Over the line! Huh? I'm sorry,
Smokey, you were over the line. That's a foul. Bullshit. Mark it 8, dude.
Uh, excuse me. Mark it 0. Next frame. Bullshit,
Walter. Mark it 8, dude. Smokey, this is not 'Nam.
This is bowling. There are rules. Hey, Walter, come on. It's just— hey, man,
it's Smokey. So his toe slipped over a little, you know? It's just a game,
man. This is a league game. This determines who enters the next round robin.
Am I wrong? Yeah, but I wasn't— Am I wrong? Yeah, but I wasn't over.
Give me the marker, dude. I'm marking an 8. Smokey, my friend,
you're entering a world of pain. Walter, man. You mark that
frame an 8, you're entering a world of pain.
I'm not— A world of pain. Look, dude, I'm— this
is your partner. Has the whole world gone crazy? Am I the only one
around here who gives a shit about the rules? Walk at zero!
They're calling the cops, man. Put the piece away. Walk at zero!
Walter, put the piece away. Walter? You think I'm
fucking around here? Walk at zero!
All right, it's fucking zero. You happy, you crazy fuck?
It's a league game, Smokey.
It's 2 Dads 1 Movie. It's the podcast where 2 middle-aged dads sit around and
Shoot the shit about the movies of the '80s and '90s. Here are your hosts,
Steve Paulo and Nic Briana.
Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of 2 Dads, 1 Movie.
I'm Steve. And I'm Nic. And today we are talking about the 1998
Coen Brothers classic, The Big Lebowski.
This was my pick for us. And I, you know, I don't know, real quick,
Nic, I mean, big Coen Brothers guy? Oh, for sure. I mean, yeah,
who isn't, right? In a lot of ways, we already saw Raising Arizona for Cagevember
last November. Love that movie. A lot of the best stuff that the Coens did
really did come kind of a little later in the 2000s. I think O Brother,
Where Art Thou? was like really spectacular. But so much of their work
in the '90s was incredible. And I honestly think maybe in some ways The Big
Lebowski is like the perfect Coen movie. Yeah.
Because so little happens and yet there's— There's
so much to talk about. There's so much in every scene, so incredible. I remember
seeing this movie for the first time in college. I didn't see it in the
theater, but I think I saw it like the second it hit like Blockbuster and
stuff. And, you know, it was just, I thought it was like quirky and
kind of funny. I'm like, I like John Goodman, I'll watch that. Jeff Bridges,
I kind of didn't feel strongly about at the time. Like he was just this
guy that was like in some movies sometimes. But like, I love John Goodman.
The Coens were great. You know, I'd seen obviously like Raising Arizona at that point.
And like, I think The Hudsucker Proxy was them, right? Or something. Yeah. I mean,
there's a whole bunch of like crazy ones from earlier, you know? Anyway, this movie
was awesome from back in the day. Like I remember loving it and I was
really excited to watch it again. for the podcast because it's the
perfect example of the, to me, the kind of thing where it's like, does,
is this really as good as I thought it was? Was this like me being
a teenage kid and really being into something? And then like you watch it and
you go, uh, okay, maybe not so much. Like, is this the Boondock Saints or
is this like truly— Right. Like a classic, right? So— Right. Really excited to
talk about it with you today. Uh, what's your history with The Big Lebowski?
Yeah, I think I probably caught it early college. Definitely, uh, didn't see it
in the theaters, but this got around quickly. And once it was on video,
definitely like, hey, you gotta see this, you gotta see this. Yeah. And then by
junior year of college, You know, everyone was saying, the dude abides,
and, this aggression will not stand, and all the million things that we'll get to
throughout this. New shit has come to light. Yeah, it was great. It was really
fun. And I feel like this came, like, during a stretch where there's a couple
really great bowling movies with Kingpin a couple years before then, which is one of
my favorites of all time. Very funny. I haven't mentioned it on the pod.
I think it's a perfect place. I don't like to brag, but I think I
am part of the bloodline of bowling royalty. Oh. So my
great-grandfather, Archie Walsh, was a professional bowler
in the New England area. Okay. They don't do regular 10-pin bowling there. They do
candlepin bowling, which is very unfamiliar. It kind of only exists
in New England. If you've seen the movie The Holdovers, that's the type of bowling
that they're doing. So, the pins are more like cylindrical,
and the ball is like the size of a grapefruit
or a softball, right? Ah, okay. So, you have this lighter ball, and the difference
is that you get 3 shots instead of 2. And also, your deadwood remains until
your 3rd shot's done. So, you could, like, hit one that's on its side and
send it spinning into the other pins. It's very hard, though. Like, to break 100
in candlepin bowling, very tough. But my great-grandfather,
Archie Walsh, known in some circles as, you know, one of
the great early candlepin bowlers— he is in the Candlepin Bowling Hall of Fame.
Wow! Which is definitely not a Canton, Ohio-sized building.
It's more like a— it's more like an armoire in
the corner of, like, a Holiday Inn somewhere. But hey, you know, he's there.
So I do want to shout out that the bowling connection was not lost on
me. I always loved bowling, had a lot of fun with it, and I love
that element of this film. And, you know, it's something that we brought into
our everyday lives all the time. Once you start going bowling with your friend,
of course we're quoting this, you know, mark an 8, dude, no matter what you
get. We're drinking White Russians. We're doing the whole thing. Over the line! Dude,
for sure. So very, very, very strong history and familiarity with
this movie. And I can't wait to talk about it. That's so cool. I have
a little bit of bowling history, not nearly— and I'm not trying to compare here—
not nearly as significant as yours. My father briefly
went to school at what was at the time called CSU Hayward. I think it's
CSU East Bay now. And he bowled. And I can't remember now if it was
a family thing He was definitely in a league, but I can't remember if it
was associated with the school or if it was just like a local league.
But growing up, I always saw he had a couple bowling trophies on his shelf.
He and his team would do rather well. There was one league season, however,
where they did so poorly that he has a trophy, and I'm sure he still
has it at his house, with the bowler on top of the trophy is
bowling between his legs from behind. So he's like standing with his legs split and
it was for last place. It was essentially, you might as well have bowled like
this, I think is the thing. Your dad's not the godfather of the Antoine bowling
mixtape? No, apparently not. Apparently not. Wrong shoes.
Okay, let's jump into the facts on The Big Lebowski. The film The Big Lebowski
was released on March 6th, 1998, with an R rating
and a running time of 117 minutes. Directed by— and
I have it here just as Joel Coen because that's how it is in the
opening credits. Yeah. But I think technically they, they at this time
were being credited as directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, written by Ethan Coen
and Joel Coen. They decided that they would both be both, but they would switch
the ordering of the names apparently. Right. The co-writers. You said that the rules dictate
sometimes that there's only one director named officially. There can be, right. So I think
there has been that in the past with the DGA. I don't know if that's
still the case. The other thing, you know, as we've talked again about the and
and the and, A-N-D and the ampersand, those kind of things. This was definitely a
writing team. So Joel and Ethan working together on that. It stars Jeff Bridges,
John Goodman, and Julianne Moore. Scores, Rotten Tomatoes, 79%,
super healthy, solid score. I could see how the quirkiness of the film just didn't
land with, you know, 1 out of 5, Critics like
that kind of I could see that, especially on a single viewing. Yeah, exactly.
And especially at the time, this is one of those movies that gained the
popularity and some of its respect. I think like over time,
displayed in part by its IMDb score of 8.1. We have
not seen that many movies without over an eight. That is good for the 231st
highest rated movie in all of IMDb. So there you go.
We got a thumbs down from the putz Gene Siskel and a thumbs up from
the homie Roger Ebert. Hell yeah, Rog! Only awards I could find of really any
note. There were a few critics. associations and things,
but it was added to the National Film Registry in 2014. And on a $15
million budget, it earned $47 million at the box office.
Modest, but definitely a success for 3.1 times what it cost.
So this was made for what, $10 million less than Troop Beverly
Hills? No, Troop Beverly Hills was $5 million, was it?
No, no, no, no, that can't be right. Is that right? I thought it was,
I thought it was around $15 or $12 or something. You're right, it was $8
million. That's insane. Crazy. Oh my God. I was always thinking about— When we start
adjusting these for budget, I mean, it's gonna be some wild scores.
Pretty good, crazy stuff. Yeah, so that is The Big
Lebowski. And all right, man, let's kick it off. This movie starts
with one of the great sort of narrative voiceovers, you know,
and it's a cold open. It's something we should point out right away. We just
start off with just the image of a tumbling tumbleweed and
the sort of dusky view of Los Angeles and
the voiceover of the, Incomparable Sam Elliott. I think this
is maybe the 3rd Sam Elliott movie that we've done. Yeah, Road House,
Tombstone, here. He's got the exact same Tombstone mustache, if you notice, when he shows
up later in the movie. But his voice starts off and he's basically telling us
about the Dude and that the time and place, it was the
early '90s. He says something like, right about the time we got into that
thing with that guy, Saddam, or whatever he says. And it's
just this sort of setting the scene of the Dude is a lazy man who
just is a product of his time. We see him at Ralph's, which is their
safe haven Safeway, basically. There's the grocery store,
uh, checking the half-and-half. Yeah. And sipping it.
And, um, beautiful grocery store shot.
Like, aesthetically very good. It kind of has this blue filter where like the
reds and the yellows are like extremely turned up, so it looks really cool to
start out. Very high contrast. Grocery— like we talked about the difficulty with Clerks and
stuff like that. You're filming in a big retail store, it's tough to make it
look any good. Yeah. And I think the benefit here was the shot was from
very low, and it's like that clean white tile that he's walking on, and then
it's like the dairy aisle, so it's like There's something— the lighting. Yeah, it's softer
or something. It works out great. I do love that he pays for his,
you know, what is it, like a quart of half-and-half probably? Yeah, for it with
a paper check for 67 cents, which you know is not gonna clear. Yeah,
he's bouncing that check for sure.
Yeah, so, you know, it starts off and it like kind of lulls you into
like the slowness and the dudeness of the whole feeling
that Sam Elliott's laying out. So you're very relaxed. when like the first action of
the film happens, right? The, the dude gets home,
and as he opens his door, he realizes, huh,
there might be something. Like, he gets a sense, you know, that sense you get.
Yeah, watch. And sure enough, there's a couple of guys, uh,
there in his apartment. And, uh, one of them— we get the name Wu,
uh, is the name of one guy. We don't hear the name of the blonde
guy with the, with the short long hair, I don't think. But that guy grabs
him and throws him into the toilet. Where's the money, Lebowski? Where's the fucking
money, Lebowski? Like going on and on. And it's really funny because he's still
holding half and half, so that has kind of spilled. So as he's getting
like pushed, his face pushed into this like milky toilet water, and it's
a very gross-looking toilet. Like, I mean, you'd imagine that this
is not a guy who's, who's swiffing every day, you know? And he, he points
that out to them as they're saying, you know, your wife owes money to Jackie
Treehorn, you owe money to Jackie Treehorn. And he goes, my wife does? Like,
the toilet seat's up. Does it look like a woman lives here? Like, what are
you talking about? Uh, and so the 2 henchmen, uh, realize they've got the
wrong guy. But before they leave, Woo pees all over the rug in the middle
of the dude's living room, uh, and, and,
you know, which is just not very nice. No, there's a great line
too. They pull his bowling ball out of his bag. He goes, what the hell
is this? He goes, obviously you're not a golfer. Yeah, it's just a great
one. His responses to everything was, was really funny, uh,
so calm and so matter-of-fact. If you're peeing on somebody's rug, I noticed
that, that he just kind of peed in a lot in one spot. Would you
try to spread it around, or would you try to just like saturate one area?
I think I would go with the Woo method. I'd go for the saturation,
really soak an area. make it very difficult to clean that spot. Because if you
think about it, if you, if you have a rug with a little bit of
pee on it, or a pee— excuse me, if you've got a rug with pee
in one space or pee all over, in either case you can't get it out,
you're not going to want that rug anymore, right? So make sure, make sure you
really nail it. Make sure you soak it, soak it good, get it into the
pad underneath if you can. Yeah, boy, then it's not going anywhere. Hey, if you
have any more tips, uh, hit us up at rugpeers@2dads1movie. That's the number 2
and the number 1. You know, the way I have the email set up,
that'll actually deliver. Please try it, somebody.
