It's time to get back to reviewing August movies (even though I have three more from September - ack!). The flick I'm about to talk up was the one that made me want to start writing again. It's not that Bottle Shock was the greatest thing I've ever seen. However, it may have been the most fun I've had in some time.
Props to Brooklyn Jen for help with the lede.
Bottle Shock (seen Aug. 9; second movie I saw in August)
Like a glass of summer white, Bottle Shock refreshes the moviegoer’s palate after a season of Hulks and Dark Knights. Randall Miller directs and co-writes this messily engaging, shaggy dog of a flick, a delightful true story of a Napa Valley winery stunning the Parisian oenophiles in a blind taste test in 1976. The plot has problems (unbalanced screen time, characters introduced then dropped), the acting is uneven (Alan Rickman and an underused Freddy Rodriguez are great, the clichéd father/son Bill Pullman and Chris Pine less so), yet the film’s overall charm ultimately takes over. Rickman’s U.K. snob is as droll as you might expect (“You think I'm an asshole. [pause] “I'm just British and, well, you're not.”), yet he also takes pleasure in discovering that odd green concoction known as guacamole. In much the same way, allow yourself to accept Bottle Shock’s flaws and instead drink in the glorious California and French landscapes, the complementary 1970s rock soundtrack, and the joy of a little movie that could.
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