14 Things You Might Not Know About The Big Lebowski

Not all movies stand the test of time. Viewers have the memory span of goldfish and what?s hot today may soon be forgotten. Cult classics, on the other hand, often become immortal. The Big Lebowski (1998) is such a film. With its quotable lines, zany characters, and dialogue that somehow remains funny no matter how many times you see it, there?s a reason why it?s still being talked about after all these years. As with most cult classics, there are a few hidden quirks in the film that evade even some of its die hard devotees. Also, there are many interesting ways in which fans continue to celebrate the film. After researching both, here is our list of 14 things you might not know about The Big Lebowski.


Lebowski Fest


As with cult classics such as Troll 2 (1990) and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), The Big Lebowski spawned a film festival of its own. Lebowski Fest, which travels accross the country, started in Louisville in 2002 and is currently in its eighth consecutive year. Activities at the event include bowling, costume contests, and trivia. Jeff Bridges, who played ?The Dude,? attended one of the events in Los Angeles. The British equivalent to the American festival is called ?The Dude Abides? and is held in London.

Reference in Burn After Reading (2008)


A reference to The Big Lebowski can be found in a later Coen Brothers? film, Burn After Reading (2008). In the scene where Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) blackmails Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich), he?s about to shout, ?Where is the money, Lebowski!?? before getting punched in the face. A similar shout out can be found in The Big Lebowski. Walter (John Goodman) constantly tells Donny (Steve Buscemi) to ?Shut the fuck up!? In the Coen Brothers? previous film, Fargo (1996), Buscemi?s character wouldn?t stop talking.

Internet Success


The British newspaper, The Independent, credits Lebowski?s popularity, in part, to the influence of the Internet. If not for the web, fans might not have realized that they weren?t alone in their Lebowski worship. According to the paper, the number one comment on lebowskifest.com is, ?I?m so happy to find others like me,? or comments of a similar nature.

Lebowski Drinking Game


Different variations exist for this. One of the most memorable and least complicated is to take a drink whenever The Dude does. If he takes a marijuana hit, you do likewise. Good luck making it through.

Walter Sobchak


John Goodman?s acerbic character, Walter Sobchak, was inspired by filmmaker John Milius, who has a love of guns. Screenwriter Lewis Abernathy was another source of inspiration for Walter, and even made an appearance at the Texas Lebowski Fest in Austin.

Asia Carrere Cameo


Former porn-star Asia Carrere makes a brief cameo appearance as one of Bunny?s (Tara Reid) cast mates in the adult movie, LogJammin?.

?The Dude?


Jeff Bridge?s character (The Dude) was inspired by film producer and political activist Jeff Dowd, a friend of the Coen Brothers. Dowd liked to drink White Russians and had a similar moniker. The other source of inspiration came from a Vietnam War veteran, Pete Exine, who had a rug which really ?tied the room together.? Several of his personal stories were taken by the Coen Brothers wholesale. He had his car stolen by a high school student and found it impounded with an 8th grader?s homework on the floor.

Mawd


According to Julianne Moore, her character, Maude, was inspired by the likes of artist Carolee Schneemann who liked to work naked from a swing. Yoko Ono was another source of inspiration. This isn?t surprising given her peculiar nature.

Narrative Influences


The movie?s overall narrative structure was influence by the detective fiction of Raymond Chandler. As Ethan Coen said, ?We wanted something that would generate a certain narrative feeling ? like a modern Raymond Chandler story, and that?s why it had to be set in Los Angeles ? We wanted to have a narrative flow, a story that moves like a Chandler book through different parts of town and different social classes.?

Books


The Big Lebowski has its share of literature devoted to the film?s production as well as critical analysis. Some examples include I?m a Lebowski, You?re a Lebowski, The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers, and The Year?s Work in Lebowski Studies.

Documentary


The Big Lebowski has spawned its own documentary titled The Achievers: The Story of the Lebowski Fans. The film tries to better understand why Lebowski has made such a splash. Former philosophy student, Eddie Chung, takes the helm and offers a deep take on the cult hit?s impact. Not bad for a film that lasted only 6 weeks in theaters.

Word Usage


According to IMDB, the f-word and its variations are used 294 times, and ?dude? is said 161 times. The Dude also utters ?man? 147 times, around 1.5 times per minute. Some fans have too much time on their hands.