Uh, yeah, so we cut then to the bowling alley, the, the sort of
home base bowling alley for the dude and his bowling team. Yeah. And is
this where we're getting the— this Bob Dylan song? Like, the music selections
throughout this film are so good. They're so good. They're so good. Yeah, I don't
even know for sure all the songs that are in it, but like, yes,
this starts off— I think this is the, uh, like, the woman in you,
you see the man in me, whatever. I don't know the song, but like,
I know it from this. That's really all I know it from. Yeah. So,
and that's a great thing, is selecting songs that are, you know, even from really
well-known artists that are some of their lesser-known songs. It's just they,
they pick so well throughout this film, and it just, it adds so much to
the mood. I would argue that the 2 kind of like best ways to,
to score, you know, to pick popular music for a movie, I think, are either
you go into a particular genre niche, you pick, you know, bands maybe
well known in that genre, but you're going into a niche genre anyway, and then
a bunch of like small stuff. Like, uh, I think about like, uh, soundtracks like,
uh, uh, Garden State, where it's like, yeah, there's like Paul Simon's
on that, or like whatever, but like, you know, so much of that stuff was
like really kind of under-the-radar kind of indie pop and stuff, you know, at the
time. Yeah. So going that direction, or like you said, like picking a super popular
artist, but go with the deep-cut B-side. Like, give us
something off the beaten path. And look, maybe this song was very popular
when it was new, I'm assuming in the '60s or '70s, but like, I didn't
know it except for Tobolowsky. And it shows up twice in the movie too,
so it almost becomes a theme song. Right. It's like the Oh Yeah song
in Ferris Bueller. It makes the rare double appearance of a song.
But this bowling shot is wonderful. Yes. Like, all the slow-mo scenes of
the different bowlers like taking their shots, doing their celebration. I especially
love Liam, uh, Jesus's teammate, who does this kind of like belly wiggle
side to side, 'cause it's so like small, but it's just like—
I don't know, you just see the joy in these guys. Like, their world is
so minuscule, but like within it, they're the fucking kings, you know? Love it.
And now, you've been more of a bowler, I think, in your life, it sounds
like, than I have. I have bowled, but it always— and I honestly have thrown
my elbow out 3 or 4 times like doing it, so I don't do it
a whole lot. Yeah, that's not good. No, it's not. But, uh, It always bothered
me, a couple of the slow-mo shots. There's a point where the camera's sort of
pulling back and we're seeing several bowlers in a row kind of, you know,
throw their shot down the alley. Yeah. Or down the lane rather. And then a
couple of them, the ball actually hits like the floor before the lane and
then go. And it's like, is that normal? Is that like a foul? Like,
what is the deal? Like, that doesn't look right. Yeah. For the non-educated,
non-bowler here, I just didn't— every time I've watched this movie, I see
that and I go, that person, it feels like that should be a foul.
Like, I don't get it. That should be bad. Yeah, it seems like normally,
well, at least I don't have good form. I don't take—
I'm rebelling against my great-grandfather. I never want to be like him.
But I always like the ball, it gets a little air before it hits the
ground. Yeah, that's what I figured. Most 33-year-olds kind of toss it almost,
right? Anyway, but yeah, so we meet Walter Sobchak
and Donnie, whose last name I don't remember because we only hear it once,
I think, at the very end of the movie. But this is the dudes' bowling
team, and Walter is played by John Goodman, Donnie by Steve Buscemi. And Walter
Sobchak is one of the single greatest characters, I think,
ever in a movie in the '90s. Yeah. Like, I literally,
I don't know if everybody does this, but I know for me, I have turned
Sobchaking into a verb, which is to be wrong,
to not be wrong, but to be an asshole. Yeah. Right? You're not wrong,
you're just an asshole. That's Sobchaking. Yeah. So, you know, because that's such
a standard theme here in the way the Dude and Walter interact with each
other. But Walter's basically saying, you know, hey man, this rug, like, this really tied
the room together, didn't it? This is not— this is a prized, you know,
possession. And this interaction between Donnie and Walter,
it goes on over through the whole movie. It's so beautiful. It's so perfectly
descriptive of these 2 characters, where Donnie is just asking innocent questions,
wanting to be involved, wanting to be included, and Walter could not be more
pissed off. He hates it so much. At Donnie about this. It's really funny.
Like, shut— Donnie, you're out of your element. Shut the fuck up, Donnie. Like,
over and over again. I don't know how many times John Goodman says, shut the
fuck up, Donnie, but it's gotta be 4 or 5 times at least. Yeah,
in the movie, such a wonderful, like, interaction. And Donnie
is just, like, so innocent and so clueless about, like, these questions,
like, these details that he decides to focus on, you know, in this story.
But it comes to that Walter is convincing the dude that, okay, well,
this doesn't end here. Like, you, you are owed a rug. Yeah.
And you should go get it from the guy that they, they thought you were,
right? Right. They had the wrong Lebowski. You should go get it from the other
Jeffrey Lebowski. Yeah, you should go do that. And, uh, you know,
so, yeah, so dude agrees and he's like, that's,
that's interesting, I should do that. Uh, he kept saying— this is, this is
a funny joke because he keeps saying that, uh, that this Chinaman peed on
his rug, right? So Walter, this very angry Vietnam vet,
and he's going crazy, he's like, oh, by the way, dude, Chinaman is not
the preferred nomenclature. Which is one of those things to his character
where it's like he can't help but correct something, even if in Walter's soul
he is a guy who would say Chinaman, right? Right. Yeah. But he just— he's
so pedantic above everything else that like he has to— well, or just
has to like be combative about everything they're talking about. There's something the Coens do
in this movie that I think is wonderful, um, and something that I have
been trying to do as I've started like writing screenplays and, and doing stuff,
which has been a lot of fun. I've been trying to like really make interesting
choices for all of the characters and give them backgrounds
and, and sort of viewpoints that aren't just like
you know, cookie cutter or normal, right? Which is a good thing. Yeah. Sometimes movies
are plot-driven and it kind of doesn't matter as much who the characters are,
but this is like a character-driven movie. Like, this movie doesn't work without these
characters making the choices they're making. And what I find is that in particular,
the Coens give such rich background life
to every character in this movie, even the ones that are on screen for 5
minutes tops, like Quintana and some of
these other guys, you know? But like Walter in particular, you look at like who
this guy is, right? So he's a Vietnam vet who owns a sort
of like security equipment store. Yeah. Right?
He's divorced from, you know, an ex-wife for
whom he converted to Judaism. And he continues to, like, you know,
observe Shabbos. And, like, you know, he's very ingrained.
He quotes, you know, the founder of Israel or whatever, right? You know, all this
stuff. And it's just all these really interesting choices that, like, didn't need to be
that specific and didn't need to be there to let
the plot continue, but they improve or they enhance,
right, the character so much. One of my favorite things of all time, we'll get
to later, but like, Larry's dad, not just being a guy, but being a famous
TV writer in an iron lung, is like such a brilliant choice,
you know, as writers. Totally. So anyway, but this is— we're starting to get some
of this out of Walter, you know, yeah, and you're absolutely right, the sort of
correcting the Dude on proper current vernacular and
nomenclature, I think is just an example of that that's so perfect.
But yeah, so the Dude does go seek out the other Jeffrey Lebowski,
who happens to be this millionaire in a big mansion and whatever.
and his assistant Brent, right? Brandt. Brandt. I was like, Brandt, played by
the wonderful Philip Seymour Hoffman. I mean, the whole cast is just— They really
nailed it on this film. Yeah, really wonderful. And, um, and Brandt is
just the most hilarious kind of like rich
guy suck-up kind of guy, like just this— he's a
toady, you know, 100%. And his goal is to be a barrier between
the actual Big Lebowski and anybody who's trying to get close to him.
And he's so The way he's handling the dude when he gets there, as the
dude's kind of looking at the pictures on the wall, and he doesn't let the
dude have a single thought about any of the photos without hopping
in and being like, oh, that's actually when Mr. Lebowski visited here and here.
Yeah. And he's jumping in with all these details. And he clearly—
it's all scripted or pre-written for him because there's points where he sort of
stumbles over a word, and instead of just going on the way someone would if
they were just talking to you, he retraces his steps a few words and repeats
the sentence from the beginning. Like, that's the tour that he gives to people that
enter that room. Which is like, yeah, says so many other things about both Brandt
and Lebowski. Yeah, that he— that they have this, this process
in place of like how he, how he's supposed to, you know,
explain the, the Wall of Fame, uh, outside of Lebowski's office
to visitors, right? It's an interesting thing as well. Um, but he does go in
and see Lebowski, who of course is wheelchair-bound, uh, and he
is not a nice guy. He's Quite quite a dick.
The dude tries to tell him like, "Hey man, these guys came looking for you,"
and then they peed on my rug. And he keeps saying, "Yes, yes, you told
Brandt on the phone. He told me so. Yes, yes, yes." And it's just like
such a dick about it. And they get into the whole like you know sort
of you know you're a bum. Like you know what I mean? Like like like
don't you have a job? Like insulting him. Because Lebowski Lebowski was like
a like a war veteran who had lost the use of his legs and Uh,
and still, you know, despite that, managed to build this success. And who knows,
like, how much he's full of shit, but this is what he's saying, right?
Um, and, uh, yeah, he's really like— the
dude is the most repulsive possible type of person to
him, and now he has to sit across from this fucking guy because he has
the same name as him. Yeah, I, I will say that the dude looks
a lot like present-day Eddie Vedder. Oh yeah, in this movie,
when we were watching, we're like, damn, that's what— that showed him at the World
Cup. That's what he looks like, right? Really accurate. Yes. Um, But I
do love the big Lebowski. Are you employed, sir? You know, asking all these things.
Is this how you dress up to go look for a job on a Tuesday?
And he's like, oh, what day is it? Mind if I do a J?
All these things that he's— so, uh, it's a great clash of kind of
cultures there. And so Lebowski basically shouts him out of the room, and the dude
gets up and leaves. Okay, fuck it, whatever. And then Brandt is coming down the
hallway, and it's really funny, it's one of those things where the door shuts and
you can see— you can hear just how good the soundproofing is. Inside Lebowski's office,
you almost can't hear him at all. So as Brandt's coming down, he goes,
how was your meeting with Mr. Lebowski? He says, oh, went great. The old man
said take any rug in the house. Yeah. So then they're heading out,
and, and they have to head out past the pool, and it's like some other
worker there, whatever, is carrying a rug. And Brandt and the dude are walking,
and they walk up to Bunny, who is the big Lebowski's wife, played by Tara
Reid, who I think was like— the actress, I think, was like 19 or something
at this point. Big star at the time. I will say, uh, Tara Reid first
celebrity girlfriend of Tom Brady once he became— really dated for
like a year before he got with Bridget Moynahan. Oh, did not know that.
Big news in New England in like 2001, 2002. This was pre-American Pie,
so I don't even know what else she'd been in before this. I don't really
think she was— yeah, that was kind of her breakout. In one of those ensemble,
like I Know What You Did. Yeah, or those faculty or something.
She was in one of those, I think. Yeah, something like that. But yeah,
she's like one of the few didn't hold up cast members of this whole movie.
Yeah, that's true. And she was never as good an actress as
the majority of the people in this movie anyway. And then just made a lot
of very unfortunate choices for herself over the next 15 years or so.
And the rest is history. But when the
dude walks up to her and meets her, you know, she's like painting her toenails
green, which ends up being a very important detail, asks him to blow
on them and then tells him, I'll suck your cock for $1,000. And Brandt,
nervous chuckle, and goes, that's marvelous. Which is just one of my favorite lines.
Brandt's uncomfortableness
with anything not going according to plan is so funny. And then once
again, Lebowski, an absolute assassin, saying, uh, let me just go
find a cash machine. So good. As if you've got $1,000.
It doesn't matter. It's really good. He should have written her a check. Yeah,
right. But also notice, we should note, uh, at this point in the pool nearby
is a guy who shows up numerous times, Yuri, right? She even said— or
Uli. Uli, right? Oh, that's Uli. He doesn't care anything. He's a nihilist. That's right.
And that's a character who gets referenced many, many times throughout the movie, and we
see him later. But he's there, passed out, empty bottle of like Jack Daniel's
or something next to him in the pool. Uh, just something to mention. He's floating
very nihilistically. They really— they, they nailed that shot. That is true. It's really good.
