65 Rushmore

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: I know I'm a doctor, but what are you?

#101 Post by matrixschmatrix » Wed Nov 09, 2011 4:36 pm

Well, there I think you are conflating 'puerile' and 'lowbrow'- Rushmore is all about someone who is the former and doesn't know it, but it absolutely is not the latter, while the Stooges are. The distinction between those two things informs Anderson's whole oeuvre- his characters are nearly always very highbrow and very childish, and confused reinforcing the one with changing the other.

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triodelover
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Re: I know I'm a doctor, but what are you?

#102 Post by triodelover » Wed Nov 09, 2011 4:43 pm

matrixschmatrix wrote:Well, there I think you are conflating 'puerile' and 'lowbrow'- Rushmore is all about someone who is the former and doesn't know it, but it absolutely is not the latter, while the Stooges are. The distinction between those two things informs Anderson's whole oeuvre- his characters are nearly always very highbrow and very childish, and confused reinforcing the one with changing the other.
Trust me. I'm not confused. I did not see these characters as highbrow. Money and private schools don't necessarily make highbrow. The Stooges are both lowbrow and puerile, and it wouldn't surprise me to learn Anderson is a fan.

I wonder if you're using "highbrow" to mean pretentious. Max, Herman and rosemary are certainly pretentious.

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Brian C
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Re: I know I'm a doctor, but what are you?

#103 Post by Brian C » Wed Nov 09, 2011 4:56 pm

triodelover wrote:But to be called Rex Reed? Really, that's too much.
Even worse, because I got into politics before I really got into film, to this day when I see "Rex Reed", I think "Ralph Reed". So the insult is a lot worse than you realize!

To add to what's been said here about Rushmore ... one of the overlooked elements of it for me is the treatment of Max's relationship to Dirk. Even though they're not actual brothers, it's a near-perfect depiction of an older brother/younger brother relationship, and in fact reminds me a lot of me and my youngest brother, who's six years younger than me.

We were adults before I came to understand how much he looked up to me when we were kids, but like Max I suppose I could be the imperious older brother and he'd frequently get really angry with me. One of my favorite lines of the movie is Dirk's "With friends like you, who needs friends?" That's just perfect - he's so angry and hurt, and he really wants to hurt Max in return. He also wants to engage Max on Max's intellectual level, thinking he can really even the score - not being friends is the worst thing he can think of in this situation - but can't really put the words together. He's heard the saying but doesn't really understand what it means so he garbles it. I can't tell you how often my brother would do something like that, trying to tell me how much he hated me - because the worst thing he could imagine was that I hated him - although in a way that he understood much more than I did.

Furthermore, when Dirk and Max finally make amends, I liked Dirk's apology - not for sending the note that outed Herman but for throwing rocks at Max. That's what he feels guilty about, is the public betrayal. There's a certain amount of friction between siblings and family in general but the one thing that I look at on as being the most hurtful to my brother was when I would make fun of him in front of my friends. Likewise, I don't think he would have dreamed of selling me out in any kind of public shaming like Dirk did, no matter badly wounded he was. He might rat me out to my parents, and he might try to get even with me in whatever private way he could think of, but he wouldn't go public in his quest for revenge. So I thought it was very insightful of Anderson to realize that Dirk would be most ashamed of that.

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triodelover
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Re: I know I'm a doctor, but what are you?

#104 Post by triodelover » Wed Nov 09, 2011 5:23 pm

Brian C wrote:
triodelover wrote:But to be called Rex Reed? Really, that's too much.
Even worse, because I got into politics before I really got into film, to this day when I see "Rex Reed", I think "Ralph Reed". So the insult is a lot worse than you realize!
Christ, I hadn't even thought of Ralph. OK, mfunk, out behind the shop at recess. There's only one way to settle this!
Brian C wrote:To add to what's been said here about Rushmore ... one of the overlooked elements of it for me is the treatment of Max's relationship to Dirk. Even though they're not actual brothers, it's a near-perfect depiction of an older brother/younger brother relationship, and in fact reminds me a lot of me and my youngest brother, who's six years younger than me.

We were adults before I came to understand how much he looked up to me when we were kids, but like Max I suppose I could be the imperious older brother and he'd frequently get really angry with me. One of my favorite lines of the movie is Dirk's "With friends like you, who needs friends?" That's just perfect - he's so angry and hurt, and he really wants to hurt Max in return. He also wants to engage Max on Max's intellectual level, thinking he can really even the score - not being friends is the worst thing he can think of in this situation - but can't really put the words together. He's heard the saying but doesn't really understand what it means so he garbles it. I can't tell you how often my brother would do something like that, trying to tell me how much he hated me - because the worst thing he could imagine was that I hated him - although in a way that he understood much more than I did.

