(1) The Big Lebowski 10th Anniversary Edition DVD has recently been released. Which is neat. The bowling ball case is pretty slick, but it doesn't look like it actually includes much in the way of new material, so I can not in good conscience recommend it. Instead I would direct you to the 2005 Collector's Edition, which includes an invaluable introduction by Mortimer Young of Forever Young Film Preservation.(2) In anticipation of the release of the Coen's new film, Burn After Reading, on the 12th, the NY Times has this article about the film-maker brothers. I'm looking forward to the DC setting of Burn After Reading because I like the way they've made films that are really grounded in their location. Fargo, obviously, but I also can't see The Big Lebowski, for instance, being set in Memphis or Chicago or Boston. It fits in LA.
The concluding line of that article encapsulates why the Coens are my kind of people:
“Hey,” Joel said, his voice brightening, “didn’t Karl Popper go after Wittgenstein with a poker?”What Joel doesn't say is that Wittgenstein's toe was over the line and he insisted on marking it an eight.
Bonus item:
(3) In surveying the Coen's body of work on Netflix, I'm seeing that the average customer rating and my predicted rating differ by no more than one tenth, and often zero, for any of the half dozen of their films I've yet to see. This is weird, since I tend to score much more strenuously than most. I'd say the typical customer average is at least .6 or .7 above my personal predicted score even for movies that are a good match for me. Are the Coens just the filmmakers for which my tastes exactly parallel the customer base's as a whole? If so, why?
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