Um, so, so now we're back at the, uh, bowling alley. Yes. So Walter
is there, and Walter shows up with a, with a little dog in a crate
and tells this funny story about like, this is his ex's dog, and he's watching
the dog because she's traveling or something like that. And he has the dog,
and, uh, and the dog And the dude's like, well, why'd you bring it bowling?
He's like, I didn't bring it bowling. He's like, I didn't rent it shoes.
I didn't buy it a beer. It's not taking your turn,
dude. But it's definitely not a Pomeranian. I don't know little dogs very well.
That's not a Pomeranian, right? He keeps calling it a Pomeranian, but it's definitely not.
Am I wrong? Yeah, I couldn't tell. Looks like a little terrier or something.
Yeah, it does seem like— Pomeranian's hair seems to go like straight out,
and a terrier would be lay more. But so, um— Which is funny, I think,
then, that Walter doing all this for his ex-wife while she's on vacation with her
new husband, I think, or honeymoon or whatever. Yeah. He doesn't even know what kind
of dog it is. Right. He talks about how it has papers. You can't board
a dog with papers. Yeah, fucking show dog with fucking papers. And he's all— and
like, he's locked into this shit. And then, like, watching the other
team bowl out of the corner of his eye. So in the middle of this,
just shouts out, over the line! Oh my God. At one of the other bowlers.
Smokey, I think his name is. Yep. And they argue. Smokey's like,
I wasn't over the line. Walter's like, yes, you were. No, whatever. And he's like,
mark it 0. And he's like, it's an 8, dude. Mark it 8. And they're
going back and forth. At which point Walter decides, I'm gonna— he pulls a pistol
out of his bowling bag and is like,
Smokey, you are entering a world of pain. A world of pain.
And he's like going off, and he basically pulls the gun, cocks it, points it
at Smokey, you know, markets through all this stuff, and he screams about, this is
not 'Nam! Am I the only one who gives a fuck about the rules?
Yeah. Like, he just loses it. They finally market
zero. He, like, does pop the clip out and, you know, kind of unloads the
gun and puts it away. So it's like, okay, cool. But like,
just— that's— I don't— and then I guess they continue bowling, or do they leave
right away? Yeah, because like, they must have finished out the frame. I mean,
if he cared so much about that individual score, and he just showed up.
Yeah, but when they go to leave, you can see the cops behind them are
arriving and running in, you know, and all this. It seems like they probably would
have left right after that happened. Yeah, I guess. Um, yeah, so it's really funny.
They're having this conversation, and Walt's just like, am I, am I wrong? Am I
wrong? It's like, no, you're not wrong. You're just an asshole, as the cops are
like rushing in looking for Walter behind them. Oh man.
Uh, the Dude— we get a little scene of the Dude back in his apartment,
and, um, he's, he's got a nice little bar set up there making
himself, uh, White Russians all day. Were you ever a White Russian
guy? Because of this movie, I definitely did adopt White Russians for a while in
college. Yeah. I, I can't tell you— oh man, I mean, we must have subjected
so many people to bad White Russian breath.
Like in Vegas, you know, people are like smoking cigarettes and playing playing blackjack
and eating, drinking White Russians, kind of eating too,
White Russians all night. Yeah, so when we
watched this movie for the podcast, my wife and I, she suggested,
she's like, well, why don't we make a White Russian and see how it is?
So we had a couple, not bad, but I don't know how you go all
night with it. It's kind of like a Bloody Mary. It's like a one-and-done type
drink to me. I agree with you. I think they can be nice. I think
even when I was drinking White Russians, it would, yeah, it would be the first
one, maybe 2 cocktails of an evening, and then I'd go on to something simpler
like, you know, gin and tonic or just something that was just like, you know,
more of a cocktail. Something see-through. Something translucent at least. Yeah,
exactly. But, but yeah, no, I think I was a White Russian guy for
a while, and then I was a whiskey sour guy for a while, and then
a vodka Red Bull guy for a long time. That was— I had a stretch
like too. I don't know how I lived through that. You know what, vodka Red
Bull era directly correlates with my worst behavior, I think too.
Yeah, yeah, I think that's probably pretty accurate. It was definitely pre-kids, I'll tell you
that. Yeah, so we're at the dude's apartment. One funny thing
is he's got a big poster of like Richard Nixon bowling.
Um, and, uh, he does not seem like he'd be a Nixon fan, right?
Like, the character seems like he's probably just— he wrote the Paul Huron statement.
Yeah, sorry. Uh, but yeah, bowling fan. So yeah.
And, uh, he gets a knock at his door as he, like, makes himself a
cocktail, and it's, uh, it's, you know, his friend slash landlord
saying, like, hey, hey, uh, you gonna come, uh, come,
come to my performance? Basically, you're gonna come see me? I'm doing my dance quintet,
my cycle, right? My cycle. And he's like, oh yeah, I'll be there, man.
He's like, oh, by the way, tomorrow's already the 10th. You know, slide the rent
under my door. So he has like this relationship with this landlord, and clearly he
was a guy who was behind on rent, but this just hammers it home for
us. Absolutely right. And then, uh, he gets a message. Basically it's from Brandt saying
like, hey, please, you know, contact us as soon as you can. If you have—
if you're worried that this is about the rug, it's not. Like, don't worry about
that, that's perfectly fine. We just need to talk to you. So he ends up
back at Lebowski's house. Brandt is, you know, head, head down walking,
looking like he's in mourning or something, whatever. And you
know, raising his arm, he's like, Mr. Lebowski is secluded in the west wing,
and all this, which is just so dramatic. Um, and so he goes in,
he talks to Lebowski, who's like sitting staring into the fireplace in
an otherwise dark room. And this is when he goes like, mind if I do
a J? Which is just like, yeah, the kind of worst and also funniest way
to talk about smoking pot. Do a J? Like, I don't know. Uh, but it
feels very child of the '60s. Like, it feels like very
appropriate for like a boomer in this era. Totally. Uh, who was a hippie But
yeah, and so we find out that Bunny has been kidnapped. Yeah. And, uh,
they've got a ransom note and everything. Yeah. And, uh, and, you know,
it seems like Lebowski's clearly not happy with
Bunny's general behavior and that she's been involved with these pornographers
and stuff. I'm not sure, like, how much of that he's disclosing at this point.
Um, one thing he says is, uh, you know, asking Lebowski—
or asking the Dude what makes a man, right? And, uh,
and I have to take issue that the Dude says something like that and a
pair of testicles. I will say that you can have any number of testicles and
be a man. That's absolutely right. Don't you let anyone tell you differently. I never
will. Okay, good. I never will.
OneBallArmy@2Dads1Movie.com.
So the ransom note— he's like received this faxed ransom note where
it's like cutout letters, you know, and, you know, really like,
we're gonna kill her, you know, $1 million, usual ransom stuff. And when
the dude reads that, he's just like, bummer, man. Except that he's— except that he's
just inhaled the J, so it's more like, it's a bummer, man. Excuse me?
It's a bummer. Uh,
so basically they say, we think that, you know, we want you to be
the courier for this because we think this is maybe the same people who peed
on your rug. And he goes, you think the rug pissers did this? Uh,
he's like, well, we just don't know, dude, and you're in a unique position to
confirm or disconfirm that, which I I don't think it's a word,
but like regardless, confirm or disconfirm this information.
Um, which again, like, you know, this all plays into what we eventually
find out about the reality of the storyline, but it does seem weird.
Why would they care, right? Like that it's the rug
pissers in particular. Like you should try to just identify— I guess because the idea
being is that if he— he doesn't like know who they are. It's not like
he can identify them to the cops, or you know what I mean? It's just
an interesting thing, and we later find out why, but like it's, it's funny that
it doesn't call even sit right now. And they think he's enough of a doofus
they can rope him in anyway. Right, they think he's gonna do whatever. Um,
it's very Fletch in that way. Yes, yes, super Fletch for, for sure. Yeah,
yeah. Um, so then we're, we're back at the bowling alley here, and then we
get a great— and, and again, the song choice. When we're talking about things
that make a good song choice, another thing is a cover of a very well-known
song, especially if it's done in a unique way. Not, not Weezer doing Africa where
it sounds precisely like the original, but like a— so this is the Spanish
language version of Hotel California And it just— like, the guitar,
it starts off so good, straight out of Desperado. And it's also so perfect
when you later find out the dude mentions how much he hates the Eagles.
Yes. For this to be sort of the theme song of Jesus Quintana.
Yeah. And, and, you know, they're being enemies. It's just like, so— like, the,
the level of detail that goes into the thought behind that choice, right, is so
wonderful. Um, and his look, like, everything about— so this is
John Turturro as Jesus, Jesus, uh, Quintana.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, um, he's got
this, what, like leisure suit on? It's kind of— it's a jumpsuit. It's like a
single— it looks like a onesie. It's like a purple jumpsuit with polyester in the
middle. Yeah, kind of. It's just interesting. It, it shows him pulling up his
socks and he has these like thin socks where you can see his leg.
You would call them hose. Those aren't even socks, those are men's hose.
Like, gross. I've had those before and they're awful. Oh, I feel
so gross. I feel like a mail carrier from the '80s in there. Plus you're
never putting your foot into a comfortable shoe if you're wearing those. You're always going
into some Ruff rented patent leather bullshit tuxedo
shoe, you know? 100%. And it's always because the shoe's too small,
so you can't afford like sock girth in there.
Yeah. Um, so the Jesus— this is another like the
Coen Brothers brilliance, right? Like you said, how much actual
screen time does he have? Like way less than 5 minutes. 3 minutes maybe between
2 scenes. Yeah. And they made a fucking spin-off movie about this
guy. Not that they should have, but they did. There was enough backstory even
planted here, just Walter saying like he's a pervert and Dude kind
of saying like, yeah, you know, the way that you would just call somebody a
pervert, call somebody a bad name or whatever. He's like, no, man, he's, he's got
a record, like convictions, like exposed himself to an 8-year-old, had to
go— when he moved to Hollywood, he had to go around like tell everybody he's
a pederast. Which, by the way, we got to bring that word back. Yeah,
pederast. I think that's absolutely how we should be referring to all these fuckers doing
all the things they're doing out in the world. It's a great word. The,
the little flashback scene they had of just, uh, of just the
Jesus, like, in his regular street clothes, like, meekly knocking
on a neighbor's door, and this, like, real, like, biker wifebeater-looking
guy answers the door. Yeah. Um, but Jesus, you know,
is, like, basically in Walter's face. He's like, you know, I heard what
you did. I heard this shit you did, like, pulling a gun on that.
You ever do that to me, like, I'll take the gun out, I'll shove it
up your ass and pull the fucking trigger until it goes off. Goes click.
It's so good. And the look on Walter's face the whole time
that Jesus is delivering these threats is just like dead,
like stone-faced, like he could not care, unimpressed. Yeah,
does not care. But that's when the dude, just after he says the click thing,
dude goes, Jesus, you got it, man.
Nobody fucks with the Jesus. And I do love Liam,
his, uh, his sidekick, who I don't think has any lines, but he looks like
kind of a miniaturized Andy Reid. Okay. Just like a, you know,
dorky-looking Midwest mustache, flat-top guy. And an off-duty cop.
I was about to say county sheriff. Yeah. Oh, sheriff's department for sure.
Oh, it's so good. So as, as the Jesus walks away,
you know, there's a little silence and Walter just says, 8-year-olds, dude. Yeah. But there—
but I think it's either before or after the Quintana stuff, they're arguing about,
uh, the situation with Bonnie and the kidnapping, whatever. And, and dude kind of
offhandedly is like, you know, she probably kidnapped herself. Like, people do this stuff.
and, you know, she's a young trophy wife and she doesn't get as much money
as she wants to and all this stuff. Walter immediately takes that as like,
that is what has happened. Yes. And you said it yourself, he is personally offended
by this. That fucking strumpet, that fucking whore,
like all this. And it's like, whoa, bro, like, yeah, you gotta slow down.
This is— this is— we are positing a possibility. This is not
like— no one has any proof. Like, it's just he goes wild about it,
but he's— he— now Walter is convinced. Bunny kidnapped herself,
and that this somehow affects him, which is not the
part that ever really gets explained appropriately. Well, yeah, and so the dude has
been offered like $20,000. That's right. To deliver
this million-dollar ransom, you know, which he doesn't have yet. He's gonna get
that from, from Lebowski. Yeah, but yeah, Walter, his gears
are working, and he is losing his fucking mind about that detail. It is really
funny that he spends the rest of this film just like fully
convinced, like, she kidnapped herself based on this offhand comment that, like, the most
offhand commenting guy that he probably knows made about it, you know?
