‘THE SECOND ANNUAL MEETING OF THE LITTLE ROCK LEBOWSKI LEAGUE’
6 p.m., Market Street Cinema. $10.
Year after year, the Coen Brothers make it harder to deny that they are the defining American filmmakers of the last 30 years. And with every Lebowskifest, the case for “The Big Lebowski” as “the Biggest Cult Movie of All-Time” gets a bit stronger. Dressing up? Quoting the movie? Swilling White Russians? Beginner stuff. Case in point: I recently wandered into a small corner store called “The Little Lebowski,” full of (and dedicated strictly to) everything Lebowski. Shirts, check. Posters, of course. The Time Magazine “Man of the Year” mirror: awesomely, yes. But what slayed me was a book, thick as The Jesus’ bowling ball, called “The Year’s Work in Lebowski Studies,” a send-up of academia, full of essays from the tongue-in-cheek theory of “Logjammin’ and Gutterballs: Masculinities in The Big Lebowski” to dense, Barthes-centric criticism in “Metonymic Hates and Metaphoric Tumbleweeds: Noir Literary Aesthetics in Miller’s Crossing and The Big Lebowski” and heady deconstructuction with “The Big Lebowski and Paul de Man: Historicizing Irony and Ironizing Historicism.” Expect that kind of passion on display around town this weekend for Little Rock’s own Lebowskifest, technically “The 2nd Annual Meeting of the Little Rock Lebowski League.” Friday through Sunday, Market Street Cinema opens its doors for screenings of the awesomely warped cartoon-noir at 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. with trivia and costume contests on Friday and Saturday. Also on Saturday, a 10 p.m. Lebowski Bowl at Professor Bowl.