MY MOVIE SHELF: The Big Lebowski

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 80 Days to go: 55

Movie #360:  The Big Lebowski

How overrated is The Big Lebowski? It’s revered by people young and old, fans of its absurdist nature. It has a cult status, and any number of people — both expected and not — will quote it to you. But is it deserving of all that praise? I think not.

Now, to be clear, I don’t hate The Big Lebowski. I just don’t think it’s the greatest, funniest film of all time like some people seem to treat it as. I think it’s okay. Funny in parts, unnecessarily surreal in others (perhaps to seem more artistic — more important — than it actually is). Basically, it’s like the hipster of movies, overly self-aware of its own image and somewhat derisive of anyone not cool enough to “get it.”

That amount of manufactured coolness is tiresome to me. I’d rather just enjoy the funny parts of the film and ignore the rest — the result of which is that I’ve seen The Big Lebowski probably four or five times at this point, and I never remember a single signifying thing about it until I see it again. It goes completely in and out of my brain, leaving no mark whatsoever. This fact frustrates my husband no end, because he loves to quote it and I’m always looking at him like, “What are you talking about?!” Sorry, honey.

For my money, the best parts of the film are the characters, but not all of them are equally great. The top one unsurprisingly comes from Julianne Moore. As Maude Lebowski, the fierce, fearless, outspoken millionaire artist with the sensible intellectualism and dry monotone, Moore is fully committed to whatever goofy thing her character is doing, be it painting while swinging from wires or dance-bowling in an operatic viking costume. I would kind of love to see Maude as a mother, and if there ever was a call for a sequel, I hope it would be solely about that. I bet her child read Nietzsche at eight years old and was the human centerpiece of a very successful art installation at twelve. She probably grew up to be Sia.

On the other end of the spectrum, my least favorite character actually comes in the form of Jeff Bridges as the Dude. Bridges is just as committed to his role as Moore is to hers (or perhaps too committed, as he doesn’t seem to have really abandoned the role in the seventeen years since he took it on), but it’s the character in general I dislike. There is nothing — NOTHING — appealing to me about some gross, stoned slacker who dresses in Zubaz pants and writes checks for less than a dollar at the grocery store and who is not a 19-year-old college student. Be zen, be alcoholic, be whatever the hell you want. Just do it somewhere else. (Thankfully, I feel confident that the Dude doesn’t care about my opinion, and we can both happily exist in the world without ever having to interact or interfere with one another. It takes all kinds.)

John Goodman as Walter is kind of both one of the best and one of the worst characters, fully confident in all things at all times, to the point where he is a raging asshole more often than not. In a way, he’s the complete antithesis of the Dude, and yet the two of them are joined at the hip. Why is this? What draws these two together? Is bowling really that much of a uniting principle? Or is the Dude simply the only person drunk and passive enough to (mostly) withstand Walter’s constant Vietnam rants? Whatever the reason, some of the best moments in the film are when Walter’s militant forcefulness erupts all over the Dude’s previously uncomplicated life. Like with the “ringer.” Or the multiple times Dude’s car got trashed. Or Donny’s (Steve Buscemi) ashes all over the Dude’s face. That’s my favorite.

I also really like — in her tiny little role — Tara Reid as Bunny. She’s young, outrageous, and purposefully provocative before that became her public persona. She drives like a maniac, runs off on a whim, and sings “Viva Las Vegas” at the top of her lungs. Plus, as Walter predicted, she keeps all her toes. I kind of feel like Brandt (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and the Big Lebowski (David Huddleston) deserve her.

The movie is definitely funny. I like it fine. I just don’t love it. And that’s my prerogative. The Dude still abides, regardless.

MY MOVIE SHELF: American Pie

 

This is the deal: I own around 350 movies on DVD and Blu-ray (I’ll know for sure how many at the end of this project). Through June 10, 2015, I will be watching and writing about them all, in the order they are arranged on my shelf (i.e., alphabetically, with certain exceptions). No movie will be left unwatched . I welcome your comments, your words of encouragement and your declarations of my insanity.

