(Our 100th) Favorite Scene Friday! The Big Lebowski

Way back on July 22, 2011 - as part of a new feature called "Favorite Scene Friday" - we shared a clip from Raising Arizona, one of the Coen Brothers' best films. We've shared a lot of scenes since then. Quint's Indianapolis speech from Jaws. The ending of The Usual Suspects. The final fight from The Karate Kid. Mr. Swayze's wildest scene from Dirty Dancing. But it all started with that Coen Brothers clip. So today, for our 100th installment of FSF, we wanted to share some scenes from our favorite Coen film and one of our pure, unifying joys - The Big Lebowski.

Wikipedia

How does one describe The Big Lebowski? "It's more than a film, it's a way of life," would be one way. The flick follows slacker Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) as he gets more and more entwined with a kidnapping. And it all starts after his rug gets pissed on.

Numerous books have been written about the film and The Dude. Conventions - known as Lebowski Fests - are held every few months for fans of the film (Achievers) to gather together to Dude out. Hell, The Dude himself, Jeff Bridges, named his band The Abiders.

As you would imagine, it's quite difficult to pick just one scene from the flick. So I've picked two.

Our first scene takes place near the beginning of the film when The Dude is returning home from the grocery store. His quiet life takes a drastic turn when two thugs abuse and question him and micturate on his rug. And it's all because they've mistaken him for another far less Dude Lebowski. This scene is gold, from its odd beginning to The Dude stewing on his toilet at the end and all of the comedy in between ("Obviously you're not a golfer."). Give it a watch:



The second scene really captures one of my favorite elements of the film - the trio of The Dude, Walter (John Goodman), and Donny (Steve Buscemi) shootin' the shit at the bowling alley. Oh, and the fact that the scene features Jesus (John Turturro) is great too. I absolutely love the way Bridges, Goodman, and Buscemi interact in this scene and every piece of dialogue is classic. And when it cuts to Jesus and Liam cleaning their bowling balls - hilarious. Dios mio, man!



So that's that. What started as one Coen Brothers clip turned into a feature 100 entries strong. We've been fortunate enough to have some guests drop by to share their favorite scenes and I just wanted to say a big thanks to them. Ruth from "...let's be splendid about this..." shared a great clip from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (which was our first guest post ever!). Alex from And So It Begins... shared the beginning of Adaptation. Pete from I Love That Film visited and brought along the ending of Fight Club. CT from Nerd Lunch shared a few scenes from the Back to the Future franchise and Superman III.  Pax from Cavalcade of Awesome has shared some bits from Young Guns, Young Guns 2 and the Superman franchise. Lindsay and Jess from French Toast Sunday shared scenes from The Social Network and Forgetting Sarah Marshall respectively. Thanks, guys!

Thanks for watching and reading, everyone. Hopefully we can write 100 more for ya. Happy Friday!