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List Price: $39.99 | | Label: Walt Disney Video
Salesrank: 6483
Released: January 18, 2000 |
| Our Price: $32.23 |
| Used Price: $14.11 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Wes Anderson's dazzling sophomore effort is equal parts coming-of-age story, French New Wave homage, and screwball comedy. Tenth grader Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) is Rushmore Academy's most extracurricular student-and its least scholarly. He faces expulsion, and enters into unlikely friendships with both a lovely first-grade teacher (Olivia Williams) and a melancholy self-made millionaire (Bill Murray, in an award-winning performance). Set to a soundtrack of classic British Invasion tunes, Rushmore defies categorization even as it captures the pain and exuberance of adolescence with wit, emotional depth, and cinematic panache. Criterion is proud to present one of 1998's most acclaimed films in a Director Approved special edition.
Description of Rushmore - Criterion Collection:
Wes Anderson's follow-up to the quirky Bottle Rocket is a wonderfully unorthodox coming-of-age story that ranks with Harold and Maude and The Graduate in the pantheon of timeless cult classics. Jason Schwartzman (son of Talia Shire and nephew of Francis Coppola) stars as Max Fischer, a 15-year-old attending the prestigious Rushmore Academy on scholarship, where he's failing all of his classes but is the superstar of the school's extracurricular activities (head of the drama club, the beekeeper club, the fencing club...). Possessing boundless confidence and chutzpah, as well as an aura of authority he seems to have been born with, Max finds two unlikely soulmates in his permutations at Rushmore: industrial magnate and Rushmore alumnus Herman Blume (Bill Murray) and first-grade teacher Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams). His alliance with Blume and crush on Miss Cross, however, are thrown out of kilter by his expulsion from Rushmore, and a budding romance between the two adults that threatens Max's own designs on the lovely schoolteacher.
Never stooping to sentimentality or schmaltz, Anderson and cowriter Owen Wilson have fashioned a wickedly intelligent and wildly funny tale of young adulthood that hits all the right notes in its mix of melancholy and optimism. As played by Schwartzman, Max is both immediately endearing and ferociously irritating: smarter than all the adults around him, with little sense of his shortcomings, he's an unstoppable dynamo who commands grudging respect despite his outlandish projects (including a school play about Vietnam). Murray, as the tycoon who determinedly wages war with Max for the affections of Miss Cross, is a revelation of middle-aged resignation. Disgusted with his family, his life, and himself, he's turned around by both Max's antagonism and Miss Cross's love. Williams is equally affecting as the teacher who still carries a torch for her dead husband, and the superb supporting cast also includes Seymour Cassel as Max's barber father, Brian Cox as the frustrated headmaster of Rushmore, and a hilarious Mason Gamble as Max's young charge. Put this one on your shelf of modern masterpieces. --Mark Englehart
Rushmore - Criterion Collection Reviews:
What a surprize 
2009-11-26 - I don't have good writing skills,I hate it that I didn't pay much attention to it
in school.Fortunately,I don't need it in the field of hospital work,haha,won't say what kind.
But..here is what I want to say.
I loved this movie !! The story was so original and quirky.
I was hooked right away,#1 I love Jason Schwartzman !
And to have a twofer in one movie..Bill Murray !!
The story was delightful,the music was superb,cast superb.
There was one tiny spot where it lagged just for a minute.
Again,this is a keeper.
Hit and miss comedy from Anderson 
2009-10-26 - The Bottom Line:
I understand why this movie has generated such a cult around it, but if you don't go into this film pre-disposed to like it you might well be disappointed by Wes Anderson's second offering, a film that generates some laughs but a lot more awkward moments (mainly intentionally); I feel somewhat guilty giving this film a tepid review because I can see why its fans love it even though I don't, but Jason Schwartzman is so annoying that even Bill Murray can't make up for him and the movie just didn't work for me.
2.5/4
Long, but quirky & funny
2008-11-05 - This is really a funny and at times touching film. It's a bit overlong, but Bill Murray and the other actors are great. I really liked this movie. Definately not for those that don't like to think.
Good for a rainy day 
2008-10-16 - Max Fischer( Jason Schwartzman) is the most industious 10th grader of all time. He has founded seemingly every club at Rushmore, a prestigious private school, where he has a full scholarship. The only problem: Max is a horrible student and is failing most of his classes. Add to the mix a pretty kindergarten teacher (Olivia Williams) that Max and one of his teachers (Bill Murray) fall in love with, and you have all the twists and turns of a high school soap opera.
I was not impressed with the ending, but at least it was realistic. Most teenagers would enjoy the goofy humor, but parents may be wary. Not a bad movie for a rainy day.
Mr.F
Sadly, this film lacks a keen sense of direction...
2008-09-19 - I am a huge fan of `The Royal Tenenbaums', but I couldn't rally behind `Rushmore' the way I thought I would. The acting was superb across the board, and the humor, when it hit, was hilarious; but there was just something about this movie that didn't sit well with me. I found myself wondering where this movie was going; what point it was trying to make. There are many scenes where it feels like this movie doesn't know what kind of movie it wants to be. Is it a comedy, is it a drama, is it an intellectual farce, is it a tearjerker; is it neither? I found the contemplation of the films intent to be tiresome and draining and thus I found my feelings for the film in general to be rather indifferent.
I wanted to like this movie, but I didn't.
The film tells the story of Max Fisher (an outstanding Jason Schwartzman), a young fifteen-year-old who is just making it at Rushmore. He is failing everything yet his indulgence in extracurricular activities keeps him active in the school. He's fallen for the young widowed teacher Rosemary Cross and become friends with Rushmore alumnus and industrial tycoon Herman Blume. When those two friendships cross paths though, Max's world comes crashing down on him.
`Rushmore' is heralded by many as a near masterpiece and is placed alongside classics like `The Graduate' as one of the best coming-of-age stories out there, but I sorely disagree. What `The Graduate' has that `Rushmore' lacks is a common strain of thought. Instead of focusing its attention on a primary subject, `Rushmore' seems to barely find its footing, skirting along various focal points, never really settling down to uncover the meat of the film. I found some of the performances to feel disjointed from the film because they seemed to be from a completely different genre. Case-in-point; Schwartzman is purely comic while Olivia Williams is pure drama. There is a scene where Max confronts Rosemary about his feelings, and her response seemed so unnatural when taken in the context of the film; it just didn't flow.
Bill Murray is the only actor who actually `gets' it. His delivery is comic, yet in that subtly dramatic way (as he was in `Lost in Translation') and it seems to elevate each scene he is in. He plays Herman with the perfect mixture of misery and humor. His performance is so good that I'm appalled he was denied an Oscar nomination, despite his winning several critics awards. This isn't to say that Schwartzman and Williams aren't wonderful (Schwartzman is really at the top of his game, and the character fits him like a glove; and Williams is very moving in her scenes and understandably endearing) I just feel that they contradict one another in their approach to the material.
I can see why some adore this film, for it has its moments of quirky delightfulness, but in the end I feel that it misses what it was striving for and winds up being less than one would expect. If it had some better direction maybe, or any direction, the film would have realized its potential and made good use of its stars. I'll admit that the final Vietnam War themed school play was a hoot, but for the most part I found myself to bewildered to enjoy the humor.
