This week on Fabulous Film and Friends we’re covering a trio of Neo Noir films set in the city of…where else? Los Angeles, as we discuss 1998’s The Big Lewbowski, directed by Joel and Ethan Coen and starring the extraordinary Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, David Huddleston, John Tutturo, Ben Gazara, David Thewlis, Tara Reid, Peter Stormare, Leon Russom and Sam Elliot against 2014’s Inherent Vice directed by Paul Thomas Anderson starring Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Katherine Waterston, Benicio Del Toro, Reese Witherspoon, Martin Short, Jena Malone, Maya Rudolph Martin Donovan and Hong Chau, topped off with 2018’s Under the Silver Lake directed by
David Robert Mitchell and starring Andrew Garfield, Riley Keough, Topher Grace, Grace Van Patten, Riki Lindhome, Wendy vanden Heuvel, Callie Hernandez, Jimmi Simpson, Zosia Mamet, Jeremy Bob, Rex Lynn, Patrick Fischler and Sydney Sweeney.
My guests today are Roseanne Caputi and back by popular demand, Gordon Alex Robertson!
Before contemplating the endless currents of depth and consciousness, man, the synopses:
The Big Lebowski, follows a lot of ins-and-outs and what-have-you’s of a very complicated case when two goons working for porn king Jackie Treehorn mistakenly burst into the apartment of Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski demanding money that his supposed wife Bunny owes Jackie. Realizing their mistake but still adding the flourish of urinating on the Dude’s favorite rug, the pair leaves and gets the hang loose and tolerant Dude’s dander up. Dude the sets off finding the wealthy Jeffrey Lebowski that the pair were looking for and asks him for compensation for his soiled rug. The Big Lebowski flat out refuses the request, calls the Dude a bum, and kicks him out of his house. Surprisingly, a few days later The Big Lebowski summons The Dude to his mansion and asks him to act as a courier to a group of nihilists who have abducted his wife Bunny and are demanding a million dollars in ransom. With his reactionary ‘Nam vet bowling buddy Walter Sobchak at his side, the Dude enters a web of deception, greed and pain as he tries to make sense of the convoluted and problematical condition that he finds himself in.
Inherent Vice ups the ante with ex-cop and junkie P.I. Larry “Doc” Sportello who follows a trail of real estate fraud, heroin smuggling, corrupt federal agents and dentists when his ex-girlfriend Shasta Faye re-enters his life and gives him the tip that her current boyfriend, real estate tycoon Mickey Wolfman, has a wife who is trying to have him committed. With rival LA Police Lt. Detective Christian “Bigfoot” Bjornsen working alternately, with and against him, Doc plows into the labyrinthian case headfirst aided by only his wits and piles of weed and coke in the desperate quest for the truth.
Under the Silver Lake follows a journey through endless hidden messages, conspiracies and millennial self-discovery as perennial slacker Sam tries to uncover the truth regarding the disappearance of his beautiful neighbor Sarah, who vanishes without a trace a day after billionaire industrialist Jefferson Sevence is killed a car crash.
Which film best exemplifies the whole corruption, crime and conspiracies in L.A. thing?
Find out!