The Bling Ring
Dir: Sofia Coppola
2013
**
Much like Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers, Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring highlights a vile way of thinking evident in the youth of today. I'm in my mid thirties so I think I'm from what is regarded as the 'MTV generation', I'm not sure, but the 'MTV generation' is a term that was often used when talking about kids with short attention spans, bad taste in music, casual drug habits and poor prospects. At least it was in my day. The bratty youth of today, particularly from California (although they exist everywhere) are something else. Every generation has its troubles but my word, something has seriously gone wrong with current youth. For all those wondering what kind of social impact TV shows like MTV cribs, The OC, The Simple Life, My Sweet Sixteen etc have had and what kids who have idols such as Paris Hilton, Miley Ray Cyrus, Lindsay Lohan etc have turned out like, look no further than The Bling Ring. The poisonous plastic Media we have in the west is to blame, not to mention the people behind these 'celebrities', the men in suits who are no better than sleazy ghetto pimps. They have created a monster - a generation of monsters in fact. Like I said, every generation has its faults and each generation will be misunderstood/disliked by the one before but take away the similarities, the drugs, rebellion and the music, and the big difference is the vanity. The self-importance, the smugness, the idea of entitlement, the lack of creativity. Every rebellious generation have creativity at their core. Punks, Mods, Rockers, Hip-Hop, Skaters, even Emos to some respect show creativity. It's this cultureless void that Coppola highlights exceedingly well but much like Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers, almost too well. It's a hateful generation, we are not meant to like the characters and because Coppola is so good at what she does, we are essentially watching 90 minutes of gut-wrenching awfulness. Message received but ultimately we are not amused nor entertained. Maybe if it were a documentary it would have been different. Add the fact that again, I'm not sure the intended actually got the message (I'm not sure even the actors get the message) and I think overall, it's unsuccessful. To my astonishment (and disgust) the DVD extras included a 'Scene of the crime' feature where Paris Hilton takes a tour of her own house 'MTV cribs style' and looks sad for the camera which is as hollow as a 100 year old tree with woodworm (or indeed her head).  So it seems even the production company missed the point, which makes me wonder if the film holds any credibility at all?