Another movie with a NewAge theme (I've lost count of how many this is now) but in the case of The Bling Ring, the subject is it's effect on teens - and it sounds like Sophia Coppola got it right:
Though on the surface “The Bling Ring” is slight of aim and repetitive of structure, it is actually a slam-dunk conservative critique of American culture: As if with a checklist at hand, Coppola hits the collapse in Judeo-Christian teaching, decaying educational standards, loose ethics, broken families, drugs, Hollywood and a permissive criminal justice system. (Sex is missing — the only boy in the group seems to be gay, or at least more interested in trying on women’s pumps than getting in their pants. But these girls are so in love with themselves it’s tough to imagine anyone else meeting their standards.)
NOW we're getting somewhere, huh? C'mon, this could've been a TMR production. But get this:
It's a based on a true story!
Of course it is - I've been saying it's the real world for years. And not only that, but while this movie could've been told from almost any point of view, Coppola even chose mine, in a blender:
...Watson, who is amusingly convincing as the vapid Nicki and does a flawless American accent, plays a kid who is being home-schooled by her airhead mom (Leslie Mann). Nicki has a foster sister, Sam (Taissa Farmiga) who is living in the house because her mother washed away on a tide of booze and drugs.
The mother is teaching the girls a goofball religion based on “The Secret” — prayer as catalog shopping,..I am so there.
Get it, watch it, enjoy it, and then marvel we're here at all,...
I watched Kumare a month ago. It wasn't bad; I was disappointed in him not having the salt to fess up, but in a way that probably shows how hard it is to get out of something like that once the old ball gets rolling (I think he was so worried about being nice and trying to "help" people that he wound up doing worse; at least that was my take on it). Which I guess is saying something of itself.
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