Word: maxed
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...With each new movie, he ups the ante, symbolically slathering more mustard on the dog so that it becomes more about how much torment he can take rather than about the movie itself. The evolution of this Method throughout his career shoves subtlety where it don't shine. Mad Max meets Martin Riggs meets Braveheart equals Porter, the con man with a heart of Maria Bello. Yet, beneath all this viscerality lies a humor quotient liberally laced with self-deprecation. Above all, Gibson doesn't want us to take him seriously because he certainly doesn...
Rushmore, the idiosyncratic new comedy from Wes Anderson (Bottle Rocket), is a film of wonderfully conceived characters. Reflecting their smart dedication to originally, Anderson and co-writer Owen Wilson have devised a colorful, eccentric cast in which two figures stand out as inspired creation. That first is Max Fisher (Jason Schwartzman), a gangly combination of braces, horn-rimmed glasses, greasy black hair and loads of smug self-assurance. A pupil at the posh, upper-crust Rushmore Academy, Max is a bright kid but a lousy student, mainly because he serves as the head of nearly two dozen extracurricular activities, ranging...
Rushmore is not a film with a clear, distinct plot. Rather, it works with a story that is continually shifting gears. What begins as Max's struggle to maintain his self-identity while facing "sudden death academic probation" quickly changes into his dogged pursuit of a charming first grade teacher, Ms. Cross (Olivia Williams, free from the purgatory known as The Postman). Hoping to build an aquarium to impress her, Max enlists the help of Blume, a Rushmore benefactor whose vindictive speech against rich kids wins Max's friendship early on. Unfortunately, in a rather predictable twist, Blume also falls...
...truly great comedy. The laughs are there, but they are also isolated, and the film fails to build any comic momentum. It is an example of a movie that boasts fantastic scenes but which on the whole is not the most polished or cohesive product. The scene in which Max puts on his play--an adaptation of the gritty Al Pacino cop drama Serpico and a hard-boiled Vietnam epic--are comically brilliant, as is the montage that reveals all of Max's activities and the clever sequence in which Max and Blume play tricks on one another. But there...
...Blume with a smart mix of wisdom and adolescence. Over the last several years, Murray has carved a nice niche for himself with meaty supporting roles (Kingpin, Wild Things), and he continues the tradition with Rushmore. Whether stuffing a little kid on a playground basketball court or running over Max's bike and carrying it nonchalantly back to the bike rack, Murray is perfectly tuned into the essence of Herman Blume. Schwartzman, on the other hand, succeeds not because he easily slips into Max's air of self-confidence, but because he is willing to give the viewer glimpses...