A Slice of Fried Gold: My Precious

I'm of a very fickle nature. I go through favorite things like most people go through underwear. Ask me hours apart and you will get two different favorite comics out right now. My favorite band recently changed, and as recently as three years ago it would change seemingly weekly. Since I started really watching TV "seriously" I've went through a number of favorite shows. My favorite shirt depends on my mood. I don't know if you've caught what I was doing there, but I was showing exactly how fickle I am...which is pretty darned fickle.

Which is why it's absolutely amazing that I have kept the same favorite movie since 1998 (ish). In late 1998/early 1999 (I honestly don't remember, I remember it was a few weeks before it was released but I don't remember when exactly it was) my Mom got tickets to go see Rushmore, the new movie by Wes Anderson. I had seen Anderson's first movie Bottle Rocket at the old Capri Theater here in Anchorage (coolest theater ever, just a tiny room with a little screen and only about 15 seats and it only played little independent movies) and I had really liked it, so I was very excited about seeing what he'd come up with next. That night I fell in love with this movie, and have loved it ever since, with it actually managing to maintain its position as my favorite for the entire time (and if I ever said otherwise, that was just my voice speaking not my heart. Yes that is the cheesiest thing you will ever hear me say or see me write...forgive me).

No less, I just rewatched it tonight because today while having coffee with my sister we discussed our favorite movies of all time and while she gave me a list of three favorites, the only movie I could give her as an adamant favorite was Rushmore. This little movie written and directed by Anderson and co-written by no less than Mr. Owen Wilson is amazing for many reasons, but here are a few...

Max Fischer: Greatest lead character ever, Jason Schwartzman makes this alternately insanely dorky and should be unlikeable 15 year old impossible to not like.
Herman Blume: Bill Murray's best performance ever and the fact that he didn't WIN an Oscar for this, let alone the fact he didn't even get nominated, is a travesty.
The soundtrack: All British Invasion, all awesome, plus a score by Mark Mothersbaugh (formerly of Devo).
The script: Incredibly quoteable (watch the movie and then look over the names of songs on various punk/emo bands of today's albums...ripoffs), amazingly touching (see first scene at the top), wonderfully subtle while always making you grin but not laugh hysterically. It also has some of the most honest relationships you'll ever see in movies, especially between Fischer and Blume.
Direction: This, in my opinion, is the one movie Wes Anderson has made that properly gets the balance between keeping interactions succinct and vaguely cold while still feeling very warm and touching at the same.
Montages: This movie has three of them, and they are all awesomely awesome. See second video for a taste of one of the montages

I mean come on, how can a movie NOT be awesome if it has three montages. Three! That reminds me of a certain part of Vanilla Sky where Cameron Diaz is going on about how four...somethings...means something. Well in terms of montages, one is great, two is pushing it, but three...three means something. I openly admit that this movie is not one for everybody. It is a very personal movie to me for some unknown reason, be it a connection to the lead or it just hit me at the right time or something else, I don't know. All I know is you owe it to yourself to check out my favorite movie, if only because if you are reading this page you likely don't hate what I have to say and what I have to say is you need to see this. Now. You're nearing a decade late and it is starting to just get sad.

To close...a quote from the movie (one that wasn't said but was written in a book that Max is reading in the movie) that is actually Jacques Yves Cousteau: