Snap, Crackle, Pudas!
The first night I lived in the dorm, I cruised around door to door to meet new friends and hopefully round up a group of people to go to a kegger. Before going to my first college house party, however, I caught snippets of movies my different neighbors were watching; no matter what floor I was on, it was always one of the following: The Big Lebowski,\ ""Super Troopers,"" ""The Boondock Saints,"" ""Fight Club"" or ""Office Space."" Since then, I've seen these movies over and over again, heard them popularly mentioned in response to any ""What's your favorite movie?"" icebreakers in discussion sections and noticed them in dozens of DVD collections over the years. From my observation, these are the most enduring college cult classics of our generation.
Now there are movies that gain immense but temporary popularity—thank God people have finally started to settle down with the incessant ""Napoleon Dynamite"" quotes—but I think these five are here to stay. I own all of them and like them each to certain degrees, but I don't really understand why they've attained such fervent followings. Except for ""The Big Lebowski,"" which is undoubtedly one of the most hysterical movies ever made (every time I hear the phrase, ""Donny, you're out of your element,"" it gets funnier), I don't quite see why these are practically required viewing when there are so many other movies that are substantially better. What is it about these particular movies that have caused so many of us to embrace them wholeheartedly?
It's interesting that all of these films received little to no attention when they came out in theaters, but widespread word-of-mouth spurred a gigantic rise in DVD sales and rentals. These films best exemplify the escalating importance of home video in the industry today, and their success patterns are bona fide evidence of how theatrical runs are gradually becoming more and more irrelevant. For all their strengths and weaknesses, these films are idiosyncratic and original, and for those very reasons, they ironically went from being mere blips on the radar to nothing less than staples of the contemporary pop culture lexicon.
Maybe I'm frustrated because—and I want to carefully avoid sounding like a pissy hipster here—I feel I discovered these movies way before they developed a ubiquitous bandwagon effect. I rented ""Fight Club"" and ""The Boondock Saints"" when they first came out on DVD, I watched ""Office Space"" because I love Mike Judge's ""Beavis and Butthead,"" and I saw ""The Big Lebowski"" on its opening day in theaters because I was just starting to delve into the Coen brothers' films after being stunned by ""Fargo."" For some reason, it took me two viewings to appreciate ""Super Troopers,"" which is still little more than a constant barrage of priceless one-liners (""I'm gonna pistol whip the next person that says ‘shenanigans!'"").
If you've seen these movies too many times and are looking for something similar (and, in my opinion, better), I've got a few suggestions. The only Coen film I like more than ""The Big Lebowski"" is ""Miller's Crossing,"" a labyrinthine 1930s gangster movie that is nothing short of phenomenal and yet is inexplicably, woefully underseen. If you're the kind of person that has ""Super Troopers"" memorized, you'd probably enjoy ""Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang,"" another jovial box office flop that has enough zip and panache to become a cult classic itself one day. As ""The Boondock Saints"" is essentially a shamelessly entertaining Tarantino knockoff, you might as well pore over the filmography of Tarantino himself (I would especially recommend ""Jackie Brown,"" which may be the most underrated movie of the '90s) or his British counterpart, Guy Ritchie, whose newest gangster opus, ""Revolver,"" is scheduled to come out sometime this year. If you enjoy ""Fight Club"" and director David Fincher's flamboyantly dark style, go back and watch his ""Seven,"" which has got to be the most disturbing serial killer movie ever made.
Lastly, if you relate to the painfully authentic work-related humor of ""Office Space,"" try last year's ""Waiting . . . ,"" which is gross, juvenile and uneven but sometimes pretty damn funny (especially if you've worked in a restaurant before). It's not going to win any awards any time soon, and some of its gags fall embarrassingly flat, but it's a superb movie to throw on in the background during a power hour.
Only time will tell whether these movies' popularity will fade or grow stronger. There are always newer films that could end up replacing them as universal college cult classics in the long run. ""Sin City"" and ""Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"" are brilliant films that seem to have been warmly received on this campus, and I have a gut feeling that next week's ""Thank You For Smoking"" might last a while if it's as trenchant and funny as it looks. I can't wait to see what will end up being the next batch of college cult classics; I just hope none of them will be another ""Napoleon Dynamite.""
You want a toe? Joe Pudas can get you a toe. E-mail him at japudas@wisc.edu.
\
