Harmony Korine, the director who made “Spring Break Forever!!” an unexpected summer anthem six years ago with Spring Breakers. Matthew McConaughey, who exemplified the drugged-out, arrested development attitude of an entire generation in Dazed and Confused. On the surface, Korine and McConaughey seem like kindred spirits, destined to team up on The Beach Bum, which looks like a film that could only have been made while high as a friggin’ kite.
And maybe that’s exactly the case? Stories surfaced a while back about McConaughey smoking actual weed in his role as Moondog, a Miami poet living in a haze of marijuana smoke and alcohol. So what was up with that? Turns out McConaughey’s co-star Snoop Dogg switched out the fake weed with some of that real sticky icky shit without telling anybody, and I imagine that’s just the kind of thing that happens when you let Snoop on any movie set. The film co-stars Isla Fisher, Zac Efron, Stefania Owen, Jonah Hill, Jimmy Buffet, and some guy named Martin Lawrence.
The result is what appears to be another classic character creation by Korine and McConaughey, opening with Moondog asking a store clerk if the guy sells acid. Funny stuff, and I already just want to grab a lawn chair and max out with this movie somewhere.
The Beach Bum opens next year on March 22nd.
