THE BIG LEBOWSKI



i don't "own" a lot of movies, except from leftovers from a bygone era, but i think this would make a great video wallpaper to have on perpetual play because i've seen it a bunch of times and it's so fucking great

in glorious bluray the dude's hallucinations come extra-crisp and glossy

Re-watched The Master

Nothing new to say about it except that the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman has robbed us of the perfect Trump in any future biopic.

See, I think DENNIS HOPPER needs to be cast as Trump. He's fucking perfect. I'm not exactly sure how he's looking these days, but he's a crazy ass and I think he'd come out of retirement if, say, Oliver Stone offered him the part right now.

Granted, he's not the world's best actor, but he knows how to commit, and in a fat suit with a big dumbass wig, I believe he could give us a Heath Ledger's Joker-level (gold standard for screen incarnations of insane motherfuckers) performance.

John C. Reilly also comes to mind. Just because he's actually a very talented dramatic actor, and he's ... y'know... lumpy.

Never seen the Master and now I'm a bit turned off of PTA after Inherent Vice. But some think the Master is even better than There Will Be Blood, so maybe I should shut the fuck up and give it a shot.

Oh man, I know.
Kinda like some of the Wes Anderson movies I love so much (namely Royal Tenenbaums), The Big Lebowski is sometimes too tied up with hipster and college cultures, but I don't give a fuck, I think it's one of the best movies of its era. It should have won Best Picture at the fucking Oscars, but everyone was still so in love with Fargo that this gloriously dark existential comedy felt "beneath" critics at the time. Fuckers. It's a goddamn perfect movie. And I LOVE the Coen Brothers, so I pretty much think everything they do is insanely good.. but this is the crown fucking jewel.

They do crime and noir and tragedy so well that people forget how comedic they are at heart. I'd rank this above Fargo, No Country for Old Men and even fucking Barton Fink. One of my absolute favorite movies of all time, period.

Are they still making the "Jesus" spin-off with John Turturro? That would really make my year, dammit. I want that to fucking happen.

Haha I am really excited about Logan, sev.

Man I am actually really bummed on Anderson lately and it's only because he really is so great. Moonrise Kingdom was pretty terrible in my eyes and while I loved Grand Budapest at first, it really doesn't hold up at all. I kind of feel like he doesn't love his characters as much as he used to. The dude is a legit filmmaker but I'm kind of over his wacky stuff and especially over him doing "homages" (I'm looking right at the museum scene in Grand Budapest). Most of those film buffs yr talking about that I know really only hate him for making Rushmore and not coming close to it ever again.

Last on the watch for me: Coco Before Chanel. Fucking bad. Fuck biopics they are probably the worst fucking genre ever. Only one I've ever seen that was any good: Love & Mercy but even that was teetering on being awful a lot of the time.

Going to see Rogue One tonight

@THE DOM (also severian) -- meant to reply about sqid + whale earlier but got sidetracked. great movie yeah. saw it around the time it came out & been paying attention to baumbach since.

speaking of wes anderson-- baumbach actually wrote zissou and mr fox! ha ha. (well, co-wrote)

also directed his gf's project, FRANCES HA, which it's like a smarter and more concise and less narcissistic variant of "girls". i went in wanting to hate it but couldn't--greta gerwig is too adorable and it was well done anyway. MISTRESS AMERICA was also alright. but yeah no other project he's done comes close to the squid and the whale though, that i know. haven't seen KICKING AND SCREAMING, but want to.

I swear the Big Lebowski gets funnier every time I view it. laughter with tears in my eyes. in stitches man, in stitches.. yea, don't give a fug how popular it is among eggheads. hell, I might be one of those eggheads. what's wrong it being popular with the college crowd? Animal House is still classic. I don't know. I watched it with a now ex-girlfriend last year and she's like " I get it, it just centers around them bowling, right". I guess, hell if I know. lol.

the scene when Lebowski traces the note with a silhouette of a guy with a hard on kills me everytime.

I thought Moonrise Kingdom was his worst.
Grand Budapest Hotel was like a distillation of everything he does best. It's like a snow-globe in movie form. He creates these beautiful little vignettes, and then sketches stories in around them, and they become character studies along the way. Grand Budapest restored my faith in him.

But ... I loved (fucking LOVED) Darjeeling Ltd. That scene with "Play With Fire" by the Stones? Glorious. Not many people loved that one, but I did.

