A Movie About A Rug That Ruined Everything

A movie can be “universally loved” and still bounce right off you and that’s exactly the fight we pick with The Big Lebowski. One of us calls it a forever favorite packed with touchstone lines and endlessly rewatchable moments. The other keeps coming back to the same frustration: it feels stupid, the plot feels fake, and none of it seems to add up.

We walk through the story in a way that finally makes the moving parts click: two different Jeff Lebowskis, thugs who destroy the Dude’s rug, a bogus kidnapping, a ransom drop that goes sideways, and a parade of characters who create chaos mostly because they can. From there we zoom out into why the Coen Brothers built it this way, how neo-noir detective structure gets hollowed out on purpose, and why that “anti-plot” approach is either the joke or the dealbreaker depending on what you want from a comedy.

Then we get nerdy with film analysis and symbolism without losing the thread: the tumbleweed as the Dude’s go-with-the-flow philosophy, Walter Sobchak as a walking fuse box of militarism and ideology, and the way capitalism, nihilism, exploitation, and masculinity get played out through characters like Jackie Treehorn and Maud. We even run a rapid quiz on the details fans obsess over, including the less-than-a-dollar check, the “human paraquat” line, and the severed toe motif that some Freudian readings tie to castration anxiety. We wrap with a strange-but-delicious bonus: a frozen honey ricotta fig and pistachio dessert we’re sharing in the newsletter.

Subscribe, share this with a friend who quotes the Dude daily, and leave a review if you want more deep-dive movie debates. Want the recipe and photos? Sign up at heyhoney.biz.

Transcript

Cold Open And The Hot Take

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Uh, guess what I didn't do? I didn't set the timer.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

God.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

So dumb.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

You're recording?

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Heck yeah, I'm recording.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

You're putting this on.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

I'm totally recording. That's how I do it. What are we talking about today? Your favorite movie.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

That I've ever seen in my life.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

The big one. The big, big, gymongous Lebowski. And let me just start off by saying, ladies and gentlemen, I don't know if I'd say my cohort here hated it, but I won't put words in your mouth. You talk.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

I didn't care for it.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Still?

SPEAKER_01 1:14

But I wouldn't say I hated it.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Tell me why you didn't care for it. That's what I want to know, because this is a beloved movie. And it's not just men who like it.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Well, to be honest, because I've thought about this. The title throws me, for one. I don't I didn't know what that meant, what that was supposed to be.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Wait a minute. Sorry, go ahead. I have to take these all together. So the title, what else?

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Okay. Um, and then I d I just don't get it. I it doesn't make any sense. Like, it doesn't. I j I j that's it. I just don't get it. It doesn't make any sense. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

And you f you didn't find it funny?

SPEAKER_01 2:03

I mean I laughed a few times, yeah, but like I I find it very stupid.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

I love this movie. And a lot of guys love this movie.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

I don't get it.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

This has been reviewed and analys and um and analysis has been uh countless analyses have been run on it. Why do I like it? I just like I think my first and foremost response to that is I love the reactions. Just um okay, scratch that. That was the first um for the night. Alright. There's touchstone lines like, come on, man, there's a beverage here. There's that, and that's just one of many.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

I like the quoting thing, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

But the the comments throughout the movie, there's just there's countless quotable lines, and guys, especially with comedy, love that stuff. They love things that make them laugh, but they can refer back to. And this movie is packed with them.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

So for the it I it's not the same thing for women. I get it. But for anyone out there who has not seen The Big Lebowski, 1998 cult classic film Exploring. Oh, you know what? This is written by this is the office analysis was written up differently. Cohen Brothers blended Neo-Noir mystery with a slacker comedy, drawing inspiration from Raymond Chandler's detective fiction and real-life political activists. Materials examine the movie's symbolic visual metaphors as well as iconic tumbleweeds and discuss its eclectic soundtrack that defines the protagonist's relaxed

Why It Feels Pointless

SPEAKER_00 4:04

philosophy. So to give you an overview, for anyone who hasn't seen it, Jeff Lebowski played by Jeff Bridges. There you go. Is your modern day slacker. And we catch him at the beginning of the film going to a Ralph's to buy milk.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Half and half.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Half and half. I love that you know, see, she says she doesn't like the movie, but she remembers that detail.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

I have lots of details. I've listened to Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Lots of what?