He's not serious about anything with her. Like, what are you doing? So now the
next thing I think we see is we see the dude, he's like at home
lying down on the rug that he took from Lebowski's house.
Yes. He's got headphones on and the tape little label says, like, you know,
I don't know, 1968 or something, like bowling championships or whatever it was.
And it's just the sounds of pins. Yes. Like there's no talking, there's no— it's—
this isn't like, uh, a cut from the radio with like commentary. It's just
the sounds of balls rolling down lanes and pins knocking down, and he
is in heaven. And later he's listening to his headphones. I think he's listening to
like whale sounds or something like that. So in his headphones, he does not listen
to music, just this like comfort sounds. A lot of atmospheric kind
of stuff. But he opens his eyes. He's not asleep, he's just sort of enjoying
the clip. But he opens his eyes and looks up and sees 3 people,
a woman and 2 men. And one of the men punches him in the face
and knocks him out. And we get this one of 2, I think, really significant
sort of dream sequences. In this movie where he's like flying over
LA, and then he— at some point I think he's,
he's got the bowling ball shows up in his hand and then, you know,
pulls him to the ground or whatever. Sinking. Yeah, yeah, because this is
the shorter one. This is the shorter one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but you know,
it's definitely— but the way that they show him, because they don't ever show him
actually getting hit, they'll just kind of show the person about to hit
him and then it cuts to like his There's like a sequence, like a bright
burst of starlight or something, you know, kind of like a flash of a camera
almost, and then we're in the dream sequence. It's good stuff. When he comes to,
he's got a big bruise on his jaw and he's now laying on the wood
floor. Yes. There's no more rug, and the phone is— his
phone is ringing, right? Isn't that— or is it the phone that they give him?
The phone already, right? Oh, that's what it was. This time was just the beepers.
The beeper's going off. It's Brandt. He's got to go
back to Back to the Lebowski's to figure out what's going on because now
it's you know so here's the the phone will call you once big like satellite
because this was the early ninety s right yeah movie came out in ninety eight
but it's set in like ninety one ninety two right so probably ninety one so
you've got this huge like box it looks like a it's like a Vietnam like
communications phone that a guy has to wear on a backpack kind of thing radar
had in MASH like it's that kind of whatever satellite
phone basically and so here you go and here's the case with the million dollar
orders, await their call, you know, do whatever they say.
Her life is in your hands. And he goes, oh man, don't say— Mr.
Lebowski asked me to repeat that. Her life is in your hands, dude.
Her life is in your hands. Like, the way he says the third one,
her life is in your hands. Like, this is so perfect. Yeah.
Uh, and they tell him, you know, okay, show up alone.
Alone. And, uh, and of course
Walter shows up and he's like, all right, dude, let's go.
Dude goes him. Because literally the store that Walter's staying in, for instance, says Sobchak
Security on the thing. So it's his own store. Like, obviously the dude agreed
to go pick Walter up for this. So the dude's already breaking the rules of
the, of the engagement by picking Walter up. But when Walter gets in, he's got
a like leather briefcase full of underwear, and then what,
you know, I— My dirty undies, the whites. The whites. But, and then a gun
wrapped up in like butcher paper or something, or blanket. I don't know what it
is, but it's like wrapped And he pushes Dude over so that he'll start driving.
And they basically wait for the call. They get the call, they get told to
go to a particular bridge and, like, all this stuff, whatever. And, you know,
Walter's convincing the Dude at the time, like, you said it yourself, she kidnapped
herself. We're gonna just, you know, we're gonna throw out the ringer, we're gonna keep
the million, and whatever. And he's like, are you fucking serious? Like, what if I'm
wrong? What if I'm wrong? Yeah.
And so this is fully Walter's plan. Like, we're taking this money here,
and I've got the ringer with my undies in there. So as
they're driving to the location, he gets the call. The dude gets a call,
and he's like, "Yeah, yeah, we're we're on the way." Yeah, where do you want
us? Where do you want us to go? Yeah,
he's like, "Oh, me and the driver, man. You think I'm handling the
money, talking on the phone, and driving?" I mean, quick thinking, quick thinking
by the dude. That's a good point, man. That's a lot to ask one guy
to do. But yeah, they they basically so they have to go to
a bridge. And, uh, they call again as they approach the bridge,
'cause like Walter's plan now is like, okay, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna,
we're gonna, you know, give 'em the ringer, but then I'll grab one of 'em
and beat it out of them about where they're keeping Bunny or whatever, right?
So we'll bring her home. So even if she didn't kidnap herself,
we're gonna get her and return her, which is all they wanted for their million
bucks. Who cares who ended up with the million bucks? Exactly, which is, you know,
I'm not gonna call it a good plan, but it at least has some logic
to it potentially. You can follow it a little bit. But then they get another
call, and the kidnappers, who have those thick German accents, we should mention, right?
Say, you throw the money across the— when you get to the bridge,
throw the money out and keep driving. That's it. That's the drop-off.
And it's like, fucking Walter's like, no, no, that screws up the plan. Oh,
well, you should call him back and let him know that it messes up your
plan, Walter. You know? So dude is like, I'm just gonna throw the real money
out 'cause fuck this. And Walter's like, no, no,
no, we're gonna throw the ringer out. And so they throw— he
throws the ringer and then dives out with the gun, basically.
Yeah. He's like, I got an Uzi. I didn't come naked or whatever. And the
gun— Which just starts firing on its own. Well, he hits the ground so hard.
You know, I think people underestimate— or yeah,
underestimate how fast they're going. If you're gonna try to exit a vehicle
anything over about 5 miles an hour— I was gonna say, dude, yeah,
if it's going 20, you think you can smoothly— no, you're gonna be in big
trouble. That's a lot of pain. And you know, they weren't going slow, so whatever.
So he tumbles out, the gun flies out, spins around, shoots the
dude's car tire, causing him to crash,
right? And, and just the whole thing's a nightmare. And then the guys have dirt
bikes, the official vehicle of crime. The official vehicle of crime. And are driving off
in the opposite direction with the ringer full of Walter's
undies. And, and they're watching him, and the dude is trying to be like,
hey, hey, wait, wait, you took the wrong suitcase. And then they're
sitting there realizing like, well, these guys are gone. And then we get a Fuck
it, dude. Let's go bowling. Let's go bowling. This is not the last time we'll
hear that either. Often repeated, and again, would be used by my
friends and I in college to mean anything. Anything at all. Fuck it, dude.
It's just kind of like saying this place is dead anyway from swingers. It just
means let's leave. That's all. This place is dead anyway. Let's go bowling. Oh,
I mixed my metaphors. No. All right. So then we cut back to the bowling
alley. Yes. Dude still got the sat phone with him. Hasn't turned it off.
I notice. It just rings incessantly. While Walter
is trying to bowl.
They end up leaving the bowling alley and the
car is gone. Mm-hmm. Now, apparently they parked it in a handicapped spot, which like,
I'm assuming Walter drove 'cause he was driving earlier. That's terrible.
I really have a problem with people misusing the disabled parking
spaces. So I'm glad the car's gone. Unfortunately, it was actually stolen, which is like,
That to me says more about the person who stole the car.
You stole a car from a handicap spot. You didn't know that wasn't a handicapped
person's car. Do you think if they did, if they were like,
um, surveilling the handicap spot and waiting for a non-handicapped
person to park there and then steal their car? That's actually a good point.
They would see the car, see there's no tags, and go, well, this person parked
illegally, maybe I'll steal this. Actually, that's a good point. Maybe they are citizen vigilantes.
Uh, the Punisher. Maybe Frank Castle took the car. Uh, you know,
like, uh, Jim Carrey in Me, Myself, and Irene. There's that scene where the guy
like pulls in in the convertible and then hops out, but he was really going
to pick up an old guy after he's like, you know, smashed the,
the, uh, brake lights out of his car. Um, yeah,
the car is gone. So yeah, fuck you if you're stealing a car,
but especially if you're stealing a handicapped person's car. But a little less fuck you
if you're stealing a car that is illegally parked in a handicapped space. Correct.
A little less fuck you. Correct. But still, don't steal cars. Uh, okay,
so then we get to, uh, I think he gets a
phone call to meet Maude, right? I mean, that's sort of like where we're at.
Yeah. And so as they go out and they realize that the car is stolen,
like during this entire scene, his phone has been ringing off the
hook, right? And, uh, I think one of the last things is Donnie's just like,
phone's ringing, dude. Phone's ringing, dude. Did you know that? Fucking Donnie,
I love it. Um, so he goes to report,
uh, or he's reporting the car being stolen, right? The cops are at
his place. Yep. And, and he's talking about what was in the car, but he
can't really say this briefcase with a million bucks is in there. So he was
just like, yeah, in my briefcase, uh, there was a cassette player and,
uh, my Creedence tapes. And, uh, my briefcase— like, what was in
the briefcase? Like, papers, business papers. What do you do?
I'm unemployed.
Oh, but that's right, while they're sitting there with— what, he's sitting there with the
cops giving a statement, the phone rings, the answering machine picks up, and it's Ma.
played by Julianne Moore, saying, you know, Mr. Lebowski, this is
Maude Lebowski. Like, I took your rug. I'd like to speak with you.
And then the cop goes— 'cause he mentioned too, like, oh, somebody took my rug
too. And he's like, oh, hey, good news about the rug. He's like, no,
that's a separate matter. Separate incident. Well, good news about the rug. So he's now
been contacted by Maude, who we'll see in a moment is the person who
we saw when he got punched out and the rug got stolen, right?
That's who that was. And so he shows up at her place, which is like
sort of a— like an art work-live loft kind of thing with like things,
this crazy contraption set up where she's painting by
being strapped to the ceiling and like pulled along a pulley system
or something. Yeah. By 2 people who are helping her, I think the 2 guys
that were with her before, as she just flings paint
down onto a canvas that's on the floor while she is mostly
nude. Yeah. Very interesting choice, but hey,
artists do crazy stuff. I mean, and also people who inherit
an amount of money that they never have to actually work or be judged by
anybody their entire life, can just do whatever the fuck they want. That is also
true. Um, so yeah, definitely one of those weird artists. And they did a good
job of capturing her, uh, stuff. And all of her stuff was kind of,
you know, very like Jackson Pollock-y with a little, you know, more like
edge to it, right? Because there was like a sexual thing, little Georgia O'Keeffe going
on. Yeah, definitely. Um, but her character is hilarious, and the way
that she speaks is really funny because she has this accent for no fucking reason,
right? Right, which is amazing because, because we learned, right, like she ostensibly—
we can understand, like her mother married the big Lebowski, Jeffrey Lebowski,
um, and all the money was her mother's. Like it came from like that side
of the family or whatever. So she's obviously old money in that way. But it
does seem like she probably grew up in or around Southern California. This is where,
you know, because Lebowski himself has been such a pillar of the community for so
long. Like they obviously have been there a long time. So the affectation and the—
it really is kind of like— it's not like you grew up in some other
country, picked up a little accent or a little affectation. She's doing it. It's a
Hilaria Baldwin type thing. There you go. Um, yes.
Yeah, so, so what she's explaining is like, you know, my father,
uh, doesn't really have all this stuff. Like,
we give him an allowance. Like, he runs the charity and stuff.
And, um, and then this Bunny Lebowski, like, she's into some bad stuff.
Like, I don't approve of who he's with, and this is what she's into.
Like, she was into porn, and she shows, uh, the dude this video,
right, which starred Bunny Lebowski and the other guy who we saw
floating in the pool earlier, whose, uh, stage name in this is Carl Hungus,
which is very good. Yes, good stage name. Uh, Humungus Hungus. Probably, maybe hashtag
it. Didn't see it in this porn. It's called Log Jamming. That's right.
And it's just the classic, like the cable guys,
like he had to fix the cable, you know. And,
and she's sitting there, Maude is commenting on it. She's like, the story
is ludicrous. And then in the movie,
like there's like a topless roommate that comes out. Oh, my friend came over to
like whatever. And she goes, you can imagine what happens next. He goes, does he
fix the cable? Um,
but yeah, so, so, so she says she suspects
that her father is embezzling money from the foundation, and that's where this million-dollar
scheme came from. She's like, well, he's in on it, she's in on it,
somebody's using this to steal this money, uh, from the foundation.
