Rushmore

Blazers on, we're SAVING LATIN with Wes Anderson's sophomore feature and the birth of his indelible aesthetic. This one's a love fest as we rediscover Wes's grand thesis on the beauty of the fallible human heart, in full bloom. Jason Schwartzman's debut. Bill Murray at his absolute best. Enjoy!

Transcript

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SPEAKER_03 0:00

Aletia, is this our first Wes Anderson movie?

SPEAKER_02 0:04

This is our first Wes Anderson movie, which uh seems which seems a little ridiculous. I mean because we uh uh the other Anderson, we l we love Wes Anderson and always have, I guess. The Other Anderson. Well, I guess I I've never, though I love most of his films, I've never been like super inspired by him the way I have Paul Thomas Anderson.

SPEAKER_03 0:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Um Alright.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

But you know what? This is a really great one to start with, because you know, it's uh it's a roots movie. It's sort of the beginning of what he would become. There is so much to tease out, and also the beginning of so many things. You know what? Let's just let's get right into it. But let's start with, of course, you know, in a line that has been echoing around my head for decades now. I say platinum. What did you ever do? Alright, Aletia, let's go. What do you say?

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_04 0:58

And now we're pleased to bring you our feature presentation.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

We made Rushmore in my high school. Um so the strongest association for me is is being back in class, essentially, you know, literally in the same classrooms. Um and, you know, it's the only movie it's you know, one of the few experiences I've I've had where I've uh, you know, we we had written these scenes, but all these scenes, I was picturing the exact spots where we shot it. I I I didn't expect to shoot the movie in Texas, even. And in fact, at one point we had found a school in Scotland that we thought might be better. Um and um, you know, we were looking all over the place. In the end, the thing that probably strikes me the most f forcefully when I think back on it is just that I was went home. As soon as I met Jason, I felt like this is a kindred spirit. Uh uh, you know, I'd been I'd been searching for someone to play this part for for uh certainly over a year at that point. And not only did he I mean, before he read for the part, he just 30 seconds of conversation, I thought, uh, well, I like this guy. Um you know, he was 17, but he seemed like someone that any of us could be friends with immediately. And, you know, it was only a matter of minutes before I thought, well, we can close down this office. We've f we've completed our task. And Jason and I have been uh close friends from you know from that moment. And looking back, uh I don't even know how we managed to get Rushmore made or why. Because uh, you know, Bottle Rocket, we'd spent many years uh making this movie, well uh uh virtually no one saw it. Then rushmore was more expensive and uh maybe even a bit stranger, and yet it seemed to just happen. Um so um I think it was just lucky. Um but I guess also, you know, we did spend a lot of we spent years uh uh working on the movie, putting it together. Um but I feel like when when we made Bottle Rocket, I felt a uh confidence about what I was doing um that I never really had again. Uh uh once we showed the movie publicly and I saw that people could reject this completely, which they which is exactly what happened, um that changed my perspective permanently about what it's like to to sh you know to bring a movie to an audience and what you can expect. But it didn't make me change how I went about doing Rushmore. I mean, once Bottle Rocket was finished and suddenly someone said, well, do another one, then then that was what I was really focused on.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

All right, Danny. Uh welcome to Rushmore Academy.

SPEAKER_03 4:13

Uh am I?

SPEAKER_02 4:14

And welcome back to Queer Projection. I'm Alethea St. Joan. And Danny, who are you?

SPEAKER_03 4:20

Uh, I'm Danny Carroll.

SPEAKER_02 4:21

That's Danny Carroll right there. That's Danny Carroll talking. What a privilege. Uh, all right, so that's who we are, and this is the podcast in which we we revisit the films of our closeted queer youths in the 90s and 2000s, and then we re-examine them as arguably maladjusted queer adults in uh this year of 2026. We've been best friends since the late 90s people, and in our looks back into our celluloid past, we're finding queer themes damn near everywhere. Join us.

SPEAKER_03 4:48

Uh it is so true, and I am so glad to do this movie because, you know, we've been rolling with some things this season that I think have a lot of obvious queer things going on, or we just don't really get into the queer stuff because there's so much more we're gonna talk about. But in this one, I'm really gonna be looking for queer themes, okay? So I kind of want to know where you think they are because it has been a really hot second since I have seen this movie. I am so excited. It's one of my favorites, it really is.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

I don't know, it's hard because I have several favorite Wes Anderson films because he's uh he's he's got a very good batting average. Um, but I think it's still the one I like to watch the most, even though it's like really the beginning of. I mean, Bottle Rocket had this too, but it's really the beginning of like the really recognizable, like Wes Anderson brand that everybody knows now, but without like the layers of ostentatious production design or anything like that yet.

SPEAKER_03 5:39

And with like more authentic performances and things like that, more real, real performances.

SPEAKER_02 5:45

Um This is not a knock on his more recent work. I've I've loved most of his recent films as well.

SPEAKER_03 5:51

But it's so clear that he has gotten to the place where he wants his actors to kind of strike a an Ionesco thing or or I don't know, a s uh um a Pinter thing where they sort of strip themselves of emotion and let the text do the emotion. You know, that sort of stuff, especially in like Asteroid Canyon, uh right? Asteroid City. Asteroid City.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

Um I love Asteroid City. That's my favorite of his recent books.

