Big Lebowski finds a stranger in the Alps
November 25, 2008 at 9:43 am by Curt Holman in A&EThe Plaza Theatre screens The Big Lebowski at 9:30 p.m. this evening as part of its monthly “Flicks & Giggles” series, which features a warm-up act of live comedy, followed by a big-screen laughfest. Directed by Oscar winners Joel and Ethan Coen, The Big Lebowski celebrates its 10th anniversary this year and has been enshrined as one of the most beloved cult comedies of the past 10 years.
The Big Lebowski works as a kind of gonzo combination of Raymond Chandler private eye story and Cheech-and-Chong pot comedy, and features famously profane dialogue. My favorite story about The Big Lebowski concerns Comedy Central’s attempt to clean up the film for broadcast. The language is not work safe, so I’ll put it after the jump, and the clip of the “Gutterballs” dream scene:
Here’s how the Internet Movie Database describes the channel’s dilemma (a story that may be apocryphal).
When Comedy Central was attempting to edit the scene where Walter (John Goodman) is destroying the car which he thinks belongs to Larry Sellars, they didn’t know how to cut Walter saying “Do you see what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass?” without having to do severe editing which would ruin any flow in the scene. To solve this they decided just to re-dub it, and the phrase they chose? “Do you see what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps?”
The Plaza will show encore performances of Lebowski at 3:45 and 7:45 p.m. Saturday and 7:45 p.m. Sunday.
Leave a Reply