The Academy Awards has always operated more on Karma than on any objective system of value. Actors who were wrongly denied a Best Actor one year will often get Best Supporting Actor much later for a less deserving performance. 1997, ‘the year of the indie film’ was a strange kind of reparations for years of neglect by the mainstream. Peter O’Toole obviously did something unspeakable in a past life to be denied an Oscar 8-times.
Similarly, the Coen brothers finally won their Oscar for No Country for Old Men, not because it was that good or because it fit the best-movie mold, but because they’ve been churning out underappreciated movie gems for decades.
The Big Lebowski is probably the most universally loved of these gems. Under hushed voices, it is often spoken of, in all seriosness, as the funniest movie of all time. For many, liking The Big Lebowski is a baseline judge of character. But liking is not enough. Lebowski is no longer an unrecognised cult film, so to distinguish yourself from the throngs of casual Lebowski-philes you need to be a bit obsessive to call yourself a true Lebowski fan. This makes for a very competetive subculture of hardcore fans who put on costume parties where you can only drink white russians and make their own screen printed shirts and so forth. For these individuals there is the 10th Aniversary Limited Edition Bowling Ball Case:
If you’re British then you’ll have to be an even more devoted fan to not only ship it over from the States but to also but a region 1 DVD player to watch it! But at $23.99, the price is right.
But whether or not you get the Bowling Ball or the standard, boring 10th aniversary edition, let’s all hope that 10 years on, the Coen’s use their newly won Hollywood blank check to make more films like this.
Check out John Doran’s feature on the film published earlier this year: Abide With Me: A Decade of the Big Lebowski