SPEAKER_03 6:15

It is beautiful. Okay. Uh but you know, we definitely saw this when we were what, juniors, seniors in high school.

SPEAKER_02 6:22

Definitely probably tenth grade-ish around there. This would have been one of the first criterions I probably owned.

SPEAKER_03 6:28

So I I think I think why this is also just a great Wes Anderson movie to start with is because I think we felt a little too seen by this movie, or at least I did, you know? Uh at just sort of the right moment. Like I really genuinely feel like I saw Rushmore at the right time to sort of calibrate my own ego problems, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

You know, this yeah, this character's also an interesting blend of like the two just kind of like mega like nerds that we kind of were. Um that like he was a he's a theater maker, but he puts on but he just puts on productions of like 70s crime films.

SPEAKER_03 7:08

Yeah, so it's like more.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

Yeah, yeah, you know. What is he do? What's the other one? Serprico, I believe. Um it's just so good. Oh, it's so fucking funny. They have like fake cocaine in a high school production. It's so funny.

SPEAKER_03 7:22

But yeah, but also, um, and we can really get into this later on, uh, but you know, probably Wes Anderson very much doing some self-reflection as well.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Oh yeah. Yeah. Also, this is the the first time he collaborated with Bill Murray, and honestly, I this might be maybe my favorite Bill Murray performance. Well, so you know what?

SPEAKER_03 7:42

I but I dug into things a little bit before we got started today, and and one of the things uh that one of the sort of anecdotes that I read that was really interesting to me, um, was that, you know, this part was written for Bill Murray. But when they were writing it, they were just were so sure they weren't gonna be able to get him that they were, you know, speculating about other people, and I don't know who the other people were, but because they had gotten enough buzz for Bottle Rocket at the time, Bill Murray's agent was a big fan, read the script and pushed it on Bill Murray. Bill Murray loved it and was like, I'll do it for scale. And apparently that was something like 9,000 it was some crazy low number. And uh they were able to just fit him into the budget that way, and it sort of jump started Bill Murray's later act as this sort of more serious, authentic character because he was able to use this movie to sort of bridge that gap. And everybody thinks Lost in Translation was that movie, but I think it was this movie, you know?

SPEAKER_02 8:42

Lost in Translation is when he really kind of arrived like culturally in that mode, and then it was followed up with like a Jim Jarmish movie, Broken Flowers, and things, but he built up to that with uh a few role uh subsequent roles in um Wes Anderson films. And you know what? I think we probably would have gotten into this around 2003 because Royal Tenen Bombs had just come out, and I remember I remember having it on video and it was a white VHS tape, and I remember all the adults in my life saying how terrible it was. Um But Life Aquatic was life, Life Aquatic was about to come out, so I think that was one of that was one of our early like uh you know uh getting to see it in theaters, yeah. But also like the Apple trailers that we would like obsess over. Remember those?

SPEAKER_03 9:24

Oh god it. What it wasn't it just Apple Dot trailers or something, you know?

SPEAKER_02 9:27

I think so, yeah. Ugh, so good. We really peaked as a culture that we should have stopped.

SPEAKER_03 9:34

Well, you know, maybe we get another chance, who knows?

SPEAKER_02 9:36

Like flip phones and Ti-Vo and some digital theaters, but still a lot of film. It was great.

SPEAKER_03 9:42

I don't know. I don't know what's gonna happen. I still haven't read Heroes of the Fourth Turning. Alright, so let's maybe just get into it, you know, let's watch the movie and things like that. But I think it would be worth maybe talking about the ways that the sort of things going on in this movie hit a square between the eyes. I don't know. You seemed and I don't want to like prompt my own therapy right now, but you definitely were like, we need to talk about your teenage playwriting for age.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

Oh, oh, oh yes. Uh two um d uh delightful little pieces, Transcend My Pancakes and Behind Door 262, both of which I I was in both of those, wasn't I? You were. You were. Um for some reason I only remember being in Door 262, but I believe you that I was in Transcend My Pancakes.

SPEAKER_03 10:28

Uh God, if you weren't. No, maybe you weren't. Oh no, yeah, you were, you were, you were, you were. Okay. Did I improvise a lot of it? No, no, I just like wrote like a mean character for you. Um But no no, so okay. So this is the thing, is that, you know, I uh I had this like huge period where I was just like really you know, not invested in skill or craft or like being a good writer. I was very much just invested in having as much on its feet as possible, which with as many people involved and as much spectacle as possible. Um and that which followed me all the way to graduate school where I sort of got there and realized, oh shit, I actually have to like develop a voice or something. Um and and I I I sort of felt a little haunted by the stuff going on in this movie because deep down I realized I genuinely did kind of want to put like live helicopters on stage and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

I know that stagecraft is so comically like uh well done.

SPEAKER_03 11:32

Right. But knew but knew firmly when I was watching this movie that this movie was lampooning a type of kid, and like maybe I was this kind of kid, but like a super low-tier version of this kid, because his kid's at a private school, he's got all these resources and advantage.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

I just like But he but he he's at a private school, but he's not from wealth. Like he got in there like on a fluke, his dad's played by Seymour Cassell from all the great John Cassavetti's films.

SPEAKER_03 11:58

I I know, but again, it's that sort of sense like I d I don't know, I uh maybe it came to me later in life, but uh there is just sort of a non-place thing going on in Clifton Park where like i I just didn't even feel like that kind of happenstance would be possible, you know? Like and that I don't know, okay. We'll get deeper into it later on. Um But uh But yeah, no, I I think this is going to evoke a lot of strange feelings about a very specific period of time, um, and I'm excited for that discomfort. I'll put it that way.

SPEAKER_02 12:40

I think another thing that also just really spoke to me then uh and and still does, is uh the the tenor of uh Jason Schwartzman's performance, which I think is one of the best young actor performances ever. His kind of uh ruthless ambition mixed with his like uh naivete and uh the like sardonic nature of his uh uh point of view and the way he deals with people was just very appealing to me and very funny. Yes. No, can I tell you?

SPEAKER_03 13:12

No, I swear to God, I have a world view built into like a a Wes Anderson convention. A convention is really so sharp in this movie. It's his sort of slow-motion, sentimental music curtain call that he'll do at the end of his movies, where he will just sort of have the cast there, and everybody you know, it's it's in this movie, it's everybody's dancing in the theater to oolala. Uh in Royal Tenobombs, they're all walking out of the graveyard, right? I forget the song. Oh my god, that sequence.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

Oh we gotta do oh we gotta do Royal Tenabombs.

SPEAKER_03 13:45

I just I see the world that way. Like I just I don't know how to exactly explain that or communicate that, but like something about how I treasure life experience is sort of slow motion ensemble shots with sentimental music. I don't I don't know. Okay. Anyway, let's go, let's watch the movie. What do you think?

SPEAKER_02 14:08

Uh I'm very excited to rewatch this. This is one I've definitely watched a few times over the years, but not in a bit. And I I I presume it will be a joy to revisit as it always has been.

SPEAKER_03 14:18

Yeah. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Wait. Do you remember? Oh, this relates to you as well. Danny used to wear scrubs to bed. You had a phase where you did that. Did I? Yeah, remember? You used to wear scrubs as pajamas. I think probably because your mom just had access to them or something.

SPEAKER_03 14:33

It's true. I I guess I did.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

So that reminds me of one of my favorite jokes in the movie when Luke Wilson is playing uh so part part of part of this is Rushmore. Uh Max, played by Jason Schwartzman, falls in love with his adult teacher. And uh there's a scene where she brings a date to the opening of his play, and the date's played by Luke Wilson, and he's a surgeon or something, and he just came from the hospital and he's in his OR scrubs. And uh Jason Schwartzman is allowed to drink is is is allowed by Bill and Murray to drink alcohol, so he starts getting like really mouthy and he's like really jealous. And he's like, You didn't even like dress up to come to a premiere. What you know, what are you even wearing? And Luke Wilson goes, They're OR scrubs, and he says, Oh, are they?

SPEAKER_03 15:15

Okay, well, I yeah, good quote. And also you've already uncovered a memory that I had dismissed to the to the dusty bin. So wow, I can picture the scrubs clearly now. This is see, this is creepy.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

But I couldn't really but I could only remember being in one of your plays when I was allegedly in two.

SPEAKER_03 15:32

Oh god, the desperate desperate search for memory.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

We started smoking weed young, so our memory is encase is encased in a cloud of cannabis fumes.

SPEAKER_03 15:42

No, we're not gonna talk about weed that way on this podcast. I won't do it. All right, let's go watch the movie. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

So, how do you go from that thinking this is not really the thing I want to do necessarily, actively or passively, to auditioning for Rushmore? Well, what happened was that I was making a I was making a record, I was in a band at the time called Phantom Planet, and we were making our um we were making our first album, and uh we had been together since 1994, so this was 1997, and I just entered my senior year of high school, and my grandfather, Carmine Coppola, um he is a composer, and my uncle Francis was having a uh a celebration. He'd scored a film and they were having a celebration, he was my grandfather's dead at this time, but having uh celebrate an orchestra come play um these pieces of music for a charity type event. Yeah. And I was at this party, there was a casting I guess Rushmore had casting directors in in different cities, um, as is very typical of movies. One of the casting directors for the San Fran from the San Francisco agency or whatever, uh, was at this party. Uh she she she knew my family somehow, and she was talking to my cousin Sophia and asked her, and Sophia said, What are you working on? And she said, Oh, we're uh casting this movie called Rushmore, and you know, we're trying to, we're auditioning kids, and um and she said, What's it about? And she said, It's about an eccentric teenager who's in love with an older woman and who writes plays and things. And um she said, That sounds kind of like my cousin. And I had uh done uh written a play like a year before, and I was in love with this older woman, and a lot of things added up. But uh so I met the w but but you know, I met this woman and she said, Are you uh uh hi, are you an actor? I said, No, I'm not an actor, I'm a drummer. And she said, Well, I'm casting a movie in Los Angeles, and you know, if you'd like to go in and audition, we're we're seeing lots of we're having these open auditions, you should go. And I said, Well, that's uh it would be a real waste of your time. And um I'm not an actor, and she said, You should try, you should go, you should read the script. I think you really I mean, from you know, you could do and I I think I was wearing a like because I was socially awkward and a little bit of a clown, I was wearing a tuxedo with tails, and uh and I had like a top hat, I think. Like I was like, I'd gone like it was like, oh, orchestra party? Great, let's see that. Uh so I really was like going for it. And so, I mean, I she was like, you seem maybe like this. So um anyway, I gave her my I gave her my and also if you're uh and no offense, but like I guess me as a drummer in a band, you're not used to getting like that kind of attention. Right. You know, like someone saying, like, you should audition for something that's like typically the guitar player, the singers get that. Right. And so I wasn't used to someone keep talking, and so in my mind, I'm going, look, we just there's four other guys you should talk to that uh, you know, in my band that are pretty cool. So they sent the script uh to my house the next day. I was I went home, I read it, and I remember going, like, oh my god, this is everything I find funny. And um, and and I also thought, man, whoever gets to be in this is so it's me so lucky, I can't wait to see this movie.

