Film follows Dude’s fans

By Dan Kunz

Eleven years ago, Joel and Ethan Coen released the smart, wry noir dramedy “The Big Lebowski,” to lukewarm critical reviews and half-empty theaters. In time, scholars and stoners alike have embraced Jeffery “The Dude” Lebowski and his bowling buddy, Walter, and the picture has amassed an impressive fanbase.“The Achievers” a film by Eddie Chung, is a chronology of how a group of Lebowski fanatics turned a trivia contest into a full-fledged touring convention across the country. Like the Coens’ film itself, some of Chung’s findings are a hoot; others are unsettling.

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Native Kentuckians and “Lebowski Fest” founders Will Russell and Scott Shuffitt lead a motley crew of interviewees who continuously profess their love for the movie amidst trivia competitions, raucous costume contests, and lots of bowling and White Russian libations.

Chung clearly sides with the Achievers, who draw their namesake from a gag in the film, “The Little Lebowski Urban Achievers.” It is Chung’s unquestioning devotion to these folks of middle America that causes his film to run low on steam fairly quickly. With a few exceptions, no commentator discusses the Coens’ picture on an analytical level, what it did to revive the film noir genre, or it’s effective use of pop culture anachronisms that draw attention to generation gaps. The camaraderie and friendship the achievers share in the midst of the revelry is quite sincere, but it seems that these people are more united in their passion for beer, profanity and dressing up in R-rated costumes more than anything else.

Consequently, this begs the question that Chung attempts to ask his subjects, but can never seem to get an articulate answer: Why “The Big Lebowski?” Why not another picture in The Coens’ canon? Why not any other movie in the history of cinema? How long do I have to dress up like Sally Field with my friends and throw around quotes until “Places in The Heart”gets elevated to a cult status film?

Chung sets up a great opportunity to explore how a film gets the superlative of a “cult movie,” who exactly gets to officially appoint such a distinction and how the nuances of movie become incorporated into American pop culture parlance. We don’t get those answers. We get a group of guys and gals who bond over a mutual disdain for their day jobs and their love of marijuana humor.

Chung’s point that “Lebowski” unites the misfits, outcasts and nonconformists is valid, but scene after scene of frat-worthy theme party gets a bit monotonous. No Donnie, these men aren’t nihilists. They’re just ... kinda boring.

Chung does succeed, intentionally or coincidentally, in exposing the xenophobic trappings of the cult workings of the Achievers. A recurring face is Stormy, a mother of two and frequent contributor to a Lebowski Internet forum, she blinks back tears as she frets over the possibility of an “outsider” winning a trivia contest over her hardcore forum loyalists. She is then seen watching an edited version of “Lebowski” with her kindergarten-aged son so he can assist her with practice trivia questions. Suffice it to say, the lad looks like he’d rather be doing something else. Life has imitated art a bit too much and the results are uncomfortably disturbing. As the Dude would say, “Bummer, man.”

IF YOU GO WHAT: “Lebowski Fest” WHEN and WHERE: Sept 25, Electric Factory; Sept. 26, North Bowl, Philadelphia INFO: www.livenation.com, www.theachieversmovie.com