Landmarks


Since it takes place in Los Angeles, several local landmarks are shown throughout the movie. The bowling alley in the film was formerly the Holly Star Lanes in Santa Monica and the 101 Freeway exit ramp even makes an appearance. The fast food chain featured, In ?n Out Burger, is indigenous to Southern California. And let?s not forget The Dude?s favorite supermarket chain, Ralphs.

The Dude?s apartment, located in Venice, has become somewhat of a landmark of its own. But if you pay a visit, don?t knock on the door. It?s a private residence, man.


September 11th Prediction?


At the beginning of the film, The Dude stops at a Ralph?s supermarket to pick up some cream for his White Russians. Although the item is less than a dollar, The Dude is forced to write a check. The check is dated, September 11th, 1991, exactly ten years to the day of the World Trade Center attacks. What makes the scene even more peculiar is that while The Dude is writing the check, President Bush (41) can be seen on television discussing tensions in the Middle East while uttering the phrase, ?This aggression will not stand.? Foreshadowing? Probably not. But it is an odd coincidence.

[dice1883]

Love this fucking movie...

Here's the trivia information about the movie from the website at IMDB...

Part 1:

The screenplay was written with Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi and Sam Elliott in mind.

The bowling alley scenes were filmed at the former Holly Star Lanes near Santa Monica and the 101 Freeway exit ramp. The bowling alley has since been torn down and a new elementary school stands in its place.

The house in which the dude meets with Jackie Treehorn was designed by architect John Lautner. The movie makes it look as though it sits on the beach, in actuality it sits on the side of a hill overlooking the city of Los Angeles.

A lot of the Dude's clothes in the movie were Jeff Bridges's own clothes.

The Dude never actually bowls.

The Jellies sandals that Jeff Bridges wears in the movie were his own.

Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman makes a background cameo appearance during the interpretive dance scene as another member of the theater audience. Kaufman's own script, Being John Malkovich (1999), also contains an interpretive dance sequence.

Almost all the music on the soundtrack is revealed to be playing on a radio at some point. Examples: "The Man in Me" in the first dream sequence fades out after The Dude wakes up, but we still hear it, tinny and distant on his Walkman. "Hotel California" plays through out the entire scene with Jesus at the bowling alley, and even during the brief flashback, apparently as a song playing on the alley's PA system. The big band music that plays as The Dude leaves his house fades and is heard playing on Da Fino's car radio as they talk. Additionally, at the beginning of the film, the opening song, "Tumblin' Tumbleweeds", fades into a muzak version of itself as the Dude shops for his creamer in the grocery store; when it cuts to the Dude outside the store, the song has faded back into its original version.

Nearly all of the visible symbols in The Dude's second dream sequence are taken from earlier scenes: - the black and white tile is seen earlier in the Big Lebowski's entry way when The Dude walks with Brandt and again at the end - the tool belt and workman outfit The Dude is seen wearing is identical to the one worn by Karl Hungus in Logjammin' - Saddam is mentioned briefly by Walter in the car outside the bowling alley; in the opening credits, we see a man looking a bit similar to Saddam spraying the bowling shoes at the alley - Maude's gold bowling ball bra cups are taken from bowling balls seen on the rack behind Walter in an earlier scene at the bowling alley - the scissors wielded by the red-clad Nihilists are seen in a painting with a red background on Maude's wall - the red-on-black bowling ball is the same as the one in the earlier dream sequence and is also visible on the rack behind Walter and The Dude at the bowling alley. - The initial scene of The Dude's exaggerated walking in while casting a big shadow is similar to his landlord's shadow dance to "Pictures at an Exhibition." - Maude Lebowski's trident is from a statue at The Big Lebowski's home.

The fictional German techno-pop band in the movie, "Autobahn", is a parody of (or homage to) the band Kraftwerk. The "Autobahn" album cover is stylistically similar to the cover of the Kraftwerk album "Man-Machine," and the group name "Autobahn" is the name of a Kraftwerk song. The title of their album, "Nagelbett," is German for "nail bed." Translated from Swedish, Peter Stormare's native tongue, it means "nail bite".

The fast food restaurant "In & Out Burger" is referred to during the movie. John Goodman once did a commercial for the "In & Out" fast food chain.

The private detective that's following Lebowski says that Bunny's family is from a farm "outside Moorhead, Minnesota". Moorhead is the home town of Jeff Bridges' wife and is located directly across the state line from Fargo. (Fargo (1996) was the title of the Coen brothers' previous film). Bunny's high school cheer-leading photo shows her wearing orange and black, the real school colors of Moorhead.

