RushMore

When I first saw Rushmore, I was, like, mesmerized and I kept renting it and watched it maybe three or four times in a four month span. Then I got the soundtrack and listened to that, and you can confirm this with my roommates of the time, every day for the space of at least two months. Then my own obsessiveness started to scare me and I laid off.

And then I started to be aware of the cult of Wes Anderson and after throwing out some Bottle Rocket references and feeling cool, I began to feel like a bit of poseur for, you know, all of it. Including the fact that the sullen male teenaged factor at Frontier Video in WV would refuse to talk to you unless you rented a Wes Anderson film. Right.

Anyway, there are a lot of movies that I haven't seen and there are a lot of movies that I have seen that I need to see again now that I know more about movies. In short, my film cultural capital is pauvre especially now that my understanding about how film works is so very different than it was, say, a year ago. Now I watch movies and say things like "the foley was really melodramatic" and I'm not even making fun of myself. Well, maybe a little.

Anyway, I watched Rushmore again the other day, and damn if that isn't as good of a movie as I always thought it was. So quick and dirty, gets in late and out early, such great shots and compositions, such surprising and brilliant lines of dialogue. Most impressive, it all looks so intentional. Which seems all but impossible, right? How can you be that intentional and have it all work out? I really don't think you can. Movie Magic.

"Yeah, well I wrote and directed a hit play, so I'm not sweating it either."