Even when I hesitantly stepped into Harmony Korine's van with that weird smell and no windows, I was still really looking forward to eating the candy he offered. This is how I feel about most of his films.

Covid killed & illed a lot of people on our planet, but it also changed the cultural landscape of pretty much everything we take for granted. Spring break has been a broken tradition in America for some time and it’s not just sun and fun and hijinks, but roofies, date rape and PTSD.

Much like the pandemic has shown truly shown us who people really are when thinks get hard, time has given the film a referential patina which changes the source material. James Franco turned out to be a real deal creep. The dread of forced amusement has metastasis into misanthropic attitudes towards any kind of mass gathering. (I personally think this is the Trump effect due to all his “rallies.”) But what director Korine gets right is that Americans blowing off steam has become an arena for division, divisiveness and all kind of heartbreak.