[New post] The Big Lebowski (Joel Coen, 1998) Review
Connor Clarke posted: " Spoiler Warning: This discussion features some important narrative information that could spoil the text for you. It does not necessarily spell out the film's conclusion, but it does talk about events in detail. ★★★★★ "That rug really tied the room"
Spoiler Warning: This discussion features some important narrative information that could spoil the text for you. It does not necessarily spell out the film's conclusion, but it does talk about events in detail.
Rating: 5 out of 5.
"That rug really tied the room together."
To mark my birthday, I decided to return to a classic; The Big Lebowski is inarguably one of the funniest comedies of all time. The Coens' wandering little stoner bowling movie come farcical kidnapping thriller is so relentlessly entertaining that it is difficult to compare to anything else out there.
There is rarely a week that I go without quoting something out of this, sometimes inadvertently before I realise what I've done. Rugs, opinions, Lenin being the walrus, abiding, aggression not standing are just a small selection of the moments that make me howl on every watch. It's so disgracefully funny, viciously vulgar, and so innately laid-back at the same time. I've never seen a film treat a kidnapping with such laxness, never mind putting it into a film where a character's ashes are spread from a pot of instant coffee and spliced between multiple trip sequences.
Everyone embodies their roles with such joy; it was clearly such a fun shoot, and it comes across in every scene. Jeff Bridges creates his most iconic role out of a college-dropout hippie bowling enthusiast in a catalogue of performances other actors would die for. John Goodman and Steve Buscemi bounce off of each other wonderfully; Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Turturro, Sam Elliott, Peter Stormare and a few others add rich features to these strange unforgettable supporting roles. This is one of the all-time great comedy casts.
I would highly recommend watching The Big Lebowski on any celebratory day of the year - the only thing that could have made my birthday a little better is if I had a White Russian to sip on whilst I watched this. It's one of my favourite movies on the planet, almost a yearly excursion at this point, and long may that tradition continue. The Dude abides.
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