bottle rocket.

i adore wes anderson but i have never seen his early movies and by early i mean "bottle rocket" and "rushmore" (yeah i know it's horrible that i haven't seen the later, especially if i claim i love anderson but i haven't and i do.)

and to be honest, good thing this is the first time i saw it because if "bottle rocket" was the first anderson film i ever saw i would have never watched the others. i mean the only thing that reminded me of the rest of the anderson movies was the music. the music was quirky but perfect for every scene like all of his movies. and also pagoda is in it! i googled and his name is kumar pallana but he'll alway be pagoda to me.

this movie was missing whimsy. there is this feeling of warm fuzzies one gets watching anderson films and i didn't get them watching this. normally i get lost in his films, i become a member of that dysfunctional family and love them quirks and all. and there are also cute moments sprinkled through out his films, like the plays of margot tenebaum, the random sea creatures of "the life aquatic", the letter writing between sam and susie but none of that in "bottle rocket." there were no memorable scenes either.

visually it was nothing close to an anderson film. there were no cute sets. nor did he do his single shot scan through multiple rooms thing. wes probably hadn't seen "the graduate" yet so "bottle rocket" didn't have any mike nichols-esque shots. it lacked heart, it was as if wes was trying to be late 90's cool when he just needed to be his oddball self.

james caan couldn't even save it. i was so excited to see him in it. sonny back and alive but his character fell short for me.

i mean not everyone can be amazing from the beginning. a lot of people have strong debuts and than suck so i'm glad he made this. but let's be honest, i feel no need to buy the criterion version of this film.