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Slip into your bathrobe, grab a White Russian and abide.

But leave the illicit substances at home.

The Mixed Tape Film Series will screen “The Big Lebowski” on Wednesday at the Carolina Theatre and, in keeping with the movie’s bowling theme, host an afterparty and costume contest at Brunswick Triad Lanes.

The film, released to mixed reviews in 1998, has become slackerdom’s “Rocky Horror Picture Show,” inspiring fans to quote prodigiously, don Viking helmets and look for that special rug that really ties the room together.

“When I was going to school at UNCG, everyone watched 'The Big Lebowski,’ ” said organizer Joe Scott (who also writes freelance stories for Go Triad). “It’s just what you did. You did your homework and then watched 'The Big Lebowski.’ When I was in college I probably watched 20 or 30 times, easy.”

The film stars Jeff Bridges as Jeff Lebowski, aka “The Dude,” an unemployed stoner who, as the narrator puts it, is “quite possibly the laziest (man) in all of Los Angeles County, which would place him high in the runnin’ for laziest worldwide.”

He comes home one day, after buying a quart of milk for his White Russians, to find a couple of thugs looking for another man named Jeff Lebowski. They beat him up and urinate on his rug. What follows is a Raymond Chandler-esque tale of kidnapping, fraud and bowling.

“The idea of putting a semi-catatonic burn-out at the center of a convoluted 'Big Sleep’-style detective plot is brilliant,” said Aaron Jaffe, an English professor at the University of Louisville and co-editor of “This Year’s Work in Lebowski Studies,” a collection of essays on the film. “If Philip Marlowe can’t do it, what chance can this guy have, right? Yet the Dude and his buddy Walter (a Vietnam vet with anger-management issues) do manage to get through the plot relatively unscathed.”

The film grossed about $17 million and was initially considered a flop. Jaffe said the film’s disappointing box office probably resulted partially from the fact that it came on the heels of the Coen Brothers’ Academy Award-winning “Fargo,” a noir with some comedic elements. “The Big Lebowski,” a comedy with some noirish elements and a good dose of raunchiness, threw many fans of the previous film for a loop.

But it did get some good word of mouth and was one of the first films to benefit from Internet discussion, said Thomas Leupp, editor of the movie site Hollywood.com.

“When it came out on DVD, people got a chance to take another look at it,” he said in a telephone interview. “And that’s where people were able to delve into it and chat about it and connect with other people who were into it. If there were no Internet, I don’t know if it would have the following that it does today.”

It’s also a movie, Scott said, that gets better with repeated viewings.
“It’s like shrapnel — there’s just these little bits of it that stick in your brain,” he said. “The Coen Brothers, working in tandem, they just load their films with nuggets, little flavor crystals of character that, when they hit you, just pop.”

Scott screened the film during the Mixed Tape series last year. He had booked a 200-seat theater at Carousel Luxury Cinemas, not expecting a big crowd.

About 400 showed up.

“I had never gotten more than 100 people to come (to the series),” he said. “But with 'The Big Lebowski,’ it just blew up. Some people came in their bathrobes (the Dude’s unofficial uniform).

“One funny story — a guy showed up in his bathrobe after we had sold out, and he was about to be turned away. But I couldn’t stand there and watch him get turned away, so I got him in without a ticket. And then he repaid me by telling me he was a lawyer. He gave me his business card and said if I ever had a speeding ticket, he would get me out of trouble.”

After the first screening, Scott said, many fans asked when he was showing it again. Drawing inspiration from other Lebowski parties that have taken place around the country, he called Brunswick Triad Lanes and asked if they were interested in hosting a bowling tournament.

“Some people watch movies in 3D,” Scott said. “But with an experience like this, I’d like to say it’s the fourth dimension. You watch the movie, and then you step out of the theater and do something that correlates with what you were watching.”

The movie has been dissected heavily by scholars and fanboys, who find meaning things such as the Dude’s love of Creedence Clearwater Revival and the date he writes on a check at the grocery (it happens to be Sept. 11). But many people, Scott said, just enjoy its message of “going with the flow.”

“When I first started watching it, I was a very angry man,” he said. “And I think because of that I was also a very lonely man. And watching 'The Big Lebowski,’ — at first I didn’t even get it. But then, when I started watching it again and again, I loosened up a bit, learning to love life and just take it easy. Instead of being the motorboat that I was, I turned into more of a sailboat, just open to wherever the wind would take me.”

Contact Robert C. Lopez at 691-5091 or robert.lopez@news-record.com