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Yeah, lots of details.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

So he buys his details. He buys his half and half and pays for it with cash and the difference that he can't make up, he writes a check to Ralph's for 91 cents.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

And I thought he just pays for it with the check. Maybe 60 nine cents for the milk.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Either way, he wrote a check either for the difference or for the for the half and the less than a dollar. Yeah, it was you wouldn't write a check for that, but that's superfluous. So he goes home and he's accosted by these two guys, two guys who are looking to have uh a debt repaid to a local pornographer from a girl by the name of Bunny, and they're hitting up her, what they think is her husband, Jeff Lebowski. But the dude's name, Jeff Bridges, is Jeff Lebowski. So there's two different people with this same name. And they, one of the assailants peas on his rug, the other, they're clearly both dopes that they dunk his head in the toilet, they rough him up a little bit, then they realize they're at the wrong place, and they leave. And the rest of the movie is a combination of Jeff of the dude trying to get remuneration for his soiled rug. And the real the real Jeff Lebowski, who is an infirm, blow hard capitalist, recruits the dude to find his quote-unquote kidnapped wife, who is not really kidnapped. And he employs the dude to make a ransom drop to a group of men who turn out to be nihilists or guys who don't believe in anything. I can see how when I describe it, the movie, the movie itself, when you when after you've seen it once or twice, makes perfect sense, but when you're walking through the description, it's convoluted.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

You have to see it to make the connection.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Yeah, you have to see it because there's a number of players in this in this drama or comedy drama.

Plot Breakdown From Rug To Ransom

SPEAKER_00 7:15

So Jeff Lebowski employs the dude to make this drop this ransom drop, which goes fantastically wrong. And you find out as the movie progresses that Bunny has somewhat kidnapped herself. The dude and his friend Walter Sobchak, who is his bowling buddy, are trying to solve this mystery. And it isn't even really a mystery, it's just a lot of created problems that they create. And by the conclusion of the movie, you find you figure out that most of the problem was just concocted and not even real.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

So I felt after we saw this, that's the reason why you didn't like it, because it didn't really have the idea of a driving force, a driving plot didn't exist. It was kind of imagined and manufactured.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Yeah, because it's not a real crime.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

So the dude is a. He's a guy who goes with the flow. He's kind of a Taoist. But he doesn't, he's not a nihilist. He's just someone who's he just kind of floats through existence and he doesn't have a lot of beliefs. But let's see if you're. You did two different breakdowns of this. And what do we find out about the the first one you did was on the financing.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

So this didn't do I think I did three total, actually.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

What did we find out about when the movie was released? It didn't didn't do that well?

SPEAKER_01 9:18

I don't think that it did do that. It didn't make um, what do you call it? Like when it doesn't match what it made.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

It's but it doesn't make it but it didn't make its budget back.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

It did make its budget back, but it didn't um it wasn't by very much.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Oh yeah, like with account, yeah, with marketing, it it was just it just barely skated over the line.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

And I think it's one of those movies that um just surfaced um um I lost my thought. Um one of those movies that finds success later. You know, like it releases in the theater. Sleeper head and thank you. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

One of the big problems that the studio had with, and because we look at so many movies so often, and Louisa does all these slide decks, all the studios kind of get convoluted, so I think it was shop to was it MGM? Who did who knew who's the studio on this? Take a look, but one of the problems they had was it was real tough to classify because it was both black comedy, which is notoriously difficult to market, but also comedy and semi-p political. The movie takes place ten years before September 11th when George Bush invades Iraq or Iran. I don't even know. Working title films. Working title. That was a production company, but who distributed it?

