Journey to the Heart of Darkness
The Varsity, our local art house, completed its Midnight Movie series Saturday with a showing of The Big Lebowski. I had been looking forward to this for months, and although I am now an old man that struggles to stay up past 12:30 a.m., I really enjoyed seeing the film again. It was Anna's first time seeing it on the big screen, and she reported catching details she has missed watching on DVD (like how the landlord's dance routine includes a blue gym mat). So that was something.
The thing I had not anticipated was the relatively new phenomenon of Lebowski people. We went to Eternal Sunshine a few weeks ago and basically had the theater to ourselves. But I should have expected this would be different. I had seen stories about how pretentious white people have picked up this movie as a self indentifying marker. There are now conventions where people dress as characters from the movie, and similar. What I hadn't realized is just how awful it is to watch a movie with these people. They rival Rocky Horror fans for sheer annoyance.
The preamble to the movie was sort of fun. People were in costume and occaisionally yelling out lines. "This is what you sound like," Anna told me. And I apologized. But the thing about them is that they didn't stop. Not even after the movie began. Then there's the mythology that has grown up around the film. In the opening scene, when The Dude is buying his half-gallon of half-and-half with a check (dated September 11) a guy who attended the movie dressed as The Jesus behind us screamed out, "Look at the date."
Seriously, shut the fuck up.
Obviously, the Coen Brothers were fortelling the World Trade Center attacks. That's exactly what was happening there. But the situation was compounded because The Jesus had a retarded echo in the theater. So The Jesus would yell out a line and the other guy, who happened to be sitting in our row, would call out another one. And it wasn't like he was calling out the next line in the script. He would just call out something random, just to prove he could. As the movie wore on, the rest of the people turned on them and started shushing. Not surprisingly, the Retarded Echo left early. I don't think the people who dress up and tell you how big a Lebowski fan they are really appreciate the film. The movie is multi-layered work of genius. These fans are just bangwagon folks that thinking they're part of the zeitgeist. They just like being in a club. And fuck them, really.
The thing I had not anticipated was the relatively new phenomenon of Lebowski people. We went to Eternal Sunshine a few weeks ago and basically had the theater to ourselves. But I should have expected this would be different. I had seen stories about how pretentious white people have picked up this movie as a self indentifying marker. There are now conventions where people dress as characters from the movie, and similar. What I hadn't realized is just how awful it is to watch a movie with these people. They rival Rocky Horror fans for sheer annoyance.
The preamble to the movie was sort of fun. People were in costume and occaisionally yelling out lines. "This is what you sound like," Anna told me. And I apologized. But the thing about them is that they didn't stop. Not even after the movie began. Then there's the mythology that has grown up around the film. In the opening scene, when The Dude is buying his half-gallon of half-and-half with a check (dated September 11) a guy who attended the movie dressed as The Jesus behind us screamed out, "Look at the date."
Seriously, shut the fuck up.
Obviously, the Coen Brothers were fortelling the World Trade Center attacks. That's exactly what was happening there. But the situation was compounded because The Jesus had a retarded echo in the theater. So The Jesus would yell out a line and the other guy, who happened to be sitting in our row, would call out another one. And it wasn't like he was calling out the next line in the script. He would just call out something random, just to prove he could. As the movie wore on, the rest of the people turned on them and started shushing. Not surprisingly, the Retarded Echo left early. I don't think the people who dress up and tell you how big a Lebowski fan they are really appreciate the film. The movie is multi-layered work of genius. These fans are just bangwagon folks that thinking they're part of the zeitgeist. They just like being in a club. And fuck them, really.
Labels: Movies, The Big Lebowski, White People
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