The Dude Abides

[Lakai]

@CalMeacham

I’m not a really bif Coen Brothers fan (although I loved their first, Blood Simple, and their next, Raising Arizona, but many of their others leave me flat. So I didn’t see The Big Lebowski for a long time. But, away from home with my family, I selected the film On Demand and watched it. My wife and daughter were drawn in, and now my daughter raves abiout this to her friends. I do like its engaging weirdness.

Funny, I never liked Raising Arizona. I just hate slapstick comedy.

The Big Lebowski, I love. It’s one of my all time favorite movies. I think it’s because The Dude is a hero for us apathetic types. Some of us just don’t want to participate in all the bullshit going on around us and just want to get our rug back and go back to drinking and bowling. It’s fun to watch The Dude get sucked out of his comfort zone, deeper and deeper into a web of nonsense he wants no part of.

[The_Other_Jeffrey_Lebowski]

@The_Second_Stone

I’d hardly say it was an all time great movie.

Sometimes, there’s a movie, well, it’s the movie for its time and place. It fits right in there. And that’s The Big Lebowski.

[The_Other_Jeffrey_Lebowski]

@ftg

Not a (little-d) doper. Don’t see how The Big Sleep would help.

Well, firstly, it’d make for a great double feature. But also because of the parallels, the noir archetypes that TBS helped establish that get twisted by the Coens. This article points out some character similarities.

Maude Lebowski has Vivian’s patrician arrogance, but she has traded her innuendo for feminist theory.

[Double_Foolscap]

@RealityChuck

Because it’s funnier to talk about than to actually see.

Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.

[Cumberdale]

I may give it a second try. The firdt tim I saw it on VHS most likely I was ‘meh’ about it. I am looking forward to the Big Sleep and moved it up in in my Netflix queue.

[Astral_Rejection]

@lieu

Killer flick. I didn’t really get the Sam Elliot bits, but no matter. The Dude abides.

Funny (possibly apocryphal) story about that: Sam Elliott doesn’t get his role either. I read (or heard) about a story where, during filming, he went up to the Coen brothers and said something like “hey guys, love the movie, glad to be here, but… What’s the point of my character?”

One of the brothers laughed and said “Sam, when we figure it out we’ll get back to you about it.”

[LawMonkey]

@lieu

Killer flick. I didn’t really get the Sam Elliot bits, but no matter. The Dude abides.

Wikipedia has this to say:

The use of the Stranger’s voiceover also came from Chandler as Joel remarked, “He is a little bit of an audience substitute. In the movie adaptation of Chandler it’s the main character that speaks off-screen, but we didn’t want to reproduce that though it obviously has echoes. It’s as if someone was commenting on the plot from an all-seeing point of view. And at the same time rediscovering the old earthiness of a Mark Twain.”

For me, hell, I don’t care. I think Sam Elliott’s awesome, and that’s reason enough to put him in any movie.

[toofs]

@The_Other_Jeffrey_Lebowski

Sometimes, there’s a movie, well, it’s the movie for its time and place. It fits right in there. And that’s The Big Lebowski.

Don’t be fatuous, Jeffrey.

[The_Other_Jeffrey_Lebowski]

It’s a league game, toofs.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

“You’re entering a world of pain.”
“He fixes the cable?”
“He said I could take the rug.”
“I hate the fuckin’ Eagles, man.”
“You don’t fuck with the Jesus!”

I love love love The Big Lebowski, and I’m about as un-Dude-like a guy as you’re ever going to meet.

[Terraplane]

I just hope none of you ever have to learn what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps.

[F.U.Shakespeare]

@Astral_Rejection

Funny (possibly apocryphal) story about that: Sam Elliott doesn’t get his role either. I read (or heard) about a story where, during filming, he went up to the Coen brothers and said something like “hey guys, love the movie, glad to be here, but… What’s the point of my character?”

One of the brothers laughed and said “Sam, when we figure it out we’ll get back to you about it.”

The brothers tell that story in the “making of the Big Lebowski” documentary on the DVD.

[Astral_Rejection]

Boom. That’s where I heard it, then!

[DrumBum]

Well, the party went well and while a little beer was spilled, nobody peed on the rugs. The Brit’s in attendance loved *The Big Lebowski *and The Ladykillers while the French like Raising Arizona the best. We may just do this again if I can acquire a few more titles.

And thanks to all for not pointing out my spelling error in the brothers name. How embarrassing… :smack:

[Elendil_s_Heir]

Such a nice pair of Jewish boys.

[BMalion]

Guess what movie I watched last night?

[Qadgop_the_Mercotan]

@BMalion

Guess what movie I watched last night?

He fixes the cable?

[BMalion]

@Qadgop_the_Mercotan

He fixes the cable?

Don’t be -

[Elendil_s_Heir]

You’re entering a world of pain.

[Pushkin]

Much as I like TBL, I just didn’t like Burn Before Reading and I thought they were trying for the same sort of comedy. I guess the cast of TBL just really tied the whole thing together.