The loss of acting legend James Caan is hard for all the usual reasons, compelling movie-lovers to think of all the time we’ve spent with his films and feel as if we’ve lost someone not just known, but close to us. But it’s made all the more difficult by the fact that there’s no one in the younger generations that can even come close to filling his shoes. Born to a Jewish butcher who’d come over from Germany, raised on the lively and hardscrabble streets of Sunnyside, Queens, he was so thoroughly identified with blue-collar America that he practically earned an on-screen double citizenship as an honorary Italian.

Continue reading James Caan Remembered: The Essential Films at The Playlist.

Wes Anderson isn’t merely a filmmaker in 2021. He’s a brand unto himself: a curator, a collector of objects and memories, a mascot for twee culture, and everything that’s either shallow or transcendent about contemporary auteur filmmaking, depending on whom you ask. 

Over the years, Anderson has proven himself to be a veritable renaissance man: he’s designed bars in Milan, helmed exhibits at museums in Vienna (“Spitzmaus Mummy In A Coffin And Other Treasures”), and somehow, he even found time to contribute to 2018’s “Beastie Boys Book.” His detractors have accused him of style over substance, cultural appropriation, and reducing his characters to live-action dolls moving around ornately constructed dioramic interiors.

Continue reading The Essentials: The Films Of Wes Anderson at The Playlist.

Alec Baldwin so enjoys the story of how he ended up narrating “The Royal Tenenbaums” that he told it twice at the virtual reunion that followed Monday’s Tribeca Festival anniversary screening. He used it to open the conversation, which he moderated, recalling that co-writer/director Wes Anderson “asked to do me a favor and do this narration for this film. He said, ‘I’m never going to use it, I don’t really want it, the producers are insisting that I have a voiceover track.’” It was only when Baldwin revisited the story nearly a half-hour later – “That’s what you said to me, ‘I’m never gonna use this, I’m never gonna use it’” – that Anderson felt compelled to pipe up: “I never said that!”

READ MORE: 2021 Tribeca Film Festival Preview: 15 Must-See Films To Watch & More

The story does fly in the face of what we know about Anderson and his meticulous process (and indeed, Matt Zoller Seitz, who literally wrote the book on the filmmaker, confirms that the narration was “always there in the screenplay”).

Continue reading Wes Anderson & The ‘Royal Tenenbaums’ Cast On Script Influences, Gene Hackman, & Voice-Overs [Tribeca Report] at The Playlist.

OK, last week on weekly The Playlist Podcast, Mike DeAngelo’s interviewed Luke Wilson about his new football drama, “12 Mighty Orphans,” which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last week. You can listen to the interview below, but we wanted to highlight a couple of interesting tidbits from it.

READ MORE: Luke Wilson Talks ‘12 Mighty Orphans,’ The 20th Anniversary Of ‘The Royal Tenenbaums,’ ‘Idiocracy’ & More [The Playlist Podcast]

We couldn’t help ask Wilson about his work with Wes Anderson and “The Royal Tenenbaums.” Wilson and his brother Owen were college friends with Anderson, and all of them launched their careers in 1997 with the hilariously deadpan “Bottle Rocket” (the third Wilson brother Andrew appeared in it too).

Continue reading Luke Wilson Talks The Possibility Of A Wes Anderson Western & The Resonance Of ‘Idiocracy’ at The Playlist.

No one knew who the hell Wes Anderson was when his debut feature “Bottle Rocket” hit theaters 25 years ago this week– nor did they know Owen Wilson, who co-wrote and starred in the picture, or Owen’s brother Luke Wilson, who co-starred with him. The big name in that initial release was James L. Brooks, the Oscar-winning TV-writer-turned-filmmaker whose company, Gracie Films, had an overall deal at Columbia Pictures; that deal gave financing and distribution to low-budget films of the company’s choosing.

Continue reading ‘Bottle Rocket’ At 25: Looking Back On Wes Anderson, Before He Was “Wes Anderson” at The Playlist.

Almost inseparable from the inception of cinema, the heist genre has enraptured audiences for generations, as it offers an escapist appeal to the anti-hero and the outlaw. There is something intrinsically cinematic about heist films, with the best of them moving like a captivating ballet through the intricacies of elaborate schemes to get rich and get away.

Edgar Wright‘s newly released “Baby Driver” offers an homage to the rich history of heist-induced exhilaration (our review).

Continue reading The 35 Best Heist Movies at The Playlist.

‘Moonrise Kingdom’: Highlights From The Criterion Collection Commentary Track With Wes Anderson, Bill Murray & More

Continue reading ‘Moonrise Kingdom’: Highlights From The Criterion Collection Commentary Track With Wes Anderson, Bill Murray & More at The Playlist.

Ranked: Wes Anderson's Most Memorable Characters

Continue reading Ranked: Wes Anderson’s Most Memorable Characters at The Playlist.

Watch: Wes Anderson's Original Black And White Short ‘Bottle Rocket’

Continue reading Watch: Wes Anderson’s Original Black And White Short ‘Bottle Rocket’ at The Playlist.

