I showed this film to my 93 year old mother last year when I brought her Cohn brothers movies to see each week....her comment....do they have to swear so much? sounds like the stranger a tad. She did get a laugh once and a while out of it....this film is not for everyone. but it puts a smile or two on my face every time i see it, at least annually!

 

Just watched it last night (because of this thread).

I had seen it when it came out and was very unimpressed, but I figured 10 years of life experience might make it funnier.

2nd time around I enjoyed it a lot more.
There are indisputable flashes of genius, but not as many as I had hoped.

I'm a screenwriter with a pretty solid film education, but I'm still not sure if I got all the references/allusions.
Spent some time reading the message boards on imdb but didn't find them illuminating.
Maybe someone can explain a few to me.

I liked the dialogue, especially how the Dude's vocabulary was enhanced by what other people said around him (he'd then use that phrase later in the movie).

:shurg; 7/10

 

 

Donny your out of your element!!!

 

I think in absolute terms, a 7/10 isn't completely ludicrous.

Ethan has his undergrad in Philosophy from Princeton. He has repeatedly stated that the movie isn't really about anything. From what I'm to understand, The Stranger is a reference to Camus' L'Etanger. Walter is pretty much screenwriter John Milius. The Dude is film distributor Jeff Dowd. There are components from some anecdotes Ethan and Joel collected over the years, all kind of bound together behind a Chandler-esque homage.

If you want to get "into" it, you'll need to read, I'm a Lebowski. You're a Lebowski. Past that, I'm still slugging away at chapters of A Year's Work In Lebowski Studies. (media studies' papers and the like)

 

This film has as much meaning as a good burger experience or bowling...certainly you remember why you ate that burger cause the last one was sooo good and you are back for more...but it is forgetable in terms of meaning other than immeidate satisfaction.

This is by far the best bowling movie I can remember seeing, and that means little to me except I want to see it again sometime, with a burger.

 

That statement has meaning.
/bad-deconstructionist-joke

 

One of my favorite post's here yet. The Dude abides!

 

I saw Much Ado About Lebowski this weekend, which was a re-tread of a re-tread (a ringer for a ringer?) of Two Gentlemen of Lebowski; both being Shakespearean treatments of the story.

Indeed, The Big Lebowski has clear Shakespearean (comedy) elements in it. This just takes it to a whole 'nuther level. That said, I was a little disappointed in Much Ado. . . the writing of Two Gentlemen. . . however, is beyond reproach.