here)

Sometimes James Franco outsources his pretentious, experimental flicks to his buddies. Directed by some dude with the single monicker of "Carter" (douche alert!!!) , this painful, unfunny existential comedy is one of those "art imitating life" pieces celebrities love. Franco plays a former actor (he watches himself on General Hospital THROUGHOUT THE DAMN MOVIE) with a mental disorder who gives it up to be a serious author. If Maladies were a person I'd want to shove it in the lockers or give it a swirlie. The worst thing about it is the lost opportunity and wasted cast. There's a good story to be had in an actor of Franco's stature trying to start anew in a different field, but instead what we get is a dull series of oddball occurrences that make no sense, with increasingly bizarre characters we could care less about. Catherine Keener plays his cross-dressing friend; Fallon Goodson and her moony eyes plays his nutso sister; and David Strathairn is the neighbor infatuated with Franco. And through it all Franco is struggling to kind of play himself. Whatever, man. Fortunately, nobody is EVER going to see Maladies unless they seek it out and then why in the world would you do that?

Winter's Tale (review here)

What the **** was Winter's Tale about? No, seriously. Look, I know the book by Mark Helprin pretty well, and never thought for a second that it should be made into a movie. Why? Because it makes no sense. It involves flying horses and time warps and thieves and devils and...wait, is this Lord of the Rings or something? No, it's a quasi-religious soup starring Colin Farrel as a thief who falls in love with the girl whose house he's trying to rob. Oh, and she's dying. And he's being chased by a demon mob boss played by Russell Crowe. Will Smith is in this, too. Don't ask him about it because he'll deny it but he plays a sewer-dwelling Satan. How does this cast come together for such a doughy pantload as this? Blame writer/director Akiva Goldsman, an uber-producer who must have won a bet or something. 

Behaving Badly (review here)

The obvious joke here is that the people who made this movie behaved badly by allowing it to happen. This wretched high school comedy stars Nat Wolff, Elisabeth Shue, Mary Louise Parker, Heather Graham, and a perky Selena Gomez; a cast I could watch all day under other circumstances. But it's one of those films that wants so badly to be raunchy that it ends up looking kind of desperate. 90 torturous minutes go by without a single laugh, and you know things have taken an awful turn when Shue, Gomez, and Graham at their most frisky doesn't help. Not even the most die-hard Gomez fans can justify her being in this. There should be a penalty. Reduced fan club numbers. Banned albums. Something.

Jimi: All is by My Side (review here)

How do you make a movie about Jimi Hendrix without being able to do use his music? Why the Hell would you want to? Points to Oscar-winning screenwriter John Ridley for trying to do something different with Jimi: All is by My Side, taking an approach that emphasizes the mood of the era and the personality of the man rather than focusing on his music. Unfortunately, the man is played by Andre Benjamin who seems stuck in a perpetual "Purple Haze". He simply lacks the enigmatic aura to play Hendrix, and without the iconic music that made him famous there is a hole that simply can't be filled.

Tusk (review here)

I love Kevin Smith. Really. Well, more accurate is I love Kevin Smith's old work. He hasn't really made a good movie outside of the View Askew universe, though, and Tusk is the absolute worst thing he's ever done. Cop Out looks pretty awesome by comparison, that's how bad this is. Non-nonsensical, poorly staged, unfunny, and painfully timid, Tusk accomplishes zero of what Smith was probably aiming for. It doesn't work as a horror because the sight of Justin Long in a fat suit is comical, and since Long is aggravating as shit anyway we kind of root for his continued torture. Only his grunts of shame sound authentic, and they probably had nothing to do with the suit. While Michael Parks' delightfully goofy performance as his captor is one to seek out, you'll be too freaked out by the appearance of Johnny Depp as a Pepe le Pew caricature, who will be in the next two movies as well. Yes, Tusk is the beginning of a godforsaken trilogy, one that wild horses couldn't drag me to see.  Just keep saying to yourself, Travis, "Clerks 3 is coming, Clerks 3 is coming..."

Exodus: Gods and Kings (review here)

This one is almost too fresh. The wounds from Ridley Scott's disastrous Biblical monstrosity are still unhealed. Boasting a red sea of special effects but not a single droplet of heart or faith, the white-washed cast is only the most visible of its many issues. Scott, who has decided all of his movies must look exactly the same from now on (that's how he keeps getting $150M budgets to squander), is more interested in the CGI plagues than he is in the story of Moses. Christian Bale does his best to portray the Hebrew savior despite a script that does him no favors, but when he's asked to squabble with a bite-sized version of God it's just too ridiculous to overcome.