SPEAKER_03 18:53

All right, good morning, Alicia. Hello, hello. Good morning, how are you? So that movie, I had an unexpectedly emotional reaction to that movie. I'm so glad we watched this. I I'm so glad we watched this. Yeah. Can we just can we just wipe the slate for the rest of the season and just do Wes Anderson movies from here on out? I just have so much to say about the style. What about you? How are you how are you feeling?

SPEAKER_02 19:17

I've seen this movie many, many times, but yeah, certain things did strike me uh anew about this one. First of all, I think my my just eternal love for it is only solidified the older I get. Yeah. I found myself uh much more I don't want to say moved, but kind of just disturbed and concerned for Max uh in the scenes where he gets in the third act, like like super intense and inappropriate with that teacher. Oh, yeah. When he goes to our apartment and fakes like having an injury and stuff. Like I had I had forgotten just how like invasive he was like willing to get. Not to mention the like two moments of attempted murder. Well those those are funny.

SPEAKER_03 19:55

That's presented in like a Looney Tunes kind of way, but it's true, but if you go with the real, real, you know, he tried to he tried to he cut his brakes and tried to have a tree fall on him.

SPEAKER_02 20:05

And he put bees put bees at his uh hotel rooms.

SPEAKER_03 20:09

Oh god, the look on Bill Murray's face, the smile that like folds into a grimace when he sees the uh see, okay, so much happening there. So, okay, I was just so caught up in I don't know, just how elegant the morality play of this is that I kind of forgot to look for the queer stuff a little bit, but I do have a thesis for where we can go in on that. And I do think it is somewhere in Max's really insecure performing of manhood. Now, like not masculinity, you know, that's that's key. Because, you know, b young boys perform masculinity all the time. It's like he does something else, he is performing manhood, you know, stature, uh, status and things way, way before you know he's earned them. You know, that's the obvious thing about this movie, I think, that it's it's all about just sort of an examination of of youthful ambition and ambition period. But I do think there's more stuff going on there about you know, Max's misunderstanding of how a man exists in the world. And you know, I think there's plenty to talk about ex for myself, just as a gay man in the world, but uh, you know, as a trans woman, you must have also a lot of interesting things to say about you know how manhood is performed out there in the world.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

So goodness. Um and you know what you know what's you know what's interesting is uh despite all that, he has uh a father figure who is the embodiment of like kind of what a uh you know, man should be. Not like the not in a superficial sense, but just in the sense of Of always being a figure of loving and caring, and you know, not succumbing to anger, and yeah, just being like a sweetheart. That's why you cast Steamar Cassell. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:10

I mean, it's so so many moments in this movie that really were just heart-wrenching for me involved the father. You know, just to, you know, zero in on the sort of intense emotional reaction I had when Max brings Herman, Bill Murray's character, in to meet his father for the first time to get a haircut. And just the the way Bill Murray just sort of relaxes upon realizing what is happening here, I burst into tears. I burst into tears. I started crying because it's just uh it suddenly so many things that were perplexing him about what he was seeing in Max and what it meant about himself and all this stuff. It just suddenly clicked and made sense once he realized it all boiled down to just sort of boyhood insecurity about dad. It's ugh.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

And he's probably he's probably he's probably seeing the resolution or relaxation of certain things in Max that have never been resolved in him.

SPEAKER_03 23:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

Because he's he's a bit of an overgrown child in a in a successful man's body.

SPEAKER_03 23:14

Right. But also you can tell, you know, they set him up as genuinely successful. He is this huge steel mill, I think is what it is.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

Um But he still has petty resentments. Like the first time we see him, he's giving that speech, and he's uh what is he saying? Take aim at the rich boys, put them in your crosshairs, and take them down.

SPEAKER_03 23:36

It is such it is so good. I felt that. I felt it. I I unfortunately think in some ways that's what I've been doing for a very long time.

SPEAKER_02 23:45

And I I don't know if I was supposed to take that lesson or not, but this this has some of my favorite Bill Murray laugh moments in any movie ever. Like just that that throwaway moment where he's talking to Max on the phone and then he sees the little kids playing basketball across from, and then he runs up and just smacks the ball out of their hands.

unknown 24:01

Right?

SPEAKER_02 24:02

Which you can tell is so clearly something that he just did, like between takes and they got it on camera.

