The Beauty Part

Someone who has seen this movie a lot--and there are quite a few people who have seen it more than a hundred times--says it's a retelling of the Buddha's story.

You see, Jeff Bridges has a gut in this movie, and so did the Buddha. Bridges bowls, which is nothing but a stab at perfection. He has a carpet stolen, which is the lesson about material objects. And Bridges is known to one and all as "The Dude," which rhymes with....

I'll stop there, you get the idea: For those who love it, this is one deep movie. And they're not entirely goofy on this point. It's just like the Coen brothers to hide a spiritual classic inside a stoner comedy--after all, wasn't "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" their retelling of Homer's "Odyssey"? But, really....The Big Lebowski?