Furthermore, when Dirk and Max finally make amends, I liked Dirk's apology - not for sending the note that outed Herman but for throwing rocks at Max. That's what he feels guilty about, is the public betrayal. There's a certain amount of friction between siblings and family in general but the one thing that I look at on as being the most hurtful to my brother was when I would make fun of him in front of my friends. Likewise, I don't think he would have dreamed of selling me out in any kind of public shaming like Dirk did, no matter badly wounded he was. He might rat me out to my parents, and he might try to get even with me in whatever private way he could think of, but he wouldn't go public in his quest for revenge. So I thought it was very insightful of Anderson to realize that Dirk would be most ashamed of that.
Thanks for that connection, Brian. I had forgotten Dirk and how he humanized Max. Max was almost tolerable when he was with Dirk. Thanks also for reminding me of Dirk's line. There was something poignant yet exceeding apropos about the deliverance of the garbled cliché. It may have been the best moment in a film that clearly didn't have many for me.

My brother (actually half-brother) is exactly 9 years my junior. We share birthdays, oddly enough. I, too, found out as an adult that he looked up to me but sadly I don't share the growing up moments. I left home at 15 because of an increasingly intractable relationship with his father, my mother's second husband. His father wouldn't allow him around me unless he was present. Since his father sucked all the air out of the room even though he was a petty little man, that didn't happen too often. The family didn't reconcile completely until after his father's death in 2002. Interestingly, my brother never shed a tear at his father's funeral.
matrixschmatrix wrote:I'm not knocking screwball by any means, but it's not an accurate comparison. I honestly can see where Rushmore wouldn't work for some people- as I say, it always almost doesn't work for me- but in many ways it's as harrowing and cruelly accurate a portrait of the outsider as a young man as the 400 Blows is. Only, it's funny, too.
Didn't see your edit before, probably because the split of the split now needs a road map.

First, I don't think you can characterize Dinner at Eight as screwball. It's pre-code, and screwball grew up from the enforcement of the Hays Code as a way to convey covertly things that the films could say overtly before enforcement. For me, Carlotta's response is of a piece with the great Oscar Levant quote about Doris Day, "I knew her before she was a virgin." Carlotta's retort is not a punch line.

I see your point with regard to AD, but Anderson isn't Truffaut and Rushmore isn't funny (to me, always must add "to me").

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Michael
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Re: 65 Rushmore

#105 Post by Michael » Sun Nov 13, 2011 9:05 am

Rushmore is not fresh in my mind and I'm waiting to revisit the film when I receive my BD copy. Wes Anderson has not made a bad film. I keep returning to Rushmore in my mind the most of all of his works. There's something so crystalline-perfect about this film even though I would not argue The Royal Tenenbaums being his "magnum opus". With Rushmore, Anderson reached the pitch-perfect balance of comedy and melancholy that is easy to miss the first viewing. But going into the second or third viewing, you have already became familiar with the characters and you start to feel the magically beautiful bonds those characters have coming to life. The death of loved ones haunts every fiber of Rushmore: Max's mom and Miss Cross' husband. Max longs for his mom in Miss Cross and Miss Cross longs for her husband in Max. The look in Miss Cross' eyes as she removes Max's glasses in the end kills me every time, just thinking about it made my eyes well up with tears. That lovely overhead shot of two cups of coffee that Miss Cross and Blume during the intermission of Max's "magnum opus" brings the two together now and forever. There 's so much more. Oh, that Thanksgiving chapter chokes me with an enormous lump in my throat. I love that here we have high school kids having adults for friends, that is so back in time 1970s-80s when parents didn't mind too much. But today, forget about it.

