The Beach Bum

There’s a moment in The Beach Bum when aging wastrel Moondog smokes a joint in a hammock, surrounded by naked women, with two hands on a bongo drum and a mouthful of gibberish poetry. That moment lasts 95 minutes, and it is glorious.

With the film, Harmony Korine solidifies his position as the premier cartographer of the Sunshine State as a place of unhurried pursuits.

The Beach Bum, by turn, seems to exist in the hazy headspace of its protagonist, a kindred spirit in less-than-lofty, party-till-you-puke ambition. But there’s a bummer relevance lurking in his fantasy of a rich idiot who does whatever he wants and faces no consequences for his actions.

It’s not unfunny watching McConaughey smoke a joint from between Isla Fisher’s toes, but some viewers may find themselves less enamoured of Moondog than the film is.

I can’t tell if Korine is a true dramatist or a simpleminded provocateur who lives to mess with our heads. Both, probably. To him, the joke is that it’s all movie fodder. Moondog is an existential hero for a weightless universe.

Simultaneously shaggy and hyper-stylized, The Beach Bum plays like a less-coked-out “Scarface,” the collected works of Charles Bukowski, and a Cheech & Chong movie all rolled up in one — an epic goof in which the cast (not just McConaughey but Snoop Dogg, Martin Lawrence, Jonah Hill, and Jimmy Buffett) play elaborate, semi-improvised caricatures of outlandish tropical fruits.

Meet Moondog — a movie character you’ll want to punch in the face.

Beach bum is really the most spiritual movie that I've seen, it shows the meaningless of it all and a person who is 100% awake and had already let go of the ego self. this masterpiece won't get much rates and views because of course, the mass population are busy with superheroes in 2019 but the movie is just as deep as it can be.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Different movie from others. It does have great cast and the role really fits to Matthew's style. Weird while interesting, stupid at times and sometimes feels like wanting to skip through, but yet watchable and I watched it all. The movie is about bohemian type guy who has money, then loses access to it but tries to show that money doesn't matter while at same time at some points being worried about money. Anyway, in general weird a bit but watchable, just maybe not fully for me.

Do yourselves a favor, skip this movie and go get the book “Mile Marker Zero : The Moveable Feast of Key West” by William McKeen, and read that instead. Huge Buffett fan, love McConaughey, Snoop, Fisher, Efron, all good. Love Key West / Caribbean vibe/culture, benders, good times, all that. All that goodness was wasted on this movie. Ideas that pretend to be founded on some Hunter S. Thompson building block of substance that we never actually see, and then funneled into scenes of what 8th graders might think is cool, is more or less what’s going on here. McConaughey played the Moondog role to perfection, unfortunately the whole project was such entitled teenager attitude idealism that I was embarrassed for the entire cast by midway thru. I guess I didn’t realize that the writer/director was a corny 15-yr-old that recently discovered weed and is currently throwing a tantrum cuz his pampering mother is reluctant to take him to get that giant pot leaf tattoo on his back that he really really wants. McConaughey made a few spots feel like there might be something, and the character could have been interesting under better circumstances, but then “Hey man” reckless stupidity won out. I felt bored and strung out by the end. And despite the last ditch effort at some philosophical take away, the real Moondog is sh**ting on himself in a tent in LA, and nobody's cheering him on. And the token square punching bag, why bother?? Some nice scenery though.

I smoke marijuana, but it has nothing to do with this genre. that seems to be only to fill or complete fiscal budgets on the part of the production companies: unrealistic, risky, "supposedly comic" scenarios, which contribute nothing to society or to the moviegoer: it does not take away that Matthew and some others show their acting ability; even the photography is remarkable - the humor is merely local, or Hollywood indoctrination (as always).