Harold & Maude: A Movie So Good It Makes Cat Stevens Actually Sound Good

I like it too. It kind of reminds me of a Wes Anderson film.

The hearsguar is awesome!

"I can't believe it, Harold & Maude is my favorite film too!"

(stealing this one from fellow ilxor/buddy Colin Saunders, who often recounts it - and loves the movie too!)

Do you enjoy knives?

This is one of my favorite films, though, even if it may be a bit of a cliché student thing to love.

Ruth Gordon wrote better movies (Adam's Rib, The Actress).

I haven't revisited too many films from this period as they don't seem to have aged well - at least for me.

I love Harold, though, Bud Cort has one of the best voices I've ever heard

SBLB: bud cort!
DV: who bud cort?
MS: harold and maude!!
DV: which one?
SB: the boy!!!
DV [shocked pause]: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

later she noted sadly that his voice wz still the same which made it all the sadlier

man i saw this when i was WAY too young and was creeped out, now i saw it last night probably when i'm too old (since everyone upthread makes a big deal about college kids liking it) and enjoyed it a lot. some of the maude stuff is too "life-affirming" and cutesy yeah but cort and gordon are great in it and there are good jokes throughout.

Also the movie Brewster McCloud is worth checking out.
Agreed

I want to see Brewster McCloud so much but can't find a decent bootleg anywhere. Can't believe it's still not out on dvd while it's relatively easy to get Quintet or OC & Stiggs...

Yeah, that is weird. My local rental shop has a VHS copy. John Phillips did the soundtrack, which is kind of interesting. It's not like its the greatest movie ever, or anything, but I think fans of Harold and Maude would appreciate it. Lots of shirtless Bud Cort, anyway.

i am glad someone mentioned "Deep End", great weird movie.

i actually think Harold and Maude made me like Cat Stevens movie in whatever movie they appear. (but i always like Tea for Tillerman anyway)

*Cat Stevens music, obviously.

Mike D'Angelo w/ the right idea:

I really just want to strangle Maude, to be honest. She's a Manic Pixie Dream Crone, embracing life and seizing the day with the kind of pushy, simpleminded vigor that in reality would drive somebody like Harold to demock his mock suicides.

http://letterboxd.com/gemko/film/harold-and-maude/

Right at the forefront of the pack of cult movies I don't get. It's a small pack.

Hated her so much in this surprised when I liked her in Rosemary's Baby.

well the shtick also works in Where's Poppa? The ass-biting helps.

It had certainly worn out its welcome by the time of My Bodyguard.

I used to think of her character in My Bodyguard as a semi-irritating distraction until the prof that I work with pointed out how her character is consistent with a queer reading of the film: her heterosexuality (hitting on married men, embarrassing her son) is just as disruptive as the boys' homosexuality.

academics have a lotta time on their hands.

is the Bodyguard worth watching

No, but *My* Bodyguard is!

lol um yes right

it helps if you like the blazing androgyny of 15-year-old Matt Dillon

well Over the Edge is one of my favorite movies so duh yeah

I used to think of her character in My Bodyguard as a semi-irritating distraction until the prof that I work with pointed out how her character is consistent with a queer reading of the film: her heterosexuality (hitting on married men, embarrassing her son) is just as disruptive as the boys' homosexuality.
― That shit right there is precedented. (cryptosicko), Friday, March 13, 2015 12:37 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

academics have a lotta time on their hands.
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Friday, March 13, 2015 12:47 PM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Prof OTM presumably, but still, LOL.

Saw this again on the big screen. Forgot that he wears the exact same outfit as the shrink right down to the shoes and handkerchief.

really just want to strangle ppl who still use any variation of "manic pixie dream..." in reviews, tbh

applying it to Gordon in this context is proper tho

plus "crone" makes me laff

gtfo op, Stevens DOES sound good.

watched this the other night for the first time in probably decades, mostly just to catch all the location shots that would have had no meaning prior to my living in the Bay Area for decades - ie, the shots at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and the frontage road by the Ashby and University exits off the 280, among other things. For a film shot in the SF Bay it's funny how much the exterior shots avoid all of the usual iconography. For ex. in the shot where they are looking across the Bay at SF (after Harold has noticed Maude's concentration camp tattoo) she remarks on the view, but the SF skyline and the Golden Gate Bridge are obscured by the backs of the characters.

The idea that surviving a Nazi concentration camp would influence Maude to become a happy free-spirited bohemian is probably the least realistic aspect of a very unrealistic film. But it's all a fantasy anyway, so it isn't like that matters much.

yeah it has a very un-real quality to it in general. As noted upthread, there's glimmers of Wes Anderson's approach in certain scenes.

Remake idea: Chalamet & Carol Kane

Between the Temples is not too far from that

Chalamet and Kane in Between The Temples you’d just want to see fuck.

(Harold & Maude it’s up to you if they fuck; Between The Temples it’s meant to be bad when Schwartzman says he wants to fuck; Chalamet and Kane in either would be so 🔥 that it would unbalance those dynamics. But yes, Jordan should check BTT if he hasn’t.)

Ha, it was of course BtT that made me think this. Started it last night but my wife couldn't stand the directing style & super close-ups.

Aside from the fake suicides at the beginning, I've never liked it. Cutesy glibness about aging and death...

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, June 7, 2005

I'm in Morbs's camp on this one.

A one-off screening at the local Drafthouse, planned before Cort's death, so why not finally watch it, and so I did. I appreciated the poised artificialities, that's why it all works for me, in combination with the excellent editing. Beyond Wes A., it feels very avant la lettre on a number of fronts, however by accident.