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Bottle Rocket feels more like The Brothers McMullen in Texas. The movie was marketed like that one, Luke Wilson was pushed as an Edward Burns type and James L. Brooks and Sony helped finance the film so they could get a piece of that hip indie movie pie that Disney (with Pulp Fiction and Clerks) and Fox (with The Brothers McMullen) had (which in the mid 1990's, everyone wanted). Also, both films are slice of life comedies with hip and edgy touches and raw talent (though Bottle Rocket is a bit darker). But while The Brothers McMullen was a hit that spawned many copycats, Bottle Rocket failed to take off at the box office.

Though ironically, Burns managed to get worse (the guy's a horrible actor and choosing to concentrate on that instead of directing was what hurt him) while Anderson got better.

I said what now?

Geezer wrote:I said what now?

Oops! It must be my old age. All you whipper-snappers are starting to look the same to me!

I was just confused, since I've never even seen one of Anderson's movies.

Buscemi wrote:Bottle Rocket feels more like The Brothers McMullen in Texas. The movie was marketed like that one, Luke Wilson was pushed as an Edward Burns type and James L. Brooks and Sony helped finance the film so they could get a piece of that hip indie movie pie that Disney (with Pulp Fiction and Clerks) and Fox (with The Brothers McMullen) had (which in the mid 1990's, everyone wanted). Also, both films are slice of life comedies with hip and edgy touches and raw talent (though Bottle Rocket is a bit darker). But while The Brothers McMullen was a hit that spawned many copycats, Bottle Rocket failed to take off at the box office.

Bottle Rocket basically got no marketing whatsoever. As you mentioned, it got massacred in the test screenings, and the studio simply didn't know what to do with it--so they cut their losses and essentially dumped it. Your description of the hypothetical marketing might be accurate (had they actually invested any money into selling this picture), but are you really using marketing to describe the actual content of a film? I mean, if you've seen it--talk about the movie itself... not the mismanaged handling of it.

But what few posters and trailers were released had sold it as being like The Brothers McMullen. And in the film, you can see the similarities (especially in Luke Wilson). I haven't seen the film in a long time but from what I remember, it's basically a darker version of that film.

Yes, for a short period in the mid-90s both Luke Wilson and Edward Burns had similar haircuts. Case closed.

Was this a music thread at some point?

Yes. Then it became NSpan and Wes's Corduroy Orgy.



Starring NSpan



and Wes Anderson as Himself

Well, I think that explains Luke's haircut in Bottle Rocket right there. Luke's character was written in Wes' voice... and Luke was then groomed accordingly. That actually makes sense now that I think about it.

Ok, so back to our list making, I have a couple questions I'd like to get some opinions on:

For one, as far as choosing the songs to share, should we exclude songs that everyone has probably already heard before? Should we exclude songs that were included in our top 100 songs list? What would you guys prefer to hear, something that should be new, or the best song(s) from the album?

Also, in any description about the album, should I include something like "The first of ____ albums by _____ to make the list" or should I leave that out and keep it a surprise when another album from the same band comes up?

I'd say it's whatever song you like the best or what you feel is the highlight of the album. To be honest there will be a surprisingly few songs that all of us will be familiar with (with some obvious exceptions... probably no need to include Smells Like Teen Spirit if Nevermind makes anyone's list).

I'd also exlude saying the band will appear again int he list. Adds to the mystery!

Agree regarding revealing future artists on your countdown, keep it a surprise. Regarding what song to post, I think it's fine whatever is posted, it's nice to hear something new, but whether we have heard it before or not I will be choosing whatever is either my favourite song from the record or the song which I think encapsulates the atmosphere of it most.

Geezer wrote:Ok, so back to our list making, I have a couple questions I'd like to get some opinions on:

For one, as far as choosing the songs to share, should we exclude songs that everyone has probably already heard before? Should we exclude songs that were included in our top 100 songs list? What would you guys prefer to hear, something that should be new, or the best song(s) from the album?

Also, in any description about the album, should I include something like "The first of ____ albums by _____ to make the list" or should I leave that out and keep it a surprise when another album from the same band comes up?

Personally, I'm going to try and pick tracks that people aren't already familiar with.

Generally I want to choose songs that best represent the album, but I also want to provide something new to everybody. So--for my list at least--I'll probably be picking my favorite tracks while avoiding the more obvious singles and/or FM radio stand-outs.

Also.... My #100 selection isn't done. I'll have to submit it tomorrow (errr... later today...arg). If I miss the deadline, I'll just post it myself. But, after that, I'll get into the groove of sending them to Surf and seeing the list standardized.

Yeah, I've been so held up this week that I haven't been able to finalize it yet (not that I won't be tinkering throughout the process anyway) but I'm going to come up about 10 albums short. Luckily, I was smart enough to leave some of those albums that are sure-fire top-half of the list material. Nothing I haven't gotten to would be coming up soon anyway, and my number 100 is pretty much locked in I think. One day left to make that final determination!