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mfunk9786
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Re: 65 Rushmore

#106 Post by mfunk9786 » Sun Nov 13, 2011 10:45 am

Michael wrote:Rushmore is not fresh in my mind and I'm waiting to revisit the film when I receive my BD copy. Wes Anderson has not made a bad film. I keep returning to Rushmore in my mind the most of all of his works. There's something so crystalline-perfect about this film even though I would not argue The Royal Tenenbaums being his "magnum opus". With Rushmore, Anderson reached the pitch-perfect balance of comedy and melancholy that is easy to miss the first viewing. But going into the second or third viewing, you have already became familiar with the characters and you start to feel the magically beautiful bonds those characters have coming to life. The death of loved ones haunts every fiber of Rushmore: Max's mom and Miss Cross' husband. Max longs for his mom in Miss Cross and Miss Cross longs for her husband in Max. The look in Miss Cross' eyes as she removes Max's glasses in the end kills me every time, just thinking about it made my eyes well up with tears. That lovely overhead shot of two cups of coffee that Miss Cross and Blume during the intermission of Max's "magnum opus" brings the two together now and forever. There 's so much more. Oh, that Thanksgiving chapter chokes me with an enormous lump in my throat. I love that here we have high school kids having adults for friends, that is so back in time 1970s-80s when parents didn't mind too much. But today, forget about it.
Well said, Michael!

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Re: 65 Rushmore

#107 Post by cdnchris » Sun Nov 13, 2011 3:34 pm

I just watched Rushmore and didn't notice any differences between this and the older Criterion DVD. So unless there's some subtle difference (like an alternate take or something along those lines) I'm guessing this has always been the "director's cut", but I'm not sure why they would bother putting that in the description now. I was going to go through the old DVD again just to check when I get a chance.

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The Fanciful Norwegian
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Re: 65 Rushmore

#108 Post by The Fanciful Norwegian » Tue Nov 15, 2011 6:08 am

The Criterion Bottle Rocket changed just one shot (the book Anthony picks up during the bookstore robbery), so there's a precedent for minor tweaks. But then nobody felt the need to trumpet Bottle Rocket as a "director's cut" either.

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Ogre Kovacs
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Re: 65 Rushmore

#109 Post by Ogre Kovacs » Wed Dec 28, 2011 9:23 pm

This may be a stupid question, but I was going through the bonus features on the new blu ray and noticed several times during the Charlie Rose interview that the screen would simply go completely black. I think for the most part that this occurred only at camera cuts. At first I thought that these were simply clips (such as the SNL stuff) that Criterion had to cut for rights issues. However, as the interviews progressed, I kept noticing this blacking out. For example, at 45:16 during a clip of Rushmore itself, this issue occurs on my disc. I also noticed it during the Making of Rushmore segment (at 5:25 for example). Normally, I would just assume it was something with the original source, but I have the old DVD and reviewed it for comparison. These issues did not occur on the DVD, only the blu ray.

Has anyone else noticed this on their copies? Is there perhaps a technical reasoning behind this that I am unaware of? It seems like too strange of an occurrence to be a defective disc. None of the reviews I have read mention this and a quick search did not uncover any other complaints. I have not had a chance to watch the feature yet, but I do not expect any issues.

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manicsounds
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Re: 65 Rushmore

#110 Post by manicsounds » Thu Dec 29, 2011 9:25 am

Or just a problem with your HDMI signal? It sometimes happens to me, where the screen will go black for a second when it loses the signal.

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mfunk9786
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Re: 65 Rushmore

#111 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Dec 29, 2011 12:57 pm

Yeah, replace your HDMI cable. You don't need to go spend $60 and get one in an electronics store, just search Amazon for a well-rated one, should only run you like 4 bucks.

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swo17
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Re: 65 Rushmore

#112 Post by swo17 » Thu Dec 29, 2011 1:00 pm

Or from here.

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Ogre Kovacs
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Re: 65 Rushmore

#113 Post by Ogre Kovacs » Thu Dec 29, 2011 8:49 pm

Thanks for the input, but I do not believe the issue is with the HDMI. I have never noticed this on other blu rays / DVDs and it occurs in the exact same spots every time. Just as a double check, I did hook up the component output and the result was the same--black screens (at least at 45:16 of the Charlie Rose interview--the only point I double checked). As an additional potential culprit, I performed a firmware update. No change. As I mentioned previously, these black screens seem to occur only at camera cuts (never within a shot that I can recall) which leads me to believe they are placed in intentionally. I was just curious if others noticed this and why they would be there since they are not on the DVD.

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Anthony
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Re: 65 Rushmore

#114 Post by Anthony » Thu Dec 29, 2011 10:57 pm

I tried out my disc and noticed the same glitches. It's very brief (maybe half a second). I think I can live with it. However, I hope this doesn't occur during the movie.

