She Likes to Watch

The Dude Abides: “Big Lebowski” tonight

It’s kinda like a cult. Or a pyramid scheme.

First one friend watches it, then another. Before you know it, your best friend from high school is pinning you to the couch with a feverish gleam in his/her eyes and saying, “Dude, you gotta watch ‘The Big Lebowski.’”

So you pop it in, and you watch it, and you laugh a few times. You put “Lebowski” back on the shelf. A few days, weeks, years later, you pick it up again, watch it. And you rewind it and watch it. And you watch it again.

Finally you realize: “The Big Lebowski” is brilliant.

It’s a private eye caper with a White Russian-drinking, pot-smoking bathrobe-wearing slacker as its reluctant hero. A case of mistaken identities and missing toes. It’s got ‘Nam vets. Nihilists. Porn. Paraplegics.

And bowling. Lots of bowling.

You’re converted.

Before you know it, you’re telling college roommates, co-workers, random people on street corners. You’re reading blogs and buying books with titles like “I’m a Lebowski, You’re a Lebowski.” You’re attending a convention at a bowling alley, dressed up like Maude or Walter or “the Jesus.” Chatting with all of your fellow freaks.

The cult of Lebowski? It’s your cult now.

And you’ve never felt so right.

***

For a movie that’s smart, funny and oh-so-Coen Brothers, catch “The Big Lebowski” tonight at the Palm Theatre, 817 Palm St. in San Luis Obispo.

Showtimes are 7 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. Tickets are $7.50.

* Photo courtesy of MovieWeb.

You’d be hard-pressed to find two movies more diametrically opposed than “Pulp Fiction” and “Amelie.”

The first is a hip, hard-hitting bloodbath replete with cuss words, pop culture references and infinitely quotable dialog. The other? A whimsical French film about an adorable young do-gooder.

The two female protagonists (Uma Thurman in “Pulp Fiction” and Audrey Tatou in “Amelie”) both sport black bobs, but that’s where the similarities end.

Yet, for some reason, both movies are being screened in San Luis Obispo this weekend. It’s a golden opportunity to see two very different, but very good films.

For those of you who have spent the last 15 years searching your couch cushions for sustenance, “Pulp Fiction” is one of the best movies in recent history.

Direction Quentin Tarantino influenced scores of film students with his creative storytelling and liberal, yet stylish, use of violence and obscenity.

“Pulp Fiction” cemented Samuel L. Jackson’s reputation as filmdom’s ultimate badass. It resurrected John Travolta’s career (which he prompty ruined, of course).

It rocked, and continues to rock, successive generations of moviegoers.

In short, if you haven’t seen “Pulp Fiction” yet, WHY THE HELL NOT?!?

Catch “Pulp Fiction” on the big screen tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Fremont, 1025 Monterey St. in San Luis Obispo. Come a half-hour early for trivia and prizes.

Tickets are $7.50.

***

On the other side of the spectrum is “Amelie.”

Originally titled “Le fabuleux destin d’ Amelie Poulain,” this French-language beauty is one of those rare movies that’s cute without causing nausea.

Audrey Tatou stars as the title character, a winsome yet lonely girl who works at a Paris cafe. When she discovers a box of childhood mementos left by a former tenant, she returns it to the man and is delighted by the results.

Inspired, Amelie decides to help the many unhappy people around her — including her father, the customers and clients at the cafe, a grocer’s much-abused assistant, and her neighbor, a man with bones as brittle as glass.

Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet and company make “Amelie” impossible to dislike, bathing the Paris scenery in lush greens and reds and adding a charming soundtrack. Characters are quirky, but very human.

To Jeunet’s credit, he throws in enough elements of the real world that Amelie’s story never seems trite.

(A self-taught auteaur, Jeunet has his share of darker visions, including “Delicatessan” — about cannibalistic city dwellers — and “City of Lost Children,” in which an scientist kidnaps children to study their dreams.)

“Amelie” plays at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Palm Theatre, 817 Palm St. in San Luis Obispo. Tickets are $7.50.

** Art courtesy of MovieWeb.com.

With gas prices skyrocketing and future of fuel looking grim, it’s safe to say most of us have an interest in oil.

Few of us, however, have the gumption to dedicate more than two years to researching the subject.

