The Big Lebowski 15th Anniversary

This week marks the 15th anniversary of the Coen Brothers' beloved cult film, The Big Lebowski. Although initially considered a bomb at the box office, the film found new life on home video and became a hit with college students (re: stoners, disenfranchised intellectuals) in the early 2000s. The film's protagonist, an unemployed pacifist who only concerns himself with bowling, drinking white Russians and smoking marijuana, became a reactionary hero ("...takin' her easy for all us sinners.") to the Bush Administration's post 9/11 America. That, and The Big Lebowski is simply hilarious.

To say that I love this movie, would be an understatement. I remember watching The Big Lebowski for the first time in segments over one week sometime in 1999, maybe 2000. Showtime was playing the film like crazy and I'd catch bits and pieces of it while I was doing homework or something. At first I only latched on to the curse words and crude jokes, it was enough to make me want to watch it again....and again. You get the picture. Before I knew it I was quoting the film like clockwork and, like I'd done with The Simpsons previously, was relating experiences from my everyday life back to the film. It was extraordinary. The weird movie I couldn't even bother to sit through had somehow become one of my favorite films of all time.

Walter Sobchak guards my DVDs

It's safe to say this film sparked my interest in many unknown subjects at the time (nihilism, Vietnam, Vladimir IIlyich Ulyanov Lenin, porn, Creedence Clearwater Revival, IN-N-OUT Burger), and it's overarching cinematic theme has become my own personal mantra: "Fuck it." I could rant and rave about The Big Lebowski all day and demand each and everyone of you pay homage to the film...but that would just be like, my opinion man.