Frankly I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched my copy of The Big Lebowski, which is in my top five favorite movies of all time. I’ve done the Lebowski Challenge, have the extended unofficial soundtrack with every single song and bored many a friend with long, impassioned rants about Bill’s Castration Theory. You may not read the backs of your DVD cases, since you’ve already seen it and don’t need a synopsis to convince you of its merits. I feel the need to let someone else know what crime against art has been perpetrated by whatever opt-out housewife or dumbass intern wrote the piece of garbage synopsis on the back of the Lebowski DVD. I’ll reprint it in its entirety to prove to you how asinine it is:
“The Dude. One cool guy. Who one day comes home to find two thugs have broken in and ruined his favorite carpet- the one that made the room “hang together”. Thing is, they did it because he’s got the same name as one of the richest men in town. Lebowski. But hey, no problem. He’ll get even. At least he’ll get someone to pay for the carpet.”
Ignoring the poor grammar and sentence construction (I suppose we could write off “thing is” as being in the parlance of our times), this was written by either someone who has never seen the movie, or someone who has difficulty keeping thoughts in their conscious mind for more than five seconds.
The Dude isn’t even really that cool. Nor would he ever be concerned with something so petty and arbitrary as “coolness”. The Dude transcends childish labels. Also, he never refers to it as his “carpet”. Just placing quotes around a phrase that never appears in the movie is stupid enough, but reading on the back of the case that the Dude’s “carpet” made the room “hang together” made me lose faith in humanity. And he isn’t out for revenge, or to “get even”. The Dude just wanted his rug back.
You may think I’m being petty, or that this is insignificant in the face of modern war, famine and pestilence. You would be right. But this movie deserves better. Whoever wrote this DVD case synopsis, I hope you’re happy. You made me cry.
September 12, 2008 at 11:09 am |
Those are very minor annoyances, btw. In the Italian version the Dude is called “drugo” (which means nothing and calls to mind the “droogs”, a completely different attitude than the dude’s) and moreover the dubbed voices are a pity to hear.
Easily one of the best movies of all times.
March 23, 2009 at 4:51 am |
Fucking fascist!