Are You Here (review here)

Amy Poehler's funny. So is Owen Wilson. Zach Galifianakis has his moments. Are You Here is not a funny movie. At all. Not only is it not funny, but it's hard to figure exactly what it was trying to do. It just sits there like a lead balloon without any kind of perspective or narrative thrust, but at least it's so flat you don't wonder why there's a question mark missing in the title. Supposedly this was about a womanizing weatherman played by Wilson at his most irritating, who joins his eccentric tree-hugging pal (Galifianakis) to figure out what to do with a huge inheritance. I can barely remember any of that. Good for Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner for making his directorial debut and all, but he might want to stick with TV.

The Bag Man (review here)

The Bag Man is about a guy carrying a bag. The end. Okay, that's not exactly true but not really far off. This seedy, half-baked attempt at film noir stars that guy who used to be John Cusack (I refuse to believe he's the guy I loved in High Fidelity and Better Off Dead) as a criminal charged with holding on to a bag with mysterious, supposedly important contents. He can't look in the bag or let others get it, otherwise a pompadoured Robert De Niro will get really angry. The entire two hours is spent keeping the mystery of the bag's contents. You won't care what's in it. You'll be too bored to care what's in it. And when you find out you'll be pissed at the time wasted trying to figure it out.

The Legend of Hercules (review here)

It almost seems unfair putting The Legend of Hercules so high on this list. It never really had a chance, did it? Not with goblin-faced Twilight mass Kellan Lutz as the mythological hero, and not with the washed-up Renny Harlin behind the camera. Lutz flexes his considerable muscle while Harlin struggles with murky 3D special effects he clearly doesn't understand and we don't give a crap about, anyway. Tedious and badly acted, the film doesn't even appeal to somebody like me who adores the stories of Greek myth. If there's an upside it's the commanding performance by supporting actor Liam McIntyre (Spartacus), who uses his gladiatorial experience to overshadow Lutz in just about every way. To be fair, Dwayne Johnson couldn't make a Hercules movie work later in the year, but that's not an excuse for this movie being so terrible.

And So It Goes (review here)

This one was tough because I like Rob Reiner. A lot. Meathead is the man as far as I'm concerned. And I appreciate that he wants to make simple, harmless comedies nowadays, although it's probably because that's the box Hollywood has sealed him up in. And So It Goes might have been pretty good in 1987 or something, but now it might as well be covered in moss. Michael Douglas plays a crotchety, totally racist womanizing real estate agent who is forced to become guardian to the granddaughter he didn't know existed. Meanwhile, Diane Keaton is his chirpy next door neighbor who you just know he's going to hook up with after they're done arguing for 80 minutes. It's all pretty distasteful, cheap in its sentiments, and the kind of dud that could destroy any hope for older skewing comedies.

Rage (review here)

Just when you thought Nicolas Cage was bouncing back, his performance in Joe a reminder how good he can be, the guy goes and drops a stinker like Rage. This plodding, atrocious revenge thriller is dumb even by Cage standards, and features one of most fantastically bad final scenes ever. Directed incompetently by Paco Cabezas stars Cage as former criminal now a semi-respected citizen who goes on a demented crusade of violence when his daughter is murdered. Supposedly there's some kind of question as to who killed her? But a mystery only matters if you care about the suspects or the victims, and this thinly-drawn, distasteful piece of crap doesn't come close to making that happen.

Were there more that could have made the list? Hell yeah! Too many, in fact.  Marlon Wayans' A Haunted House 2 where he (again) has sex with inanimate objects....Simon Pegg makes everybody sad with the unfunny, condescending Hector and the Search for Happiness....Race relations gets set back a few years by Kevin Costner and Octavia Spencer in Black or White...Trust Me proves Clark Gregg should never ever leave the Marvel universe....Not even Pierce Brosnan could save bland espionage flick, The November Man...and I bet you already forgot Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit was a thing, didn't you?