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Oh, emergency pictures.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Okay. Was I feel like I'm a terrible American and anyone who served is gonna be Iraq. So when Sodom we were having all that the problems with Sodom was saying there was a clip of George Bush saying this aggression will not stand, and that was a a thread that carried through the movie. You're I guess when we talked about this and I I was telling you about all the different themes that this movie pulls from. Did you like did it make more sense after we saw some of these analyses or or not?

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Yeah, it does make more sense, and it's um It doesn't resonate with you though. It makes it a little bit more appealing just than the just that there's some connection and some senses made of all of what I don't get, but it doesn't like it doesn't make you an it didn't make you enter entertain.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

This is the funny thing, is when it was released, it was kind of marketed to the college crowd.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

I can see that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

But it gets re it was it has anniversaries like every five or ten years around the world.

SPEAKER_02 12:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

And they keep it keeps generating money. It's not, you know, millions of dollars at a time, but every time they do a re-release or a anniversary, it's bringing in a few hundred thousand dollars. So the deck that you created drew a comparison between the big sleep with Raymond Chandler and Jeff Lebowski, or Big Lebowski, Joel and Ethan Cohen. Now, Raymond Chandler was a serious hard-boiled noir complex with high stakes, very high-stakes mystery, and driven by blackmail and murder, as opposed to Lebowski, which was a neo-noir comedy. Hopelessly complex plot, as hopefully I just detailed to you, that is ultimately unimportant, and it's driven entirely by a ruined rug. That's what drives everything drives everything forward. So, to your point, the Cohen's goal was a narrative flow that moves episodically through LA's social classes, driven by a protagonist who is too passive to really care about the issue. And I think had I said that to you before we saw this, you would have you would have you wouldn't have watched it. Not that you came away loving it, but like, yeah, it doesn't sound it doesn't sound engaging. But uh every guy I know who's seen this loves this movie. And and I'm not, don't get me wrong, I'm not shaming you for not liking it. I'm just I don't I don't know a single guy that's gonna do it like guys can.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

I just don't get it.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

I it doesn't much ado about nothing. The setup. So thugs pee on the dude's rug over Jeff Lebowski's wife, Bunny, her debt. The ruse is that Bunny leaves town voluntarily, and Jeff Lebowski fakes a ransom to embezzle money from his own charity. Now, Jeff Lebowski is a blowhard and he's in a wheelchair, but he's not he he's a blowhard in that he tells or he tries to impress upon the dude how hard work and grit create the man, but he hasn't done any of these things. He married into money, and his bourgeois daughter, who's an artist, puts him on an allowance. But to to the outside world He looks like he's the rich one. He flexes as as if he's someone who's actually accomplished anything, and he's

Marketing Problems And Cult Classic Math

SPEAKER_00 15:34

accomplished nothing. Which the slide deck you created does a great job of pointing out all of these themes to adulthood that are just kind of that it just blows holes in all of them, especially with capitalism and a lot of isms, capitalism versus nihilism and the bourgeois art class, and which is what Maud, his daughter, is part of. So during the delivery of the money, I mentioned Walter, which was played by John Goodman. He throws a ringer briefcase of dirty underwear out of the car, which is kind of it you would think if this was an actual kidnapping, that that is what would drive the whole problem forward, but it's not a real kidnapping. So it in a sense has no real effect, but they believe it has an effect.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

So these are these things that you wrote up about the character and the character matrix.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

I would love to discuss these, but I can just feel that you you s you so don't give a shit about this movie.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Well, I just I I don't get it. I it just doesn't make there's no it doesn't make any sense.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Well, I'll tell you what. That we could for anyone who has seen this, you have a uh a question deck, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:19

Yeah, mm-hmm, a quiz.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

Yeah. Run me through that and let's see how much of this I know. But I can tell you right now that if it's because I haven't looked at these questions yet.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

It's multiple choice.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Is it about the content of the movie or about the production of it?

