A.V. Club’s Pop Pilgrims Visit the Real Rushmore Academy

Yes, this is another post about something fantastic the A.V. Club did, but it was too good not to share. The A.V. Club recently took a field trip to Houston and visited the school that stood in for Rushmore Academy, St. John’s School.

The video features shot-by-shot comparisons of campus then and now, excellent interviews with a current teacher at St. John’s who was a friend of Wes’s in high school and the owner of Rosemary Cross’s home, and, as a bonus, has shot of Wes’s yearbook from senior year.


Houston: The Rushmore School

Join us after the jump for a bit more.
Kyle Ryan’s article that accompanies the video is filled with love for Houston and a lot of great details, including the respect that Anderson paid to the homes he used and the people that he worked with. (Talented and nice!)

For even more from the A.V. Club, some long-time readers may remember when Pop Pilgrims visited The Royal Tenenbaum‘s house in Harlem last year.

2 Replies to “A.V. Club’s Pop Pilgrims Visit the Real Rushmore Academy”

  1. Funny that Lamar high school is right across the road from st. Johns, and they didn’t bother to scope it out (it’s max’s inner city school after his expulsion)

    Apparently the administration wasn’t too happy about it being filmed there and being the “ghetto” school, so that may be why

  2. @Ben– I think there’s a good chance that’s exactly what happened. In the video, it’s clear that St. Johns is very proud of their affiliation with Rushmore, but I imagine Lamar HS might not be as thrilled. (It may have been easier to get permission to film in a private school vs. the public, too.) Also also, Rushmore is *the* school of the film; Max didn’t like Grover Cleveland and neither should we. 😉

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