So finally watched The Big Lebowski, by Los Hermanos Coen. I never saw this movie the first time around, and despite its cult following, tried to watch it once before but gave up about 10 min. into the movie. For whatever weird reason, I decided to give it another chance.

So….I have to say this is one of the weirdest movies I’ve ever seen – and that’s even by Coen Brothers standards (Fargo or Raising Arizona, anyone?). On the one hand, The Dude (the always too-cool-for-school Jeff Bridges) is definitely a sympathetic central character, despite all the s*** (literally and figuratively) thrown at him during the movie. And Walter (John Goodman) is a complete freak from the first words out of his mouth until the very end. Steve Buscemi must have had the easiest acting job of his career – he has about one page of dialog the whole movie (mostly the same sentence over and over again which makes John Goodman scream at him) and to otherwise just sit there in most scenes. Finally, Julianne Moore is kind of wasted here as the weird art-heiress – she’s definitely one of my favorite actors, but her character just doesn’t make much sense (like most of the rest of the movie). John Turturro as ‘Jesus’ only gets a couple yelly scenes and then no big showdown at the end with The Dude (or even Walter)?

I’m not sure if this movie is an indictment or a celebration (!?) of the So-Cal lifestyle but its events likely couldn’t happen anywhere else (save possibly Monaco, to far richer and likely crazier people)? Definitely a unique look at Americana, that’s for sure.

I guess I’m glad I finally saw it, but as a Coen Brothers movie, I just don’t think it’s up to either of the two mentioned above, nor the far more recent No Country for Old Men. If it wasn’t for Jeff Bridges, there wouldn’t be much to recommend this movie, really. Definitely looking forward to seeing JB in the (really recent) Coen remake of True Grit, though.

The Dude abides…..and has left me shaking my head. 🙂

candybowl