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Um well I haven't looked at all the questions. Um I think it's a little of both.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Okay. Yeah, give it a whirl, let's say, because there's some of the analyses that have been done on this compare it to um The Big Sleep, other ones compare it to Alice in Wonderland, which honestly I could spend three hours talking about this movie.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

It is very interesting. I mean, every single detail in this movie, there's like three different talking points on it. Does that make sense? Yeah. And that's that's very interesting. Like, lots of people see it in a similar light.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Do you feel like when we watched French Connection, you didn't like it at first, and then the more you learned about it? And I'm not leading, I'm not leading your answer here. I'm curious. You were willing to see the French Connection in like six months or a year to see if you had a different if it had a different impact on you. I'm getting the vibe that you don't feel that way about this at all.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

I would say no. I I mean, yes, I I agree with what you said. I don't feel that way. I feel like if I watched it again in a little while, I'd like watch it and turn it off.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Wow. When when Luisa and I first met, you remember how charged up I was for you to see Amelie?

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Yeah. Oh yeah. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

And then we left the theater, and like part of me was like, okay. I know you've heard this before, but when you this is Amelie is a movie that was very near and dear to my heart. And you had no reaction to it. When you you thought it was it made you uncomfortable because your thing with I didn't like you. Go ahead. They don't know, tell them.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

You don't like it because I like the way she looked. It just throws me out. I just I It's French, so everything is a little I I like things to look normal. I don't like And I love it when they don't. Things yeah. Yeah, you do. And I I can't stand that.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

I can't When anything is exaggerated, either plot points or but especially especially anything physical or clothing or makeup or dress or prostheses, it makes this one totally uncomfortable. And honestly, when you told me you didn't like it, I'm like, well, I'm not talking to her ever again. Like it bothered, it bothered me for like a week. I'm like, this is the first person I've met in my life who doesn't like this movie.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Over it now.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Not really. It's not like you're still on it. It's still bugged me. It's still like a little bit, not like it did.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

And it was disappointing. What'd you say? Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

It's not like it was because I understand you better. But at the time, I just I couldn't. I'll tell you what. Me trying to understand how you didn't like that movie is like you not liking Lebowski. Like if a guy saw this and didn't like it, I understand you as a as a woman and the kind of movies you do like not getting into this. But any guy, regardless of where they're from, if we're to see that and had the same reaction, I'd be like, I can't have you in my life. You get a pass as a lady.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

I get it. But what was your um I was just gonna say, I mean, back to Amelie that that it was disappointing that I didn't have the same like reac uh affinity for it that you do or that other people do because so many people like beyond love that movie, and I just I just didn't I didn't care for it. Like I oh it was and it still is it was disappointing to me that I didn't like it because so many people love that movie, and like for example, the screening that we went to was sold out, it was packed, and it was all fans of this movie. And I mean I talked to different people from as people say different walks of my life, and they were like, Oh, yeah, you have to go see that movie. I love that movie, that movie's so blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

You know, like I just I think this is like it would be really difficult for I want to say this properly. Like a movie that has it's not just a plot, but if they If there is something truly unique about not just the set design but the presentation of what the characters are, if they're not just people, if there's something about their personality and their place in the world that is represented somehow physically on them, or if they are exaggerated in some way, it becomes more like art and that engages me. But but with you, it repulses you.

unknown 22:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

To varying degrees.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Yeah, very well said.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Which is I don't know, like those are the things that pulls me in, and these I think I'm curious. This we're gonna do more of a deep dive on Louisa at some point in this podcast to understand what that is. But when things I feel you know what it is, it's like for things that look normal, I have an innate distrust for them. So I'll give you a great example. If we're out, if we were in where I grew up, and that town is populated now by moneyed people, yuppies, and they wear polo and and white and they go and they all golf. And to some folks of society that seems like the upper crust, but to me it's just disgusting. And I don't have a problem with making a lot of money, but there's there's sort of a vacantness to it. And when I see art or people who are have a creative flair to them, I don't and I'm not talking about the vagrants who live around Ann Arbor, but people who have who engage in work but something that is a little unusual, that to me seems more authentic. And along with that may come a perversion or a distortion of what is normal, and that's why I'm drawn to it. But for you, well, see, I don't know, like if you saw the people who live in the town I grew up in, like you would be very I I know how you'd be very courteous and friendly, and but you wouldn't have the same kind of visceral repulsion to it that I do.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

