![Spring Breakdown [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ovADBnxvL._SL160_.jpg) | |
List Price: $35.99 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 84532
Released: June 2, 2009 |
| Our Price: $16.88 |
| Used Price: $13.20 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted) Media: Blu-ray |
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Editorial Review:
All-season comedy fun gets sprung in a big way when Saturday Night Live veterans Amy Poehler (Baby Mama), Rachel Dratch (I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry) and Will Arnett (Semi-Pro) gear up for one huge Spring Breakdown. Thirtysomething best friends Gayle (Poehler), Becky (Parker Posey) and Judi (Dratch) have always dreamed of being fabulous. But they never grew out of being geeks. So when Becky gets the opportunity to unofficially chaperone her boss daughter Ashley (Amber Tamblyn) to the college spring-break destination of South Padre Island, the ladies decide to turn their tragically unhip lives around and party with the beer-and-bikini set. Through keg-stands, hookups and foam parties, Becky, Gayle, Judi and Ashley are about to discover that its better to stand out than to fit in.
Description of Spring Breakdown [Blu-ray]:
Both a raucous party movie and comic vehicle for three talented actresses, Spring Breakdown stars Saturday Night Live veterans Rachel Dratch and Amy Poehler along with independent-film mainstay Parker Posey. The wish-list cast does a lot with a throwaway story about longtime friends whose social failures back in college are somewhat redeemed during a spring break spent with students in Mexico. Feebly chaperoning Ashley (Amber Tamblyn), daughter of the next U.S. vice-president (Jane Lynch in another of her funny, outsize performances), Posey's Becky--who brings Dratch's Judi and Poehler's Gayle along--heads for the beach and many quasi-orgies fueled by alcohol, wet T-shirt contests, and the like. While Becky steers the reserved Ashley toward less provocative activities, Gayle finds herself adopted as den mother to a gaggle of blonde hotties and Judi begins to think maybe there's more to life than being engaged to a gay boyfriend (Seth Meyers). There is certainly a lot to like about scenes involving any or all of the film's three stars, though the rest of Spring Breakdown looks like it could have been shot for any post-Animal House college movie. The film, co-written by Dratch, also features Missi Pyle in an expertly comic role as another older woman who latches onto the craziness. --Tom Keogh
Spring Breakdown [Blu-ray] Reviews:
When Women Team Up 
2009-11-21 - Just when I begin thinking that our society starts increasing its value on women, I'm proved wrong when I think more on it. The example that made me think of such things? Spring Breakdown. It's absolutely hilarious. But it has a 5.0 rating on imdb, and apparently is not well-received or liked. It's essentially the 7.0-rated Old School with a female cast instead of a male cast. I found it funnier than Old School, yet which one was a hit? Why was Spring Breakdown a flop? It already aired on Lifetime and it was released straight-to-DVD just a few months ago.
Spring Breakdown is a star-studded cast with some of the funniest ladies in comedy: the somewhat insane Amy Poehler, the goofy Rachel Dratch, the amazing Jane Lynch, and the queen of dry comedy Parker Posey. It's expected to be good. Add the astoundingly absurd Missy Pyle to the mix, and it's even better. Even though I find the cast attractive, they're not drop-dead gorgeous like other ladies of the film and television world (like Battlestar alum Tricia Helfer or Chuck sexy secret agent Yvonne Strahovski). If a college or high school experience movie has an all-male cast with bombshell women to attain as sexualized objects or flat characters, then it's a hit. Even with women. Come on, ladies. Start respecting yourselves! Support your fellow sex. Like Tina Fey says in Mean Girls: "You all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it okay for guys to call you sluts and whores." (One of the very select few with a nearly all-female cast that was a success but still underrated.) If you respect yourselves, then men will respect you, and then better parts for women in movies and television. As of right now, the only strong women are in sci-fi and nerdy shows where the cast splits awesomeness. Sci-fi has always been ahead in social criticism, especially in feminism. Start picking up the pace, rest of artistic world!
Maybe in twenty years, the movie might be a hit. It's definitely for nerds too! It's all about being comfortable with yourself and/or your nerdity and how that can be cool too. It's not just for the lady viewers if you can open your mind. I'm a man, and I love it. The jokes are hilarious, and the talent is amazing. Sure it's corny, but it's a good time. The majority of comedies aren't going to win awards, and this one sure isn't. It may have flaws, but comedies are about making people laugh, not about stunning cinematography and beautiful dialogue and setting. Dratch has great facial expressions as always, Poehler has fantastic timing and improved lines, and Posey has great characterization. She can really get into a character in the slightest of ways.
Fun to watch! 
2009-09-29 - This is going to be a classic for the good girl with friends who you wish they weren't but still help her do the right thing!
Awesome! If you never got to go to Spring Break 
2009-07-18 - Awesome! I don't remember this movie coming out in theatres so it must not have done well. I thought it was funny through out especially if you never got to go on Spring Break and would go if you had the opporunity to party with the college kids.
It is that funny................. 
2009-07-04 - Please let all the 1 star reviews go in one ear and out the other. Those reviewers were born w/o a "funny bone." This movie is THAT funny. I might be a tad impartial, because I think Amy Poehler is a hottie, too. At least give it a rental. You won't be sorry.
unfunny, unoriginal script tanks a talented cast 
2009-06-29 - Lots of talent in front of the camera. Great cast. I especially admire Parker Posey. She was excellent in CLOCKWATCHERS, one of my favorite films of the 1990s. Also did great work in HOUSE OF YES and DINNER AT FRED'S.
Kudos also to Amy Pohler, Seth Meyers, Missi Pyle, Jane Lynch, and Amber Tamblyn. Nope, the problem with SPRING BREAKDOWN isn't in front of the camera.
(I exempt Rachel Dratch from my kudos; her performance is less inspired. But she has story credit on the script, which explains her presence.)
The script is unfunny and unoriginal. I've seen this story many times before. Nerds grow up, and years later, are given a chance to prove themselves to be cool. ROMY AND MICHELLE'S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION comes to mind (same story, better film). Also shades of ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS; Parker Posey's nerdy, socially conscious character is similar to Saffie, Edina's nerdy, socially conscious daughter.
In SPRING BREAKDOWN, three nerdy friends from college, now in their 30s, go to spring break, to keep a Senator's nerdy daughter out of trouble.
In the end, we learn "a very important lesson": you should be yourself, and not care what other people think.
JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS (also featuring Posey) was a fresher comedy, in that it satirized old cliches like that.
SPRING BREAKDOWN is a meandering mess that parades tired old stereotypes. The anorexic cool girls, jokes about drinking -- LOTS of jokes in this film are based on contrasting the nerdy girls with drunken, messy people. Missi Pyle lies in a parking lot, drunk out of her mind. Rache Dratch wakes up among drunk guys in bed. Etc. etc.
Yes, old concepts can still be funny, if well handled. But there's no new twist or freshness in this film. You could write the script in your head.
This would have been a funnier film if this talented cast had tossed the script and improvised the comedy. Seriously. Posey's improvisations in Christopher Guest's mockumentaries are funnier than her character in SPRING BREAKDOWN.