Favorite Movie Week
I realize, Chaz, that you were addressing me when you said not to give a list of movies, or attempt to get around naming an absolute favorite. I'll play by your rules, but I don't want to hear anything from anybody about my taste, and how cliché a favorite movie this is. I identify with this movie, to a great extent; I haven't modeled myself after a character this much since the 10th grade, when I wanted to be Rob Gordon from High Fidelity.
Anyway, the movie is The Big Lebowski and the character I strive to be, in many ways, is Jeffrey Lebowski, aka The Dude.
The world has a love/hate relationship with this movie. You either love it intensely, like a cult film, or you hate it, and all those who love it. If ever there was a motive for murder in a white suburb, it's a disagreement about The Big Lebowski. Let's look at the facts : The Coen Brothers don't make bad movies. They write and direct from a certain niche, yes, and if you don't like the style, you're SOL. Most people who don't get The Big Lebowski don't understand subtlety; they think that anything labeled "comedy" has to have Sean William Scott put his penis into it, or Ben Stiller eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with semen in it. There are other kinds of comedy. Specifically the kind of comedy that requires you to pay attention, and to think about what you have seen and heard.
The character of Walter, played by John Goodman, gives dumb-comedy fans something to laugh about, and most of the low-level fans will recite Walter's lines, tragically attempting to recreate his loud and gruff voice. The ways in which Walter is very disturbed are lost on them; he is a commentary on the effect of Vietnam on the surviving soldiers, and their desperate grasps at identity. He flaunts his veteran status, as well as his conversion to Judaism, because he has little identity outside of those two facts.
It has been said that The Big Lebowski is an allegory of the first Gulf War. I do not know the details, but I was told it's pretty spot on. A guy I knew in high school, one of the biggest hippies I've ever met, tried to explain it to me; I've forgotten most of the details. If anybody knows it, I'd be interested.
-Alan
Anyway, the movie is The Big Lebowski and the character I strive to be, in many ways, is Jeffrey Lebowski, aka The Dude.
The world has a love/hate relationship with this movie. You either love it intensely, like a cult film, or you hate it, and all those who love it. If ever there was a motive for murder in a white suburb, it's a disagreement about The Big Lebowski. Let's look at the facts : The Coen Brothers don't make bad movies. They write and direct from a certain niche, yes, and if you don't like the style, you're SOL. Most people who don't get The Big Lebowski don't understand subtlety; they think that anything labeled "comedy" has to have Sean William Scott put his penis into it, or Ben Stiller eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with semen in it. There are other kinds of comedy. Specifically the kind of comedy that requires you to pay attention, and to think about what you have seen and heard.
The character of Walter, played by John Goodman, gives dumb-comedy fans something to laugh about, and most of the low-level fans will recite Walter's lines, tragically attempting to recreate his loud and gruff voice. The ways in which Walter is very disturbed are lost on them; he is a commentary on the effect of Vietnam on the surviving soldiers, and their desperate grasps at identity. He flaunts his veteran status, as well as his conversion to Judaism, because he has little identity outside of those two facts.
It has been said that The Big Lebowski is an allegory of the first Gulf War. I do not know the details, but I was told it's pretty spot on. A guy I knew in high school, one of the biggest hippies I've ever met, tried to explain it to me; I've forgotten most of the details. If anybody knows it, I'd be interested.
-Alan
posted by Alan Orlanski at 2:31 PM
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