And then she says before, uh, the dude leaves, like,
okay, we gave you a nasty crack on the head, sorry about that. Oh,
also, the reason you can't have the rug that you took specifically is that this
was a gift to me from— or a gift from my mother. It has sentimental
value. She bought it for her mother. It was a gift to her mother from
her, and so there's a sentimental value. Um, so she's like, you know, we'll give
you money, you could buy a rug if you need that. And she says,
go see this doctor that I want you to see. He's a good man and
thorough. Thorough. I love the way she says thorough. I have— I
will still say that knowing no one around me understands what I'm saying, but if
I use the word word thorough, whatever. I can't even say it the right way
anymore. I will say it like that. Like, yeah, thorough. Sounds— it
sounds more appropriate. So he gets driven home in a limo with—
who is that? That's a comedian. Dom Herrera. That's right. Who I think I
kept saying in a different episode when I was trying to refer to Dan Hedaya.
I kept saying Dom Herrera. Oh yeah, in Commando. Yeah,
ridiculous on my part. But this is Dom Herrera, not Dan Hedaya.
Maya, uh, and they're just chatting or whatever. And,
um, he's like drinking a White Russian in the back of the limo. Limo drives
him home, and he says to me— he gets home, he goes, hey, who's your
friend back there? And there's like a purple VW Bug or something. Yeah. It was
like, he followed us all the way. And dude's like, oh, let me go check
it out. So he goes out to look, but before he can go, another identically
dressed limo driver, same cap, everything, grabs him and pulls him
into another limo wherein there is the Big Lebowski and Grant,
and they're, and they're talking about like what, you know, what happened,
dude. Like, yeah. And as the dude is grabbed, he's holding his White Russian.
So another great, uh, quote from the movie is he's being like kind of muscled
into this limo, he's like, hey, careful, there's a beverage here, man.
Classic. It's good stuff. Um, but he's never concerned about
himself really. He's kind of concerned about just his stuff. Yeah,
yeah. He likes his environment. Like, he's not like, don't hit me in the head.
He's Don't mess up too much stuff going on, like, around here, you know?
It's like, that's kind of what things are. So, you know, he says,
nothing is fucked here, which is a great line. Yes. Um, and he kept— keeps
saying, like, well, look, you're not— you guys are not privy to all the new
shit. A lot of new shit has come to light, man. New information is involved
here, and you guys, you don't know, uh,
all the stuff. And it's like trying to explain it, and they're just like,
she kidnapped herself, man. Did that ever occur to you? And Brandt
has this look on his face the entire scene, just the funniest,
like, frozen look. Again, this is freaking
him the hell out. Like, he's not used to dealing with chaos. Like, every bit
of Brandt's life is planned out, including the script he tells you when you show
up to the house. Here's a question for you. Do you think Brandt— so,
so I think, you know, the end result here, right, is that we can be
pretty sure Maude has got the right idea about what actually was going down,
that Lebowski was trying to, like, embezzle the money in order to run Okay,
do you think Brandt is in on that, or is Brandt just following orders because
he's being told what to do? Like, I, I can't quite put my finger on
it, but yeah, because there's not— like, is there
anything that indicates that Brandt is more clever than he's letting on?
He seems pretty clueless and just like serve Lebowski at
all costs, try to make him look good. Yeah, it's pro— he probably doesn't know
there is something foul afoot. I feel like, I feel like Brandt's probably
an innocent innocent involvee. Like, if he had designs on like stealing money,
he probably would have figured out a way to do it on his own.
Maybe. Yeah. Um, but so they tell him
there, after the dude says, well, she kidnapped herself, you know,
this isn't a big deal. And they're like, all right, give him the envelope.
And they give him this envelope and he unwraps it and there is
the toe with the same colored green paint that we
saw Bunny painting her toenail earlier. Yeah. True.
Uh, missing or artificial extremity?
Like, we didn't quite get— we've always said limbs. Yeah, it doesn't quite match,
but it's close though, man. It's, it's definitely close. Um, yeah, anyways, so then we
cut to a diner. Walter and the dude are sitting at a diner together and
they're talking about— basically dude telling him, see how wrong you were, Walter? Yeah.
She did not kidnap herself. They cut off her fucking toe and sent it to
him. And he goes, you want a toe? I can get you a toe by
3 PM with nail polish. You don't want to know how, but I can do
it. It's like Walter is just so dug in, you know? He's like, there's no
way that I'm wrong about this, dude. Like, she kidnapped herself. Yeah.
Um, and there's a waitress comes over and basically asks them to, like, keep it
down. Like, this is a family restaurant. Could you keep it down? And one of
my favorite Walter lines is, excuse me, ma'am, the Supreme Court has roundly rejected
prior restraint, which is a First Amendment thing. But, like, yeah, it's just— I just
love— I love that. Roundly rejected prior restraint. And then he said— and
then the dude's, like, embarrassed by this. He's like, all right, I'm outta here.
And Walter's like, I'm staying. I'm finishing my coffee. And like pounding the counter.
And saying it out loud, just waiting for people to be looking at him,
you know? But also losing interest in his own thing that he's dug his
feet into. Yes. Oh, it becomes just a matter of principle. And here's the thing
too, a guy who claims or seems to have a fairly good understanding of,
you know, like the Constitution and freedom and like, you know, this stuff, it's like,
bro, you know the First Amendment does not apply to like diner counter waitresses.
Like they can ask you to shut the fuck up and get out no matter
what. This is not the government. This is not Congress executing prior restraint
on you. Like, Yeah, anyway, uh, so the dude is back
home. Yes. Uh, and he's enjoying a nice bath in his tub. It's funny,
whenever— almost every single time it shows him smoking a joint, he's smoking the tiniest
little rope. He's never, like, got a fresh one, right? So he's got the little
metal holder. Can I do a J? Can I do a J? That's where he's
got a hole in. Yeah, yeah. Um, so he's enjoying in the
tub and then kind of looks up at his front door and then sees— oh,
before that. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Oh yeah, so the cops call basically and are
like, hey, Mr. Lebowski, like, this is so-and-so from LAPD. We found your car.
And he's just like, you know, you can come check it out, come get it
here, or whatever. And he's just like, far out, man! Like, he's so happy.
But then what gets his attention is the sound of the answering machine stopping
because of a crashing noise. He looks over,
and the 3 nihilists from, you know, the kidnappers, like, whatever,
have come in and have destroyed his answering machine with a baseball bat. Yeah.
Come walking into the bathroom with, like, a marmot or weasel or whatever the heck
it is on a leash. And he
looks down and goes, nice marmot. Again, no like
no concern about what's happening to him, and and they throw
it in the tub. So they're threatening, you know, we're gonna we're gonna cut your
Johnson off, Bowski, and they throw the marmot in there.
And the only there's I think there's two screams
like how we did the best screams in Home Alone, right? Where he does a
real like Marv with a tarantula on him type scream,
and they both have to do with his dick being threatened. So he
throws the marmot in the tub, and Bowski. Or the dude,
like really lets it rip. And then a little later on, he drops
a roach like in his lap, and he starts freaking out. And that's the only
thing that gets him the whole movie. Oh man! So,
so these guys, you know, and and they're telling him,
you know, we believe in nothing, Lebowski. We are nihilists. I love that.
I love the nihilist who has to be like, yeah, we believe in nothing.
We come back tomorrow. We cut off your Johnson. So they're gonna come back tomorrow.
They want the money, right? So he goes to pick up his car
and, you know, it's all banged up and the cops tell him, yeah, they found
it, you know, crashed into an embankment, like, or whatever. And so they're looking,
he can't get into the front door. Yeah, you got to go around the side.
No briefcase. Yeah, no briefcase. But hey, the stereo and the Creedence
tapes are there, like, you know, and he has to go in the side and
he's like, oh, what is that smell? He's like, oh yes, homeless person probably slept
in it or used it as a toilet and moved on. Like, oh God,
this guy couldn't be having a worse day. Uh, you got any leads? And this
is— and the cop is like, leads? Oh yeah, we got— they got
a bunch of leads down at the crime lab. They got 5 detectives working on
this. They got us working in shifts. Such a dick. But also,
like, like, I feel like a dick but also an appropriate answer. You really think
they're gonna be, like, investigating? They found your car, bro. Like, that's the best you're
gonna get. You shouldn't even have wished for that. Yeah,
yeah. Oh my God. Um, so he's now
Nothing is upsetting Walter more than the dude's
explanation of these guys that come in, because he is furious that they're
nihilists. Well, he first says that they're Nazis, and then Donnie goes,
were they Nazis, dude? And he was like, well, look, they're threatening genital
mutilation and violence. Like, what? Splitting hairs here. And he goes, they're not
Nazis, Walter. They said they were nihilists. And yeah, that blows Walter away.
Another great line, not something that I repeat because it's actually pretty terrible,
but the great written line is, say what you will about the tenets of National
Socialism, at least it's an ethos. Yeah, it's really funny
by Walter. And again, him, him needing to be right
at the expense of being an asshole. Oh my God, right? It's like, it's like
people who would be like, well, you have to admit, I mean, Hitler was a
great leader because look at all the number of people he— it's like, clearly,
shut your fucking face. Seriously. Um,
so, uh, so yeah, Walter's like one of those guys.
And what does he say?
Uh, he says, I don't need your sympathy, I need my fucking Johnson,
man. And they're just like, well, let's just focus on the tournament,
dude. And dude goes, fuck the tournament. And Walt's like, whoa, fuck the tournament?
You're clearly not in the mood to get cheered up, dude. So we're gonna go—
come on, Donnie, let's go bowling, let's go get a lane. Like, and he's just
like super fucking like offended by fuck the tournament. Are you kidding me?
Yeah. Um, so he goes now looking for— um,
I love that when he orders a drink at the bar, he orders it as
a Caucasian, which is another— I don't know if that originated in this film,
but that's, that's a funny trait for the character to have. I think that definitely
was a way that drink was referred to as well. Yeah, which is, you know,
because the White Russian and taking you to the Caucasus Mountains are all out that
way. So, but he orders the drink and then someone sidles
up next to him there at the bar and it's the stranger. It's Sam Elliott.
That's right. Talking to him about like, your style, dude. Dude, he orders a sarsaparilla.
Yeah, he's like, you got any— you got good sarsaparilla? I got Sioux City.
Mm, that's a good one. So fucking good. And he's— yeah, he's got the exact
same mustaches in Tombstone. Like, he looks great. Like, um, yeah,
he's wonderful there. So he gets to chat with him for a little bit and—
take her easy. Yeah, take it easy, dude. Um, so,
uh, so the dude is back now at Maude Lebowski's
artist loft, uh, and again making himself, uh, a White Russian. I didn't look
up exactly how many. I was trying to track. I had that he made himself
himself 9 White Russians during this film,
or had the bartender make for him. Yeah, yeah. Um, it would be good to
go Russian for Russian with the dude. Oh no, bad.
See when you puke. I was gonna say, but in some of these cases,
he is making an extremely compromised White Russian. He's using the
powdered milk. Yeah, powdered creamer. No, get out of here. I am only
gonna consume that when I'm in the nuclear fallout shelter and not
a second before. But the thing is, you're not going to have Kahlua after the
nuclear war, man. That's the vodka, maybe the powder creamer, maybe,
but you're not going to have the Kahlua. Yeah.
Um, so let's see. Oh, so basically he,
he tells Maude like, oh, the dude from the porn that you
showed me was the one who showed up, you know, showed up at my house
and threw him more money and like, yeah, all this stuff. And he's like,
Uli? Like, that's like, she's good friends with him. That's her co-star. He was in
this band Autobahn and like all this stuff. And there's this other guy there at
Mods who's just like giggling all the time. Most infuriating guy to
be there. He looks kind of like Vincent Price, but not really. Like, oh,
what is— I forget his name. She's like, oh, he's the visual
artist, whatever his name, as if the dude should know him. Like, so she's existing
in this kind of like Andy Warhol style, like, uh,
circle there. And, um, yeah, and I love
that they give the backstory to this guy, that he had this like— that
he was in this band called Autobot. Completely unnecessary, but just adds so much funny
shit from Like, okay, what are you doing when you fail out of a German
techno band in the mid-'80s? I guess you go do porno in the U.S.
Like, there you go. There you go. It's interesting.
But Mod wants to make sure, first of all, that that the
dude goes and sees that doctor. She's like, you know, I gave you this doctor's
info. You haven't seen him yet. Yeah. You gotta go see. I don't want to
be responsible for like late onset symptoms or anything like that. Long term effects.
