ViewGuide

Created Sep 17, 2009 02:09AM PST • Edited Mar 18, 2016 02:34AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Perfect 5.0

   Chronic fun for Dudes, Duders and El Duderinos, this post-modern classic sits high in the Coen Brothers’ comedy canon. A treasured treat for legions of mild hedonists, it features Jeff Bridges and John Goodman’s comic buddies for the ages. The huge cast also includes big names delivering perfect little bits: the Ice Queen, the submissive buddy, the obsequious functionary and the ultimate hottie.

   It starts with a classic case of mistaken identity. In the end “The Dude abides.”

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   • Jeff Bridges as The Dude, not The Big Lebowski. Definitive pony-tailed role for Bridges, right along with The Fisher King.
   • John Goodman as Walter, the hotheaded Nam vet.
   • David Huddleston as The Big Lebowski.
   • Julianne Moore as Maude Lebowski the Ice Queen. Those are her bustier cups frozen in the WikChip. Bronzed bowling balls: Now that’s classic costuming.
   • Steve Buscemi as Shut the Fuck Up Donnie who surfed all the way up to Pismo.
   • Philip Seymour Hoffman as the obsequious functionary.
   • Tara Reid as Bunny Lebowski, the ultimate hottie.
   • Jimmie Dale Gilmore as Smokey, the toe faulting bowler.
   • John Turturro as fabulously fey kegler “The Jesus.”
   • Sam Elliott as The Cowboy Stranger, surrealistically typecasted into the picture.
   • Ben Gazzara as perfectly named pornographer Jackie Treehorn.
   • Jon Polito as a fellow dick.
   • Aimee Mann as the strung out and limping Nihilist Woman. (Nihilism’s a bitch, ain’t it.)
   • Asia Carrera as the Logjammin porn star. Uncredited in the official print, she’s acknowledged here. ‘98 was a busy year for Asia, Lebowski being one of 26 movies she made that annum. The other 25? Straight to video. She fit in The Big Lebowski after Chasing Pink and before Satyr. You can look it up at IMDB. 25 pornos in one year — that’s two a month plus one for Christmas. Real professional athlete stuff.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Really Great 4.5

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Perfect 5.0

10. Film

    Perfect 5.0

    More than a little funny and especially well lubricated musically, the Coens launched this Dude into cult heaven. They have enormous fun riffing on the conventions of LA noir. (Where dark deeds play out in the sun.)

    Gutterballs, their porno fantasy within the movie, strikes an ideal surrealistic tone with Kenny Rodgers and the First Edition’s Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In). Play the WikChip to check it out.

    Where does Lebowski sit in the Coen’s comedy canon? Higher than Barton Fink if you ask me, and it doesn’t get higher than that.

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

12. Play Perfect 5.0

    Reams o’ classic lines. “The Dude abides” to end the show, and a whole bunch about bowling during it. “This is bowling. There are rules.” Absolutely.

    Just look at all the ads on this page selling shirts and other paraphernalia festooned with Lebowski quotes.

13. Music Perfect 5.0

    Lebowski’s stoner popularity is due in no small measure to its luxuriant soundtrack. This bunch of great songs plays like a collection of cool videos.

    • Dylan doing The Man In Me. “Storm clouds are raging … all around my door … I think to myself I might not take it any more … Take a woman like your kind … to find … the man in me.” Wow. A dude can die in peace after listening to a song like it that.
    • Hotel California performed by The Gipsy Kings. Perfect interpretation.
    • Behave Yourself by Booker T. & the M.G.s, always the coolest.
    • The Glimmer Twin’s Dead Flowers performed by Townes van Zandt. “Take me down little Suzy, take me down.”
    • More than a little CCR, always a virtue. Creedance gets mentioned a couple of times plus Run through the Jungle and Looking Out My Back Door get played. Oh boy.
    • Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In), perhaps the hippest song Kenny Rogers ever sang, back when he fronted The First Edition. Check it out in the WikChip.
    • Last but not least, Shawn Colvin belts out a kickass Viva Las Vegas.

    Sadly these are not available as a set on iTunes. Shawn Colvin’s Viva Las Vegas isn’t available at all. There’s petitions going around ’bout the injustice.

14. Visuals Great 4.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.5

    “The Dude abides” and so must anyone who watches this movie: Abide loads of F-bombs and entertainingly low-life behavior that is.

17. Sex Titillating 2.3

    No real sex but several delicious slices of cheesecake.

18. Violence Fierce 1.8

19. Rudeness Profane 3.5

    Profane to the top of its scale: 3.5. Goodman’s blue rants in particular are convulsively funny.

21. Reality

    Glib 1.2

    Warped reality, which is to say more than a little askew of standard LA noir.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.7

23. Biological Glib 1.4

24. Physical Natural 1.0