Comedy | April 05, 2009 | 29 comments

Is The Big Lebowski a cultural milestone?

source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7662943.stm

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It's [11] years since the release of The Big Lebowski, a film that split cinema audiences down the middle but created a strange cult. Is The Dude a slacker prince for our times?

Not everybody likes The Big Lebowski.

The Big Lebowski is a cult film. That is to say, not everybody likes it but those who do, in the main, have a special relationship with it.

When it was released, as the follow-up to the Coen brothers' well-regarded and academy-impressing Fargo, many critics found themselves underwhelmed. Fargo was a film that hung together well - tightly paced and plotted, full of dark humour and moments of pathos.

The Big Lebowski, on the other hand, could be viewed as two hours of wild self-indulgence, packed to the gills with bowling, White Russian cocktails, and swearing.

Variety said it "doesn't seem to be about anything other than its own cleverness", while the LA Times moaned that the "story line is in truth disjointed, incoherent and even irritating".

Even its staunchest fan would have to say the plot, a pastiche of a Chandler or Hammett mystery, takes a little decoding.

The central character is Jeff Lebowski, aka The Dude, who has his rug urinated on by thugs, setting off a complicated chain of events.

[More @ link]

What do you think? Love it or hate it? Do you use some of the memorable lines?
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