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Rushmore was such an influential movie on me, I think.

I say I think because I’m not sure. When it came out in 1998, I made my parents take me to see it. They didn’t understand it, but I felt I saw something of a hero in Max Fischer. I was 13. When I got it on DVD I would set it to repeat on my DVD player in my room and as I sat on the computer all day writing on The Electric Biscuit (and it’s 400 readers a day, which was impressive in 1999 before anyone really knew what a ‘blog’ was) it would play. It turned into a security blanket.

When I eventually got laid, my need to watch it lessened, I identified less with Max’s fairly sinister turn in pursuit of pussy. As I aged, my perception of the movie as a whole changed. A couple years ago I thought that Max Fischer was a big of a jerk, and sympathized more with Herman Blume. I used to think Rosemary Cross was the hottest women I’d ever seen… these days, she’s cute, and I guess that’s part of the film’s charm, that the object of such turmoil isn’t some super model, but just a regular girl, just like how it always is in reality. Two dumb boys, fighting over a girl who isn’t worth it, but they can’t stop fighting long enough to spend enough time with her to see that.

I watched it recently (I believe I showed it to a girl) and I had nearly no reaction to it at all. It’s a cute movie, but all the potency I saw in it as a youth as evaporated. Maybe it’s just that Wes Anderson’s work has aged me at the same pace it has aged him. The Royal Tenenbaums is as affecting as ever, The Life Aquatic still makes me stop and marvel (mostly at how well Murray absolutely embodies all the characters Wes Andersons sets out for him), and The Darjeeling Limited played into all my little constantly occurring existential crises and made me yearn to have brothers of my own I could try to bond with, to look for meaning with…

While other geeky white kids picked up a game of Dungeons & Dragons and, in their early twenties, got addicted to World of Warcraft, I watched Wes Anderson movies. I idolized Max Fischer and hoped one day to get a standing ovation of my own. Tears surged in my eyes as Richie Tenenbuam slit his writs to Elliott Smith. I marveled at the beauty of the Jaguar Shark while Sigur Ros lured my head into a beautiful dreamy state. I felt Life On Mars? soar in my chest while Steve Zissou lit a cigarette on the bow of his ship. I got a little turned on when Jack Whitman licked his hand and shoved it between the Indian girl’s legs before fucking her.

All these moments in Wes Anderson’s films inspired me to live life a little fuller, to take more chances, and to go with the flow. Throughout my life I’ve never looked at film (or fiction in general) as way to escape from reality, or to enjoy something other than my own world, but as inspiration for the way I want to live my own. Anderson has given me examples of so many beautiful moments that it’s hard to miss them when they come around. I’ve got a practical blue print for identifying them. Thanks you Wes Anderson.