Rushmore

Jason Schwartzman Director: Wes Anderson Wes Anderson

Overview

Wes Anderson's sophomore effort, Rushmore, comes to DVD with a widescreen transfer that preserves the original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1. The English soundtrack is rendered in Dolby Digital 5.1. There are neither subtitles nor closed-captions on this release, and supplemental materials are limited to a theatrical trailer. This disc does a fine job presenting the film, but anyone wishing to take a deeper look at the film would do well with the more expensive, extras-laden Criterion version.

Product Details

Release Date:	06/29/1999
UPC:	0717951002983
Original Release:	1998
Rating:	R
Source:	Walt Disney Video
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital, stereo]
Time:	1:33:00
Sales rank:	25,210

Special Features

Widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio; Dolby digital 5.1 audio; Theatrical trailer; Chapter search

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Jason Schwartzman	Max Fischer
Bill Murray	Herman Blume
Olivia Williams	Rosemary Cross
Seymour Cassel	Bert Fischer
Brian Cox	Dr. Guggenheim
Mason Gamble	Dirk Calloway
Sara Tanaka	Margaret Yang
Stephen McCole	Magnus Buchan
Ronnie McCawley	Ronny Blume
Keith McCawley	Donny Blume
Connie Nielsen	Mrs. Calloway
Kim Terry	Mrs. Blume
Luke Wilson	Dr. Peter Flynn
Ed Geldart	Security Guard
Kumar Pallana	Mr. LittleJeans

Technical Credits

Wes Anderson

Owen Wilson

Wes Anderson	Director,Executive Producer,Screenwriter
Mary Gail Artz	Casting
Dan Bradford	Set Decoration/Design
John Cameron	Co-producer
Barbara Cohen	Casting
Andrew Laws	Art Director
Barry Mendel	Producer
David Moritz	Editor
Mark Mothersbaugh	Score Composer
Karen Patch	Costumes/Costume Designer
Randall Poster	Musical Direction/Supervision
Sandy Reynolds-Wasco	Set Decoration/Design
Paul Schiff	Producer
David Wasco	Production Designer
Pawel Wdowczak	Sound/Sound Designer
Owen Wilson	Executive Producer,Screenwriter
Robert Yeoman	Cinematographer

Scene Index

Chapter Selection
0. Chapter Selection
1. Program Start [:00]
2. Hardest Geometry Problem In The World [:11]
3. Mr. Blume's Chapel Speech [:17]
4. Sudden Death Academic Probation [2:02]
5. Harvard Is My Safety [2:03]
6. Rushmore Wrestling Squad [1:06]
7. "Serpico" [6:51]
8. Marine Observatory Fundraiser [:26]
9. Grover Clevland High School [2:53]
10. The Appleby Residence [3:06]
11. "Little Juan & 40 Ounce" [2:44]
12. You Are Forgiven [:17]
13. Miss Cross "Loses It" [2:54]
14. Eloise Fischer [4:13]
15. War Does Funny Things To Men [2:22]
16. Remote Controlled Airplane Scene [1:57]
17. Perfect Attendance/Punctuality Awards [2:44]
18. January [4:10]
19. "Heaven & Hell" Cotillion [2:50]
20. End Credits [1:05]

Menu

Main
   Menu Group #1 with 21 chapter(s) covering 01:32:44
Bonus Material
   Theatrical Trailer
   Film Recommendations
Captions
Play

Editorial Reviews

Unappreciated at the box office, Rushmore is nevertheless a poignant comedy that deals with heartbreak, cross-generational friendship, class, ambition, and emotional resurrection -- not to mention the variegated ways to say and mean a word like "handjob." The plot traces four months in the life of Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman), a high school sophomore on a scholarship to Rushmore Academy, where he is both the most prolific club-founder and worst student. Over the course of a few days in September, he befriends a steel tycoon, Herman Blume (Bill Murray), and a fourth-grade teacher, Ms. Cross (Olivia Williams). Smitten with Ms. Cross, he illegally builds an aquarium dedicated to her -- a project that gets him expelled from the academy. Adding insult to injury, he also discovers Cross and Blume have taken up with each other, and so November is marked by his forlorn withdrawal from the world. By December, he has bounced back with a new play, based on his pain and parts of his friends' lives, delivering Heaven and Hell, one of the greatest school dramas known to mankind. Rushmore is Wes Anderson's follow-up to his immensely likeable debut, Bottle Rocket, and establishes the director as an equal in the deep-dish comedy realm of Stanley Kubrick (Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb) and Hal Ashby (Harold and Maude). Overall, the deluxe DVD packaging and amusing extras go a long way to carving out Rushmore's place as the warm, rich piece of comic poetry it is.

Barnes & Noble

Defying slick 1990s teen-flick clichés, Rushmore (1998) is a humorously deadpan, emotionally sincere coming-of-age story. Though set in the 1990s, writer/director Wes Anderson and co-writer Owen Wilson evoke a 1960s and '70s spirit of unabashed iconoclasm and eccentricity, complete with a '60s British Invasion soundtrack; Max Fischer is a non-suicidal Harold Chasen crossed with an ambitious Benjamin Braddock. Anderson, Wilson, and novice actor (and Francis Ford Coppola nephew) Jason Schwartzman dare to make Max a self-assured nerd and a wrong-side-of-the-tracks prodigy who is never simperingly likable even as he succeeds in charming friends and enemies. Along with Max's comically zealous, film-literate stage productions of Serpico and the Vietnam War, Anderson's astute widescreen compositions, film-speed shifts, and camera movements similarly recall French and American New Wave vitality. Among the excellent cast, Bill Murray gives a career-best performance as the despondent tycoon who sees a kindred spirit in the bespectacled teen, exuding genuine sadness about his life while he goes mano a mano with Max for teacher Olivia Williams' affection. Earning high marks for wit and originality (but sadly no Oscar nomination for Murray), Rushmore served notice that the creators of cult favorite Bottle Rocket (1996) had truly arrived.

All Movie Guide - Lucia Bozzola