The Big Lebowski, perhaps the greatest stoner movie of all time, celebrates 20 years of dudeness
It received no Oscar recognition and pretty lukewarm reviews, but The Big Lebowski endures as a cultural phenomenon and is celebrating its 20th anniversary across the US throughout the year. But what about that sequel?
Twenty years ago, a bathrobe-wearing stoner and his two buddies entrenched themselves in the public consciousness with a strange little movie about bowling, White Russians and a ruined rug.
Ethan and Joel Coen’s idiosyncratic, hopelessly complex The Big Lebowski distilled the unfussy, slacker spirit of 1990s Los Angeles into a Raymond Chandleresque crime caper.
It received no Oscar recognition and pretty lukewarm reviews for its Byzantine plot, which the Coens themselves admitted never really mattered. But it has proved to have immense staying power.
Book review: The Dude and the Zen Master by Jeff Bridges and Bernie Glassman
Today it is nothing less than a cultural phenomenon, with its own religion, Dudeism, boasting 450,000 “ordained priests”.
Every year, bathrobe-clad fans gather at the annual Lebowski Fest, which comes to Los Angeles in two weeks, to celebrate Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski, played by Jeff Bridges when he could still get away with board shorts.
“I’m so proud of being part of this movie. It’s just a good movie, a really good movie,” the 68-year-old Oscar winner said at a recent screening in Hollywood, hosted by Turner Classic Movies.
The Dude, a drama-averse, unemployed slacker with a penchant for vodka with Kahlua and cream, provides the drama as he embarks on a quest to replace his beloved rug, destroyed in a twisted case of mistaken identity.
