Most bone-headed Movie Review of All Time?

[rich]

i really hated Fargo--sometimes the Coens condescension gets the better of them

rich

On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 4:54 AM, John Carvill<johncarvill at gmail.com> wrote:
> Pynchon's favourite right-wing weekly TV Guide review of Big Lebowski.
> One and a half stars?!
>
> "What a strange reversal of fortune: Two years after Joel and Ethan
> Coen delivered FARGO, the film that will probably stand as the
> filmmakers' finest moment, comes the long-awaited follow-up, and it's
> without question their worst. This time out, the Coens turn their
> jaundiced eyes to L.A. -- not the Hollywood they so recklessly
> skewered in BARTON FINK, but La-La Land as a state of mind. The plot,
> in a nutshell: Bunny Lebowski (Tara Reid) is missing, and Jeff "The
> Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges), a burnt-out '70s leftover who has the
> bad luck to share the same first and last name as Mrs. Lebowski's
> millionaire husband, is in a heap of trouble. After a pair of thugs
> treat The Dude to a rather vicious swirlie, then pee on his carpet,
> wheelchair-bound Jeff "The Big" Lebowski (David Huddleston) -- the
> intended target of the assault -- offers the Dude a tidy sum of money
> to help get his wife back. Mixed up in all this is Maude (Julianne
> Moore), the Big Lebowski's wayward daughter (she's a "feminist artist"
> -- honest); Walter (John Goodman), The Dude's paranoid Vietnam vet
> bowling partner, and a host of quirky cameos from the likes of John
> Turturro, David Thewlis and Ben Gazzara. If any of this sounds at all
> like THE BIG SLEEP, then you've gotten the one -- and only -- joke.
> Repopulating Raymond Chandler's L.A. with a cast of latter-day freaks,
> floozies and failures has been done before -- brilliantly, in fact, by
> Robert Altman. But where Chandler's tales of the City of Angels were
> convoluted to great effect, the Coens' vision of L.A.'s kooky
> underbelly is simply convoluted, and desperately so. Reworking the old
> "down these mean streets" formula, they've only replaced noir cliches
> with even thinner -- and often blithely offensive -- cliches of their
> own. The only real moments of inspiration come during The Dude's
> periodic bouts of unconsciousness, during which he dreams elaborate
> Busby Berkeley-styled dance numbers. But if it's all supposed to be in
> fun, why does it feel so much like an insult?"
>
> http://movies.tvguide.com/big-lebowski/review/132573
>