And Rushmore and Royal Tenenbaums (and Bottle Rocket!) are three of my favorite movies. Even Life Aquatic is good. Not nuts about Mr. Fox, but didn't hate it either.

Anyway, all in all he's among my favorite filmmakers, not because he's the best (that's just silly) but because he has almost invented his own genre, kind of like Scorcese, or Kubrick, or even the Coens or Tarantino. Just because he makes (mostly) goofy shit doesn't make him any less of a talent. He really turned the "age of irony" on its head and distilled it into film form.

Shrug. I watch superhero movies man. I'm lowbrow. ;)

Sev - nothing wrong with lowbrow! Something to learn from anything. Like I said Anderson is no doubt a great filmmaker just three films in a row have been a little underwhelming compared to what he's capable of. I like Darjeeling a lot btw, it was the first one I saw of his and one of the first I guess "different" movies I watched.

Bottle Rocket, yea. the other day or maybe today I was trying to remember what that was about. robbing something. landscaping. 2000 man. ugh!

my question begs to be asked but, what year was the Royal Tenenbaums set in?;) early 80's.

The vast majority of what i watch is pron considered lowbrow. It is entertainment tho. Escapism.

charlie kaufman's ANOMALISA



i don't wanna spoil this strange thing. it was very unusual and depressing and while it had its interesting aspects i didn't like it a whole lot. not saying it was bad either. it can either be a portrayal of mental illness or a critique of romantic delusions, depending on how you look at it, or just charlie kaufman exorcizing his usual obsessions.

also forgot to mention the other day watched SLEEPING WITH OTHER PEOPLE.



i know that's an appealing photo that might make you wanna see more, but it was only so-so.

i wanted a sex comedy and netflix sent this. but upon starting you realize-- this is not a sex comedy but a fucking rom com! and yet, if you don't turn it off right away it surprises you with being actually smart and well written and entertaining, so you keep watching and yeah it has funny parts, and there's a bit of fucking, and drug use, etc., and you say thank fuck for IFC providing tonight's grownup amusement.

but then, when you think you've arrived to the end of the interesting and funny movie with advertisements for nyc tourism, they glue on it another half an hour of cheese and absurd complications and romcom bullshit that doesn't need to be there. and that brings it back down to the level of the usual hollywood bullshit and "love" clichés. aghhh.

To Rome With Love

Another one of Woody Allen's Euro-comedies that, while enjoyable, are always a little too picture postcard in their depiction of Europe. European tourist boards should employ him to do their ad campaigns. Saying that, so should New York's.

Really, Darjeeling Ltd. was the first you saw? I saw Bottle Rocket when it was first catching buzz, and was looked forward to Rushmore with heated anticipation back in the day, so I'm we probably have different perspectives on this stuff, but I'm glad you like Darjeeling.

Like Tenenbaums, it's a touching story about an eccentric family that's dressed up as an absurdist romp. But there's real, genuine emotion behind both films. This is why I think of Anderson as Salinger-esque. I actually think he could potentially pull off an adaptation of something like "Raise High the Roofbeam Carpenters" or "Franny and Zooey." Not "Catcher in the Rye" though. Nobody should ever attempt that. Jesus Christ, that would be wretched.

Bombauch might also be able to do it, now that I think of it.

Anyway, yeah, loved Darjeeling. What a great soundtrack too! The Kinks, the Stones, bunch of sitar shit. Lovely. Also, I want some of those opiate eye drops from the movie. :)

catcher in the rye? that's kinda igby goes down, pretty much. which i liked a lot when i saw it. maybe on account of my film crush on sookie sapperstein. but yeah. igby was very much a holden cuntifield, in his way, updated for the 2000s. it's definitely an adaptation.

re: darjeeling- that was for me the weakest of them all. very forgettable. was tilda swinton in it? i can't remember what it was about except they're looking for their mom and she's a tibetan nun or something.

re: MOONRISE KINGDOM -- i fucking liked it! it really did capture some dreamlike qualities of prepubescent life -- right before raging hormones set in. it was like a storybook "come to life." as they say (who is they?). but yeah. they say storybook. they say come to life. it was sweet and innocent and i liked it in those terms. i don't need cynical ultraviolent irony everywhere.

well, not an adaptation, but yeah, definitely an homage. I felt the same way when that film first came out. I felt that it did a pretty good job of fulfilling a desire some folks might have to see a Holden-esque character on screen without the fallout that would inevitably come from commercializing such a cherished classic. I don't ever want to see Catcher in the Rye directly adapted into a film. Ever. No Fucking thank you. But I did really like Igby Goes Down, and thought it had the kind of spirit that a Catcher film would need.