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Ogre Kovacs
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Re: 65 Rushmore

#115 Post by Ogre Kovacs » Fri Dec 30, 2011 8:14 am

They are definitely very short and certainly livable with the bonus features. I strongly suspect the film does not contain them. I am ignorant as to how the Charlie Rose show (or 90's television in general) was shot. Is it possible that it was shot at a different fps and requires additional frames for a progressive HD presentation?

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Re: 65 Rushmore

#116 Post by tachyonEvan » Mon Jul 30, 2012 11:48 am

Man, this movie holds up so well. Love the audition tapes - it's amazing that Schwartzman was just 17.

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Ogre Kovacs
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Re: 65 Rushmore

#117 Post by Ogre Kovacs » Thu Aug 02, 2012 8:11 pm

Seeing the thread bumped reminded me that I wanted to post an update that I have since watched the film on the blu ray and there were no cuts to black within the film--only the bonus features.

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Niale
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Re: 65 Rushmore

#118 Post by Niale » Fri Aug 03, 2012 2:52 pm

This might have been talked out already. But, I LOVE the Charlie Rose interview! Its poetry how many times he puts his foot in his mouth. Save for the retired Larry King, I can think of no current interviewer, short of comedian Zach Galifianakis , with the this ability. The fact that Wes plays it cool and does not allow himself to register visibly, Charlie's numerous foul ups, shows what a classy guy he is.

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Re: 65 Rushmore

#119 Post by tarpilot » Fri Aug 03, 2012 4:06 pm

I love Dick Cavett, and his wit was razor sharp when he was on his game, but there were more than a few stilted exchanges with some of his more high-brow guests. I remember when Godard was on sometime in the mid-80s and Dick was visibly baffled by the clip of Slow Motion they played, and his question immediately after was something like "so, uh, how differently would that have played if you had filmed it at just regular speed?"

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Niale
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Re: 65 Rushmore

#120 Post by Niale » Fri Aug 03, 2012 9:06 pm

tarpilot wrote:I love Dick Cavett, and his wit was razor sharp when he was on his game, but there were more than a few stilted exchanges with some of his more high-brow guests. I remember when Godard was on sometime in the mid-80s and Dick was visibly baffled by the clip of Slow Motion they played, and his question immediately after was something like "so, uh, how differently would that have played if you had filmed it at just regular speed?"
Im with you on dick cavett, I love the man... But from what I read he suffered from depression, another reason why i like the guy. But, because of this... He may have on occasion felt the need to win the praise of his audience at the expense of his guest, or, side with their popular stance when it came to more unconventional things. Also, this could also be just a good host stirring the pot and giving voice to what his audience is probably thinking. I do know what you mean though. I remember an interview cavett did with Godard where he asked him to explain why Jerry Lewis is a "genius". Godard spoke of his astuteness with color, geometry and even said the very intelligent thing "when his not funny it is all the more funny" (which I agree with loving Lewis). Of course to this cavett was almost hostile prodding him with something like "and why would we be interested in color and geometry"... Which of course begs the question why you invited Jean Luc Godard on the program if you do not like art for arts sake! Opening myself up for snide comment about Jerry Lewis not being art for arts sake.
Still im inclined to love cavett, Charlie Rose on the other hand is a complete boob! And just so this comment is not off topic. I would like to say that Rushmore is one of the few movies that has jokes that I STILL find funny with every viewing. "would you like me to grab a dictionary"?

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Re: 65 Rushmore

#121 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Sat Dec 26, 2015 12:30 pm

Niale wrote:The fact that Wes plays it cool and does not allow himself to register visibly, Charlie's numerous foul ups, shows what a classy guy he is.
He got his revenge in his next film.


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mfunk9786
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Re: 65 Rushmore

#123 Post by mfunk9786 » Mon Jan 29, 2018 9:13 pm

Culkin would have almost been a no-brainer choice, but... I can't even picture it.

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Re: 65 Rushmore

#124 Post by djproject » Mon Jan 29, 2018 9:39 pm

flyonthewall2983 wrote:
Niale wrote:The fact that Wes plays it cool and does not allow himself to register visibly, Charlie's numerous foul ups, shows what a classy guy he is.
He got his revenge in his next film.
He even unintentionally foreshadowed his downfall =]

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Re: 65 Rushmore

#125 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Wed Jan 31, 2018 1:04 am

mfunk9786 wrote:
Culkin would have almost been a no-brainer choice, but... I can't even picture it.
I can't see him as Max. I can almost see him as Dirk, maybe if the characters were a couple years older.

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