Hold on a minute. You're telling me I reviewed Jurassic Park here a couple of weeks ago?

But this space is for cult and little-known movies. Who's in charge here? That man should be blindfolded and given a stern ...

Oh. Well, it turns out it's me. Looks like I need to enforce some stricter discipline around myself, then. Trim some jibs and the like. And there's no better way to get back on track with one of the biggest cult movies of all time: 1971's Harold and Maude.

Bud Cort is a young man badgered by a wealthy mother who doesn't understand him in the slightest. Obsessed with death, he attends funerals for fun, where he meets Ruth Gordon, a free-spirited 79-year-old. Charmed by her verve, Cort soon finds himself in a most unlikely relationship.

Gordon doesn't live by the rules, you see. She steals cars for fun. Makes strange art. Abducts trees. And generally stands for a live of vigor, enthusiasm, experimentation, and whimsy, a lesson I took to heart by spontaneously sitting at a desk to write an analytical review.

In fact, Gordon spends so much time talking about her philosophy of life that it would be very easy to come away from Harold and Maude with a reactionary anti-philosophy of living life to the dullest, with day after day of paperwork and exercise, eating egg whites and oatmeal in moderation, and expressing your joy through a series of curt, subtle nods.

But Harold and Maude has a counter to the problem of openly championing ideals: it is funny as the dickens. Colin Higgins' script is witty and director Hal Ashby loads the proceedings with absurd, anarchic humor. Cort's uncle is a war-hungry general with a missing arm who's rigged his empty sleeve to salute. Gordon drives literal circles around cops, then steals their motorcycles when they finally pull her over.

So sure, Gordon's character goes on a bit, and if we all really lived like her then we'd all be constantly exploding, but she's hilarious, dang it. And convincing. By gosh, we should all throw ourselves daily kazoo-parades where we march to the ice cream shop while stomping like dinosaurs.

Ashby, meanwhile, is basically the Wes Anderson of the 1970s, but with a wilder sense of humor. Harold and Maude's sets are elegant, its framing pleasingly formal. There are rich people and they have rich-person problems (which are often similar to poor-person problems, except they wear spats). Yet it's heavily relatable, almost intoxicatingly so.

Harold and Maude has every right to be as beloved as it is.

* Contact Ed Robertson at edwrobertson@gmail.com