The Bling Ring
The Bling Ring
#1The Bling Ring
Posted: 6/18/13 at 10:06pm
Got around to seeing this tonight and although I was entertained enough, I was disappointed with the superficial treatment the story received. It felt like nothing more than an E! True Hollywood Story, and that's a shame because there is an interesting tale to be told here.
Emma Watson was the best part of the movie for me. She is beautiful and her accent held much better here than in Perks of Being a Wallflower. I was more interested in her character than in either of the two leads.
The Bling Ring could be a companion piece with Springbreakers- but I HATED the latter and couldn't wait for it to be over. The Bling Ring was very watchable moved at a nice clip. There just wasn't much there.
Marie: Don't be in such a hurry about that pretty little chippy in Frisco.
Tony: Eh, she's a no chip!
#2The Bling Ring
Posted: 6/18/13 at 10:16pm
The hubby and me saw it on Sunday-- ugh, what a waste of time for the most part. I felt like Emma Watson was behaving like she was in a different, more over the top movie than everyone else. I was moderately sympathetic to the one guy in the group, but did NO-ONE of their friends actually say "Hey, wait a minute, this is wrong?"
Bizarre that the adults all behaved this idiotically. Bizarre that not one car they broke into had a working car alarm, and not one house had a home alarm system either. What magical part of LA did they operate in?
I was hoping Coppola would give context to all the criminality (we really enjoyed a lot of her wacky Marie Antoinette), but alas no. All we got was a cheap indie-look break-in and clubbing existence, and as soon as the fun ends, so did the movie. Bleh.
#2The Bling Ring
Posted: 6/19/13 at 3:09amThe girl Emma Watson's character is based on IS very over the top and constantly like a character and her mother is NUTS. Sounds like she played her perfectly.
Pretty pretty please don't you ever ever feel like you're less than f**ckin' perfect!
#3The Bling Ring
Posted: 6/24/13 at 4:37pm
God, I loved this movie. I thought it was absolutely dead on from the first frame to the last, perfectly depicting the fame obsessed society we live in. I might be biased since Coppola is probably my favorite writer/director working nowadays, but I thought she nailed these girls and what they were about. As I was leaving the theatre, a girl behind me (maybe 17 years old), dressed to the 9's like she was ready to go clubbing after robbing Paris' house, said in a voice identical to Watson's in the film, "That movie was just like so harsh. Nobody like acts like that or stuff. UGH" I just rolled my eyes and knew how dead on the movie I had just seen was.
And yes, Watson was amazing. Her line "This is my interview" to her mother was the highlight of the year to me. So perfect in every way.
MrMidwest
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/8/05
#4The Bling Ring
Posted: 6/24/13 at 5:31pm
Is it as entertaining as this clip?
Little brown Bebe shoes!
"The gods who nurse this universe think little of mortals' cares. They sit in crowds on exclusive clouds and laugh at our love affairs. I might have had a real romance if they'd given me a chance. I loved him, but he didn't love me. I wanted him, but he didn't want me. Then the gods had a spree and indulged in another whim. Now he loves me, but I don't love him." - Cole Porter
#6The Bling Ring
Posted: 6/24/13 at 6:38pmThose people are just one hot mess.
Pretty pretty please don't you ever ever feel like you're less than f**ckin' perfect!
showchoirguy
Broadway Star Joined: 7/14/10
#8The Bling Ring
Posted: 6/25/13 at 1:15pm
It's a very clear eyed film...there's very little sentimentality.
It doesn't treat these kids as anything but..well..criminals..
...it doesn't go “cutesy”, however, it fails to dwell on the point that we have a generation of children obsessed with celebrities who will never be celebrities themselves and will do anything they can to be near it..
Sure..
That mentality always existed but not to the degree it does now..
..and there’s a difference between falling in love with a Beatle and lusting after Paris Hilton's shoes...
Watson's terrific in it..
"There's no damn business like show business - you have to smile to keep from throwing up." - Billie Holiday
Icehouse Life
Stand-by Joined: 10/18/07
#9The Bling Ring
Posted: 6/25/13 at 7:46pm
Exactly, AnthVoice2010!
Sophia Coppola herself mentioned about a generation of young people now so celeb-obsessed and of the fame game in her interviews promoting this film. Thanks to mainstream media consolidation and the free market, among other things, which make the celebrity lifestyle so lucrative and aspirational (minus the struggles of making it and staying there). Those factors make it easier to market and sell as Easy Street, and this segment of kids (and even adults) lack the critical thinking skills to dissect it all. The social networking also highlight this.
I remember reading Robert Fuller's book, "Somebodies and Nobodies: Overcoming the Abuses of Rank" in which talks a bit about fame and how it attracts those who don't always have genuine interests of the celebs as well as the pursuit of it can be a double-edged sword. You can very well fall short or it would just be fleeting. These kids clearly had some severe feelings of nobodyism in their lives and wanted to change that.
Fits easily, albeit twistedly, into the vestiges of the American Dream and notions of meritocracy and the Puritan Ethic to achieve something of status the celebs have.
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