Rushmore

I have to stop watching Anderson’s older movies, the more I see the less I enjoy Zissou which I saw first. I thought I’d hate Rushmore, but I love it. I loved Royal Tenenbaums too. I’m afraid to see Bottle Rocket, if I love that, I don’t know if I’ll ever see Zissou the same again. Anderson needs to jettison Baumbach.

Seriously.

What is wrong with Zissou that you would hate?

I realize its a work of lesser complexity than his previous work but I found it too be whimsically enjoyable in its own right. Its not as serious a work as Rushmore, (which i still respond to with only a mild smile. Max Fischer isn’t really a likeable character) or Tenenbaums, but it never felt like it wanted to be.

Actually, Bottle Rocket may remind you a bit of Zissou. Like Zissou, it is mainly a couple of effective bits surrounded by lots of mostly flat scenes. Rusmore shocked me, because it was streets ahead of Bottle Rocket.

Rushmore and Tenenbaums are two of the best movies I’ve ever seen. Bottle Rocket is good, but it’s no Rushmore. Dignan is awesome.

Am I alone in not really liking Rushmore at all, and wondering why on earth people fawn over it? Reminds me of American Beauty.

My buddy agrees with you on Rushmore. I don’t however. It’s one of my favourite movies.

I still love Zissou. But it is no longer the opus that I thought it was; it’s standing has not changed, except relative to the other movies (not sure if that makes sense).

I don’t think Rushmore and American Beauty can be any more different. Rushmore is about the imperfectness of human beings, yes, but it’s also about accepting and overcoming our flaws, to accept ourselves and reality, to ultimately become something more than who we are and in doing so become someone who contributes to those around us instead of taking without giving. American Beauty is about flawed human beings, or rather those things we (or society) perceives as flaws and hiding that, hiding the things we perceive as flaws within ourselves, hiding our true selves until we either implode or explode. Rushmore is about pursuing those things we want in life and failing to obtain that, to grow and learn from our experiences. American Beauty is about pursuing those things that society tells us we want and failing to achieve that, we torture and hurt others in order to punish society for the failures that the world has forced upon us.

I don’t think his point was that they were the same, I think his point was that they both sucked.

I should probably start my own new thread on this, but here’s how I rank Wes Anderdon’s movies:

  1. Royal Tenenbaums
  2. Bottle Rocket
  3. Royal Tenenbaums
  4. Rushmore
  5. Life Aquatic

Bottom line, Dirt, is that it’s time to rent Bottle Rocket.

-Tom

“Man, that guy was a real chatterbox.”

  1. Royal Tenebaums
  2. Rushmore
  3. Bottle Rocket
  4. Life Aquatic

“YOU WANNA TALK SOME JIVE? ILL TALK SOME JIVE LIKE YOU NEVER HEARD”

“Where’s my shoe?”

I love Tenenbaums and Rushmore, the others not so much; but those two are some pretty high fine clobber; tough to hit one out of the park, let alone two in a row.

Amen to that. And…

“It sounds a lot better in Spanish.”

I really need to see Tenebaums and Rushmore again, they really didn’t sink in the first time. I really like Aquatic though its definitely more of an acquired taste (how much whimsy can you take?).

As for Bottle Rocket, I’ll just say this:

“Why is that tape on your nose?”
“Exactly.”

Love it.

My feeling about Rushmore is sort of “eh.” Certainly didn’t love it, though I respect some aspects of its execution.

The structure seemed to me very similar to the 1980s teen flick Lucas, though the tone is obviously more arch and “quirky.”

PULL YOUR HEAD OUTTA YOUR ASS!!!

PULL YOUR HEAD OUTTA YOUR ASS!!![/quote]

eh.

PULL YOUR HEAD OUTTA YOUR ASS!!![/quote]

Yeah, no way I would say Rushmore was an “eh” film. I was was more of a “OH MY GOD PLEASE LET FLAMING CHIMPMUNKS EAT MY EYES OUT SO I CAN STOP WATCHING THIS FILM”

I am cursed with having neither very strong positive, nor negative, reactions to many films I watch, and Rushmore was one of those. I certainly respect the technical precision that Anderson brought to bear on it, and the quality of the acting; but as a story it did not move me. I attribute this to 3 possible causes: 1) I already saw the story when it was called “Lucas”; 2) Anderson is an “arch” filmmaker and arch filmmakers are not generally my bag; 3) Anderson’s fondness for meticulous, but rather static, compositions interests me less than the fluid moving-camera compositions of a Scorsese, Welles, Verhoeven, Hitchcock, etc. On the other hand, Zhang Yimou almost never moved his camera in “Raise the Red Lantern” and I thought that film was brilliant, so I’m a bit inconsistent here.

I have so much difficulty lately in having a strong reaction to a movie, that I was almost pleased to discover that I outright hated the new “Hitchhiker’s Guide” film.

Funny, that’s precisely one of the reasons why I like Anderson. Note the laundry list of (admittedly good, minus Verhoeven IMO) directors with their tracking shots. I mean, who the fuck does a segment like Zissou’s “Let Me Introduce You to My Submarine” anymore/at all?

I haven’t seen Life Aquatic (or actually anything other than Rushmore), so we’ll see. I guess I should add the rest of the Anderson Oeuvre to my netflix queue. Unfortunately that means I will have seen them all by about 2028 at the rate I am currently going through my queue. :(

Verhoeven made a lot of crappy movies but I love his fluid blocking and camera movement, and IMO Robocop is a better movie than Rushmore (though admittedly it’s like comparing apples to aircraft carriers).