Filmmakers Scott D. Roberts and Jeremy Wagener did just that with their documentary “Gas Hole.”

Using scores of interviews and miles of film footage, they delved into the history of oil and the future of fuel-efficient technologies and alternative fuels.

“Instead of going the film festival route or looking for distributors, we felt the subject matter was so timely and so important that we thought, ‘Let’s put on a tour,” said Roberts.

Roberts and Wagener will be in San Luis Obispo tomorrow (Tuesday) to screen the film and answer questions.

Read the rest…

Any doubts about the future of the Palm Theatre’s brand-new series, Palm Wednesday, were settled last night.

The one-time-only screening of “Trainspotting” was packed.

As you might guess given the subject matter (young heroin addicts in Edinburgh), “Trainspotting” isn’t for everyone. Dialogue is spoken in the thickest of Scottish brogues and laden with obscenities. Characters are morally suspect and, at times, shockingly cavalier about their misdeeds. And the plot? It’s downright depressing.

No wonder “Trainspotting” is a cult classic.

Watching the movie once more on the big screen, I was reminded just how darkly brilliant Danny Boyle’s movie is.

Written and shot with gritty realism, it’s at times desperate and desperately comical.

What other movie would find its junkie protagonist (Ewan McGregor, more grunge than glam) swimming through the foulest toilet in Scotland to rescue drugs, or hallucinating about a dead baby crawling on the ceiling? That’s modern-day absurdity at its finest.

The Palm Wednesday series continues May 7 with “Billabong Odyssey,” an adrenaline-charged sports doc about big-wave surfing.

Personally, I’m more excited about the winsome, whimsical “Amelie,” which screens May 14.

“The Big Lebowski” (strange, funny) screens May 21, followed by “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” (strangely funny) on May 28.

It should be a fun month at the movies.

***

Check out the Palm Wednesday series, 7 p.m. every Wednesday at The Palm Theatre, 817 Palm St. in San Luis Obispo. Tickets are $7.50, and a season pass is available.

Photo above courtesy of MovieWeb.com.

Fill up at any gas station from Paso Robles to Nipomo and you may suffer from sticker shock.

Prices at the pump now run an average of four bucks a gallon, which means hard times for anyone who depends on wheels for work or errands. (Yours truly, for instance.)

That’s $40 to take little Johnny to swim practice. Fifty clams to stop for groceries. Sixty smackers to pick up Fifi from the vet’s. And that’s if you drive a compact.

At a comparably cheap gas station in Santa Maria, I overheard one man complaining that it took $100 to fill the tank of his ’60s-era boat of an automobile.

A hundred greenbacks! Zowie!

Soaring gas prices can only mean one thing: Time to trade my oil-burning laptop for one of them new-fangled ‘lectric models.

All kidding aside, however, our current oil shortage is a serious problem.

That’s why Central Coast moviegoers should check out two upcoming screenings of documentaries that focus on “the oil issue.”

“Megadisasters: Oil Apocalypse,” which screens Friday, looks at the potential crisis facing the world when we run out of oil — and the solutions that could save us.

With the History Channel documentary, organizers will also screen an animated short film, “Post Oil Man.”

The screening, sponsored by HopeDance magazine, will be followed by a discussion with local activist Zachary Stowasser, professional musician Cindy Dixon, environmentalist Jim Cole and HopeDance publisher Bob Banner.

See “Oil Apocalypse” at 7 p.m. Friday at the San Luis Obispo library, 995 Palm St. in San Luis Obispo. A $5 donation is suggested.

On Tuesday, May 6, the documentary “GasHole” examines the history of oil and the future of alternative fuels.
Narrated by Peter Gallagher (he of the enormous eyebrows), “GasHole” features interviews with U.S. Department of Energy officials, congressional leaders, users and producers of alternative fuels, and others.

Filmmakers Scott Roberts and Jeremy Wagener will be present at two screenings to answer questions.

Watch “GasHole” on Tuesday at the Palm Theatre at 817 Palm St., San Luis Obispo’s first-and-only solar-powered movie theater. The movie screens at 7 p.m. and 9:15 p.m.

Tickets are $7.50, $5 for kids and seniors. (Tuesdays are also “KCPR Night,” so mention the Cal Poly radio station or wear a KCPR T-shirt and you’ll get a buck off.)