Symbolic: Top Trio

Nina Foch made the girls cry, and occasionally the boys too. And they were never tears of joy. Trust me – I was there. For anyone not familiar with late Oscar nominated actress, take a look at Executive Suite, Spartacus, or The Ten Commandments – she's impossible to miss. I was fortunate to know her, not as a colleague or friend, but as a student. She was the iconic teacher of the "Directing the Actor" classes at USC's School of Cinematic Arts. It was 1998. I was center stage – like so many had been before me, and countless more had yet to endure. My assignment: act…

What makes The Big Lebowski memorable is its premise, in which it takes an age old narrative of the detective story and approaches it from an entirely new angle: what if everybody involved in the film thought they knew everything and in fact knew nothing? Loosely based on the Raymond Chandler novel The Big Sleep, it has such a strong identity and a telling narrative style that there is only one film making team that it could have come from: The Coen Brothers.