Bottle Shock

Bottle Shock 酒质受损
Originally uploaded by Daniel (Jiuwine.com)

My brother watched Bottle Shock after much prodding from me and loved it so much that he couldn’t stop talking about it. As such it made me itch to watch it again, but I know I’ve watched it too much lately. So I compromised – I watched it with commentary.

First of all, the commentary on Bottle Shock is amazing because it has the director and writers on it, Chris Pine, Bill Pullman and Eliza Dushku – the most important people to the film are all on there in one commentary track. That proves a lot, it proves they all liked the film enough to want to continue sharing it, and that they group got along well enough that they enjoyed their creative partnership.

What was fascinating about the commentary was learning how they had to grind down and make the decisions to get the movie made and how they had to deal with the living people this story is based on. What was most important to the filmmakers seems to be not just the Paris tasting itself, but getting the personalities and relationships of these characters captured accurately on screen. They may have changed situations and minor events for the purposes of making the story translate well to film, but they wanted to preserve the essence of the people just like someone adapting a book or play to film.

Bottle Shock fascinates me on every level. I hope that someday I can have just as great a reception to one of my films as Randall Miller and co. had to Bottle Shock. This film premiered to a standing ovation.

Jim: A comfortable grape, a well watered, well fertilized grape grows into an easy ingredient of a lousy wine.