No.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

So there's so much about this movie that we could talk about the threat of castration, male humiliation, um bourgeois liberalism, besieged socialism, and left libertarianism. It's funny

Themes And Symbolism Crash Course

SPEAKER_00 25:14

to see it read all these isms and all these classifications of what some of what the movie represented. For example, non-conservative imperialism and fascism. I normally don't talk this way about movies. I don't like when anyone makes it this academic, but Walter, for example, you kind of figure out after you've seen this movie a few times that he did not go to Vietnam, but he he is obsessed with Vietnam, and he posts himself up like he's a vet, but you you can kind of figure out by the end of the movie he didn't go. And he draw he has he draws lines in the sand on everything. Everything sets him off. And the nihilists represent a violent wing of capitalism. They want money, but they're willing to do they don't care about anything for the most part, but they're willing to do violent things to achieve monetary ends. And Big Lebowski, Jeff Lebowski, steals from his own charity. There is another wonderful character in this movie by the name of Jackie Treehorn. He is a pornographer and he embodies the ultimate exploitation of human capital. Where Lebow um what's her name? What's the wife? Maud. She controls Lebowski's wealth, but she exploits the dude for purposes of reproduction. There's all these little people playing playing one ad or one character against another, and it's not even a character study because no one really changes or develops.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

It's just who they are.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

It's just who they are, just watching who they are. I think that's what's interesting is that it's not a non-developmental character study. These people are the same at the end of the movie as they are at the beginning.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Yeah, and that could be a lot of why I didn't.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

You didn't get into it.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

And like I kind of enjoy that. I kind of like especially the dude, you see him as someone you can reference back to. You can reference back to a person who hasn't changed. Like this because he represents more of an ideal than a person. But I wanna I want to see how how well I do on this quiz.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

Okay, so question one is according to the source of material, what does the reoccurring image of the tumbling tumbleweed symbolize in relation to the dude's character? For those of us who haven't those of us for those of you who haven't

The Big Lebowski Quiz And Trivia

SPEAKER_01 28:14

seen the movie, that's what that's how it starts out. It's following a tumbleweed through. What do you say?

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Through um It starts off in the desert and then it ends up just tumbling all over Los Angeles.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

I believe Oh, do you want me I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm trying to work the computer and I can't. Um do you want me to read the the choices?

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Yeah. Oh, it's multiple choice. Yeah, sorry, I didn't.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

Um a the inevitable death and decay of the 1960s countercult culture movement. B a passive go-with-the-flow lifestyle sentence centered on inner harmony. C the chaotic and unpredictable nature of the film noir-inspired plot, or D. A sense of isolation and loneliness within the sprawling city of Los Angeles.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

I'm gonna go with B because he just kinda bumbles around.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Yep. B, I would agree. Let's see. Does it give you the answer?

SPEAKER_00 29:14

You gotta click on it. Click on what you gotta click on the answer.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Okay. Yes, that's right. Tumble we don't like the window. In the political allegory presented by which character, that's one of my sources. Which character represents the neocon ideology and imperialism. Imperialism militarism. That's a lot. I hope you don't.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

Well, I would say which character.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

Jesus Kantania, King. The big Lebowski. Walter's object or Jackie Treehorse.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Walter all the way.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

I don't even know what that question is asking. Click on. Sorry. Yeah, Walter, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

He's the only one who had anything to do with the military, and he's he's all aggressive and angry and pissed off, and he relates everything back to the war.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

Wow, that really threw me. Uh, question three which detail from the film's opening supermarket scene suggests that the dude is struggling financially? We didn't answer that one.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

We just answered that.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

He is shown stealing a rug from the supermarket display. He complains to the cashier about the rising cost of dairy products. He uses a coupon for a 69 cent carton full of half and half of half and half. He postdates a check for an amount less than one dollar.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

Yeah. That one.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

Definitely. That's right. The dude pays for a 69 cent item with a check dated for September 11th, 1991, which is roughly a year after the film's 1990 setting.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

