Your Welcome America

Over the weekend HBO had a special live showing of Will Ferrel's smash hit Broadway show in titled "Your Welcome America A Final Night With George W. Bush." The comedic icon plays the former president George W. Bush. Anyone who has a sense of humor and watches SNL knows the hilarious Bush impression that Ferrel does. Ferrel's impression might not be as spot on as the so called funny man frank caliendo (hes not funny). However, the "Anchorman" star puts his own little spin on the ex commander and chief that is utterly irresistible. He creates this character in Bush that enables the audience to see him as this over privileged dim wit who always has a good time due to some form of blind confidence. Complete with the Texas accent and infamous glare Ferrel's Bush is so funny that it is difficult to know where will Ferrel ends and George Bush begins. I enjoyed this progrom not only because I am a huge fan of the comedian, but also because it gives me faith in America. Many people take for granted all of the freedoms we have concerning free speech. A person could not get away with making fun of a government official on this grand a scale in some other countries. So I know this is a tough time for many Americans, but just keep solace in the fact that we are still allowed to enjoy great shows like "Your Welcome America."     

Rushmore

Last week when I was home sick I watched one of my all time favorite movies, Director Wes Anderson's "Rushmore." Wes Anderson has made other great movies like "The Royal Tenenbaums" "Bottle Rocket" and "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou." Obviously, this was not my first time watching Rushmore, so to say that I enjoyed watching the film even more this time would be a lie. However, on this certain day I was able to view the film on a completely different level, due to something I read on the inside of the DVD case. While I was perusing the inside of the case I came across a little bit of literature on the making of "Rushmore." The significance of the literature was that it draws a direct connection from "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" to "Rushmore."
This is what I found and I hope that whoever reads this blog will feel the urge to rent Rushmore not only because it is a hilarious movie, but also because of what it means in regards to Huckleberry Finn.
"The title of Wes Anderson's Rushmore refers to the ivy-covered prep school attended by the films central character, Max Fisher [Jason Schwartzman]. Max, with his bushy eyebrows and imposing glasses , loves his school beyond reason and is Rushmore's number one go-getter-editor of the school paper, president of the French club, organizer of the calligraphic society, proud member of the wrestling team. He is also, as the headmaster notes, "one of the worst students we've got." In his eagerness to succeed, Max is failing. It is his one character flaw, and the organizing principle of a profoundly American comedy in the direct tradition of Huckleberry Finn.
Mark Twain used his adolescent hero to provide an outsider’s viewpoint on a rapidly stratifying American society, a republican dream pulling apart into divisions of age, income and race. Rushmore is also about class divisions—Max, the son of the local barber (Seymour Cassel), is attending the exclusive school on a scholarship—but Anderson and co-writer Owen Wilson, more wishful thinkers than Twain, use comedy to imagine the healing of those divisions, the reweaving of relationships across the lines of class and generation.