While it’s never really gone away, and probably never will, the past few months have seen a brace of new entries, from the sublime (“Inception,” which despite its sci-fi trappings is really a good old-fashioned caper movie) to the ridiculous (Hayden Christensen and his eminently punchable pork pie hat in “Takers”).

Continue reading Casing ‘The Town’: Our All-Time Favorite Heist Movies at The Playlist.

Continue reading 5 Best Music Scenes in Wes Anderson Movies at The Playlist.

Anderson talk to the Onion A/V Club about “The Bottle Rocket” re-release (no new movie news, sorry) and said the 13-minute black-and-white short was possibly even 30 minutes longer at one point, but was cut way down.

Continue reading ‘Bottle Rocket’ Short Was Possibly 30 Minutes Long? Footage Lost at The Playlist.

The little-seen 1994 short inspired the full feature-length film (’96), and is highlighted in the two-disc Criterion set (which we poured over to loser-ish levels).

Continue reading <I>Bottle Rocket Short Film Soundtrack</I> Hits Digitally December 9 at The Playlist.

We watched it last weekend and took massive and stupidly long notes, which we’ve already covered in five other pieces. Be forewarned, this post is painfully long.

To be quick, it’s really nice to see the film in real widescreen and not in the original pan and scan of the one-disc Sony version.

Continue reading ‘Bottle Rocket’ – The Playlist’s Definitive Criterion Commentary Notes at The Playlist.

We took stupidly detailed notes (because we have no life) on this DVD and then didn’t want the work to go to waste so that’s why you’re bombarded.

Let’s us know if this is overkill because we seriously still have about 3-4 posts worth of extensive notes full of crazy quotes and trivia from the commentary track (yes, we went overboard, we know this, but again, we hate to see time and work go to waste…).

Continue reading We’re Thankful For: ‘Bottle Rocket’ at The Playlist.

Back when Wes Anderson’s “The Darjeeling Limited” was about to come out, we did a many features on the music of the director’s films including “Bottle Rocket,” though mostly on the music featured in his movies and missing from the soundtrack CDs. Especially during the Wes’ early days, he really couldn’t get that many CD song licensing, which meant no Rolling Stones, no Love, no Oliver Onions (they’re track rules, btw, more in a sec).

Continue reading Criterion Edition: The Music Of ‘Bottle Rocket’ at The Playlist.

Wes Anderson sticks really closely to what he shot in the short and we thought we’d illustrate some side-by-side photos and then video of the short for you to compare to [ed.

Continue reading Compare: ‘Bottle Rocket’ Feature To Short at The Playlist.

Of course you can’t just jump in and pick whatever film you want, but each week they will offer up four new films for digital rental. This week they’re offering up, Ronald Neame’s “The Horse’s Mouth,” the-always polarizing Catherine Breillat’s “Fatgirl,” Peter Brook’s classic “Lord of the Flies” and the sexually-charged and once banned, “Sweet Movie” by Yugoslav provocateur Dušan Makavejev.

Continue reading Criterion Launches Digital Distribution Rentals With New Online Cinematheque at The Playlist.

Before we get into the notes we took on the commentary track (yes, this is obsessive minutia, no doubt, but we needed multiple long piece to accompany all our screencaps), one must note that the original version of “Bottle Rocket” was at least 30 minutes longer than the original, hence the 11 deleted scenes (though there are more not on the disc).

Continue reading ‘Bottle Rocket’s Biggest Missing Sequences – Chased By The Cops at The Playlist.

Continue reading ‘Bottle Rocket’ Criterion DVD: The Photgraphy of Laura Wilson at The Playlist.

Continue reading Watch: Deleted Scene From Criterion’s ‘Bottle Rocket’ Edition at The Playlist.

Continue reading Ka-Caw, Ka-Caw! at The Playlist.

Finally! After all these years and all this talk Wes Anderson’s debut feature will come to the Criterion Collection in November as a two disc set (it’s also coming out on Blu-Ray). Many already own the bare-bones Sony version, but this is the real treasure we’ve been awaiting for years.

Criterion’s version includes a commentary track with Wes and Owen Wilson (the co-writer of the film and star as the irrepressible Dignan), the original 11-minute “Bottle Rocket” short that you’ve probably seen by now on YouTube, Eleven deleted scenes (wow, maybe we’ll finally get to see Apatow’s wife Leslie Mann’s missing scene), a documentary making of the movie, plus a ton of extras and a booklet that includes an appreciation by Martin Scorsese, an early supporter of the film.

Continue reading Exactly! ‘Bottle Rocket’ DVD Finally Coming To Criterion In November at The Playlist.

It seems because Anderson’s last films were produced and distributed by Buena Vista/Touchstone, Criterion deals were easy because a relationship deal had already been the case.

Continue reading Darjeeling Limited Coming Out on DVD Feb 27- Belated Musical Playlists on ITunes at The Playlist.

Bottle Rocket (1996)—uncredited
LM: Because I was cut out. I’d just read for James Brooks on Beautiful Girls. He decided not to direct it, and then I didn’t do it, but that’s how I met James Brooks, and then he brought me in for Bottle Rocket.

Continue reading Judd Apatow’s Wife Leslie Mann Was In Wes Anderson’s Bottle Rocket? Who Knew? at The Playlist.