3. Rushmore
Bill Murray's first semi-serious role. The breakthrough of Jason
Schwartzman. The wake-up-and-take-notice use of Olivia Williams. This film was
a bonafide original and not one I had ever heard about at the time of its
release or was even interested in seeing.
The year was 1998. I was about 15 at the time, and hanging out
with my cousin for the day. We ended up at the shopping centre and decided to
go and see a flick. There wasn't much showing at the time, but he was
over-excited about seeing Rushmore, only because it had Bill Murray in it, and
he was a big fan. I shrugged, said Okay, and went in.
It started off mildly, showing some kid in a class room who solves
a math problem. Then it is revealed he is just dreaming. From here, we are
taken through a montage of all the clubs, groups or establishments this high
school kid has created, and they are many. Then I thought, wow, this is
different and I immediately got hooked on the uniqueness of the premise.
I watched in awe and wonder, for I had never seen a film like
this, driven by a character who was basically just an over-achieving nerd. I
recognized myself in him. No I don't have glasses, a huge nose or wear my
school uniform outside of the school grounds, but the film was brave enough to state
that it was okay to be a passionate and mature teenager, which I held myself to
be.
The film quickly went in and out of the cinema, and not many
people knew about it. I would rave about it to everybody, and tried to impress
the adults around me that I had seen such a film, but even they didn't know
about it. So for me, it became a little unknown gem of a movie that belonged
just to me. I was totally convinced that maybe I was one of the few, especially
young people, to have seen it.
Some months later that same cousin of mine and I were working with
my uncle for some extra pocket money. He was a painter, and needed our help
painting a cinema in the city. We went along, late at night after the place was
closed and worked into the early hours of the morning. My uncle, being the
painting perfectionist that he was wouldn't allow either me or my fun-loving
cousin the chance to paint, in case we stuffed it up so we carried in the
equipment from the van, cleared spaces and went and got his coffee and donuts from
the 7-11 three doors down.
While he was painting along, my cousin and I went exploring, and
were excited by the fact of entering up to 8 separate movie theatres, which
were empty and dark, almost spooky in a way. My uncle caught onto us, and to
divert our attention gave us an important job - find some movie posters and
steal them. So we went into the storage room, where we found shelves of video
cassettes of special foreign movies that would play at the cinema, during
festivals. We discovered the box containing the posters that were of movies
that had come and gone. And the first one I pulled out was a promotional sized
poster of Rushmore, which was very exciting. I grabbed it and let my cousin go
through the rest.
I took it home and put it on my wall. It was massive and was the
picture of the main character, Max Fisher, sitting and looking up to the sky
(as if it were the limit of possibilities) and on either side of him in
abbreviated commas, were all the positive and happy reviews the film had received.
A couple of months later, the film came out on video and I rented
it on the opening day. I now also own the soundtrack, which I had to get
imported to Oz from the states. The soundtrack has some of the most diverse and
unusual songs I’ve heard in my life, but they compliment the film very well.
So once again there is the little back story of how I discovered
this film, and I hope you found it interesting. You might be wondering why I
chose to include it into my prestigious top ten of all time? The answer is that
there's nothing quite like Rushmore, and I see it as one of the ground breaking
comedy/dramas of the late 90's. The story is so original, that nothing compares
to this little flick. It simply focuses on an eccentric teenager who likes to
keep busy, by putting on plays and starting up clubs, all the while chasing
after a teacher he has fallen for and competing for her love with a steel
tycoon! The film made me think that maybe there are young people out there like
this, and as I saw myself as a bit of an entrepreneur, it inspired me so to
speak up, to be a doer and not be limited by my age.
I still strive to live that way every single day...
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