SPEAKER_03 24:08

Oh god, I love uh okay, uh we'll we'll circle back to the manhood thing, but this just brings up for me one of the key things about a Wes Anderson movie that is so alive in this, in that he wastes not a single moment on screen. Okay? Like every frame is just so loaded with something. And the stuff that's transitional that he can't loan with load with meaning, you know, he loads with quirk. Or or he finds a way to to I don't know, pull you through the strange meaning with a strange quirk. I don't know. What comes to mind for me is he's so good at the use of like weird people, especially like weird kids. And there's that one sort of like silent, I think like first grader who's in Miss uh Caldwell, Callaway? Wait, what's her name?

SPEAKER_02 25:03

Is it the we is it the weird, like Igor-looking kid who like he sees at the pool and then he's like swimming griffy? Yeah. As soon as I saw that, I was like, that's a Danny character.

SPEAKER_03 25:11

That's something that Danny was like, oh, because he's such like a little alien. And but no no, that moment when like Bill Murray's watching his wife sort of, you know, emotionally cheat on him from across the pool, and he's just sort of throwing the balls into the pool. The kid just sort of like walks into flame f frame and stares suspiciously at Bill Murray before snatching away like a cupcake or something from the table and running away.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

I thought of you as I thought of you as soon as I saw that kid.

SPEAKER_03 25:40

It's just so good. But also the fact that he's like foreground featured in the final sort of curtain call, almost quite literal curtain call in this movie because it's in front of a curtain, slow motion, all character shot that I just love in Wes Anderson movies. You know, in the in the slow zoom out, you know, the the this kid just comes into foreground just dancing weird in slow motion, and it's just such a good just finesse, such a good element.

SPEAKER_02 26:12

Um, that's one of his that's one of his um great strengths as an image maker and a director actor.

SPEAKER_03 26:18

Oh yeah, oh oh yeah. Just choices and just so you you know, you could see the design choices and the specificity really still alive in this, even if it isn't dressed in the sort of crazy colors and shapes and things that we've come to, you know, recognize from a Wes Anderson movie. Uh it's still so there.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

I think maybe that's possibly why some people have a very love-hate relationship with him, or have just really uh been turned off to his to his more recent works, because I feel like some people think he still could be telling stories like on the level of Rushmore and still sort of flirting with uh the stylistic ambition that has really exploded in his later works, but without overwhelming it, which is I think what a lot of people kind of think his films are like now. Um I mean, which they don't do bad on some levels. They don't all work for me, but about 80% of the time, like I I I mostly like his new stuff, except for French Dispatch didn't really work for me. And Phoenician Scheme I would need to see again, even though it's the Benicio del Toro show. But um otherwise, I don't really agree with the criticisms. I think everybody says he makes the same movie now, and it like he l like he uses a lot of the same visual um uh trappings and things like that, but there is so much variation and so much uh digging deeper with every single story that he continues to tell. Like people just aren't paying attention, I think.

SPEAKER_03 27:47

Because he he's not telling the same story every time because he really does zoom in on some of the human stuff that can really tear you apart, you know, like the real long day's journey into night style questions about human existence and our relationships to ourselves and people, they're different every time, but they still, I guess, sort of, you know, the the stuff that's really gonna break your heart is about the love in your life, and that's gonna be family and and romance and and uh attachment to to country. I'm thinking, I guess, in Grand Budapest? Um yeah, Grand Budapest. Like, like everything is driven by such such a warm and tender view of the human heart and just the human condition.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

Yeah, exactly. God, Grand Budapest, we gotta do that at some point. I fucking love that movie.

SPEAKER_03 28:45

Wes Anderson just he just I see, okay. I what that's what I think is so elegant about this movie in so many ways, is because we are seeing both Max and Herman express some real, I would say somewhat irredeemable character flaws, you know? The stuff that these days would be like, oh, that person is toxic as hell. Like, stay away, cut him off. Like, this movie takes us through doing the work of how you fix somebody's heart who's like that, you know? And he's like, and Wes Anderson is like, fuck you, it's easy, you know? Like, people are going to be driven to do terrible things through petty jealousies. People are going to be driven to lies and manipulations because of a deep feeling of insecurity. But like, we can do something about these things by p seeing each other, you know? I I Wes Anderson really believes that. I really believe that. And I just I don't know, there are no real I I never see evil in any of Wes Anderson's movies. You know, maybe with the exception talking about Grand Budapest Hotel of the like the the the soldiers that drag them off the train and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

Yeah, you know, i the he he has no villains that aren't But even then the the uh the general comes in played by Edward Norton and he he remembers a kindness that um Yes uh Ray Fine's character uh had visited upon him or someone he loved and he you know lets them lets them buy.

SPEAKER_03 30:28

Jesus would love Wes Henderson movies. You know, he would love them.

SPEAKER_02 30:32

I'm surprised he hasn't done a Jesus story yet. Can't believe.

SPEAKER_03 30:35

Can't believe it with they're all Jesus stories, Alethea.

SPEAKER_02 30:39

Um, but he should just he should go full Scorsese and just do the story just in his own way.

