All The Young Dudes

It's a Friday evening in February, and a crowd of 700 has assembled at Las Vegas' Sunset Lanes to drink, shout profanities, and dress up as a jumpsuited child molester named Jesus. But this isn't just another night out in Sin City-it's a gathering of film fans devoted to The Big Lebowski.

Though the 1998 film wasn't a box-office smash, the Coen brothers' breezy comedy about the misadventures of an over-the-hill hippie who calls himself the Dude was a transcendental experience for Scott Shuffitt and Will Russell of Louisville, Kentucky. "The Dude is a character I can relate to," says Shuffitt, 31. "He's just an everyday average Joe. He's out there, doing his thing, and he comes into some hardships."

With a few photocopied flyers and a website (www.lebowksifest.com), the pair attracted 150 enthusiasts to an inaugural Lebowski convention in Louisville in 2002. A second event in 2003 proved so successful that it spawned this weekend's Lebowski Fest West, as well as a third Louisville gathering, scheduled for June. "We just came up with the idea, man. It's kind of a combined snowball effect," says Russell, 27, as attendees arrive to slurp down White Russians, snap up homemade T-shirts, and scream their favorite bits of dialogue during a screening of the film.

The main attraction on opening night, however, is actor James Hoosier, who had a minor role in Lebowski as one of the Dude's bowling rivals. "For such a small part, this is crazy," he says after receiving a standing ovation. The star of the second evening of revelry is Hollywood veteran Jeff Dowd, the inspiration for the film's terminally laid-back protagonist. "Joel and Ethan [Coen], they kinda laid a nice little present on me," chuckles the 54-year-old movie promoter as he brushes crumbs off his faded Hawaiian shirt. "The Dude is this really likable character, so virtually anywhere I go, I get this very nice sunshine glow."

Beneath all the booze and bowling, the festival is really a celebration of a movie with more resonance than its original audience gave it credit for-or its directors ever intended it to possess. "Living in the Midwest," says Shuffitt, "it's nice to sit down on a really crappy day and watch a film shot in L.A., where the sky is blue." As a man dressed as Dowd's fictional namesake sprints by, chased by another man holding a pair of giant cardboard scissors, Dowd gives the Lebowski Fest attendees his blessing. "They're a cut above Trekkies," he says.