175 - Rushmore - 4 stars
Between Wes Anderson and Jason Schwartzman, their creation of schoolboy Max Fisher could well be the Ferris Bueller of the Nineties.
Both are cocky young men but where Bueller was looking to escape from school, Fisher spends too much time in it with lots of extra curricular activites (as shown in a funny montage).
Central to the story is the love triangle between Max, the object of his affections Miss Cross, and his friend Herman Blume, a businessman and former Vietnam vet who was "in the shit", played with sardonic wit by Bill Murray.
It is wonderfully played out as Max and Herman prove that the thing that drives men to madness is women. They have petty fights with each other as they both make a play for Miss Cross, alienating each other until Max brings everyone together at his school play Heaven & Hell, a Vietnam epic that hs the budget and special effects of a Michael Bay blockbuster!
Anderson has a Coen-like quality in creating quirky but memorable minor characters in his films and Rushmore has the fantastic Magnus Buchan, the Scottish bully who torments Fisher.
He has one of the strongest Scottish accents I've ever heard o screen, possibly due to the fact he is in a cast of Americans and Brian Cox also plays American. It proves once again that Scots are among the top swearers in cinema (see also Begbie in Trainspotting and the fabulous Malcolm Tucker in In The Loop, who raises swearing to an art form).
Days remaining - 215 Films remaining - 283
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