WebProNews

Tag: Joel Coen

  • Lebowski Fest: Jeff Bridges, Fans Celebrate Film

    Trekkies have nothing on the Dude-ers.

    Hundreds packed the Wiltern Theater in midtown Los Angeles Friday to pay homage to Joel and Ethan Coen‘s 1998 cult film The Big Lebowski.

    Even the Dude himself, Jeff Bridges, performed with his band.

    The theater was decked out with inflatable bowling pins and the drink menu featured white Russians “made with Ralphs half-and -half,” in honor of the film’s opening scene when the Dude writes a check for 69 cents to buy half-and-half from a Ralphs supermarket to make his favorite drink.

    This is the13th year of the annual two-day festival that celebrates the Dude, bowling, white bathrobes and White Russians.

    Fan Steve Lewis has never missed a Lebowski Fest.

    “It’s the people here that are so awesome,” said Lewis, who says he has seen the film more than 100 times. “It’s a community.”

    The 37-year-old went so far as to make his own Army dog tags to recreate one of John Goodman’s costumes from the film. Lewis has been to 11 festivals and has traveled to festivals in New York and Louisville with his friend J.D. Lloyd, who searched eBay to find the exact sweater Bridges wears in the film.

    “That’s a real Pendleton,” Lewis said. “That was expensive.”

    Connor Linnerooth, 20, who traveled from North Dakota to celebrate his birthday at the fest, wore a red bodysuit and carried oversized scissors like the character that terrorizes the Dude in his dreams.

    “Lebowski, he is a very cool guy,” he said, speaking in character. “I love the movie and I’m a big fan of it, and I really wanted to be around other people who are also big fans of the movie.”

    Matt Goforth tended bar in costume and said he’s been looking forward to the event for months.

    “First of all, I knew it was going to be a good crowd. Second of all, it’s a fantastic movie. Thirdly, Jeff Bridges’ band is amazing,” Goforth said. “It’s fun. I’ve had my picture taken maybe 35 times. It’s just a great atmosphere.”

    Friday night ended with a screening of the film, peppered with fans yelling out lines and cheering for favorite scenes.

    Saturday’s event featured a costumed bowling party.

    Mike Sullivan, a four-time festival-goer who says he’s memorized the movie, has a theory about the fest’s success.

    “What you got here,” he said, “is a bunch of pot-smoking hippies having a good time.”

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Bill Murray Talks Big ‘Garfield’ Mistake

    Bill Murray starred as the voice of Garfield in the 2004 film, Garfield: The Movie, but recently admitted via a Reddit chat his huge mistake in taking the role. Believing the script was created by renown film writer Joel Coen–known for hits like The Big Lebowski and Fargo–he didn’t even completely read through it, assuming he was signing on for a fantastic film. After signing on the dotted line and committing to the role, he realized the writer was instead Joel Cohen–known for flops like Cheaper by the Dozen and Howard Stern’s failed TV talk show.

    It was actually during a recording session, voicing the big orange cat, when Bill Murray realized something was horribly wrong.

    “There was just this long, two-minute silence,” he said. “I probably cursed a little, and I said, ‘I can fix this, but I can’t fix this today. Or this week. Who wrote this stuff?’ ”

    Known for getting his start on SNL, Murray also starred in Caddyshack and Lost in Translation–the second of which he earned an Academy Award nomination for.

    Needless to say, when Bill Murray was approached about voicing Garfield in the next film installment, he answered with an unequivocal and resounding “No!”

    “They sort of shot themselves in the foot, the kidneys, the liver and the pancreas on the second one,” he said.

    Despite Bill Murray’s big film mistake with Garfield, the rest of his career has involved one success after another. Long remembered for his classic lines in the 1991 film What About Bob, fans still love to quote his famous line, “I’m sailing!”

    Bill Murray is 63 years old and still going strong in the world of comedy. Who would have known–back in the mid-1970s–when he performed with other comedy greats like John Belushi, Gilda Radner and Dan Aykroyd that his career would span four decades? Sadly, he and Aykroyd are all that remain of the famous four, with Belushi dying of a drug overdose and Gilda Radner dying following a hard-fought battle with ovarian cancer. Murray started out as a troubled young man who was once arrested for smuggling almost nine pounds of marijuana through O’Hare Airport in Chicago. And while no one is saying he hasn’t smoked a joint or two since then, he certainly lives a much different life these days.

    Hopefully Murray will look back at his Garfield film experience as a minor blip on the big screen. It doesn’t seem like most people these days even knew it was his voice behind the snarky orange cat–and that’s probably a good thing.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons