Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Jason goes to the Beanbag Film Festival for HAROLD AND MAUDE and RUSHMORE

Excited to see a larger turnout last Friday night. I was otherwise engaged Saturday night so I didn't see the closing of the festival, but I hope this means it was successful enough to do it again. If I may make a suggestion, put it in the fall/winter when it gets dark early enough to not affect the first movie. This was particularly bad with the opening scene of HAROLD AND MAUDE.

Speaking of that movie, no need to review it. Everyone who has seen it knows how awesome it is, and if you haven't seen it just freakin' see it already. But I do want to point out one important, fleeting scene that I always manage to forget, because I somehow always wait several years between HAROLD AND MAUDE viewings. MAUDE, of course, is a Holocaust survivor. It's just a brief scene when Harold sees Maude's tattoo, and no one ever says anything about it, but it's there, near the end, and it retroactively colors everything in the movie. Maude is so full of life because she's seen so much death, and Harold is so infatuated with death because he's seen so little of it. Somehow I always get sucked into the oddness of the characters and am re-reminded of that message every time. Perhaps actually writing it down will help me remember this time.

And then RUSHMORE as the second film. Some interesting, obvious parallels, of course. But mostly it's just fun seeing the movie that not only introduced the audience to Jason Schwartzman but re-introduced us to the subtlety and wit of a mature Bill Murray. Those who were 'amazed' at his dramatic performance in LOST IN TRANSLATION should have known better, he's been doing some pretty fascinating work his whole career, and RUSHMORE was just one of the highlights.

Total Running Time: 184 minutes
My Total Minutes: 232,103

1 comment:

RomanyX said...

If anyone wants to see Murray turn in a terrific early dramatic performance, check out the undeservedly forgotten remake of THE RAZOR'S EDGE. I generally hate remakes, but that was excellent.