I borrowed The Big Lebowski from Lemming the other day and watched it on Monday night, finally crossing one movie off the list of the many I should have already seen. (By the way, I recently mentioned Bull Durham in this context. With my baseball fixation, that movie is literally at the top of this list. I'm embarrassed that I've never seen it.) So this review is quite a bit late in coming...
Anyway, the film is obviously very good, although unlike Gazebo (as indicated by a recent comment in his blog), I would not put this on my short short list of 90s films. (I like Fargo, also by the Coen brothers, better, although I would need to think whether that would go on my short list.) It has a lot of memorable quotes (I especially liked the one I used as the title for this entry) and vignettes, but I also found it dragging at several points, which is a big reason why it's not on my short short list. I very much appreciated the Kraftwerk reference (compare a title of one of their most famous songs to that of the German band in the film) as well as the techno music that plays in the background when the band-turned-gang wants to start a street fight. That joke was classy.
A couple covers I know were in this movie. I had forgotten that Shawn Colvin's version of "Viva Las Vegas" was there, and I never knew that the Gypsy King's version of "Hotel California" was in it. (Actually, I am somewhat disturbed by the context of the latter song, and I hope that I will eventually be able to withdraw that from my memory.)
John Goodman did an excellent job, but The Dude got on my nerves sometimes (another reason this stops at very good instead of going on my short short list or even my short list).
Sometimes the half-orc eats the owlbear; sometimes the owlbear eats the half-orc. (Or maybe I should write "owlbar".)
4 days ago
11 comments:
This is one of those movies that gets better the more times you see it. I felt similarly after my first viewing.
This movie had a Delayed Blast Cool (tm) effect on me. I was perplexed while watching it, but a few hours later I started to really like it. Then I really, really liked it. I liked it better than Fargo, but it was also a very different sort of movie, so there's not much point in fine-granularity comparison.
Definitely. It gets better. "O Brother Where Art Thou" also gets better with time. -jing
I liked the film---don't get me wrong. It was very good. I am just not as big a fan as others.
I liked 'Oh Brother Where Art Thou' as well, although I've only seen it once. 'A Man of Constant Sorrow' is an excellent song (and provides pleasant memories of the flick), and other tunes from the soundtrack are also cool. "And we were banished from Walmart..."
One thing interesting about 'Oh Brother' were the dichotomous ratings it received from the critics: everybody seemed to either love it or hate it.
Now we need a version of The Odyssey that occurs in the 1980s... that would totally kick ass.
My initial reaction to the movie was much the same as Lemming's. It was weird how it grew on me over time before I even had a second viewing. I also liked Oh Brother, but I still haven't seen Fargo. (I considered mentioning in my comment on 90's movies that some people will cite Fargo instead of Lebowski.)
Yah, you betcha'. It also helps that William H. Macy is an especially awesome actor. ("I shovel well! I shovel very well!")
The thing that appeals to someone of my generation about Lebowski is the portrayal of the Dude as this completely perfect 60s anachronism making his way through life in the 90s. Right down to the fondness for Credence, the dislike of the Eagles and the roach that he loses control over while driving his automobile. Btw, according to the Wikipedia entry on the film, all the clothes that Jeff Bridges wore in that role were his. That Wikipedia entry is worth a look for other interesting items of trivia, like the actual number of times the word "fuck" was used.
Woh, Aimee Mann was the female nihilist. Now that's cool on several levels.
Oh, and 'it tied the room together' is another key line that I think I've heard now and again in real life (presumably taken explicitly from this film).
By the way, as part of that piece of trivia, wikipedia has a link to a list of films ordered by the word 'fuck'. How awesome is that! Lebowski ranks 11th. Jarhead is 18th. (For what it's worth and also unsurprisingly, the films on this list are all recent. The oldest one I've seen so far is 1989.) OK, here's Scarface from 1983... Something called Blue Collar from 1978... Heh, Bad Santa at #45... The Aristocrats with 100 (and ranked 71st) is the last one they show. Anyway, this list is dominated by recent films.
The trivia mentions a couple references to Fargo, which I didn't catch.
Gazebo has used the line about tying the room together a couple times in reference to that rug of his that got soaked during the December floods in Berkeley.
Incidentally, Wikipedia is on my book marks filed under "educational". - j.
OK, the flooding definitely makes sense in where I read that recently. I will definitely have to use that line at some point. For example, the Summer Fun Cthulhu in my office in Sloan Annex 130 ties the room together.
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