Fresh Loaf

I know the Coen Brothers have won Oscars for Fargo and No Country For Old Men, while The Big Lebowski has emerged as one of the definitive cult movies of our time, but my heart will probably always belong to their second film, the Southwestern screwball comedy Raising Arizona from 1987. Two future Oscar-winners, Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter, play a desperate childless couple who resort to kidnapping one of the infant “Arizona Quints,” reasoning that the parents “have more than they can handle.” When The Plaza Theatre screens Raising Arizona at 9:30 p.m. Fri., Jan. 30, look out for some of the Coens’ favorite actors as well as references to other movies. For bonus points, consider the similarities between No Country for Old Men’s implacable hit man, Anton Chiguhr, and Raising Arizona’s Lone Biker of the Apocalypse:

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The 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:

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