The reason Steve Buscemi's character, Donny, is constantly being told to "Shut the fuck up!" by Walter (John Goodman), is because Buscemi's character in Fargo (1996) would not shut up.

The Dude has a habit of repeating phrases he hears. The George Bush speech "This aggression will not stand" is repeated by the Dude. Maude Lebowski uses the phrase "Parlance of our times" Dude repeats this one in the limo. The Big Lebowski says he "Will not abide another toe!" at the end of the movie "The Dude abides"

Premiere voted this movie as one of "The 50 Greatest Comedies Of All Time" in 2006.

The only time Donny doesn't get a strike is before they fight the Nihilists at the end of the movie.

Norwegian posters and video cassettes carried the text "anbefales av norsk bowling forbund" (recommended by the Norwegian Bowling Association).

The Dude drinks nine White Russians during the course of the movie. (He drops one of them at Jackie Treehorn's mansion.)

A high percentage of the Dude's vocabulary and dialogue is taken from other characters in other scenes.

In the opening credits, a big black guy throws a seven-ten split (his ball changing color from the throw to the strike, as noted in "goofs"). The first frame showing the ball striking the leftmost pin reveals that the pin isn't on the dot marking its official position. It's a little ahead of and to the left of the dot, hanging over the gutter, and the ball strikes it from the gutter: the shot is rigged.

Possibly uniquely for an American movie, a bad guy wields a cricket bat rather than a baseball bat.

Cameo: [Aimee Mann] The musician is the nine-toed Nihilist woman who we see briefly at the diner.

In the Dude's first dream sequence, the person who throws the giant bowling ball, seen out of focus and upside down as the ball rolls down the lane, is Maude.

The second time we see Treehorn's thugs, they've swapped clothing!

Charlize Theron was considered for the role of Bunny Lebowski.

The name on the Dude's last shirt is "Art".

The Dude's car is a 4-door 1973 Ford Torino. Two vehicles were used in filming: one was destroyed during the filming, the other was destroyed in Season 8 of "The X-Files" in an episode called "Salvage".

Of all the different personalized bowling shirts Donny wears throughout the film, none of them bears his name.

Recipe for making a White Russian: 2 parts vodka, 1 part coffee liqueur (such as Kahl?a) and 1 part cream. Served with ice in a low ball glass.

The Dude is in every scene of the movie, with the exception of the scene where the Nihilists are ordering pancakes. This is in keeping with the traditional film-noir, in which the protagonist is the narrator and acts as the audience's guide throughout the film.

The man shown bowling in the picture on The Dude's wall is President Richard Nixon. Nixon was an avid bowler; the picture in the movie is a well-publicized shot of Nixon in the bowling alley underneath the White House.

When the Jesus, John Turturro, has to go door to door, sharing that he is a convicted sex offender, he has a large bulge in his tight pants. The bulge was formed by a bag of birdseed.

The Coen brothers were inspired by several sources and stories. Possibly the leading source was their friend Pete Exeline, who coined the phrase "It really tied the room together" describing one of his own rugs. Pete and a friend of his "Big" Lew Abernathy (a private detective who the Coens don't know) are considered to be the partial basis for the character Walter. Pete, a Vietnam veteran and college professor, once jokingly tried to scare his students by exclaiming "First Vietnam, now this?!" while hitting a chair, similar to the way Walter (non-jokingly) inappropriately compares everything to Vietnam. Pete also told the Coens about a story where his car was stolen and Abernathy helped him investigate. They found the homework of a 14-year-old and, instead of telling the police, they put the homework in a plastic bag and drove out to the kid's home to confront him (though unlike the movie, the kid did not actually steal the car and Abernathy did not end the confrontation by bashing a car outside the kid's house). Another story related by Pete was the time that Abernathy was arraigned by a Santa Monica sheriff who, as in the movie, insulted him and told him to "stay out of my beach community!"

[dice1883]

Here's the trivia information about the movie from the website at IMDB...

Part 2:

Before filming a scene, Jeff Bridges would frequently ask the Coen Brothers "Did the Dude burn one on the way over?" If they said he had, he would rub his knuckles in his eyes before doing a take.

When the Dude picks Walter up, just before the money drop, we learn that Walter works at his own company: Sobchak Security.

The Dude tells Maude he was a roadie for Metallica on their (fictional) ?Speed of Sound? tour and refers to the band members as a "bunch of assholes." Metallica themselves were flattered to be referred to in a Coen Brothers movie, with guitarist Kirk Hammett once noting in an interview that they'd tried to think of a way to incorporate that scene into their live shows.