SPEAKER_03 30:45

Oh, that would be so good. It's Quirky Christ. Yeah, but no, no, no, no. I do think there is a sort of a grand thesis about the stories he try he he decides to tell and that he has real faith in humanity. And and it's just such a relief. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 31:02

I just feel like I generally agree with you on your assessment of humanity. Although I do have some lines in the sand where I don't necessarily think you're past redemption, but you're kind of past redemption with me. Right. That's the way to do that. And I would like you not in my life, even though I wish you well.

SPEAKER_03 31:17

The the bigger the problem your, you know, somebody poses, the bigger, you know, the harder the the work that it takes. And that's you know, it's a real assessment to decide whether that's gonna be you, you know, or whether it's better for you to just be like, you know what, that's gonna have to be somebody else's problem. That's a real thing.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

It's a very real thing, and uh, without naming a specific, it's something that's been on my mind lately.

SPEAKER_03 31:48

So Yeah. Yeah, very much so. But you know, I think that is what we are meant to understand. And oh god, I gotta get this right. Is it Calloway? What's the teacher's name?

SPEAKER_02 31:58

M Miss Callaway.

SPEAKER_03 32:00

Miss Calloway, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

Uh I love her. Remember, she was in uh The Sixth Sense. Um the Stars, which is a fucked up movie. Danny, have you ever seen Maps of the Stars?

SPEAKER_03 32:12

No, what is it?

SPEAKER_02 32:13

Oh my god. It's uh it's it's it's one of the darkest, most disturbing, but also funniest uh Hollywood satires I've ever seen. Julianne Moore won the Oscar that year for the wrong movie. Oh god. Yeah. Okay. She I will have to take a look. She gives a fearless and quite fucked up performance.

unknown 32:31

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:32

I will take a look. Yeah, but no, that character, Mrs. Callaway, you know, she she plays us a little bit. She she's like, no, no, no. This is kind of how people like like this ought to be reacted to. And and her really scathing, sort of undressing of all the care of both characters in some ways, is very much earned, you know, in every in every single way. And I'm sure watching the movie, there's so many people that just like were like, yeah, that's what I wanted to say to that character. But I don't know. There's something about like what he's saying, in that, okay, the characters, these flawed characters, they then have to listen to these words, hear these words, and then experience something that makes those words hit home. And that is something that it's kind of lost in the weeds for me, whether that's a storytelling device or an explanation, like an ethics explanation for how to deal with people like this. Like, I don't know. So, okay, was there anything you wanted to necessarily say? Because I want to sort of circle back to talking about how this movie talks about manhood and masculinity.

SPEAKER_02 33:42

Right, yeah, that's that's what I was gonna say. You were you were you were making a point about uh uh specifically how Max's performance of not masculinity, but specifically manhood. If you could uh elucidate uh what you s think in this instance is the difference between those two things and exactly how Max does that, and how it relates to queer themes.

SPEAKER_03 34:03

Well, I okay, so I think I relate very much to the character that of Max that's being set up here. I was definitely an ambitious kid, and I had big ideas and I had big feelings and I had big ideas about myself, and you know, I like Max didn't have great grades. So I was really sort of insecure about the idea of being smart because it was like I felt like I was smart and I was being perceived as not smart, and I had to find some way to like end run around this whole grades thing to make people understand that I was smart. And I think, especially in high school, you know, the playwriting thing, just like Max, was my my sort of end-run, you know, like my my way of being like, hey, look at me, look at me, look at me, I'm one of the I'm one of the intelligent ones. Don't disregard me, don't write me off, please, please, please. Um, and then sort of getting like ahead of that. It also just might have been like the family environments we were growing up in. Like, I I think your and this might be a misreading, but I might be wrong, but I think like your your parents um and your family in general, like very much understood themselves as working class people and brought a different sort of energy to the very idea of ambitions and like how you how you talk about them and how you display them to the world, and whereas my parents, they were both sort of from sort of like, you know, f fallen fortunes a little bit, like uh upper middle class stuff that had sort of faltered, and so I think they were sort of triangulating the idea that they were maybe working class, and that was rubbing off on me in in perplexing ways. Max, Max sort of being sort of this, you know, he him being smart enough that all these things are falling into him. He's getting the stimuli, this environment, this wealthy environment, he's seeing the people around him, and it's just like not lining up with what he's seeing at home, and and so it sort of like fractures him into having to become like a character, you know, a a version of themselves that they're like, okay, inside I know this isn't me, but if I can build this precisely enough, I can just sort of grow into it. I I think what Wes Anderson wants us to do here is see how much he might be unconscious about how consciously he's doing things, you know? That he might not recognize this as performance. He's just like, nah, like missing the fake it part of fake it till you make it, you know? Not not being fully cognizant that he might not be the things he purports to be.

SPEAKER_02 36:52

Here's an interesting layer upon all that, though. So there's a scene early on, uh, right after they uh Max and Billemary meet, and Billemary's in his car waiting to pick up his kids, who first of all, the the little red-headed breeds who play his kids are hilarious, and the fact that he hates them so much makes me laugh. Um like when they turn up when they turn down the air conditioning, it just blows his hair back. I didn't know.

SPEAKER_03 37:16

I think when he's like, I cannot some the line is like, in a million years, I never thought I would have sons like these. And it just cut it cuts to the wrestling mat, and one of the kids is just like, oh, like really enjoying being like on top of this other guy and in his face.

