The Big Lebowski (1998)

Dude....

Excellent extra's, and the packaging is amazing. Unfortunatley mine arrived a bit crumpled (the plastic square outer shell that is) but that's more to do with international shipping than anything else! October 8, 2008

Big Lebowski Means Big Laughs

This brilliantly cynical losers saga is absolutely hilarious! With 600+ reviews written already, I won't waste any time going over the absurd plot, ingenious characters or plentiful cameos. I just wanted to add my 2 cents, and my 5 stars, to this riotous 'high-brow' comedy from the Coens.

The 10th anniversary edition has a good selection of extras, including making of features and the like. Also comes with Dolby 5.1, so you can really get lost in those dream sequences. Yeah! Yeah! YEAAAAAAH!
September 29, 2008

Great DVD set--no scratches (for me, at least)

I've heard people complaining about the DVDs in this limted edition set. When I bought mine, there were no scratches on the DVDs. As for getting the DVDs in and out of the cardboard slipcases, I have done so numerous times, and I have not one scratch on the DVDs. Unless I start noticing scratches on them from the case as time goes by, my review still stands. September 20, 2008

The Big Disappointment

What are you people who rave about this movie smoking. It simply stunk, and I wasted a buck to rent it (not to mention an hour before I fell asleep). My wife now refuses to let me rent anything. (My last selection was Son of Rambow, so you see why). What the hell - not funny, no plot, and who wants to watch an ugly guy walk around in boxers and an ugly bathroom. Whoever gave this more than 1 star (I wish I could have given it 0) is an idiot! The Coen Brothers have done some good work - Fargo and Old Men, but this one was a dud. September 13, 2008

I'm rating the bowling ball special edition DVD, NOT the movie!

The Big Lebowski is on my top ten list of all time best films. I've seen A LOT of films by the way. I don't need to explain to anyone why this movie is so brilliant, and why it continues to be a cultural phenomenon. I mention these things first because I don't want people to feel like I'm giving the film one star. If I could I would give the movie 100 stars. What I'm giving such a poor review for is my distaste for movie studios pumping out special editon dvd's every few years because they know a film has a huge following. This new "bowling ball" edition of Lebowski is further proof that Universal has nothing but contempt for the fans of Big Lebowski. They wrap it up in a nice big package and make it look slick, but that's as far as the creativity goes into supplying anything new in terms of extras. Does anyone remember the terrible repackage they gave it a few years ago with a towel and coasters? No actual extras existed, but they still put it out as a revamped "deluxe edition". Well, don't expect much more here.
The only new extras to this edition are four very brief featurettes. They feature new interviews with all of the major players (with the exception of the Coen brothers, of course), but they mostly just sit around and say stuff like, "It's a great film! It's hilarious! Coen Brothers are geniuses!". Err, yeah, we know all of that. It also has a featurette that centers around the Lebowski Fest which is vaguely interesting for a few minutes until it turns into the same old "Lebowski is great!" territory. The featurettes are a snooze fest to say the least.
What really annoyed me with this DVD, though, is that they included the SAME "Making of Big Lebowski" documentary that has been on every release of this film! Not only that, it looks as if it was recorded from an old VHS tape and plastered onto a full screen format. It looks horrible, and what's more, we've all seen it before! How many times is Universal going to pump out the same damn extras to the same audience?? It's an insult to be charged more and more money for the same mediocre extras that were never that good to begin with. Luckily I was able to rent this and didn't actually buy it! "The Big Lebowski" will NEVER have proper extras until the people who created it (the Coen Brothers) are involved. We want a commentary, a full length documentary with in-depth interviews, and deleted scenes (and plenty of them!).
DON'T BUY THIS EDITION. It's junk! Simply keep the edition you already have (the very first edition) safely knowing that you are not missing anything with any other edition! September 10, 2008

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