And coincidentally, if you look at the we talked about this, if you ever see the movie, this is widely covered, but if you haven't heard it before, the the date on his check is September 11th, exactly ten years prior to the September 11th attacks.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

Yeah, I cannot wrap my head around that. According to Freidian Puritian analysis in the sources. Freudian. Thank you. Analysis in the sources. What does the severed toe motif represent symbolically? A the physical toll of manual labor under capitalism. B a literal sign of Bonnie Lebowski's physical suffering. C the fragmented nature of the due to re due to drug use, D, castration, anxiety, and the loss of willpower. A literal sign of Bonnie Lebowski's physical suffering. Um the physical toll of manual labor under capitalism.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

I'm gonna go with B, I guess. Yeah, even though it's not Bonnie's toe.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

The correct one is castration anxiety and loss of male power.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

Did you listen to the I did, but how does the toe represent that?

SPEAKER_01 32:53

In Freud's theories, the removal of a bodily appendage is a recurring symbol for the emasculation or the castration complex. That's what it says.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

I thought maybe if they would have sent her ovaries, it would have been that, but I I yeah, I didn't know that about the castration is a theme throughout this movie. He has a I don't know what hallucination. Dude has a hallucination when he's thrown out of Jackie, he's drugged and thrown out of Jackie Treehorn's garden party. That he's being chased by the nihilists who are holding massive scissors and snipping at him, and part of that image was planted in his brain because when he was in Maud's apartment, there is a painting of that pair of scissors hanging on her wall. And Maud is a feminist, a hardcore feminist, and most of her she is she's made the point of saying that all of her work is largely the theme of it, the theme of her work is largely vaginal. And uh uh gender plays a big role in her conversations, so this all kind of winds back to his hallucination, but I didn't put together that the chopping off of a toe would be would hearken back to the idea of castration.

SPEAKER_01 34:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

I wouldn't put it I wouldn't put a toe with that.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

No. But it kind of makes sense. I mean, cutting off a toe of your five toes on one foot. Um I will say, 'cause I haven't said very much, but that's one detail that they pointed out. Um Bunny is painting her toenails green. Mm-hmm. And they said that that has to do with money.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

Yeah, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Alright, one what is unique about the human paracat line spoken by the dude to the big Glowski?

SPEAKER_00 35:12

The paracat line?

SPEAKER_01 35:14

Yeah. The human parapot. Do you need me to explain?

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Yes, remind me.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

I think that he calls the dude calls the Big Lebowski a human paracat.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Oh, I think.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

I just remember briefly listening to it today on the one.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

Is this when he's sitting down in his office?

SPEAKER_01 35:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

Like before he um before he throws him out and just takes his rug?

SPEAKER_01 35:44

Yeah. Or I oh I thought. Well, I was gonna say it's when they come over to his house and they take him out of a wheelchair. I think you're right.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

I can't recall, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

It was a song, it was a lyric from a song by the Eagles.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

You're having a hard time over there.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Yep. It was one of few lines improv improvised by Jeff Bridges. It was a scientific term used by Maud to describe her art. It is a direct quote from the port here on statement.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

It's either C or D. It's not?

SPEAKER_01 36:26

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

Who do you think it is?

SPEAKER_01 36:29

I think it's B. It was one of the few lines improvised by Jeff Bridges.

SPEAKER_00 36:34

I know that that's it. Alright, do p do B then. Oh, they I think it this was when he was with Walter and they were yelling at him.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Yep, it was one of few lines improvised because the Colin brothers generally demanded this strict strict adherence to the script, but they kept this specific improvisation because they like the toxic chemical reference.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

Yeah, they I was gonna say like paracat's a chemical window.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Yeah, they just threw it out like in um you know taping or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

And they liked it so but otherwise he they had everyone had to adhere to the script very strictly because, um not because, um there were a lot of what do they say, like ums and uhs and like those kind of um like connections and they said that he had to work hard to remember all of them.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

Which was funny because as I think I've mentioned before, I belong to Toastmasters and whenever you're giving a speech, there's someone called the ah counter who makes note of all of all of your Xerox phrasing when you say the same thing over and over or repeated to get from one thought to the next, or your use of the connecting words that are kind of nonsensical to fill time, like ah and um and but but with the dude he is a so he's so laxadaisical as a person. He half of his conversation is mumbling and bumbling just like his life from one point to the next.

