Bottle Shock: Grade C

C
Bottle Shock (2008)
Alan Rickman, Bill Pullman, Freddy Rodriquez, Chris Pine, Dennis Farina, Rachael Taylor. Co-writer and director Randall Miller.

This is a wine-lover’s indulgence, in the spirit of Sideways. Set in 1976, it dramatizes the true story of how a Napa valley vineyard won a blind tasting in Paris, an event that launched the success of California wines around the world. Pullman owns the scrappy vineyard in Calistoga. Pine is his hippie loser son. They are visited by the British owner of a Parisian wine shop (Rickman), who is curious about California wines. He sets up the competition in Paris that results in the California victory.

I enjoyed scenes of golden sun falling on ripening grapes, and of sampling barrels in the cellar. Winemaking is glorified, but there is not much actual information about it. Pretty pictures and fine-sounding turns of phrase substitute for facts. The dialog is pedestrian, although there are a few good exchanges. Pullman: “Why don’t I like you?” Rickman: “Because you think I’m an asshole, but I’m not really. I’m just British.” The scenery is nice, how could it not be, but cinematography is unimaginative. How many swooping aircraft shots over vines do we really need? Acting is clunky, probably constrained by the one-dimensional, stereotyped characters. Rickman’s considerable talent, especially, is underutilized. The story is formulaic and melodramatic, something you would expect to see on television. As a mildly interesting, inoffensive, quasi-historical drama, this choice passes the time.

There Will Be Blood: Grade B

B
There Will Be Blood (2007)
Daniel Day Lewis, Paul Dano. Writer (screenplay) & director: Paul Thomas Anderson.

There is no blood. This mis-titled movie is about oil, or rather about one particular oilman (Lewis) in the early years of 20th century California. He is a psychopathic, greedy egomaniac who buys farms and drills them for oil, along the way alienating everyone he meets. He shoots a man who pretends to be his long lost half brother, threatens others, beats up still others. He is humiliated by, and finally humiliates in return, a country preacher (Dano). The preacher's character is just as crazy and self-obsessed as the oilman's but Dano gives a fascinating rendition of a complex person who has some inner life, unlike Lewis' character. Finally the oilman retires wealthy, lonely, still angry, and unenlightened. There is no plot, and little dramatic tension. The oilman’s character never changes, so this 2.5 hour film is merely a depiction of early oil exploration in California. Its virtues are visual, the wide open spaces, the men sweating to build and operate wooden derricks. (Women are nonentities in this film). The opening 10 minute mini-drama is accomplished without any dialog and is the best part of the movie.

Lewis’ acting is widely acclaimed (won best actor), but I thought it was just adequate. Since his character is psychopathically unpredictable, who can tell if the acting is good or not? The dialog for all characters was stilted, strangely formal. No contractions are used and everyone says “yes,” never “yup” or “yeh.” There were numerous linguistic anachronisms as well. The music, rich, varied, and full orchestra, was exceptionally beautiful, but completely disconnected from the rest of the movie, as if a high-dollar composer was hired to show his or her stuff, without having read the screenplay. This movie has been vastly overrated, yet it is worth seeing, for the good scenery, sets, costumes, and plausible historical description.

King of California: Grade A

A
King of California (2007)
Evan Rachel Wood, Michael Douglas; Writer-Director Mike Cahill.

Douglas gives a terrific performance as a geezer just released from a mental institution to his 17 year old daughter (Wood). She has been driving her beat-up Volvo to work at McDonalds in a California suburb, just getting by. We see in flashbacks that their 100 year old house was once a jewel in rolling agricultural acres, but now is a sore thumb in an endless sea of unimaginative tract homes. Charlie, her dad, believes he has discovered a map to golden treasure, buried nearby by early Spanish explorers. He schemes to find it, even selling the Volvo and the house to finance his exploration. The best line in the movie is the daughter’s incredulous outrage: “What? Are you nuts?” He stares at her. She says quietly, “Sorry.” He actually does not seem to be psychotic, only slightly delusional, and who isn’t these days? That ambiguity makes it plausible that she would become Panza to his Quixotic search for the maybe-gold. The ending is accordingly ambiguous as well. We are half-convinced there might be gold, but finally we realize it doesn’t matter. The point is that she is able to re-establish her relationship with her father during the adventure. The movie is also a cry of anguish over the squalor of cookie-cutter “development” that relentlessly buries the treasure of natural beauty under concrete and commerce. It is a surprisingly sensitive performance from Douglas, and first rate from Wood, too.