Please do it. So he does. He goes to the doctor.
Uh, and, you know, again, he's listening to headphones. It might actually be music this
time. I can't remember if we can hear what's in his headphones or not while
the doctor's over and asks him to drop his shorts or whatever. And he's like,
no, no, no, no, no, he hit me right here, you know, pointing to his
chin. Like, I understand, drop your shorts please.
Yeah, it's a very thorough, very thorough examination.
Um, okay, so now the dude is— he's leaving after this appointment, and I
just love the way he's acting here. So he's playing his, uh, Looking Out
My Back Door by Creedence Clearwater Revival. And the way he drums on the roof
of the car, on the ceiling of the car, is so funny as he's lighting
up his J and everything, kind of getting down to it. So he's grooving,
but he drops the J into his lap and he starts fucking squealing,
freaking out. And he's noticing the reason that he's distracted is he's looking
in his rearview and he sees this VW Bug following him again. Yep, same bug
as before. Again, drops the J in his lap, like starts squealing
again. So I think those are the only 2 like big reactions we get have
to do with his dick being threatened. Yep, exactly. Exactly. So yeah, he crashes,
and when he crashes, he looks and he finds, like, kind of stuffed underneath one
of the seats there— I think that's the driver's seat he was in— is this,
like, piece of paper. And he looks, and the piece of paper is obviously social
studies homework, and very badly graded, like, whoever's— but it says— it's
got, like, what is it, Larry Summers, right? It's, like, got the name on it.
Larry Sellers. Sellers, that's right. Thank you. Larry Sellers. And so that's a clue now
as to where the car, you know, who might have taken the car, right?
That kind of thing. Yep. So then we cut to the landlord's dance
quintet. Quintet. Yeah. Donnie and the dude are watching
and it begins and it's— it sounds like Rites of Spring or something like,
you know, Stravinsky or somebody like that. And the guy's just dancing to this very
like, you know, very thematic, dramatic sounding,
you know, classical music. And it's terrible. And there's like 5 people there total.
Yeah, community theater type thing. But the dude, despite his flaws,
man of his word. He said he would show up to this thing even despite
how chaotic his life became since agreeing to it. That's true. He's there. He's there
with— he brought Donny with him. And then Walter shows up and basically did some
research. Not really sure exactly how, 'cause it's not like the internet existed at the
time, but he figured out that Larry Sellers, where he lives, that his dad
was the writer of a show called— what did they call the show? Branded.
Branded. So probably like Bonanza. That's always what I assumed. Yeah. But Branded, right?
You know, wrote the bulk of the series, 150-something episodes, whatever. Bulk of the series,
dude. Bulk of the series, dude. And so they're gonna go to the kid's home
to like, you know, basically like interrogate him and figure
out like where did the briefcase go, right? Right. Because that was the key.
So once the car was found, right, there's no briefcase. So, uh, so they do
that, they go, and this was the part where, yeah, like they didn't need to
make this character, the father of this kid, such an interesting character. But they go
in and like we already know he's this, he's this TV writer and like all
this stuff. Yeah. They arrive, he's in an iron lung. And not like a 1992
iron lung. I mean, this is like a steampunk custom
build. Who's the guy? Uh, uh, Hughes. Like Howard Hughes would have been one of
these things, dude. Totally. Absolutely. And, uh, and outside
Larry Sellers' house, before they go in, they see this brand new looking red
Corvette. So they're like, gorgeous, this kid stole our briefcase, took the money,
bought himself this Corvette. Like, we're gonna go get our shit back. Dude's like,
he already spent the money. He goes, nah, he's still got— he'd only be down
about $40,000, $50,000.
Um, yeah, and the way that Walter is still reacting,
like, despite the fact that this guy's clearly incapacitated in an
iron lung— I do also want to say to any of my, uh, relatives,
anybody responsible for my care at some point, if I end up iron lung
bound, please keep me in a back room. I, I don't want to be there
when people first walk into the house. I don't want to, you know— Put my
ass on the porch. Yes, I want to be a sign to everyone around.
I'm not going anywhere, motherfuckers. Wheel me around in a wagon. Oh, just,
um, keep me mobile. But Walter is still acting
like he's meeting a celebrity, and he's so timid,
and he's just like, uh, and a good day to you, sir, like yelling
across there. And then he says— We're big fans. He says to
the caretaker, he's like, um, does he still write? And, and she's
like, oh no, he has health problems.
Which again, goddamn it.
Oh Jesus. So, so they call in the kid, right? Larry,
come in. And they sit him down and, and And Walter's got— I love
it too, because it's like, um, it looks like, oh, I would have this in
an evidence bag, but it's just a Ziploc. Yeah, yeah. I love that it's a
regular Ziploc with the homework. Is this your homework, Larry? Is this your homework,
Larry? Larry, is this your homework? Is this your homework, Larry? Larry? Hey,
Larry, is this your homework? And dude's like, we know it's his fucking homework,
Walter. Like, where's the money? Yeah, where's the briefcase, kid? Like, what'd you do with
it? It's like, dude, dude, please. Larry, is this your homework?
And he— and Larry is just sitting there like dead.
This is kind of like a hidden fear of mine, is encountering some,
like, immovable 10-year-old at some point, you know, who just has more
willpower than I am. Like, just like, oh, dude, they got the time.
I don't want to do— they got all the time in the world. They ain't
got to do shit. Um, and so Walter— and it's great that this kid is
not reacting, and Walter's like, okay, okay, you want to be like that? Yep.
All right, let's be like that. And he goes out front, he's like, you see
what happened? You see what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass.
And I think that came up earlier in the movie, like he's repeating that somebody
else had said that earlier. Oh, maybe, I don't know. Um, or maybe he didn't
hear it, but I think somebody else said it. And when you watch this on
TNT, this was a joke about me and my college friends. It would say,
you see what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps. One of my
favorite edits of all time. Find a stranger. I even wrote down find a stranger
in the Alps. I want to make sure one of us mentioned it. It's so
funny, uh, as an edit. Uh, yeah, so Walter smashes
every bit of this car. He even reaches in to turn on the headlights so
that they'll pop up so that he can break them. Smart. But then a neighbor,
uh, somebody from next door to Larry, comes running out. This big guy with sort
of an accent. He looks at— maybe he's like Middle Eastern or something. He's like,
what are you doing? You're killing my car! I just bought this car last week,
you motherfucker! I killed your car! He's like— and he goes over to the shitty
car. Donnie's still sitting in it. Yeah, right. And he just busts in the windows
and busts in the windshield. Shield and fully destroys it. And so then they're driving
away. And actually, we forgot to mention real quick, yes, when, uh, when they were
at the, the, the quintet, the dance quintet, Donnie asked, like, when they said where
Larry lives, is that near the In-N-Out or whatever? He's like, no, the In-N-Out's on
this. No, it's near the In-N-Out. Can we get In-N-Out Burger, guys? Can we get
burgers there? They got good burgers there, Walter. Shut the fuck up, Donnie. But they're
driving away with burgers and fries. Yeah. I don't know if you believe this or
not, 100% not In-N-Out. This is not what In-N-Out— not present-day packaging,
not even the packaging. The burgers themselves don't look anything like In-N-Out burgers to me.
Like, yeah, like they were 100% not In-N-Out's This look. I feel
like if you pick up an In-N-Out burger, it looks like an In-N-Out burger the
way it doesn't look like McDonald's or Burger King or anything else. Yeah, this feels
more like they got Big Kahuna Burger, some generic, you know, like that they just
couldn't because they didn't want to do any kind of branding thing. But yeah,
it's definitely not In-N-Out. Yeah, it would have been good to have some like actual,
like the actual cup or something. They've had those red striped cups with the little,
the little palm trees at the bottom. Those cups have been that way for ages.
That makes sense. Yeah, they could have done that, but they didn't. That's Okay,
just something I noticed as a Californian. Um, so now, now the dude is back
at his place again. Yeah, okay, so we're done with this little act. The dude's
back at his apartment and he's tired of people breaking into his apartment, so he
is nailing a little piece of wood to the floor a couple
feet away from the front door, uh, with the idea that I'm gonna nail this
in and then I'll wedge a chair where the, the back of the chair
is up under the doorknob, so whoever opens my door, you know,
So of course he does this, and like the second he's done
with it, the door handle turns and opens like the other way.
The chair just falls, and these guys are here. External doors never
open out into the world, but that's okay. It was funny.
I don't remember though. I was thinking when watching this, there is a moment later
in the movie where he opens his front door at a different time, and it
does open out. But I couldn't— I wasn't sure if that happened every time.
Like if you go back to when the landlord knocks on his door, I don't
know which way it opens. then, to be honest with you, because I don't know
if like the continuity stuck or not. But anyway, it's, uh, Woo and
the blonde guy. Yes. Wearing each other's shirts from before.
If you look at their first scene when they pee on the rug, they are
now wearing the exact same shirts, just reversed. Oh, that's funny. Which is hilarious.
They're both like sleeveless sort of things. Yeah. And they say basically,
Jackie Treehorn wants to see you, time to come with us.
And, uh, so they get taken out to, to, out to Jackie Treehorn's
place, like in Malibu. Yeah. On the beach. And there's this Like, you know,
scene of like this topless woman being tossed up in like a one
of those blankets, like the things we used to bounce the balls around like in
kindergarten. Yeah, the big blanket everybody would carry and getting tossed up into the air.
Yeah, and there's this, uh, this music that starts playing a
little bit. Yeah, when, when he's knocked out, this like, oh,
it's really cool. Uh,
sampled, uh, by, uh, rapper MC Paul Barman in the song
How Hard Is That, which is a really, uh, great one, very to find,
but you can find it on YouTube. So if I ever spot a sample,
I gotta bring it up in this pod. Love it. Jackie Treehorn, played by one
of our favorites, Brad Wesley from Road House. Ben Gazzara. Ben Gazzara. Love this guy.
Love to hate him, really, more than anything. Yeah. But yeah, big, big Ben Gazzara
fan. Very fun. And he introduces himself like, hello, dude,
I'm Jackie Treehorn. Like, the way he introduces himself is funny. But they
go into his place, and it's a beautiful, like, kind of 1970s— like, it's got
the conversation pit look and everything. Awesome. Really very cool. Very mid-century modern style.
Um, like kind of a house. I would love to live in this house.
It's beautiful. Um, and they're talking for a while and basically Treehorn's like,
where's my money, dude? Like, what's going on? You know? And he's—
and, you know, dude is thinking Treehorn's on the up and up. You know,
he, in his mind, Bunny owes him money. He's trying to get the money Bunny
owes him. I think he even says about half a million or something like that.
Yeah. And he's like, well, dude, like, here's the situation. You can get the money.
The money is Larry Sellers, this kid in Pasadena or wherever the hell he is.
Like, he's got it. Go get it. It's yours. Have Have fun, take care.
Maybe I'll take a little finder's fee or whatever, you know, kind of thing.
Yeah. And Treehorn is like, no. But then the phone
rings and he goes and he answers the phone and you can see him like
feverishly writing something down on a piece of paper. And he takes
the top sheet that he wrote on with him and he goes, and dude's smart
as hell, I would not have thought of this, right? Except now I've seen this
movie, so I would. But jumps up and does like shade, you know, sort of
shades the pencil along the paper to show what, where the
indentation was. And the dude just drew like a not quite stick figure, but like
a very crude drawing of a dude with an enormous cock and balls. Big hog.
Giant hog. Hashtag giant hog. Um,
this gag I think is like one of the funniest things in the movie.
It's so well done. And this, like when you mentioned earlier how this is
kind of like a, um, this is like an elevated Fletch almost
in a lot of ways. That is a very Fletch-type scene. Yeah,
for sure. Yeah, so I love that. So he realizes that and he kind
of looks at the thing and discovers like, oh, he was just drawing a dick
and he's drinking drinking this White Russian and is kind of like,
like, whoa, you make a hell of a Caucasian. Like, whoa, what did you put
in this thing? But it's clear that his drink has been drugged. Yes. And then
we get another— the most extended kind of dream unconsciousness
sequence of this movie. Yeah, it's the much longer one. It starts off
actually with its own, like, title card. It says Jackie Treehorn Presents
Gutterballs. And it's like he's in a bowling-themed,
maybe porno— yeah, musical with Maude, who is
herself dressed up like a, like, in a Viking sort of, you know, the way,
the way Bugs Bunny dressed up as a girl Viking, right, in those old cartoons.