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Review: William H. Macy's 'Rudderless', Starring Billy Crudup, Anton Yelchin, and Laurence Fishburne

School shootings are a pretty taboo subject to tackle in fiction and especially in film. To be honest, the only one that sticks out in my mind is Gus Van Zant’s Elephant. Now for some this might be spoiler-y but one of the major factors in the arc of the film is a school shooting. In Rudderless, Billy Crudup plays Sam, a father who loses his son after he commits a school shooting and dies. This sends Sam into an unhinged spiral in his life. He was a successful and straight-laced upper middle class father and two years later he’s an aimless man living on a boat who paints houses and rides a bike. His life changes again after he obtains his son’s songbook and guitar that allows him to deal, on some level, with what happened.

That’s all in the beginning, but it’s a confusing pace at first that I feel it is a hindrance to the overall film. Although it must be purposeful from director William H. Macy (who has a small role) to give you some of the feelings Sam is experiencing. Anton Yelchin as Quentin plays a young musician who ends up befriending Sam and is the other main character in this. Billy and Anton have good onscreen presence together and give off a realistic feeling friendship and mentor/mentee relationship. With so much of the film focused on these characters, a lot of the other actors are a tad bit forgettable, besides Laurence Fishburne, who plays the music store owner Del. He's clearly the trope of a wise Black male to be a voice of reason for both of the main characters. He’s great but I got to call it as I see it.

This film has a lot of musical performances, which I feel is where most of the interesting direction happens. The rest of the film, cinematography-wise, is a bit standard in shot selection. Close-up here, then medium shot there, long shot establishing new scene and place. It’s not a feast for the eyes, but it’s not really needed for this film. With the focus so much on Crudup, it’s on him a lot to hold your focus on the screen. Luckily he gives a great performance that doesn’t leave you bored.

Now it does in a way wrap it all up a little too fast in my opinion. I also bet people think Selena Gomez is a selling point with her being in the film, but she’s really not in it much, so if you’re a fan of her you might feel some type of way about it if you’re expecting to see her perform in a quieter film than say Spring Breakers. Rudderless is a pretty good character study about grief and guilt and how it can flip those left behind upside down. The cast and the crew do a good job and now there is something else to look out for now with the name William H. Macy, actor and director.

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Trailer for William H. Macy's Directorial Debut 'Rudderless' with Billy Crudup, Selena Gomez, and Anton Yelchin

One of the movies I heard a great deal about at Sundance, some of it good and some bad, was William H. Macy's directorial debut, Rudderless. The film sounds a lot like John Carney's recent musical drama Begin Again, exploring music and its power to make our lives better even in the face of terrible hardship. And with a release date only a few weeks away the first trailer has been released and it looks those who heaped praise on it may have been right.

Macy has gathered a strong cast with Billy Crudup, Anton Yelchin, Selena Gomez, Felicty Huffman, Laurence Fishburne, and Jamie Chung for the story of Sam (Crudup) a father struggling to deal with the death of his son. Turning to alcohol to cope with the pain, he finds a different coping mechanism when a box of his son's demo tapes is uncovered, revealing a gift for music Sam never knew he had. Learning to play the songs as a means of connecting with his child, Sam and another young man (Yelchin) form a rock band that becomes more popular than expected.

Rudderless hits VOD and theaters on October 17th.


Rudderless trailer 1 (2014) - Selena Gomez Movie (HD) by MovieTrailerz

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Review: 'Behaving Badly' Starring Selena Gomez and Nat Wolff

A number of really talented people make appearances in the wretchedly unfunny teen sex comedy Behaving Badly; so many that you wonder if a producer has incriminating photos stashed somewhere. Not that there are a lot of expectations for a film so obscure even Selena Gomez's fans don't know it exists, and likely won't have a kind word to say about it even if they do. It's the kind of film where one can sense writer/director Tim Garrick throwing in every half-assed idea he can think of in hopes something works, but when nothing does turning up the raunch is his only fall-back plan.

Nat Wolff, who was excellent as a blind cancer victim in The Fault in Our Stars, must've been blind to agree to this humorless farce that wants to be outrageous and risque but comes up limp. Wolff plays Rick, and in the opening moments we get close-up of his crotch followed by the admission he has somehow contracted crabs. Yep, that's the level of moronic humor that is quickly established and becomes the standard throughout a painful 96 minutes. So what's Rick's deal? He's supposedly a virgin but that's not really a big deal because every hot piece of tail is throwing it his way. That includes his best friend's frisky mom (Elisabeth Shue), a smokin' drug-addled lawyer (Heather Graham), and random prostitutes. His mother (Mary Louise Parker) is a raging drunk, but she also appears as some sort of dominatrix-clad guardian angel. What that's all about is unclear and pointless to the "plot" anyway.