When The Dude is thumbing through Maude's albums and pulls out the fictional "Autobahn" album, the album directly behind it is Herb Alpert's "Whipped Cream & Other Delights", an actual album.

The license plate of Bunny's red convertible spells "LAPIN", French translation of rabbit (bunny).

In an early draft of the script, The Dude's source of income was revealed. He was an heir to the inventor of the Rubik's cube. It was Joel Coen's idea to drop this and never say.

Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers plays a character in a band called Autobahn, which is a jab at the German band Kraftwerk (Kraftwerk had a single called "Autobahn"). The two bands have played venues together in the 80's.

The lawyers that the dude mentions, are William Kunstler and Ron Kuby, radical lawyers noted for defending numerous controversial defendants including suspected terrorist leaders and the daughter of Malcolm X.

Song titles on the "Autobahn" LP "Nagelbett" are: Saturation, Faking It, Hit and Run, No Way Out, Violate U-Blue, Beg me, Take It In, Edelweiss (Club mix).

The Photo that the Private Eye shows the Dude of Bunny Lebowski's farm is that from Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood". Oddly enough, Philip Seymour Hoffman, who plays Brandt, plays Truman Capote in 2005's Capote (2005), and 'Mark Pellegrino', who plays Blond Treehorn Thug, plays Dick Hickock (one of the murders of that farm's inhabitants) in Capote (2005).

John Goodman's favorite film of his own.

In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, John Goodman stated that The Dude referring to The Big Lebowski as a "human paraquat" was one of the only improvised lines to make it into the final film. Virtually every other line, including every 'man' and 'dude,' was scripted.

When we're introduced to the Dude's (bowling) arch-nemesis Jesus, a flamenco version of the Eagles song "Hotel California" plays (and is portrayed as playing on the bowling alley's PA system). Later, we learn in the taxicab scene that the Dude "...hate(s) the fuckin' Eagles, man."

Walter asks Dude if he knows the show "Branded" (1965). The brother of Jeff Bridges, Beau Bridges guested on an episode of the show in 1966.

The Dude meets a lot of new people throughout the story, outside his "tribe". But only three, Brandt, Jackie Treehorn and The Cowboy show enough "respect" for him to call him "Dude".

The gun that Walter pulls in the bowling alley is a Colt model 1911 .45 caliber semi automatic handgun.

While urinating on the Dude's rug, the Threehorn thug says "Thus always to deadbeats, Lebowski!" This is a play on the Latin phrase "Sic semper tyrannis!" (Thus always to tyrants!), which was allegedly spoken by the murderers of Gaius Julius Caesar and Abraham Lincoln during the assassinations.

The Dude calls The Big Lebowski a "human paraquat." Paraquat is an herbicide. During the late 1970s, a controversial program sponsored by the US government sprayed paraquat on marijuana fields in Mexico.

The dude's gait in the opening shot to the "Gutterballs" sequence resembles the gait used by the characters in Robert Crumb's famous "Keep on Truckin'" cartoon.

The initials for Walter Sobchak's security company (Sobchak Security) are "SS". The Jewish Walter's company shares the same initials as the Schutzstaffel, or SS. The Schutzstaffel were arguably the most demonic force of Hitler's Germany. The Nuremberg Trials attributed most of the Holocaust atrocities to this group.

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SPOILER: Steve Buscemi dies in three of the five Coen Brothers films in which he appears (with the notable exceptions of The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) and Barton Fink (1991),). Additionally, with each successive role his remains are smaller: in this film, his ashes blow all over The Dude when Walter scatters them at the ocean. (See also Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) and Fargo (1996).)

SPOILER: Everything Walter says to do with Bunny's kidnapping comes true. The fake kidnapping, the fake severed toe and the lack of ransom money.

[Boozer]

[dice1883]

Just made that pic into an avatar for someone...

http://www.drunkenstepfather.com/for...ead.php?t=5583

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8pkrN1o6GM

The DudeGyver

[Magnusrex]

^^^ i swear that song works on o many levels, someone put together a porn version, Macgyver theme to porn that would be truly awesome!

[Boon]

Tara Reid sucked my cock for a thousand dollars. Pred couldn't watch, unless he paid a hundred.

[Eccles]

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I bet you're kicking yourself now that she'd probably do it for $20