That's exactly how Maude is dressed with the, the pigtails and the, the bustier and
stuff like that. Uh, it's very funny. And they're playing this great, uh, this Kenny
Rogers song that I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was
in. Another great find, which I first heard from this movie,
and it's like, ooh, this is a banger.
Um, and, uh, yeah, there it's— I noticed a lot of stuff during this scene,
it just like any dream, it's stuff that we've seen the dude see during,
during the movie. So one thing is he goes up to the shoe counter
at the bowling alley and Saddam Hussein hands him his bowling shoes. The floor in
there is this checkered black and white floor, which is the same floor as the
Big Lebowski's kind of like hallway area.
And at a certain point,
there's, there's guys who are kind of like chasing after him
with scissors, right? The knives. And they have these big scissors. When he first
got to Maude's, uh, studio, there was a painting on the wall of a giant
pair of scissors that looked just like those scissors. I didn't notice that. Nice.
Yeah, so she had this big, like, giant, uh, painting of scissors there. Were them
being in the red sort of all-over onesie type outfit, including,
including a hood, was that referenced elsewhere? I don't know. I,
I want to go back and see what other things were, but there were a
few things where I was like, oh shit, those scissors were the ones from there.
Nice. Um, so yeah, this This is so goofy and so funny
and just like such a, uh, I don't know, just a little break in the
middle of the movie. It's almost like the let's go out to the lobby intermission
thing, but insane. I do feel like it— I like that it's here.
I think it's the proper fantastical, whimsical kind of part of this.
But like, in all honesty, like, this dream sequence in particular, like, does not
need to exist. Yeah, like, you know what I mean? But it's also like 2
minutes. It's not that long. It feels a little bit long because it's so much
longer than the other one, but it's It's just interesting. I do like the transition
out of it where he's running from the nihilist with the huge scissors in the
dream, and then kind of comes to running down PCH through
Malibu. Yes. Right? With cars behind him and stuff, like super dangerous.
And he gets picked up by the cops, and he gets taken to Malibu PD
and is chatting with this police captain or whatever. And he's
giving him a hard time and is like, you know, I can't— He's very Will
Teasle from First Blood. Yeah, absolutely. Like, I don't want you in my town.
My beach community. We don't need your type in our quiet beach community.
Yeah, stay out of Malibu, Lebowski. But I love when he throws the coffee— like,
dude says something snarky and the cop throws the coffee mug at his face
and clocks him right in the head with the coffee mug. And I love— he
goes, you fucking fascist! Like, his reaction's so good.
So stay out of Malibu, Lebowski. They asked the dude, uh, for an
ID and he pulls out and the only ID he has is like a physical
Ralph's Club Card for the grocery store. We had a Ralph's, uh, in Santa Barbara.
It's kind of like a Southern California Um, thing. And we were so excited
when we saw Big Lebowski and we're like, oh dude, let's go get Ralph's
cards. And we were so psyched, right? So we made a whole day of it
and we went to Ralph's and we filled out the things and signed up for
the cards. Like, dude, we're gonna have Ralph cards. This is gonna be so epic.
And then there were those little shitty keychain tag cards.
Yeah. I'm like, no, no, no, I want a Lebowski-style Ralph's card. What the fuck?
With the imprinted name, like on a credit card. Yes. Like I need— yeah.
'Cause I need someone to be able to do a Jackie Treehorn tracing of it.
Uh, if they need to. Oh God, so big disappointment in my
Lebowski life. Yeah, they only had the keychain thing. Um,
but yeah, so this is kind of a very funny scene. Like, the whole gutterballs
thing plus the Malibu sheriff are a little out of place relative to
the whole rest of the movie. But it's cool. It gets very entertaining though.
Absolutely. And it gets Dude into a taxi cab with a guy
playing, uh, the Eagles. Yes. And he's asking him to stop, and the
guy's like, fuck you, man. He's like, no, come on, man, I've had a tough
day. Like, I'm really— I'm hungover and I hate the fucking Eagles,
man. And the cab driver stops the car like on the highway, or,
you know, whatever he is, and drags him out. It's like, get the fuck out
of my cab. Like drives off. I, um, don't like the Eagles,
and I started not liking the Eagles because of this movie. I think it gave
us permission to not like the Eagles, right? And then it was like, I try—
I thought to myself at some point in like a few years after this movie
came out, I was like, I should maybe give the Eagles a chance just 'Cause
what a dumb reason not to like them. Then I actually didn't like them.
And then when the whole web series Yacht Rock came out and the Eagles were
the bullies of like Steely Dan, and there was this whole subplot
in that, I don't know if you ever watched the series, but it's brilliant.
And like the Eagles are the bad guys. I'm like, okay, cool, I feel much
better. Plus Don Henley's, it was like, it was a combination of Denis Leary making
fun of Don Henley's ponytail. Yep. This thing saying, I hate the fucking
Eagles. Yacht Rock making the Eagles the bullies. And the
fact that I listen to their music and generally don't care for it. But like,
it started off as so many other reasons not to like the Eagles. Yeah,
that aren't particularly good reasons. Like, you shouldn't— you shouldn't like or not like an
artist based on those things. But oh well, I feel like I landed in the
right spot. I think you're good. And I kind of feel the same way.
I don't— I don't really like the Eagles. I do like Joe Walsh. I like
a lot of his Rocky Mountain Highs, Life of Illusion. Fucking— he's got a lot
of bangers. And he's not really an original Eagles member. He was more like a
soccer sub that came in the band like once they were already good. So I
don't feel like that's like super connected. All I know is that Boys of Summer,
pretty good. Boys of Summer? I'll give Henley that. Terrible song.
Disagree. Don't like it. That's one of the least— my least favorite things about Don
Henley are the Boys of Summer and his ponytail. He mentions too a brand and
a model of specific sunglasses. He was doing it just to get free Ray-Bans.
Good for him. Good for Don. But anyway, as he is now
out on the street, yeah, getting kicked off, Bunny drives by with
the top down of her convertible, leaving Las Vegas, blaring in her ear
or Viva Las Vegas with Elvis blaring in her stereo. Only bad song in this
movie. Yeah, but it fits because we're led to believe Bunny was in
Vegas. So it's literally the song's purpose, right? Is Bunny went off to Vegas,
didn't tell anybody. Yeah, uh, all of her toes attached. We are quite specifically shown
all 10 toes painted green on the accelerator and
stuff. So, uh, so she is fine and she is driven off,
um, and Dude gets home and Maude is there.
Yeah. And is basically just like, Like, let's, let's bang.
I will say, uh, good of him to like show
up to his landlord's dance sequence. Like, that's being a good guy.
Landlord, we gotta do something about the fucking security
too. So bad. Why is there a person in my apartment every time I come
home? It really is very often. Yeah, people are just in. Does the lock not
work? Like, what is going on? Maybe he, he even puts the keys in the
lock one of the times. It's bad. Um, but yeah, so they, uh, they have
sex, and after they're done, they're talking about
Bunny and the money, and like, you know, he's talking more and more about the
case, essentially. Yeah. In a sense, this movie is a crime movie,
right? Totally, yeah. It's a detective story in a lot of ways. But she like
tucks her knees up to her chest and like sort of wiggles around underneath the
covers. And he goes, what are you doing? Is that like yoga or something?
And she goes, no, it's to increase the chances of conception. And he like spits
out his drink. He's like, let me tell you something about the dude here.
I'm not— and she explains she doesn't want— she wants somebody who is basically
a sperm donor, doesn't, you know, like wants nothing to do with the kid,
has no interest or whatever. And he's like, oh, oh, okay, we're good then.
It's funny how that whole family, like when the dude comes along, they're like,
oh, we could use a guy like this for something. And then he gets put
into play in all these different ways where it's like, why would you? You just
have to look around a little to find a better sperm donor than that.
Exactly. Um, but this is when she reveals to him that Jeffrey Lebowski,
her father, has no money of his own. This is the full layout of
Like he has no money of his own. All of it's the fund. It was
all mother's. Now it's like in the foundation, and obviously I have the inheritance.
He gets an allowance from the foundation to run it, basically like a salary.
But he does not have money of his own. That house belonged to her mother.
You know, she just doesn't care to. You know, she's fine with him living there.
But it's like he has no money, and this is something that you know dude
is like oh now he's starting to think Bunny didn't necessarily kidnap himself. Did the
Big Lebowski have something to do with it? Right, right. It's sort of where he's
at. He goes out from the apartment, and he sees
the VW Bug again. There's the VW Bug again, and he catches. He sneaks
up where the guy who's sitting in it like doesn't have time to drive away,
so he quickly just picks up a newspaper and starts like aggressively
reading it. The actor's John Polito, who's hilarious.
He's so funny. Oh, so good. And he refers to him, he's like, I'm a
Brother Seamus. Yeah, what, like an Irish, like an Irish priest or something?
Like, yeah. So he thinks, so he's been, he's been hired to follow
Bunny. Yes, by Bunny's parents, the Knudsons,
right? Knudsons of Wisconsin or something. You know, she clearly ran away from home or
left town to go on this adventure and marry the Big Lebowski
and stuff. And, uh, and this guy's convinced that the Dude is also a private
detective based on his movements and all that stuff, which is very kind of Dumb
and Dumber-ish, you know, where they think that, oh, gas man, how does he know
I have stomach problems? Um, so yeah,
so that's— so now we have this guy in play who's like on behalf
of Bunny's family looking. So we've got a lot of people converging here. Although I
don't think he comes back. I think this is the only time we see him.
But what we do see is at a diner, the 3 nihilists and a woman
who looks very much like she belongs with them, very European, kind of whatever,
they're all sitting around ordering pancakes and waffles and shit like that. Lingonberry pancakes.
Lingonberry pancakes and all that stuff. And we cut, you know, the camera
pans down to her foot and they've cut out her boot to make room for
the packing around where they cut her toe off. She only has 4
toes on one side. That's whose toe it was.
That's whose toe they decided to pretend was Bunny's toe. Like, I don't
think the plan was very good, but that was the plan apparently.
For— and there are 4 of them, it seems like, right? So quarter— I mean,
does she get more of a cut for losing the toe? Well, she gets more
of a cut in one way at least. Um, yeah, it seems like it'd be
a 4-way split. I don't know, because she didn't just— she doesn't do any of
the other work. That's true. They're doing the ones— they're the muscle. Yeah, they're the
muscle. They're trying to do the pickup and everything. So I could see it being
a straight 4-way thing. Um, but yeah, she was figuring— I mean, you know,
$250 grand for your baby pinky toe, you know, for your pinky toe on— you
know, sure, I could see it. Some people lose stuff for free. That's true.
Only half, but yes. Um, so yeah, so then,
uh, so then it's, uh— okay, where are we after this? So Bunny's back.
So Lebowski, uh, goes back— or the dude goes back
to the Big Lebowski's house and sees that Bunny's car has been like
crashed into the fountain at the main entrance there with that fucking song still
blasting. Just ludicrous on some kind of single song loop or something.
I, I've known people like that in life, and people have gone through
these phases where I'll listen to the same song over and over for like,
you know, 20 plays in a row. Maybe Bunny's one of those. I could see
that. My problem is 1991, how do you do that with a cassette tape?
Yeah, I mean, because like, CDs— No, '91 in
a car? You're not in '91. We'll figure it
out. Ridiculous. It's just a long song. That's how interminably long that
song It never ends. You know what ruined that song was like the Super
Bowl a couple years ago when the Chiefs won, and then like Travis Kelce grabbed
the microphone instead of saying like, I'm going to Disneyland, and he sang like way
too much of that song in his stupid annoying fucking voice. How do
you really feel? Um, at Lebowski's house, they're like, okay,
so Bunny's back. And Brandt is very much like, oh, thank you for your services.
Like, looks like she came back, everything's fine, we're good. He's like, no, fuck this.
Like, I want to talk to Lebowski, right? And this is when Walter— they're talking
to him for at first, and Walter's like, Walter goes, let me tell you something
else, dude. I've seen a lot of spinals. This guy's a faker. Yeah. He just—
it's just, I've seen a lot of spinals. This is such a line.
Oh my God. So he picks him up out of the wheelchair and is like,
he's gonna walk, watch, dude. And he like lets him go. And of course he
crumples to the floor 'cause he is paralyzed from the waist down. And he's
just sitting there sobbing. And it's like, help me put him back in the chair,
Walter. Jesus Christ. Like, so sad.
