The Beach Bum (Harmony Korine/Matthew McConaughey thing)

[peanutbutter]

No thread for this?

Watched it last night coming down from an acid trip, which maybe helped me tolerate its pacing a lot more than I normally would but I fucking loved it, just the total extreme commitment to such an drama-free idea with some pretty great goofy small parts from Zac Efron and Martin Lawrence (Jonah Hill less so).

Probably overdue a revisit to everything by Korine tbh...

[Non Stop Dancer]

Have you ever seen Harmony Korine's appearances on Letterman? I urge you to if not https://youtu.be/KRO6jZgQ6i4

[Dropshadow]

Yes. I saw this last summer. For the first half hour or so I hated it....... my finger kept hovering over the "stop this shit and watch something else" button. I thought the main character was a bad "Dude" clone and he laughed all the time and I wanted to hit him. But as I kept on watching I began to enjoy it and I did, eventually, enjoy it. It was a strange reaction.

[holyzombiejesus]

Have you ever seen Harmony Korine's appearances on Letterman? I urge you to if not https://youtu.be/KRO6jZgQ6i4

Ha! That was great, thanks.

[amputeeporn]

Yeah, this was a strange experience of the kind you seem to get less and less from cinema these days. Not certain I loved it, but it was interesting and occasionally quite funny. Kind of wish I'd watched it stoned.

Maybe it gave me some of the same feeling of otherness as Under The Silver Lake? Although I found that more successful, maybe because of its plot grounding in noir?

[dissolute ocelot]

I'm psyching myself up to watch this, mainly because of my weird affection for James Franco's character in Spring Breakers. If anyone can do a film about a druggy asshole with no plot, Korine can. (Edited to add that according to Google the most-asked thing about Spring Breakers is "What was the point of spring breakers?" I imagine The Beach Bum is much the same.)

[thugler]

I'm psyching myself up to watch this, mainly because of my weird affection for James Franco's character in Spring Breakers. If anyone can do a film about a druggy asshole with no plot, Korine can. (Edited to add that according to Google the most-asked thing about Spring Breakers is "What was the point of spring breakers?" I imagine The Beach Bum is much the same.)

Yeah I basically couldn't figure out if the beach bum was supposed to be loveable or utterly hateful. I was leaning towards the former and it all being a bit of a joke but I don't feel all that certain.

[peanutbutter]

I think the former, in that, he has that level of commitment to just having a good time and the mindset is able to adapt in spite of his actual life situation objectively going to total shit. People like being around him even if he leaves a trail of chaos.

Reminded me of my vague memories of Dean Moriarty in On the Road, the guy seemed like a total prick but he has such a good attitude and wasn't actively malicious, so the contagiousness of that alone is worth putting up with a lot of the bullshit? Except, in the real world anyone observing that kind of character from outside the sphere of people he's charming will be like "this guy is some sort of retarded cunt, what the fuck is up with these people?!"