Rushmore (1998)

The extracurricular king of Rushmore preparatory school is put on academic probation.

Director:

Wes Anderson

Writers:

Wes Anderson, Owen Wilson

Stars:

Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Olivia Williams

Nominated for 1 Golden Globe. Another 15 wins & 15 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jason Schwartzman	...	Max Fischer
Bill Murray	...	Herman Blume
Olivia Williams	...	Rosemary Cross
Seymour Cassel	...	Bert Fischer
Brian Cox	...	Dr. Nelson Guggenheim
Mason Gamble	...	Dirk Calloway
Sara Tanaka	...	Margaret Yang
Stephen McCole	...	Magnus Buchan
Connie Nielsen	...	Mrs. Calloway
Luke Wilson	...	Dr. Peter Flynn
Dipak Pallana	...	Mr. Adams (as Deepak Pallana)
Andrew Wilson	...	Coach Beck
Marietta Marich	...	Mrs. Guggenheim
Ronnie McCawley	...	Ronny Blume
Keith McCawley	...	Donny Blume

Storyline

Max Fischer is a precocious 15-year-old whose reason for living is his attendance at Rushmore, a private school where he's not doing well in any of his classes, but where he's the king of extracurricular activities - from being in the beekeeping society to writing and producing plays, there's very little after school he doesn't do. His life begins to change, however, when he finds out he's on academic probation, and when he stumbles into love with Miss Cross, a pretty teacher of the elementary school at Rushmore. Added to the mix is his friendship with Herman Blume, wealthy industrialist and father to boys who attend the school, and who also finds himself attracted to Miss Cross. Max's fate becomes inextricably tied to this odd love triangle, and how he sets about resolving it is the story in the film.

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Plot Keywords:

coming of age | teacher | student | private school | friendship | 

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Taglines:

Love. Expulsion. Revolution.

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language and brief nudity

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Spanish Latin French

Release Date:

19 February 1999 (USA)

Also Known As:

Tres son multitud

Filming Locations:

Forest Club, 9950 Memorial Drive, Houston, Texas, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$11,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$43,666 (USA) (11 December 1998)

Gross:

£69,703 (UK) (20 August 1999)

Company Credits

Production Co:

American Empirical Pictures, Touchstone Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

93 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

In a shot of Max's petition to save Latin, the names of Jason Schwartzman's band mates from Phantom Planet (Alex Greenwald, Jacques Brautbar, Sam Farrar, and Darren Robinson), as well as the name of the band's manager (Dan Field) can be seen in the middle of the left column.

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Goofs

When Max is shown in the Model UN delegation as "Russia", he has an old, red Soviet Union flag on his desk (note the hammer and sickle), although the USSR fell in 1991. A closeup of Max's Swiss Army knife reveals that the story takes place in 1997, by which time the current white, blue, and red Russian flag was adopted.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Student: If, and only if, both sides of the numerator is divisible by the inverse of he square root of the two unassigned variable.
School Professor: Good. Except when the value of the "X" coordinate is equal to or less than the value of one. Yes Isaac?
Student: What about *that* problem?
School Professor: Oh, that? Don't worry about that.
Student: Wait. Why?
School Professor: I just put that up as a joke. That's probably the hardest geometry equation in the world.
Student: Well, how much extra credit is it worth?
School Professor: Well, considering I've never seen anyone get it right, ...

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Connections

Featured in The Rotten Tomatoes Show: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse/The Last Airbender/Grown Ups (2010)

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Soundtracks

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
Performed by The Vince Guaraldi Trio
Courtesy of Fantasy, Inc.

User Reviews

Most underrated movie of the late 90's

This is a love it or hate it kind of movie. I've watched this movie with people with a like-minded sense of humor and they always have a polarized reaction to it. Love it or hate it. Personally, it's in my top 10 movies. Max Fischer is the quintessential oddball kid. A phenom of extracurricular activities but still gets bad grades. He lacks social skills yet is bold enough to say what's on his mind. The genius of this film is how Anderson writes dialogue for his characters as adults but has kids saying the lines. Dirk steals the scenes as he confronts Bill Murray and spits on his car, plays a gun touting nun in Max's version of "Serpico" and is the cigarette smoking point man in the final play. Anderson has a great talent for having his characters be odd, yet still plausible. He can really balance that mix, yet still tell a story from his skewed reality. I hope I'm making sense because I just had six shots of whiskey and two Benydril and am nodding off. LOL. Anyway, this movie is about the pain of growing up, the pain of loneliness, the happiness of friendship, the ugliness that we are all capable of and ultimately for Max, redemption.

The scene where Max grabs a hold of the yellow kite and starts to get it all back together is great. Back dropped by Cat Steven's "The Wind", it's a wonderful meeting of film and music. Anderson has a knack for that. Great soundtrack all around. The closing scene is equally terrific. If you hate this movie, trust me, I understand...I hated it too. It wasn't until I saw it a second time that I saw it in a different light. It's a pretty special movie about growing up and forgiveness. If you happen to rent this, try to get the Criterion Edition; a lot of great extras in there. One last thought, Bill Murray gives a great, great performance as well as Olivia Williams, who, IMO, should had gotten an Oscar nod as well. OK, sleepy time...zzzz