SPEAKER_01 38:38

And then even the other half, maybe not the complete half, but it's he he uses phrases that he's already heard. Yeah, but he doesn't like pump with his own words.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

Right, and he sits and his That's the other thing I like about this movie is when someone uses uses a 50 cent word around him, he he'll get this quizzical look. It's almost like the conversation is happening in his face. There'll be a 50 cent word, and the person who is talking to him will continue blathering, and then he'll recite something that was like three sentences back, and it's just funny. Like, what on earth over there sitting in the limo, and Big Lebowski is Jeff Lebowski is like, what on earth are you blathering about? And Bridges is just sitting there and he goes, What? Well, I'll tell you what I'm blathering about. Certain new shit has come to light. And he keeps saying that over and over without actually getting to the new information he has. He's wonderfully inefficient in his conversation, and it's it's fun to watch him not deviate from that. It's fun to watch this person who, for lack of a better word, does not grow. What do you got next? We got, oh wow, we got six minutes and I gotta do a recipe. Okay, give me another one.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

How do the Cohen brothers use the character of Donnie to create tension during the bowling scenes? Donnie is an interesting character.

SPEAKER_00 40:13

Donnie's interesting because there's a theory out there that he's actually not real. And that he's a figment of Walter's imagination because the dude, I believe, only interacts with him or talks to him once.

Donnie Theory And Bowling Tension

SPEAKER_01 40:29

Yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

And Walter keeps telling dis Donnie to shut up.

SPEAKER_01 40:38

And there's a s there's a scene where And he also rarely talks, so to to ask him to stop talking when he does talk.

SPEAKER_00 40:46

Right. Whenever they're bowling, Walter and the dude were discussing something about the something, and the Beatles came up in their back and forth. And then Donnie, who's sitting behind the both of them, just keep kept saying, I am the walrus. Because that was part, I don't know if it was the white album. It was one of the Beatles albums where I and I'm not a big Beatles connoisseur, but one of the lyrics was I am the walrus. And so, oh you okay, so you know this. So Donnie keeps repeating this. The dude doesn't say anything to respond to him, but Walter clearly gets irritated. And honestly, half the time that the two of them are talking, Walter is telling Donnie to shut up. And Donnie doesn't really react.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

So, and I didn't mean to hijack your explanation of why you think he's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

But No, I just think that it that I no, you didn't at all. I I just agree. I think that he's very he's a very interesting character. And I mean and watching it without knowing what I know now, that's one of the things that I think is very interesting. Just that he may or may not be real and the way that um Walter's character interacts with him. Again, whether or not he's actually real or if he's just someone in his head.

SPEAKER_00 42:24

Made me wonder if if Walter went to Vietnam and he's just had this imaginary friend as a coping mechanism.

SPEAKER_01 42:34

Yeah, imaginary friend. Well, the other thing too is so the way they sit in the bowling alley is always the same.

SPEAKER_00 42:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:43

And Donnie is always behind them.

SPEAKER_00 42:47

For the most part.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

And so when Walter is talking to Donnie, he's looking right, correct me if I'm wrong, he's looking over his shoulder. It's not like you and I having a conversation right now, but face to face, you know, um, like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:04

And the the one of the final scenes when Donnie rolls his Donnie rolls a lot of strikes, but in his last role, there's one pin left standing. And he he gets this look on his face.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

Something is happening.

SPEAKER_00 43:24

Yeah, something is happening. And then when he sits down, for anybody who's never seen this movie, watch uh watch what Donnie does when he sits down, he sits down. He he clenches and unclenches his hand, and he he behaves of it as if his hand has gone numb, which is telling for what happens shortly thereafter. I love the big Lebowski. I understand why you didn't care for it so much. Again, we could spend, we've kind of to get all of our time in, we've kind of limited ourselves to 45 minutes. I could talk about this movie at great lengths. Um I think that Louisa would need several stimulants to keep her awake as I converse about it.

