The Big Wednesday (1978)

[Neville]

They say that John Goodman's character in The big Lebowsky (an overweight right-wing lunatic with a penchant for firearms and crazy plans) is modeled after writer / director John Milius, who is an overweight right-wing lunatic with a penchant for firearms and movies with ultra-macho on steroids characters.

Well, after watching his first film, The big wednesday, I would say that pretty much all The big Lebowsky seems a parody of this one, if you change bowling by surfing. The big wednesday follows the lifes of three American surfers from the early 60s to the 70s. Although they do sort of interesting things on their own, often off-camera (some fight and die in Vietnam, others create families), Milius only seems happy if he captures them surfing or doing some other male-bonding stuff, like drinking, fist-fighting or travelling to Mexico to do the previous two plus getting laid.

It's all pretty harmless, really, and is filmed exactly the way you imagine, with little cohesion, lots of oldies in the soundtrack and occasional touches of machismo, but it makes a pretty good entertainment until Milius decides to get dramatic towards the end and the whole thing falls on its own weight. Good thing there's a very well executed finale which faces our heroes against some really menacing waves.

Stuff to watch for (other than the great surfing footage): In order to dodge the draft, our heroes try different tactics. Gary Busey's is to pretend he's a violent nutjob. Needless to say, he nails it.

[Dennis]

On the whole I kind of like this movie, had some friends like the characters in the film. The boozing woman chaser grew up to be a minister complete with church, congregation, wife, and kids. The psycho nut job really enjoyed the 60's and just disappeared. I use the induction physical segment as an example of what our younger guys are missing out on. I think the finale, "Big Wednesday" is the best part of the movie, worth sitting through the rest just to see this.

[The Burgomaster]

I have this DVD and I watch it about once every year or two.  Overall, it's enjoyable, but it doesn't quite grab me in the same way that AMERICAN GRAFFITI does.  It's one of those movies that I wish were great . . . but it isn't.  However, it isn't bad either.