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'The Dude' marks 10th in new set featuring fresh, recycled features
By Rich Heldenfels
Beacon Journal popular culture writer
Published on Sunday, Sep 07, 2008
The 1998 comedy The Big Lebowski has already been on DVD in a regular release, a collector's edition and an ''achiever's edition,'' not to mention in the old HD DVD format.
So why does Tuesday bring yet another release of it, in a two-disc package and a limited edition shaped like a bowling ball?
Well, one reason is that brothers Joel and Ethan Coen, the team behind Lebowski and the recent Oscar winner No Country for Old Men, have a new movie hitting theaters on Friday. And that comedy, Burn After Reading, is duly showcased in a trailer on the new Big Lebowski DVD — plus people who like Burn may want to check out earlier Coen comedies like Lebowski or The Hudsucker Proxy.
But an even bigger reason is that since its premiere in March 1998 to mixed reviews and tepid box-office returns (even by the Coens' art-house standards), The Big Lebowski has acquired a cult following of considerable proportions. When you reach the point that the DVD has a clip from a documentary about the festivals celebrating the original movie, well, The Big Lebowski qualifies as a phenomenon.
So we come to two-disc The Big Lebowski: 10th Anniversary Edition (Universal, $19.98 in a regular package, $34.98 for the bowling-ball ''limited edition''). Extras, both new and recycled from previous DVDs, include the cast looking back at the film, a making-of documentary (recycled), a piece about the dream sequences, a mock introduction to the movie (also recycled) and that documentary clip. Still, I suspect the die-hard fans would buy this if it came in a cardboard sleeve with the title written in crayon — just because it's new Lebowski.
And at this point some of you are screaming, ''What on Earth is this movie?'' Well, if you took The Big Sleep and had it rewritten by a pot-smoking scribe with only the barest grasp of plot and an uncontained urge to digress. . . . Or, if you had taken the Robert Altman version of The Long Goodbye, set it in the present day and taken its absurdist view of detective stories to their logical extreme. . . . Or, if you wanted to make the definitive movie about the unifying power of bowling without actually making a movie about bowling. . . .
OK, too complicated. The basics: Jeff ''The Dude'' Lebowski (a superb Jeff Bridges) is mistaken for a millionaire named Lebowski (David Huddleston), and so gets tangled in a story of kidnapping, theft, sex and art. And there's bowling.
The movie will not appeal to all tastes, or even to all fans of other Coen movies. Its first commercial failure, for instance, is blamed in part on how different it was from Fargo, the Oscar-winning Coen project that preceded it. But it is bizarrely engrossing, and funny, and offers countless lines for endless quoting and re-quoting. If you have not seen it, do so now.
Also on the comedy side, but rather less engaging, is Baby Mama (Universal, $28.98 on standard DVD, $39.98 on high-definition Blu-ray), with 30 Rock's Tina Fey. She plays a businesswoman who, wanting a child, makes a deal with a surrogate (Amy Poehler) whose personality does not fit well with Fey's. It's clever at times, and Poehler can be very amusing, but the humor too often felt less like the kind that makes you laugh than the sort that makes you nod and go, ''Oh, good one.''
DVD extras include deleted scenes, an alternate ending, a making-of segment, a piece about the importance of Saturday Night Live (whence came Fey, Poehler and writer/director Michael McCullers) and a commentary track.
It also has the widescreen and full-frame versions, on the separate sides of the single disc in the set; the extras are somewhat awkwardly split between the two sides, too, so you'll have to flip the disc to watch them all. The Blu-ray has more extras.
To market, to market: The march of DVDs from last season to store shelves in time for this season continues. Of particular note is a new set for Grey's Anatomy: Season Four Expanded (Disney, 16 episodes, $59.99 on standard DVD, $96.99 on Blu-ray).
Not only does it include extras like deleted scenes, bloopers, people's favorite scenes from the fourth season, extended versions of at least one episode and a four-minute plot explanation of Grey's Anatomy, Disney-owned ABC is also promoting its fall lineup in some DVDs with a show ''starter kit.''
With Grey's, that consisted of a disc containing the first-season premieres for the network's Wednesday shows — Pushing Daisies, Private Practice and Dirty Sexy Money — along with promos for those first-season DVDs (all due Sept. 16) and for the second season of those series, beginning Oct. 1. Grey's, by the way, starts its new season on Sept. 25.
Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and in the HeldenFiles Online blog at http://www.ohio.com. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 and rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.
The 1998 comedy The Big Lebowski has already been on DVD in a regular release, a collector's edition and an ''achiever's edition,'' not to mention in the old HD DVD format.
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