Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Bottle Shock (2008)

2/24/2014

Bottle Shock (2008) - Mediocre California wine picture

♥♥♥

One poster for Randall Miller's Bottle Shock. It announces the film a 'true story', while it is 'based on a true story' at best (an important distinction)

QUICK REVIEW:

We are in 1976, where a Californian wine-farmer struggles with a deficit, the bank and a long-haired, lazy son, when a British wine-expert comes on an exchange. An exchange that opened the doors to the gilded world of wine for the US and the rest of the world.
Alan Rickman (Die Hard (1988)) is appropriately dry and credible as the Brit connoisseur, but which of the two stories served in Bottle Shock we really are to care about, - Rickman's or the one about the local youngsters' fooling around, - is unclear for a long time. Chris Pine (Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)) wears a ridiculous wig in the film and plays his part as a charming but disgraceful poodle.
The photography is delicious, deeply romantic and deeply banal. The whole story is so comfortable and predictable that the film seems totally perfunctory.
Many people thought that Bottle Shock might be another great American film about wine, following Alexander Payne's Sideways (2004), but this unfortunately just isn't the case.
Also, Bottle Shock has been attacked for its depiction of its 'true story', among others by the real Steven Spurrier, (the character that Rickman portrays), who has stated: "There is hardly a word that is true in the script and many, many pure inventions as far as I am concerned."
Director Randall Miller made a very similar kind of film last year, CBGB (2013), again featuring Rickman in the lead, this time about the New York punk club CBGB, and an even bigger flop than Bottle Shock. And he is already busy on his next film, Midnight Rider (2014) a biopic on musician Greg Allman with William Hurt in the lead.
Somebody must like Miller ...

Alan Rickman in Bottle Shock

The late Dennis Farina and Chris Pine in Bottle Shock, both made up pretty ridiculously. Click to enlarge

Watch the film's trailer here

Budget: 5 mil. $ (estimation)
Box office: 4.6 mil. $
= Flop

What do you think of Bottle Shock?
Can you mention some good films about wine?

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Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (14-24)

2/24/2014

Bottle Shock (2008) - Mediocre California wine picture

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