But for all the sex Rick can get he really has eyes for one girl, the saintly Nina (Gomez) who he has had a thing for all his life. She's the model of goodie two-shoes perfection and wholesomeness, certainly too nice for an awkward sex fiend like Rick. Of course she takes a liking to him, anyway, even as he gets neck deep in trouble with the local Mafia. Why's the Mafia in this? You got me. But then again there's not much explanation for Jason Lee appearing as a priest of suspect morals, or Dylan McDermott as a sex-crazed strip club owner. Notice a theme here? Sexual perversion has never seemed so tame, and as Garrick piles on one "outrageous" situation after another it only gets more desperate.

Not helping matters is a completely uninspiring performance by Wolff, and it's hard to tell if he's just bored or terribly miscast. Ultimately it doesn't matter, does it? He actually makes things considerably worse and every scene he's at the center of more painful than the last. Gomez is kind of fun in a squeaky clean misplaced Disney starlet sort of way (kind of like Spring Breakers), but that seems to be the only role she's capable of playing. And I have to admit getting a chuckle from Shue's endless flaunting of her rack, reminding me of her unsung performance in the trashy crime flick, Palmetto. But those are hardly enough reason to suffer through a movie this lazy and lacking in any laughs.  Those who don't run away screaming from Behaving Badly after 10 minutes will spot a brief cameo by Justin Bieber. What drags him into a movie like this? It was shot more than two years ago back when he and Gomez were still a tabloid item. Can't imagine why this has been sitting on the shelf for so long...

 Rating: 1 out of 5

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Selena Gomez and Nat Wolff are 'Behaving Badly' in New Trailer

The month of August has not been nice to Selena Gomez. Last year she appeared in the laughable car chase flick, Getaway, which ended up on the "crap list" for a lot of folks and deservedly so. This summer she's starring in another film that doesn't look so hot, a comedy titled Behaving Badly, and despite a cast of some pretty big names the film is being dumped into limited release with little fanfare.

Shot in only twenty days about two years ago, the film is an adaptation of Ric Browd's novel, While I'm Dead Feed the Dog, and basically this looks like something that should be on the Disney Channel. The Fault In Our Stars' Nat Wolff stars as 16-year-old Rick Stevens who has the hots for Nina (Gomez), but to win her heart he'll have to deal with a whole cast of crazy characters. Heather Graham plays a sexy attorney, Elisabeth Shue a sexy neighbor, Mary Louise Parker a sexy saint, and...well, you probably get the drift. Dylan McDermott, Jason Lee, Gary Busey, and Cary Elwes co-star.

Behaving Badly opens August 1st, directed by Tim Garrick.

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New Trailer for 'Getaway' Can't Seem to Figure Out Who Selena Gomez Is

So here's the funny thing about trailers, and why studios release multiple versions of them; a simple tweak can change the tenor of the entire thing. Take Getaway for instance, an action flick clearly geared at the Fast & Furious crowd, and those curious about the radical course change of Selena Gomez's career. There may be one or two folks who dig Ethan Hawke but probably not for a movie like this. Anyway, it seems that some producer realized that painting Gomez as a criminal in the first trailer, she comes away looking like a carjacker, wasn't going to click with audiences. So for this brand new footage she's set up as just an unwitting victim of the villain's evil deeds. Does it make for a better trailer? Well, judge for yourself.

Hawke plays a race car driver in a custom Mustang who must beat the clock and rescue his kidnapped wife from a psycho, who is nice enough to call on the phone and give him commands and stuff. It looks absolutely ridiculous, and Hawke wholly disinterested, but the stunt racing aspects are fairly impressive. As for Gomez? Eh, she's there, and she gets to wear a hoodie, so that's something. This would be more interesting if she brought over her Spring Breakers wardrobe, but then who could drive distracted by that sight?

Getaway opens on August 30th, and is directed by Courtney Robinson, the guy who gave us An American Haunting. Judge accordingly. 