SPEAKER_01 44:19

It's very interesting to listen to people talk about it because I mean, having seen it, it does make Makes sense everything that people say.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

I could spend twenty minutes on the on Alice in Wonderland and this.

SPEAKER_01 44:31

I wouldn't have seen that if someone hadn't said that. But then when I hear it, I'm like, oh, I do kinda. And it makes it more interesting, but I still don't love it.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

This is the thing that's so cool about the Cohen Brothers is they can shoot an entertaining story. But it's layered with themes and references, and it's just it's so thematically dense. All of their movies. And this I love this movie. Always will. Alright, but time is short. I gotta get to the and this is kind of a big recipe. As always, as Critique Opolis is brought to you every week by Hey Honey. You check us out at heyhoney.biz. This, oh, I'm gonna lose it. Oh, damn it.

SPEAKER_01 45:20

You lost a recipe?

SPEAKER_00 45:21

I did. Let me see if I can get it back. This thing was bananas looking. Oh, there it is. There we go. Who's

Dessert Recipe Tease And Newsletter

SPEAKER_00 45:29

your buddy? I got it. Alright. I'm amazing. This is now. I wish I could show you a picture of this, but I can't. It is. Imagine a loaf. What is that dessert that I love so much that we've never made? The honey based dessert that was. It was like a roll but of different. Oh, yeah, I know. Ugh. Quiet. The Italian one. Do you remember that? Sema I'll never remember.

SPEAKER_01 46:14

Oh, yeah. Um What's the name of it? Semafredo. Semafredo.

SPEAKER_00 46:19

It looks like a semifredo. It's made out of ricotta. I'll just give you the it, but it's it's it's like a loaf of ricotta, but it's stuffed with dates, figs, honey, and pistachios.

SPEAKER_01 46:35

And hearing that, you think, oh, I don't know. Yeah, it's when you see a photo, because that's what you said.

SPEAKER_00 46:39

You said you did what you just did, and then you showed me a photo, and I was like, oh I Yeah, when I describe when I just use the words, I'm like, that just sounds like a mess. No, but it looks beautiful. So this is frozen honey, ricotta fig, and pistachio tureen. You will need four fresh figs quartered and sliced, half cup of ricotta cheese drained, a quarter cup of Greek yogurt or mars capone, two tablespoons of raw honey, two tablespoons of pistachios, Sheldon chopped, mind you, a half teaspoon of vanilla extract or orange blossom water. I would suggest if you don't don't use the vanilla extract, use vanilla bean if you can. One tablespoon of fresh mint leaves for garnish. Oh, you're kidding me. I thought the it doesn't have the whole recipe in here. You know what?

SPEAKER_01 47:52

Is it just part of it?

SPEAKER_00 47:54

It says you have to. I'm sorry, everybody. It says you have to go to You know what? I'll bury the lead on this. Those are the ingredients. I will find it and put it in the next newsletter.

SPEAKER_02 48:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 48:13

But yeah, it looks like a ricotta semifredo with sliced pistachio and crushed pistachios and figs. It looks delicious. I'm sure it's not all that ricotta is not great for you, but it's balanced out with the yogurt and all the fiber from those figs. I'm sure it's delicious. Actually, that's probably not a bad tactic. I'll put this in the the newsletter for uh uh for August. This looks divine. And the photos will go along with it. So if you if you are if I've hooked your interest, sign up for the newsletter at H E Y Honey dot biz. And don't worry, next the next movie is Luisa's pick, so she will have to be more engaged. It's time for me to I have to make dinner now, don't I? Ugh.

SPEAKER_01 49:13

You said you would.

SPEAKER_00 49:14

I'm doing it. Alright. Hugs and kisses. We'll talk soon. Say goodbye.

SPEAKER_01 49:22

Okay, goodbye. Thanks for listening.