SPEAKER_02 37:31

Oh my god, my favorite part though is when they're driving away from Rushmore after he's picked them up and he's like, You gonna invite that kid to your birthday party? And they're like, No, there's gonna be girls there. Get your head out of your ass. And there's a pause, and then he just reaches back and starts like pounding on his.

SPEAKER_03 37:45

Or they lock him out. Oh god, look at just the fumelity on his face.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

Okay, anyway, but it aggressive. But anyway, that scene, Max is like a crossing guard or something, and Bill Murray just stares at him kind of quizzically and with a a sprinkle of awe in his eye and says, What's the secret, Max? Max is like, secret, and he's like, Yeah, you seem to have it all figured out. And he goes, I think you just need to figure out, find something that you love to do, and do it forever. And for me, that's going to Rushmore. And this is like either right before or right after that montage of the just insane amount of curricular activities that he does.

unknown 38:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:19

And so it's like he doesn't have any particular interest in any particular subject. It's just him like just drawing as much and being as on top of going to the school, being a poor person in sort of a rich kid's world, uh, that he possibly can.

SPEAKER_03 38:37

There's something so tragic about that because for me it's like he recognizes uh it it is God, it is I would uh I would never go back to being like 15 to 19 years old. Those are uh they were sort of such just like emotionally sort of self-identity, just like wretched periods. Because you really do on some level understand that in these institutional environments, you sort of have everything available to you, but only right now. And you have to figure out how to fucking use it to the best of your abilities, because the way everything plays out is gonna be predicated on how you use the opportunity of everything right now. What a miserable state, you know? Because you at that moment in your life do not know who you are, you know? No matter how hard you try at that age, you do not know who you are because you need the next 10 to 15 years of mistakes and relationships and experiences to triangulate the kind of person you are. You know, you have a sense of who you are and who you want to be, but until you rub up on the stuff of the world, you're not going to be able to do the self-reflection that says, oh, I reacted to things like that. Oh, when faced with that, I did that. You know, you just don't have the evidence of behavior to know who you are. And that is the moment when they tell you to pick from this bin of everything. Like, fuck. It's awful.

SPEAKER_02 40:25

And this movie just And that's why we're in our late 30s. Like just spiritually fucked.

SPEAKER_03 40:32

Well, no, I think I'm doing okay.

SPEAKER_02 40:35

Um I think we've had to overcome obstacles that were a little unnecessary, let's say.

SPEAKER_03 40:39

We have. Come on, you you have you're on the other side of one of the hardest things somebody can do in their life. So, how all of this relates to manhood is that like there is a sort of like terrible thing where you're not only being asked at that moment of your life, you know, wh what kind of person you want to be in the world, you're also very strongly being asked by the culture we live in, what version of your gender are you going to be in the world? You know? What kind of man and what kind of woman? And suddenly those like those options seem a little bit more limited than this bin of everything, you know? And it's this layer on top of stuff, and I think it could extra fuck you up. And and I think Wes Anderson, probably. As far as I know, Wes Anderson is a straight man, right? He's married.

SPEAKER_02 41:38

Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:41

I I think he's he's very like dandified though.

SPEAKER_03 41:45

Yes, but I think there is a set, you know, if you are particularly adept at self-reflection at a certain age, you start realizing very quickly you're like, oh, I don't know that I'm like I I really don't think I'm one of the boys, you know? But I I see in Max a real like and the movie doesn't tackle this at all. But um, you know, sort of clumsily holding on to the idea of what it means to be a man. And I think it's because he's so he's so wrapped up in passion and uh so susceptible to his own desires for things that are more than just women, even though ultimately the desire for women comes and fucks everything else up. You know, there is, I think, a recognition of the other, uh, that he is one of the others. And and he doesn't like that, but knows that there's no way out of it. So he's like, what if I become one of the supreme others? You know? What if I don't just be, you know, if I'm always gonna be outside, may I be exceptionally outside, you know, may this all be beneath me is kind of what he's picking because he just knows he's going to be outside one way or another, you know? And I relate to that, and I know that is linked so much to my queerness and my identity as a as a little bit of a I don't know, a crybaby. Um and and I I I don't know, I think that there's something very sad and and beautiful about that, and especially the fact that it isn't directly brought up the way so many things are just laid on the microscope about human desire and human intentions and human relationships in this movie.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

You know, there's an image, speaking of Softboy and Crybaby, when we f when we first see Max Cry when he's getting kicked out of Rushmore, it's like it's like extra upsetting because he's sitting there trying to be stoic, like trying to choke back the tears, but they're coming anyway, and he just he looks like a child. I mean, he is a child, but he he looks like a child who is trying to be like a statue of an adult man or something.

SPEAKER_03 44:00

Yes, because the consequences are devastating him. And you see him dodge and dodge and find a way around consequences and do anything to avoid consequences, to talk his way out of consequences, because he knows the consequences will devastate him. He has at least that much self-awareness, I guess. I don't know. And uh and yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:20

He does his admirable best by trying trying to make the best of it at public school. Right. Like he gives that little speech in front of the class where everybody's just staring at him like he's an alien. He's like, I I notice you don't have a fencing team. I'm gonna do my best to bring that to you.