Not sure how it would hold up today. Haven't seen it since way back, but I definitely loved it at the time.

igby is catcher, just reworked. it's not an homage, it's the same blueprint, just names and details changed to protect the innocent and themes updated for our century. just like grizzly and piranha aren't homages to jaws but as close as you can get without plagiarism charges.

Hah, ok, I'll allow it! :) yes, you're absolutely right.

But now I kind of have less respect than I did before for the movie, which bums me out a bit.

haha, I liked Igby Goes Down, even own the DVD, been awhile since I've seen it, might have to rewatch it soon. Some damn good actors in that. Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Jared Harris.

"Izbi" is a term for highly evolved beings from the future who communicate with us psychically. I'm pretty sure I read it in David Wilcock's The Synchronicity Key and a woman I know in my building on disability who experiences psychic psychosoma in her body mentioned it last week

White Bird in a Blizzard.

Not one I'm rushing to re-watch, but would again if nothing else on. Has a good plot twist at the end, in my opinion.

Following it up with Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, which I'll forever find underrated by the masses.

The Exorcist - First time seeing it! I've put off seeing it for years because horror is really not my thing (tho recently I've been trying to change that) and to be honest the subject matter actually scares the shit of me. With that said it is an extraordinarily well made film. Very short in gimmicks and actually had depth to it. Honestly a little surprised by how good it was. The "scary" scenes weren't so much scary as they were intense on a psychological level. Pleasantly surprised and I'm glad I finally sat down to watch this one.

It is a great film, although the more infamous scenes have actually become its weakest. The most effective scenes for me are mainly those that involve Father Karras rather than Regan.

Watched last night



Blue Jasmine

One of Woody Allen's best and bravest late-period films. It can't be easy making a film in which the lead character is so totally unsympathetic.

I agree. Some of the better moments even reminded me a little of Bergman.

i missed replying to this and yes-- "cute".his forays into europe are always from a rich white american perspective-- maybe under the influence of henry james or something? but it's always that---never henry miller, starving. hence the particular look, yes.

why less respect? someone had to bring that story to the screen and salingers only public activity in his late days was filing copyright lawsuits. plus, what was transgressive in the 50s is nothing today and as a period piece it would be a bit shit. eg cant be complaining that people are"flitty". so it was really a great way to do all that---have the older brother instead of the rommate fuck the girl, the mental illness goes to the dad instead of the mom, etc. i think it was awesome if anything precisely for that.

It's been a long, long time since I last saw the Igby, so I should definitely rewatch. But, I actually kind of thought I was seeing Catcher parallels because I wanted to see them. Between the ages of about 13 and 26, I viewed the world through very Salinger-colored glasses. I remember calling my (sometimes haughty, academic, lit professor) mother and telling her about Igby after I'd seen it — recommending it as a cinematic ode to Catcher. She dismissed it, and thought it was a sneering and cynical, soulless Hollywood product. Almost the antithesis of Catcher, which she tends to see as a story about angelic beauty and warmth. So ... I thought it was just me, that I was projecting Holdenisms onto Igby.

To hear you say that it's an obvious adaptation in everything but name makes me think less of it as its own creature. But, like I said, I don't know how it holds up. Maybe it stands on its own two feet. But if it's really such an obvious and unrepentant theft of a book that I love so much, then I think it's pretty natural for me to be a bit put off.

But I don't know! I really want to watch it again now, and see if it works or doesn't work. So I'll refrain from spitting venom on the movie until I have time to re-evaluate it with your points in mind. Fair?

Also... I'm not sure I agree that it needed to be brought to the screen. In fact, I guess I've always felt that it was unadaptable. Sacred ground, maybe. I'm biased as hell, because my family is ... Jesus... honestly, kind of like a real-life Glads family at times, and most of us feel deep and profound connections to Salinger. But we're all haughty academics and eggheads, so... y'know... we're full of shit. Seriously. Not being sarcastic.

I think you're right that there needs to be a Holden Caulfield of cinema, though. But I think other films had already managed to tastefully bring the character to the big screen before Igby. The Graduate, Ordinary People, hell... even Rushmore, to some warped and cartoonish degree.

