'Lebowski Fest': It's cult culture

Like "Chinatown" or "Magnolia," movies that reveal Los Angeles to itself, "The Big Lebowski" is required viewing for local scenesters. So where would you expect to find the second annual "Lebowski Fest," a multiform celebration of the 1998 Coen brothers film? At the AMF Rose Bowl here in Louisville.

More than 800 people showed up Saturday night for unlimited bowling, $3 White Russians and rowdy but good-mannered fun. Nearly three-quarters of them came from out of town, many in cars with "Lebowski 7:19" painted on the windows, a reverential reference to the event's date. A Brown University parking pass dangled from one rearview mirror. A large SUV with a "Sobchak Security" sign on its door disgorged a flat-topped Virginian. All testament to Walter Sobchak, the film's angry center (played by John Goodman), who says, cryptically: "If you will it, it is no dream."

Larry Brantley and his son, Walter, drove up from Atlanta. The balding elder Brantley was dressed as the film's title character, a conniving millionaire, complete with blue blazer and motorized wheelchair. The chair was his mother-in-law's, and Brantley, who later that night would win the costume contest, had practiced with it for more than a month. "We try not to hit anyone," he said, maneuvering elegantly through the crowd to pose for pictures.

Also in training for months was a group of local youths who planned to win every contest. Jordan Fautz in fact won the "ringer toss," in which a valise of dirty underwear is thrown from a pea-green Plymouth Fury, and they had their own ringer, Neil Thornberry, who studied the DVD "frame by frame" in preparation for the trivia contest. "I was kind of disappointed to see that it was multiple choice," said Thornberry, who had a bowling score of 8 after three frames. Two hours later, Thornberry learned he hadn't made the second round. "I know I got them all right," he said. "I'm certain."

By then, Rachel Salansky, a bicycle lamp blinking on her horned helmet, had long given up the goal. She was happy, she said dreamily, "as long as I'm here and I'm bowling."

How did a scabrous film with lukewarm reviews become a beloved subcultural text? A recent top-50 list of "cult movies" put "The Big Lebowski" in 34th place, far below "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" and "Un Chien Andalou." References to pedophilia and nihilism and off-color barbs at the disabled, the Chinese and America's military opponents in the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars; the F-word and its variants appear either 267 or 262 times, depending on whom you ask.