SPEAKER_03 44:33

Oh, those moments are so from like, oh, it's so good. Yeah, it's so good.

SPEAKER_02 44:40

Oh, and the um And it's so weird to it's so weird to see like uh a realistic looking like public school classroom in a Wes Anderson movie.

SPEAKER_03 44:48

Yeah, I know, right? Oh, it is kind of cool. But you can see exactly he's like, that's how I felt. That was me. That's what I was like every day of my teenage years.

SPEAKER_02 44:58

Yeah, and he grew up and he grew up in Texas, too.

SPEAKER_03 45:01

But no, okay, hold on. I want to kind of put the microscope on you for a little bit here because I have known you for a very long time, and I have seen you put on sort of costuming when it comes to performances of masculinity when you were younger. You would pick the kind of man and then be just like, alright, I'll just do that. You know? Do you is that do you think it makes an accurate representation, you know? Especially when you were in your cigarette smoking phases and posturing to look cool in certain capacities.

SPEAKER_02 45:34

Oh yeah, absolutely. Uh and well, first of all, I would like to um uh okay, posturing to be cool. I bet you I looked cool. Okay. I wanted to embodied that shit.

SPEAKER_03 45:45

But no, I kinda I want you to get real with me about the queerness of like what is it what does it feel like to be a trans woman on this side of the journey and know that you pulled off looking like a really cool guy for a while? Like, what is that? What is that? Uh to me about that.

SPEAKER_02 45:59

Well, you know, it's hard to really speak about because though I lived through it, um, I haven't really done a lot of self-analysis. I've just kind of moved from one thing to the next. But um it seems Well, this is make make the podcast interesting and do some self-analysis live on the air.

SPEAKER_03 46:16

Come on.

SPEAKER_02 46:18

I think it was as simple as I would just find uh a male figure that usually had um some kind of crack in their masculinity. You know what I mean? Yeah. That could allow for I've talked about this with like what we've covered Petey Anderson and stuff. But I I I I would kind of be attracted to um certain masculine uh presentations that would allow me to engage in a kind of uh light sort of queerness in my behaviors or in my presentation or whatever, but that could be kind of plausible deniability to away as just like quirk or you know, artistic thing. And I think those were all gradual stepping stones toward eventually um getting where I am now.

SPEAKER_03 47:04

Yeah. One day the clothes don't fit, you know? It's yeah, it is crazy how it's just like, oh, I can't wear this costume anymore. Like I can't I can't be this version of myself. I can't do it.

SPEAKER_02 47:15

But at the same time, I I I had I had many um feminine uh figures and and points of points of reference and heroes and stuff. I just I guess I was gradually uh taking you know, tailoring my way out of the masculine costumes and into the feminine ones.

SPEAKER_03 47:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is it is fascinating to me in retrospect how it it you know it yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:36

There was a also, but I was I was also just an estate from an early age.

SPEAKER_03 47:44

Yeah. Yeah. No, there was a fascination with the female that felt straight but in a strange way that just makes so much more sense now, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 47:54

Yeah, that door that door was being knocked on with increasing urgency from a very, very, very young age. But it was also um yeah, it's a beautiful thing. But it was also very love and admiration bound. I mean, I I was I I always have been attracted to women, but it was it was always just so kind of so much more than that. And that uh partially why I probably had uh you know a lot of troubles in terms of intimacy when I was younger.

SPEAKER_03 48:19

Definitely.

SPEAKER_02 48:20

And the only reason I don't have those now is because I don't engage.

SPEAKER_03 48:25

Hey, listen, I'm in I do my own avoidances in those ways, but but no, let's let's put a cap on this. Let's talk a little bit about the movie itself. I just I think you know, bottle rocket, it is what it is, but Oh bottle rocket's great. It is, but there's such an honesty to this movie about people and and um I just think it's such a great I don't know, sophomore film, can we call it that?

SPEAKER_02 48:55

Uh yes. Um and you can and in terms of Wes Anderson, I mean he went on to do bigger and better things, so uh I would say maybe uh even though this is still one of my favorites, I th I I think part of what makes it that is above all things is Jason Schwartzmann's performance. Yes. Like they really you know they really fucking lucked out with him.

SPEAKER_03 49:18

I think you know one of the reasons I reacted so emotionally this movie to this movie is such a it's such a forgiving movie, and there is so much forgiveness in it. And I I again I think he is deliberately giving you license to forgive the sort of nasty parts of your character, the stuff that can really succumb to desire and take you down the wrong road. And and I think it has helped me just you know, with with people in my own life right now who I see struggling with insecurity about where they are in their journey and and and reacting so poorly and so antisocially to these feelings. It just I I think it gave me fuel to like deal with those people a little bit more for another day, you know? Because it this movie made feel worth it. And that what it it's such a gift.

SPEAKER_02 50:16

Yeah, absolutely, I agree.

SPEAKER_03 50:17

Yeah. Piece of art like that. Alright, everybody. Well, enjoy your day. Alethea, thank you again for joining me and watching movies with me for the last thirty years or so.

SPEAKER_02 50:30

Yeah, thank you. On to the next one. On to the next one. See you next time. All right, see you next time, Dan. Bye, everyone.