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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? 

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