- These days, it's difficult not to be familiar with The Big Lebowski. "The Dude" and his White Russians have, for better or worse, officially entered the cultural lexicon for everyone within about ten years of my age in either direction. Part of this is surely attributable to the incredible stable of talent contained in this film. As quintessential slacker Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski and unstable Vietnam vet Walter Sobchak, Jeff Bridges and John Goodman manage to create career-defining characters that are simultaneously more absurd and, paradoxically, more engaging than most others in the Coen brothers' filmography. Furthermore, they are surrounded by such impressive character actors as Steve Buscemi, David Huddleston, Sam Elliott, Peter Stormare, Ben Gazzara, Jon Polito, and John Turturro. Even people who usually aren't relegated to character acting, like Julianne Moore and Philip Seymour Hoffman, are added here mostly for color, and they all combine to create a truly impressive ensemble cast.
- Of course, the other reason that I imagine The Big Lebowski has caught on is that a lot of really crazy shit happens. I'm talking about rug peeing, a marmot in a bathtub, bowling ball licking, nihilists, and nude trampolining. Dig a little deeper, and you realize that the story is basically The Big Sleep, but replacing Marlowe with two holdovers from the late 60's Southern California scene who don't seem to have a single thing in common aside from their mutual cluelessness and love of bowling. Maybe part of the appeal is that these two dopes are probably like people you know. Certainly I can think of stoners who end up getting most of their drinks in their beards and high-strung boors who begin each sentence with "my point is" just before delivering a predictably awful idea. So is all of this funny? Admittedly, I laughed pretty hard when The Dude crashed his car because of a dropped joint, and there's no better riff on the stale P.I. paper-tracing trick than appears in this film. Not exactly what I'd call culturally significant or even enough material for a good movie, but maybe I should just follow the narrator's example and lose my train of thought before I say anything too meaningful about a film that doesn't really strive to mean anything.
- I forgot to mention Flea, Aimee Mann, and Tara Reid, who are characters but perhaps not actors?
