It's almost inconceivable nowadays that The Big Lebowski was a Big Disappointment back when it came out, but indeed, the ever-quotable Dude and his gang didn't enter the acknowledged pantheon of cinematic classics until considerably later. The Coen brothers' highly anticipated follow-up to the Oscar-winning Fargo, which most folks agreed was peak Coen, deftly mixing daffy humor with violence and Hitchcockian heist-gone-wrong suspense. For the follow-up to be a meandering tale of a stoner who accidentally winds his way into an overly convoluted plot that ultimately means nothing was a bit of a shock, and the (estimated) $15 million movie grossed only $17 million domestic. Think of the anger people felt over the ending of Lost, and you have some idea what some critics and Coen diehards felt at the time. But in the years since, as people came to the movie no longer expecting the next Fargo, but understanding what they were getting, its stock has risen, particularly among folks who like to partake in the Dude's favorite vices.
Another factor that has helped is that while Lebowski originally had a mocking sort of nostalgia to it -- the 1998 movie facetiously looks back fondly on 1991 during the first Iraq War -- 1998 itself is now a source of nostalgia, both for those who lived through it and for cinema in general. It was the heyday of the mid-budget indie film, and a time when you could find the likes of Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore, David Thewlis, Tara Reid, Jon Polito, Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Turturro, Peter Stormare, Aimee Mann and Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers in not just this one movie, but most of the movies that were coming out in a still-vibrant arthouse theater scene. If you went to see a movie like this in Los Angeles, at a venue like the Nuart or the Sunset 5, you were equally likely to find one or more of those folks in the audience a few seats away.
I was one of the initially disappointed. I was wrong, but I was not in the right place to appreciate it. Living in the Valley now, I get its vibe -- it's a weird look at the parts of Los Angeles that don't involve the mainstream movie industry (porn, however, does come into play). A tribute to Raymond Chandler and various oddball characters the Coen brothers knew for real, it's about how life throws things at you, and they can be strange or fun or as harsh as a friend suddenly dying too broke to afford an urn. And in the end, it's about how being who you are gets you through that, however convoluted it seems at the time. It's sad to think how these characters would interact today: in the polarized Trump/anti-Trump era, could a militaristic gun aficionado like Walter still be best pals with a former hippie agitator pothead like the Dude? We see it less and less, and that's perhaps an unintentional nostalgia button to add to the rest being pushed. (Kudos also to the Coens for presciently name-dropping LA brands that have lasted: Ralph's and In 'N' Out burger)
But at this point, you don't need me to tell you the movie is worthy. I'm here to tell you if the new 20th anniversary 4K collector set, currently available in stores and online, is worth your money, and I regret to say that it is not. The packaging is cool, though: the $50-ish set comes in a mini bowling bag, and contains a miniature replica of the rug, a version of the Dude's sweater crafted to wrap around a Blu-ray case, and a half-size, flat-bottomed bowling ball. These are all fun to look at, but mostly useless: the rug is a polishing cloth for a ball, and it's almost action figure scale as a rug, but it has "The Big Lebowski" printed across it in a way that makes its replica status moot. The ball isn't heavy enough to be an effective paperweight, and can maybe hold three pens in the fingerholes, if you have some that aren't too wide. You'll have to take the sweater off the disc to get it out.
All this would be minor, however, if the 4K conversion were worth the scratch. It ain't. It looks like the color balance turned the red all the way down, and added a beige filter, so while certain details might be clearer, the picture is way off. Where the original uses a cream/off-yellow tone to sum up a popular tint in '70s decor (especially the kind found in bowling alleys), the muted 4K palette suggests instead the off-white color of an ill-kept restroom wall. It's ugly, and makes its characters look less lively with no pink in their cheeks; Jesus Quintana's bowling team outfit in particular looks color corrected to a realistic, smog-bleached mechanic's coverall as opposed to the deep blue-almost-turquoise it was prior. The Blu-ray included in the set is what I will be watching again, but since all the extras are the same as on the tenth anniversary Blu-ray, you should get that instead; it may run you as little as $10.
But of course, that's just, like, my opinion, man.