So we're back at the bowling alley. Yep. And like every
scene that it's shown so far of Donnie, like Donnie's throwing strikes
every time they're back at the bowling alley. So this one he throws it and
he leaves the pin up, so he gets 9. He just kind of like gets
a little look like, what's up with that? That's off.
And I think, are they up against Jesus and Liam at this point, or they're
just talking about the upcoming— This is when Quintana moves the day because of
Walter's Judaism conversion. That's right, because it was gonna be on Saturday, and so they
got him to move it to Wednesday or whatever. And Quintana is like pissed about
it and yelling at him about it, and they're just like, yeah, whatever. They go
to leave, and that's when they see the nihilists. Oh, I think
they set the car on fire. That's right. Yeah, they've set his car on fire,
and it's like, we want some money, Lebowski. And it's like, dude, there was no
money. There was never any money in the case. There was never any money.
Like, we all got screwed by the Big Lebowski. There's no money. And the nihilist
is like, but, but my girlfriend, she cut off her toe. We thought we
were getting— she thought we were getting a million dollars. It's not fair. Fair,
fair. And that's when Walter's like, let me tell you about fair.
Like, oh my God. Yeah, so it's a good, good little fight sequence
there. Oh, Walter ripping a guy's ear off with his mouth, biting it off,
whatever, straight Tyson style. The psycho you want on your side. Oh,
hell yeah, absolutely. Like, you don't want him near you anywhere leading up
to a fight, but if the fight is already inevitable and he's gonna be on—
he's gonna just, just like defend you or be on your side, yes please,
bring it on. For sure. Sure. Um, so like during this fight, this,
this commotion and stuff, it ends and then they see that Donnie
is like collapsed. They're like, oh, Donnie, you know, you okay? Whatever. And they,
they go over to Donnie and it kind of, uh, this shot
is interesting because it fades to black, but the, um,
the stars that are kind of on the side of the, uh, outside of the
bowling alley are the last things that stay lit. So it like fades all the
way out and you just see those stars and then, and then we're out.
And we find out in the next scene that, you know, Donnie has died
and they're talking to the, uh, the person at the mortuary or whatever,
crematorium, about their options for his ashes and the receptacle and all
that stuff. This is our most modestly priced receptacle. It's like, we're just gonna
scatter the ashes, man. We're not gonna like pay you $180 or whatever for
an urn, which I think is like a reasonable thing. I mean, they can usually
give the— you— they can give it to you in a bag. Yeah, I've seen
them do it. Yeah, like it is possible. But they decide to go to Ralph's.
He says, Ralph's nearby? And they go and they get like a Folgers coffee can
And obviously dump out the— or probably, I mean, hopefully they save the grounds.
It's, you know, it's good coffee. Yeah, they gotta save the grounds.
Uh, Walter does say, uh, just because we're bereaved doesn't make us saps.
That's right, I enjoy that.
Um, but it is like, you know, in these situations you're trying to handle somebody's—
like, especially like they weren't officially responsible for Donnie,
and then to find out like, oh, around every turn they're trying to charge
you for this and that. Like, if you've ever had your pets, like, yes,
put down, and then they charge you. Oh, you want the ashes? It's this.
You want a box for the ashes? It's this. You want like a final paw
print? And it's like, dude, I have no proof that those are actually my
dog in there. You know what we did for a couple of our animals we
had to put down? Uh, we would get them to just clip off some fur
because they'll do that for free right before they put the— put them to sleep.
Uh, they give us a little bag of fur, we go to Build-A-Bear, and you
stuff like the little fur into the end of the little hand of the teddy
bear and then do the rest of it. And now that teddy bear that animal.
We've done that for a couple of our cats. Yeah, I used to do that
with heroin. Oh, that's so much better. It's worth so much more
money. But it's still— yeah, a little piece of them still around. They're still around.
Yeah. Um, so, so yeah, they, they go and they're, uh, they're standing
on the cliff giving like a little speech. Walter's giving a speech about Donny and
mostly about Nam. Some of it's, some of it's good, you know. Donny was a
good bowler, you know, and as a surfer, he explored the beaches of California Whatever,
and then he completely derails it into talking about Nam
and everything, naming like like whatever, Bong Tang, Hill 364,
like Khe Sanh. But he goes to scatter
the ashes, and of course blows right back in the dude's face. Wind blows off
the water generally. If you're on the coast, anybody who's been on the coast knows
the wind blows from the water onto the shore more often than
not, and sure enough just blows all the the ashes.
A little bit on himself, mostly in Dude's face and beard, which is
really gross. I mean, there's a travesty with you,
Walter. God, like— So we have, like, a little argument
of, like, you know, what the fuck was that? You know, you're supposed to talk
about Donny. It was all this stuff about Vietnam, right? And they start having this
argument, and then we end up with a, fuck it, Dude, let's go bowling.
Let's go bowling. And then we get another great song. It's a Townes Van Zandt
song. I forget the name of it, but another fucking hammer on the soundtrack.
And then our final scene now, we're at the bar at the bowling alley.
Oh, yeah. Yes. Back with the stranger. The stranger.
And, uh, and when the dude walks up to the bar, you know, the bartender
says something about like, hey, sorry to hear about Donnie. And the dude is just
so like, yeah, well, you know, like, what are you gonna
do? Yeah. All right. Not much emotion behind it. That's as invested as
he gets in anybody. Yeah. And, uh, and the stranger's there and,
you know, he's, uh, the dude abides,
taking it easy for all us sinners. I find comfort in that.
So we get like a little closing, uh, little closing voiceover by the Sam Elliott
character, and then that's it. That's it. That's the beauty that is The Big Lebowski.
Fantastic. So much fun. Just, and again, like the characters are just so alive
on the screen and there's so much backstory and detail that, that,
and here's the thing, what you know, 'cause like you mentioned, they did the movie
kind of about Jesus, you know, Jesus Quintana. You know that
the Coens had even more, they know more about these characters that never showed up
in the screenplay or on the screen because that's just the
way they work. They make sure that they know these characters inside out clearly because
the amount of things where we get these interesting details. It's like, that's nothing—
that's a mistake. That's, you know, it's absolutely what they're trying to do. It's just
really fantastic work. Um, you know, not that like praise from me matters
to the Coens, but it's just really fucking good shit. Um, yeah,
so, you know, for my take on this, like, this is a
whimsical, creative, fantastical,
funny movie with a little bit of a detective story thrown
in to keep it kind of moving forward. That's sort of the only plot element
of it. Yeah. is this sort of this kidnapping or lack thereof
or this embezzlement, whatever it is. And the funny, you know, the number of parties
trying to, you know, capitalize on it all at once. It's very interesting.
And, you know, yeah, there's so little about this movie that I
would want from it that I don't get. And I am a
5 out of 5 on The Big Lebowski. I think this movie is wonderful.
I had so much fun watching it again. I think it had been— Yeah.
Uh, maybe 5, maybe 10 years since I watched it. It had been quite
a while, but it was the kind of movie I've probably seen, you know,
15, 20 times over the years. So much fun. Yeah,
easy 5 for me. I'm a 5 on Big Lebowski. All right. Yeah. Uh,
I thought, I mean, it's super fun to rewatch it again, and I've seen
it a million times. Again, the cast, like, top to bottom, great.
Yeah. The music, top to bottom, great. The way it looked, like, all these
non— these things that don't have to do with the actual script and stuff.
It's just like, well, you nailed all this to even begin with. Uh,
one thing I wanted to bring up that I have read about over the years
and, uh, wanted to get your thoughts on it is the idea that Donnie,
the Steve Buscemi character, was like kind of a figment of Walter's imagination
throughout the movie. Like a, uh— and I feel like the dude
interacts with him directly a couple times. But one thing I
thought of is all the bowling teams seem to be 2-man teams.
No, 'cause there's— 'cause, well, yes and no, because there's a point where, like,
Liam and Quintana talk to each other, are walking together a lot, just the two
of them, but then there's a point where one of them bowls a strike,
and there's another guy wearing a very similar shirt waving at them.
So it does seem like it's 3, at least in a few cases. And the
big reason that that doesn't work is then whose ashes get thrown all over
Dude at the end of the movie? If Donny was a figment of Walter's imagination,
like, cut us out. Right. I mean, the idea— so one of the deeper-cut things
that I read is the idea is that Donny is maybe
like one of Walter's nom buddies that's died like a long time ago. So it
could be that when the Donny fake character character died,
then Walter was actually able to spread these real ashes of his nom
buddy Walter, or, uh, Donnie at the time. But this is— I mean,
you have to be smoking much bigger joints than the Lebowski has access to,
you know, the occasional acid flashback and all that to get
that. But I just think it's interesting that it, it says a lot about this
movie because people don't theorize about dogshit movies, you know?
And the nature of the whimsical fantasy nature of it lends you to believe,
yeah, maybe they were going for something weird like that. that, something Fight Club-y.
And how much like, like bits of deep backstory they give you
for minor characters in this would prompt people to kind of think
more about like, ooh, like what, what else about these guys? You know, we think
of zero of that about Donnie. We learn nothing. Yeah, which is really funny.
Like everybody, or whatever he says, but like, but, and not even till the very
end, right? Yeah, it's a good point. But yeah, that is, that is a,
that's interesting because everybody else we do, and not, not for Brandt. We don't get
any background. No, true. And then the theory I read about Brandt is that he
is actually the Big Lebowski's son. Oh, not the
dude's son. Yeah, yeah, son. Oh, that could be. Um, and it seems like he's
acting that way a little bit, but then Maude would know him,
right? Yeah, yeah, whatever. But I could see it. Yeah.
But, uh, anyway, all this to say, this movie was fucking
awesome. It was really fun to watch, uh, really enjoyable to like quote back,
really fun to talk to you about. Um,
Just like a couple tiny nitpicks that would keep it from being
a 5, uh, that maybe made it a little long. But honestly,
like, I'm glad all that stuff is there because we're talking about it, like the
gutterball sequence, all that kind of shit. Um, but yeah, I mean, in the
top— this is a top 3 bowling movie of all time alongside,
uh, Kingpin and There Will Be Blood. Uh, oh yeah,
bowling alley scene there. I drink your milkshake.
I forgot that was in a fucking bowling alley. I'm like bowling and there will
be blood. Like, oh yeah. Uh, but I love this.
I love the Coen brothers. They nailed it. I loved Raising Arizona. I love this.
Uh, Big Lebowski is a 4.5 out of 5 for me. Absolutely fantastic.
Uh, if you haven't seen it, like, yeah, just get
out there. It is, it is very much worth seeing. Absolutely. 9.5 out of 10
is where we land then on The Big Lebowski. And Nic, you are picking our
movie for next week. So what are we watching? Yeah, so next week I thought
I'd, uh, mix it up because we've done some like lighter, like comedy type stuff.
And then Lebowski's more just a, like, I don't know, what do we call it,
like a mystery, or it's almost like a modern noir fantasy, like all
this weird things combining it. So, uh, and we had in
the past done a lot of like action sci-fi, and we're getting more now into
the sci-fi with this selection. Uh, with this one, we are gonna
go, uh, to the film year 1997,
and we're gonna go to the actual year, what,
It's actually more like 2250-something or 60, as it shows later.
Okay, so, uh, 20— in the 2200s somewhere,
uh, some year that's never actually gonna happen. And, uh,
we're gonna hang out with Korben Dallas and, uh, the various threats to
humanity as we experience and find out what the
Fifth Element is. Nice. The Fifth Element, Luc Besson's, uh,
1997 movie that he made. Fever dream. Yes.
Yes, but very cool. Cool. I, I, Fifth Element, I have not seen
in a while for sure, but like definitely, definitely always
like occupies a part of my brain where it's like always there. And so,
you know, like Lilu, Lilu, Dallas, Multipass, and like all that shit is just like
stuck in your head, you know what I mean? So fantastic. Can't wait to watch
The Fifth Element with you. Uh, that'll be a great one for next week.
That's a wrap. So if you like what you hear, please consider heading over to
Apple or Spotify and leaving us a 5-star review. It helps new folks
find the show. Be sure to check out our website at twodads1movie.com. That's the number
2 and the number 1. There you can explore the movies we've covered, sign up
for our newsletter, The Rewind, and even get sneak previews of upcoming episodes. Once again,
this has been The Big Lebowski, another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie.
I'm Steve. And I'm Nic. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll catch you
next week. Thanks,