I don't know. I guess what you said about it being just shy of plagiarism made me think ... well, this:

one of my wife's faves. watched it this weekend. disney used to make intelligent movies for the family.....

no, no... dude. no. igby is a good movie. at least on first view, i was impressed and saw the obvious connection to catcher in the rye. in fact i plan to see it again soon.

to your mom, with respect, i'd suggest she idealizes holden. holden has a nice side and loves his little sister, sure.

but holden is also an asshole. a little fuck. he looks down on people-- particularly those of the lower classes. he's a shit to his friends. he's being kicked out of school not because he's too pure but because he's fucking lazy. by today's standards, he's also a homophobe. he's a fucking spoiled brat who doesn't want to grow up-- he wants to be taken care of forever.

but maladjusted in the early 2000s has to be different from 1950. adventures and strange experiences have to change. who the fuck goes to prostitutes anymore?

some reviewer i saw last night after i wrote this called it "holden on crack" or something, and-- yes. right. the 90s had crack (and heroin). worst thing holden could do without going into harlem (he was never gonna go) was get shitfaced.

i think igby captured the spirit and situations of the original book, meaning, "here's a rich white miserable maladjusted teenager", while making it a contemporary story. i'm sorry if other people can't appreciate that or see value in commercial hollywood productions, but i do.

film adaptations of novels usually have to make a ton of compromises because obvious reasons of time, format, medium, etc. so people complain "that wasn't my novel." novel gets better adapted to tv series.

so, catcher is a short novel, needs to be made visual instead of a long verbal rant (i fucking hated when that dude talks to the camera in that music movie, what's it called, the author is nick something, and the actor was in say anything, jack black was in it too, and the glorious zeta... but stfu and show me somthing, movie-- not just yap yap yap).

the only one who can do a long monologue in film was spalding gray. grey? gray? that guy. yeah.

so yeah the spirit of the thing is made flesh (long live the new flesh) and the story gets updated. applause, from me. igby goes the fuck down in history.

btw, speaking of books and teenage movies-- cruel intentions is a more straightforward adaptation of that glorious novel les liaisons dangereuses but made for teenagers instead of old perverts. nothing to do with post-revolutionary france, and rhetorical flourishes, and letter exchanges, but bravo because the little movie works-- as a movie and a cautionary tale for naive teens.

I hated Catcher in the Rye the two times I read, it. i found it the very boring ansgty troubles of a sefl-important and deadly dull trust fund asshole.

well, yes, but he had a hormone problem. the twinky defense!

Train to Busan. Korean zombies. Yeah, does have about the cutest little 7 year old ever in it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyWuHv2-Abk

You're talking about High Fidelity. And I loved that movie. Least I did when I was young and dumb. Probably wouldn't now.

I do like Say Anything though.

Still love High Fidelity, book and movie.

Still love Cruel Intentions too haha.

Pasolini's Medea. Truly something but I am really conflicted about it. It really tries my patience at points even though I love slow burns. Some shots were absolutely gorgeous but others were so amateurish. Will have to keep marinating at this one. For now I admire the atmosphere and what he was going after with it but I think it warrants a re watch.

Anatomy of a Murder. This was a blind pick up from the library and it was an incredible court room film. The Duke Ellington score, an on fire Jimmy Stewart and an equally great George C Scott. The 2 hrs 40 min went by in a breeze. Pretty ballsy shit for 1959. It really takes you and makes you question everything the film throws at you. I don't want to ruin the way the plot moves for anyone but I highly recommend this one for any fans of law based films or even taboo-pushers.

I love Anatomy of a Murder!! Good pick man! Classic!

Yeah it was fucking good. The judge started getting on my nerves because I thought his performance was hindering on some of those scenes. Come to find out he's the judge that called out McCarthey!

yes! high fidelity! fucking, annoying. yapyapyapyapyapyapyapyap--to the camera. ugh. SHUT UP DUDE.

say anything is better. speaking of which-- i have the grifters and grosse point blank on the way.


pasolini is great but can often put me to sleep. the look of that movie is awesome though-- not sure what you mean by amateurish?

for a different medea, check out the lars von trier version if you can find it. it's slightly bizarre and i really liked it. bad dvd transfer from a 16mm print? but the great visual language comes through regardless.