Skip to main content

Now&Zen: The Coen Brothers' The Big Lebowski

 Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Stece Buscemi, John Turturro, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman. Dir. Joel&Ethan Cohen, Polygram, 1998


What can I possibly say about one of the great cult classics ever, certainly among my favorite movies of all time? I can, and have, devoted New Yorker-length writeups to other favorites such as Do the Right Thing and The Godfather, but those movies are not the Coen Brothers' late-'90s slacker noir. In their usual genre-demolishing way, the Coens pay tribute to the spirit of Raymond Chandler with an LA-set mystery in which, at a certain point, neither the mystery nor its solution hold the least interest for an otherwise-rapt audience. If that solution seems obvious to some early on, by the time it arrives they may not even notice. In that moment, John Goodman's bodyslam of David Huddleston usually has me convulsed in mirth rather than resolution. Besides, what's resolved in the end is what was established at the beginning: The Dude is the man for his times. He fits right in there. The Dude abides. Just as zen simply is, what else can be said? 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I love Twinkies: Tommy Lee Wallace's IT

 Harry Anderson, Richard Thomas, Dennis Christopher, Tim Reid, Annette O'Toole, Tim Curry. Dir. Tommy Lee Wallace, Warner Bros., 1990 I had one problem with the 1990 TV movie (run over two nights back in '90, NBC called it a miniseries, but as a dvd-feature it runs three hours and six minutes, a little longer than Avengers:End Game) and it's a big one. I loved all the stuff with the cast as kids, in the first part. Only Seth Green among them went on to be household-name actors and their anonymity at this remove gave their performances a spontanaeity and freshness that helped me buy them as screen versions of the novel's characters. The adult versions, essayed by an ensemble of B-listers and small screen stars, however, didn't do much for me.  I'm willing to lay that off on a poor screenplay to some extent, but IT proves definitively that Harry Anderson, despite two hit sitcoms, cannot act. At all. It goes on to prove that Richard Thomas, Dennis Christopher, An...
1 comment
Read more

Cuck Fiction: Charles Vidor's GILDA

 Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, George MacReady, Steven Geray. Dir. Charles Vidor, Columbia, 1946 My favorite erotic fiction deals with cuckolding. The stories fascinate me. As people, cuckolds don't seem to think they're worth nice things. Or happiness. On the other hand, the cuckolding partners and their multiple lovers don't come over as the clear victors, either. Part of the fascination - maybe most of it - lies in trying to decide which party comes out the MOST degraded.  Is it the submissive, sensitive husband and his unsatisfactory size/staying power? Is it the "slutwife" who finds satiety in being transformed into a fuckdoll to humilate her husband? Or is it the lover - often black - who gets to degrade the sexy white lady but who doesn't otherwise matter? As in bdsm scenes, if the cuck is most degraded, that means he also "wins," as his desires to see his wife turned into a promiscuous slut while he gets to be bi without shame are most fulfi...
Post a Comment
Read more

All That Fame:Alan Parker's FAME/Bob Fosse's ALL THAT JAZZ

  FAME. Irene Cara, LeRoy Jones, Richard Belzer, Linda Allen. Dir. Alan Parker, MGM/UA, 1980 The first thing that must be said of Alan Parker's sleeper hit of summer '77 is that, if you're new to it and expect the TV version's "hey kids let's put on a show" vibe, or the later remake, think instead of Bob Fosse's '79 ALL THAT JAZZ. Parker's FAME, & Fosse's picture, are films-with-music moreso than traditional H'wood productions. If that's at once unappealing, I urge that reader to withhold judgment until I'm done loving it. By 1980, my parents deemed me old enough to see an occasional R-rated movie with them, but not FAME. My folks, half a generation out of a working poor life, saw in me an advertising man, maybe a newpaper editor. But not an actor. I had mentioned a desire to audition for Cincinnati's School for Creative & Performing Arts (SCPA, pron. SKUHPAH) which had gone over badly. Not taking me to see FAME n...
Post a Comment
Read more