REMEMBER THIS ONE

“The Big Lebowski.” Your phone’s ringing, dude.

Every once in awhile you come across something so ridiculously amazing that you find difficulty in relating just how awesome this particular thing is. If you haven’t gathered by the time you’ve reached this sentence that this is one of those things, you’re an idiot. I do, however, commend you for stick-with-itness.

I present a quick sum-up for the unenlightened:

Jeff Lebowski is the Dude. He’s forty or fifty something. The man’s not in a hurry to get things done. Life is about bowling (with his friends Walter--an emotionally unstable ‘Nam vet--and Donny), driving around (in his ‘73 Torino), and the occasional acid flashback. Nobody is more relaxed than this man is.

Until somebody mistakes him for a millionaire with the same surname, and some low-level goons decide to teach him a lesson by urinating on his rug.

Then he gets thrown headfirst into a convoluted scheme involving extortion, vulgarity, drugs, kidnapping, pornography, and a group of rogue nihilist German techno artists--a lotta ins, a lotta outs, a lotta what-have-yous. It doesn’t help that everyone from the millionaire Lebowski down is attempting to use him as a pawn to solve their own problems. As the walls close in on the Dude, he finds himself galvanized to solve the case, and--against everyone’s expectations--does, though how much it amounts to is questionable.

The best stuff I haven’t even touched on. This is such a rushed summary, it almost hurts to give it the go. 
T-Bone Burnett did the soundtrack. We’ve got a nice cross section ranging from a cover of the only Eagles song anyone really knows (if you didn’t think Hotel California, turn in your cool card for the week) to some good ol’ CCR to a little Bob Dylan.

You can quote every line in this movie. There isn’t a dry patch in it. The acting in the movie is right on the mark. Everything about the movie rings true.
It’s a 9 outta 10.

The technicals: the Coen Brothers wrote and directed. Jeff Bridges is the Dude. John Goodman is Walter. Steve Buscemi is Donny. With Julianne Moore, Peter Stormare, Tara Reid, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and John Turturro as the Jesus Quintana. 1998. Rated R.

FORGET THIS ONE

“Congo.” The talking monkey movie. 

Tim Curry is in it. As in Nigel Thornberry, “Rocky Horror Picture Show,” that Tim Curry. It also has Ernie Hudson (Winston the Ghostbuster) and Bruce Campbell, the king of bad horror movies. 

Campbell cameos, but Tim and Ernie are in starring positions; furthermore, they all know exactly what they’re making.

The movie’s about a scientist taking a fake gorilla (it’s a dude in a suit!) named Amy back to her home in the Congo, where she can teach mountain gorillas to “speak” American Sign Language (provided she doesn’t get bludgeoned to death by the wild gorillas first). The expedition is funded by Tim Curry (who utilizes what I suspect is a very poor Romanian accent). An evil corporation helps fund the mission and sends its own person--Laura Linney, from the Bourne movies--alongside the expedition to find diamonds, a missing laser, and several employees, one of whom is her ex-fiancé, who just happen to have been killed by evil apes.

Got that? Good.

As for action, there’s definitely some at the end of the movie: We get to watch the evil apes get sliced in half by a laser gun. Oh, yes--this scene is set inside an erupting volcano. 
A few minutes prior to this scene, several apes attack the camp our heroes have set up, only to be stopped by raw firepower.

There are lines like “I’m not a pound of sugar, I’m a primatologist!” and “Stop eating my sesame cake!” The dialogue is horrible, yes, but most of it falls into the fabled so-bad-it’s-good category.

The characters are wastes of time. The best acting in the movie is by the actors who realize they’re making a bad movie.

I highly recommend seeing it if you catch it on TV, but don’t go hunting for it. It’s a 4.5 or so out of 10. Nothing too special. A fine way to waste two hours of your tremendously valuable time.

The technicals: Frank Marshall directed. Adapted by John Patrick Shanley from a Michael Crichton book.

With Tim Curry, Ernie Hudson, Laura Linney, Dylan Walsh, and Bruce Campbell. 1994. Rated PG-13.