Movie #15:  American Pie

Remember yesterday when I said that when this movie came out it instantly became pop culture legend? It’s true. “Shitbreak.” Stifler drinking the “pale ale.” Stifler’s mom. Shannon Elizabeth. Shaved. Jason Biggs humping a pie. “This one time, at band camp ….” Double-clicking your mouse. Hell, this movie invented the term M.I.L.F.

The movie starts with four high school senior boys lamenting the fact that they’re all still virgins. This feels like a really big deal in high school. I remember. It’s not until you’re well into adulthood that you realize most of the kids in your school were also virgins, that you weren’t nearly so alone. It’s not until you’re well into adulthood that you realize it’s normal to be a virgin in high school. Most people have sex for the first time between ages 17 and 18, which for most kids is senior year of high school. It’s not uncommon at all to have not done it yet, but it feels like the end of the world.

Being a woman, I have no experience with the peer pressure put on boys to have sex, but I know full well the pressures and the double standards put upon girls, and this movie feels authentic in that sense. Sex is a big deal, no doubt, but high school tends to make it into a big deal in ways that it isn’t. It isn’t important how often you do it or with how many people or whatever, just that it’s entered into mutually and enthusiastically and, preferably, with someone with similar feelings and expectations around it (because that’s when it becomes a really big deal, when those things don’t line up).

The four friends of this particular tale, Jim, Kevin, Oz and Finch (played by Jason Biggs, Thomas Ian Nichols, Chris Klein and Eddie Kaye Thomas, respectively), make a pact the morning after a particularly disastrous party at their friend Stifler’s house (Seann William Scott) that they will all have sex by prom, which is three weeks away. They will do it for all the guys out there who “should” be getting laid but aren’t. First of all, sex is a terrible MacGuffin, just as a story device. But also, the pact never made any sense to me, because it presumes sex is some sort of birthright, that men are owed it, and that they can just “decide” to have it, as if the partner is inconsequential. Not only is all of that patently untrue, in the light of recent events like the UCSB shooting, it feels almost ominous. If you were to turn it off right then, I wouldn’t blame you.

However, one of the main aspects of storytelling is setting the tone, and the opening scene of this film, in which Jim is trying to watch scrambled porn and his parents catch him wearing a tube sock over his erection, says definitively that this movie will be about awkwardness towards sex, about embarrassing, humiliating experiences, and about stumbling toward sexual maturity. If you watch through to the end, that’s exactly what it does. Kevin and his girlfriend Vicky (Tara Reid, playing a good girl before she became a tabloid partying disaster) overthink sex so much that it’s stilted and forced — completely unsatisfying, despite being “perfect.” Oz and his girlfriend Heather (Mena Suvari, on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from her American Beauty role) have a night that emerges naturally, out of deep caring and intimacy — so much so that Chris doesn’t even reveal to his friends the next day that he’s no longer a virgin, simply that he thinks he’s falling in love. Jim and his date Michelle (an utterly smashing band geek portrayal by Alyson Hannigan) have a fun-filled romp, no strings attached — showing how it’s possible to have a spontaneous, wild, fun and satisfying encounter while still discussing logistics, which never would’ve happened if Jim hadn’t stopped getting so worked up about sex and just tried to have fun with his date. And Finch lucks into an evening with the legendary Stifler’s mom (Jennifer Coolidge, at her absolute sexiest), a woman who can appreciate his more mature tastes and intellect — a nod to the fact that sometimes people don’t bloom, sexually, until they get a little older.

Taken as a whole, this movie offers up a solid message about sex: Don’t make such a big deal worrying about when and where and how you’re going to have it, just find someone you like and have fun with and care about and it’ll happen when (and if) it’s meant to, when both people want it to, when it feels really right and natural.

Oh, and it’s also a really funny movie if you think awkward, awful moments, teen sex misfires, and Eugene Levy are at all funny. American Pie has all three!