Hollywood tends to play fast and loose with the realities of real estate, where supposedly lower to lower-middle class fictional families constantly find themselves living in what would be million dollar homes in the real world. I guess because filming inside the gritty sh*tboxes where people actually live might get a little too real (true story aside: a few years ago, my old apartment in New York was used for a scene in Law and Order: Criminal Intent that was set inside a pedophile’s apartment. I swear on my life this is true). Never was that more clear than today, when the house from the Big Lebowski where the Dude lived, the unemployed former Metallica roadie, is selling for $2.295 million dollars in Venice Beach. It sounds expensive, but I hear it has a really nice rug.

Six historic one bedroom cottages on a 10,628 sq ft lot, all just blocks to the beach and Abbot Kinney. These historic, bigger-than-average bungalows feature spacious side-yards, garage parking and a lushly landscaped gated courtyard.
In 2005, property underwent major renovations, including new sewer line, roofing. This a perfect candidate for a residential subdivision. |Bulldog Realtors via Gawker|

Oh okay, so to be fair, it’s actually three mil for SIX of the kind of cottages where The Dude lived. That works out to $382,500 each, which is still steep on an unemployed former roadie’s salary, but probably affordable if you’re renting. So you can buy the whole lot and turn it into a subdivision, or just keep them to use as rental properties, but beware. You’ll probably just get some good-for-nothing bum of a tenant who’ll never pay his rent before the tenth. Or worse, a whole family of Chinamen just chattering and peeing on rugs.

Not a day goes by that I don’t get sent a trailer mashup where someone puts music from one movie over another movie, or recuts a comedy as a drama, or adds Jar Jar Binks, or whatever, and usually they’re not that good.  They get boring after a while, anyway.  But damn, whoever cut together Morpheus explaining The Matrix to The Dude from Big Lebowski is a genius.  This is the best one I’ve seen since Bill &  Ted’s Excellent Inception.  Not only is the editing seamless, the lines from each movie come together in such amazing ways that it seems almost miraculous:

MORPHEUS: “Do you believe in fate, Neo?”
THE DUDE: “Mmm… that and a pair of testicles.”

MORPHEUS: “The Matrix is everywhere.”
THE DUDE: “What is that, yoga?”

MORPHEUS: “You take the blue pill, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
THE DUDE: “What are you, a fukin park ranger now?”

The guy even squeezed in a joke about The Eagles AND the Big Lebowski hallucination sequence. If he’d managed a Montana Fishburne reference I might marry him.

“You can imagine what happens from there.”
“He puts farts in her monkey fufu?”
“Don’t be fatuous, Jeffrey.”

[TheeFinchLynch via HighDefinite]

(“The Civil War is over, Lebowski. The bums lost.”)

Charles Portis is sort of a cult-favorite writer whose best-known work is probably True Grit, which spawned a movie adaptation that won John Wayne an Oscar in 1969.  Portis has been called a more comedic version of Cormac McCarthy, whose book No Country for Old Men won the Coen Brothers a best picture Oscar in 2007.  Now the Coens are re-adapting True Grit, and Variety reports that they’re in talks with The Dude himself, Jeff Bridges, for the lead.

For the unfamiliar, True Grit follows a 14-year-old girl, who tags along with a U.S. Marshal, Rooster Cogburn (Bridges) as they attempt to track down her father’s murderer, who is something of a drunk. But the murderer is not anyone that the police want to mess with, so Rooster is all she’s got. A Texas Ranger named La Boeuf also joins the manhunt; Cogburn and La Boeuf dont’ care for each other, but in the pursuit of the murderer, they bond.

The 1969 John Wayne movie was told from the perspective of Cogburn; the Coens version, like the novel, will tell it from the perspective of the 14-year-old girl (presumably, like the novel, as an extended flashback). [Pajiba]

I hope they not only tell it from the perspective of a 14-year-old girl, but contemporize it and have it unfold via her Twitter feed.   OMG, you guyz, Rooster cockbreath & the Shia Labuff guy tooootally aren’t getting along!  We beter find daddy’s killer soon, i have joBros tickets for tomorrow >:-T

Bare with me, this one requires some backstory: First off, The Dude in Big Lebowski was inspired by a real guy, Jeff Dowd (left).  Recently, Jeff Dowd was working as a producer’s rep for Dirt! The Movie, a documentary playing at Sundance this year.  Following a screening, Dowd was discussing the film with Variety film critic John Anderson, when both of them exhibited some very un-Dude-like behavior:

Anderson told Dowd that the movie “was poor, too simplistic, too redundant,” says Dowd, who accompanied him over to the nearby Yarrow. When they arrived, Anderson told him their conversation on the movie was “over.” The debate that followed got so heated that Anderson punched Dowd twice, once on the lip.

“On the lip”?  Are his fists the size of chapstick?

Dowd is a big guy who is passionate about his opinions. Anderson is a film critic who wanted to be left to eat his breakfast in peace and lost his temper.  Anderson says he let Dowd “make his pitch” on the way over to the Yarrow. After his spiel, Anderson said, “So what?”  Dowd told him to listen to how the audience responded. “They’re sheep,” Anderson said.

AHAHAHA! Calling the audience sheep, that’s +10 film critic points.  $20 bucks he said with a speech impediment through a mouth full of curly fries.

“You’ve got so much power,” said Dowd. “Before you write this we should have more discussion.”

“He was accusing me of not caring about the state of the world because I didn’t like his film,” Anderson says. When they arrived at the restaurant he said, “OK, this conversation is over.” But Dowd wasn’t letting up, says Anderson, who sat down with a friend at a table. Then Dowd pulled up a chair and “continues to make his sales pitch. He wouldn’t go away, take no for an answer.”

Anderson told Dowd to “f-ck off and get out” and Dowd did leave, but returned ten minutes later with Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling (formerly of the Howard Stern Show) to speak on behalf of the film. Anderson had moved to a table for four and didn’t recognize Martling, but wasn’t having any of it anyway. Dowd “starts berating me,” Anderson says. “He’s a big intimidating guy hovering over the table. I got really pissed off.”

Dowd kept talking and Anderson got up and walked four steps, says Dowd, clenched up and hit him in the shoulder, chest and chin, and then his lip. [Variety Blogger Anne Thompson]

Come on, there’s a beverage here man!  Let this be a lesson to you, kids: if someone accuses you of being annoying, you should definitely NOT bring over a manic comedian known for laughing at his own jokes.  And if someone’s annoying you and they won’t stop, violence is the answer.