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Ethan Hawke and Selena Gomez Get Fast & Furious In the Trailer for 'Getaway'

What does it mean when a film stars Ethan Hawke and Selena Gomez, but nobody seems to know it exists? That's usually a bad thing, right? That's kind of the situation with Getaway, a high-speed thriller co-directed by Courtney Solomon, whose two credits behind the camera are the abominable Dungeons and Dragons, followed by An American Haunting. Ok, so now we know why this is flying under the radar.

The first trailer for the film has been released, and basically it looks like someone decided Fast & Furious and 12 Rounds needed to be combined to make something completely generic. Hawke finds himself tormented yet again (dude can't catch a break in any movie, can he?) as a hot shot former race car driver who jumps behind the wheel of a custom Mustang to save his kidnapped wife from a bad guy feeding him commands over the phone. Gomez plays the car's owner (or maybe a carjacker??) who gets swept up in the mess, although based on the footage she may just be there to balance Hawke's disinterest with her constant state of shock.

Also starring Jon Voight (!!!), Bruce Payne, Paul Freeman, and Rebecca Budig, Getaway opens on August 30th. 


Getaway by Teaser-Trailer.com

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William H. Macy adds Selena Gomez, Billy Crudup, Laurence Fishburne, and Anton Yelchin to "Rudderless'

 

In a way it's surprising that William H. Macy is only now making his feature directorial debut with the musical drama, Rudderless. A consummate character actor who has worked with some of the great filmmakers over his 30+ year career, including David Mamet, the Coen Brothers, and Paul Thomas Anderson, Macy has always seemed like a natural to make the transition behind the camera. With his wife Felicity Huffman set to co-star alongside him, Macy has now gathered an impressive group to help make his first film go smoothly.

Laurence Fishburne, Selena Gomez, Billy Crudup, and Anton Yelchin have joined Rudderless, which is based on a story conceived by Macy along with screenwriters Casey Twenter and Jeff Robison.  The film follows a grieving father in a downward spiral who discovers a box of original music written by his dead son. He forms a band to perform the songs and in the process learns to find peace and cope with the loss. No word on the roles each actor will play, but we know Macy will take on the lead role of the father.

It's a solid group that should fit in well with the sorts of films Macy usually finds himself acting in. The only exception may be Gomez, and it'll be interesting to see how she fits into the picture.  Filming on Rudderless begins later this month. [Variety]

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First trailer for Chilean horror 'Aftershock' with Eli Roth and Selena Gomez

Eli Roth will be directing his first film since 2007 with The Green Inferno, but it's not like he's been sitting around twiddling his thumbs. He's been keeping pretty busy as an actor(Inglourious Basterds, Piranha), a producer(The Last Exorcism), and a writer(The Man with the Iron Fists). Before we see his next directorial effort on the big screen, he'll turn up in the Chilean horror film, Aftershock.

In what looks like some crappy straight-to-DVD junk, Aftershock is set during the 2010 earthquake that rocked Chile, only in this fictional version of the story the chaos also sets free a bunch of insane asylum freaks who go on a murderous rampage. Roth co-wrote the script along with director Nicolas Lopez and Guillermo Amoedo.  As an actor, Roth is a pretty decent director, and he's downright aggravating in the newly released trailer, apparently playing a cocky American douche named Gringo (ho ho ho). Selena Gomez turns up briefly for some unknown reason, probably because she wanted to be in Final Destination and this was the closest she could get.

Whatever the case, Aftershock is not a film I'll be seeking out when it arrives next year....

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New clip from Eli Roth's natural disaster flick 'Aftershock'

Why doesn't anybody just go to Disney World or something for vacation anymore? Surely people are smart enough to realize that an international trip can only end with you being kidnapped and sold into sex slavery, chased by gigantic monsters, or in the case of Aftershock caught in a violent earthquake. Aftershock stars and was co-written by horror maestro Eli Roth(Hostel) and Selena Gomez, and follows a group of partygoers in Chile forced to fight for their lives when a massive earthquake hits.

Nicolas Lopez directs and co-wrote the script with Roth, so don't expect this to be just some triumph of the human spirit ala The Impossible with Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor. No, the devastation and death takes on a Final Destination tone as evidenced by this first brief clip from the film.  Dimension Films just picked up the rights in a major deal coming out of Toronto, so we'll definitely be seeing this in theaters before too long....

