The Beach Bum Bum - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The Beach Bum



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
How do I describe The Beach Bum? If you enjoy watching Matthew McConaughey stumble around southern Florida in a perpetual haze of booze and drugs while making crude comments to everyone you meet, then you might actually enjoy this movie.

I’m a huge fan of stoner comedy (Harold and Kumar, most of Seth Rogen’s movies etc) but The Beach Bum really should just have been called Florida Man, as it is a hybrid of watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with Spring Breakers. A mix that is basically like taking all of the horror stories that you hear about the fringe elements of Florida and infusing it with the cookiness that director Harmony Korine puts in his film. I was a bit nervous about the movie considering Harmony Korine was directing/writing, but I REALLY liked the cast involved, and the trailer looked bizarre as all getout. I mean, we have Matthew McConaughey, Snoop Dog (the king of stoners), Martin Lawrence, Zac Efron, Jimmy Buffet, Isla Fisher and countless more adorning the screen. It had to be at least SEMI good! Well, it’s not. I know that there is a sort of “love it or hate it” relationship with Korine, but this is one of his worst movies to date and shows that Spring Breakers was an anomaly for him rather than the norm. The lack of cohesion and sense in this movie is beyond ludicrous and the worst thing is, it’s not even funny. Even if watched high!

Harmony Korine is kind of a strange figure in Hollywood. Back in the 90s Harmony was a sort of likable disaster, making bizarre indie films about poverty, pain, suffering and the human condition. He was kind of like the John Waters of the 90s, and he had a distinct cult following. That is until 2012 when he directed Spring Breakers and it was actually a GOOD movie. Spring Breakers may not be for everyone, but it had a very competent script and was well acted. People started taking notice of him and hailing him as some sort of savant. However, 7 years late he falls back into his old habits of making bizarre films with inept scripts, and The Beach Bum ends up being one of his worst films to date (although it still can’t beat Trash Humpers as his worst train wreck).

Moondog (Matthew McConaughey) was once a prolific poet in his days and has amassed a small fortune. Now he spends his days down in Key West by the beaches perpetually drunk/high, having casual sex and basically living the good life while his wife Minnie (Isla Fisher) parties it up in Miami (where she’s sleeping with family friend and drug lord Lingerie (Snoop Doog). Called back home to be at his oldest daughter’s wedding, Moondog struggles to stay as high as he possibly can, while ignoring his agent’s (played by Jonah Hill) constant pestering. When tragedy strikes it looks like the only option in front of Moondog is a life of rehab or figuring out how to live the “high” life forever and block out the world with weed and beeze (and of course randomly asking convenience store clerks for acid).

I’d say it’s HIGHLY debatable if The Beach Bum has a story associated with it. Korine is listed as both director AND writer, but from what I gathered from interviews and reading around it was a whole lot of Snoop Dog and Matthew McConaughey getting high on set and just making things up as they went along. There’s some basic story structure that McConaughey tries to follow, but even at 95 minutes (including credits) the story is paper thin and stretched to its max. And that includes many of the more inane, nonsensical scenes that really aren’t pushing the story along at ALL. I wanted to like the movie as I’m a huge fan of dumb stoner comedies, but this is really Harmony Korine and just going balls to the walls with as much subversive “newspaper worthy” stuff you hear about from the onion regarding the whacked out stuff that people in Florida do. You know, the old “well, a man was found on the board walks eating another mans face”, or “drunk naked man attacks tourists with samurai swords while speaking swahili” and the reader immediately thinks to himself “I’ll be this happened in Florida”. That’s about the sum of watching The Beach Bum.




Rating:

Rated R for pervasive drug and alcohol use, language throughout, nudity and some strong sexual content




Video:

According to IMDB The Beach Bum was shot on 35mm film (yay!) and finished at 4K for the home video master, and while I’m sad that there’s no 4K release, I don’t think most people will care anyways. Still, the best part of this entire package is the video as cinematographer Benoit Debie’s colorful photographic style is lavishly beautiful. In fact, the colors and the cinematography are simply stunning, and while Korine’s writing and directing leave much to be desired, the video most certainly does not. The landscape is brilliantly sit and fairly neutral, with hot pinks and greens and blues thrown in at various intervals to create the sort of hallucinogenic vibe that the film feeds off of. Fine details are exceptional throughout, allowing us to see every bit of sweat on Moondog’s face, every bit of grime under his nails, and every bit of crazy smoke filled lunacy of the various Florida party spots. Blacks are deep and inky with the only problem being some intermittent banding that shows up in the darker shots.









Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track (the only track on the disc) is a great sounding disc that spreads out the sound stage very evenly for the Florida based comedy. Music is the main source of surround activity for the film, but there are several more ethereal based moments throughout the film (such as the big weed tree, or the various parties that Moondog visits), and the dialog is crystal clear. It’s a clean, clear, and very crisp sounding track that adds some nice low end with the drug induced stupors and various party locations, but otherwise is a fairly solid, but never overly excessive track.







Extras:

• Original trailer and TV spots

Final Score: ​

There were a FEW funny parts to the film (Martin Lawrence’s coke addicted parrot was actually pretty funny), but the movie is a doldrum of intellectual vacuousness and the jokes just AREN’T very funny. In fact, if the movie wasn’t billed as a comedy I never would have even guessed that it is one. The movie is just a rambling script where Matthew McConaughey stumbles around in a perpetual drug and alcohol induced stupor while leering at people. Rinse and repeat for 90s minutes. The Blu-ray itself is well done in the audio and video department, but the extras are near nonexistent (most good “extras” are actually interviews from Jimmy Kimmel and various other youtube videos and really would have been neat to include on the disc). If you’re REALLY into the bizarre and like Korine’s style, then you might want to check out The Beach Bum, but most other people will just want to skip it, as this is no Spring Breakers.




Technical Specifications:

Starring: Snoop Dogg, Isla Fisher, Matthew McConaughey, Martin Lawrence, Zac Efron, Jonah Hill, Jimmy Buffett, Stefanie LaVie Owen
Directed by: Harmony Korine
Written by: Harmony Korine
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Universal
Rated: R
Runtime: 95 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: June 18th, 2019

Recommendation: Skip It

 

[Asere]

I've never heard of it but may watch it once on Netflix or Prime just to see how dumb it is lol. Thanks for the review.

 

[Michael Scott]

I've never heard of it but may watch it once on Netflix or Prime just to see how dumb it is lol. Thanks for the review.

I'm so sorry, I'll pray for you when you watch it. You'll need it

 

[Asere]

I'm so sorry, I'll pray for you when you watch it. You'll need it

That bad huh? I'll message you when I'm about to watch it to start praying lol.

 

[Valerius Walls]

Any trailers on the DVD?

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Will skip it. Best of luck to those who want to watch it. lol.