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1st clip from Harmony Korine's 'Spring Breakers' with Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez

Whoa. I hope you didn't just watch that clip from The Perks of Being a Wallflower and now are about to check out this bit from Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers. The whiplash contrast in the depiction of out-of-step teens is liable to snap your neck. Where 'Perks' deals rather astutely with those who embody their emotional pain, Spring Breakers is the crazy story of a bunch of screwed up girls who just don't give a f**k about anything.

Adding to the further corruption of Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens, Spring Breakers centers on four college-aged girls who get thrown in the slammer after robbing a fast food joint so they could have enough money for their annual vacation. Ok, that's a little weird but when you throw in that James Franco is playing a rappin', dreadlocked drug dealer who bails them out so they can kill his partner, it just gets downright strange.

This clip doesn't give us any of that stuff, though. Instead we get Gomez in her jail cell droning on about how everything's the same, while Hudgens pretends to shoot things with her fingers. There's no release date yet, but you can expect Spring Breakers to draw some attention at Venice and Toronto in the coming weeks....

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More images of Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez in 'Spring Breakers'

Raise your hands: Who else is hoping we may some day get a double feature of Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers, and Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring? Anybody? Between both films, I don't know which one has me more confused over the tone,  Korine has a history of aiming dead opposite of what we'd call the "mainstream", yet the film is full of Disney Channel starlets, now all grown up and looking to get a little dirty. For that reason alone it's a movie worth getting amped up for.

A handful of new images of Spring Breakers have emerged, giving us more looks at Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, and Co. in their bikinis. Not complaining one iota. Let's not forget the presence of James Franco, who plays a rappin' drug dealer who springs the girls out of jail after they rob a fast food joint. Korine wackiness at its fullest will soon follow, no doubt. Spring Breakers left out of Cannes without a distribution deal, so who knows when we'll actually see it. Check out the photos below, and try to keep your mind out of the gutter...[JoBlo]

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Trailer Time: 'Hotel Transylvania', starring Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg

Less than a month after the first trailer for the animated Hotel Transylvania arrived, we're treated to a new domestic one that features a small amount of new footage. It still looks like one of the worst animated offerings this year, both in terms of story and artistic vision. Oh, and Adam Sandler voices one of the characters, along with unfunny Grown Ups buds David Spade and Kevin James. Automatic thumbs down.

Hotel Transylvania has Dracula(Sandler) running a hotel exclusively for classic movie monsters. After inviting a bunch of his monster pals to a weekend celebration of his daughter's 118th birthday, the festivities are spoiled when a regular human(Andy Samberg) turns up and books a room. Cee-Lo Green, Molly Shannon, Selena Gomez, and Steve Buscemi lend their voices to the film. Check out the latest trailer below, and if you dig it then mark September 28th down on your calendar....

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James Franco, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, and Emma Roberts join Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers

To be honest, avant garde filmmaker Harmony Korine lost me a long time ago. He burst onto the scene and became a name to watch after writing the groundbreaking Kids way back in 1995. Since then his films have been so weird I just sorta gave up. In 1999 he gave us Julian Donkey Boy, a strange, stagnant film notable only for it's oddball cinematic style. The next film I saw from him was the dismal Ken Park, which I've said many times is the worst movie I've ever seen. Period. Somebody gave it to me thinking I would dig it, and that person is no longer a friend.

Korine's experimental style has attracted a lot of fans, though. Not the least of which is James Franco, who has been working with the director on various projects throughout the year. The duo are in the process of pairing up for Korine's next feature film, which sounds like a departure even for him.

Variety reports that Franco and Emma Roberts will star in Spring Breakers, which Korine will both write and direct. Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez are in talks to join the film as well, which will be far darker than anything they've ever been attached to. This ain't Ramona and Beezus.  The story will focus on four college age girls who rob a fast food joint to pay for their spring break trip, but get tossed in jail. Franco will play a rappin' arms and drug dealer who bails them out and convinces the girls to kill his rival. Seriously.

Franco seems to have a thing about playing criminals and dealers in particular. Just look at Due Date, Pineapple Express, and most recently his hilarious cameo in The Green Hornet. So we know he'll be good to go in this. Hudgens is out of the teeny bopper thing after starring in Sucker Punch and the upcoming Frozen Ground, and Roberts has been tackling heavier material for awhile now. But Gomez? This is a serious change of pace for her. I can't wait to see how this pans out.  Production is set to kick off during spring break in Florida.

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