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VINTAGE MOVIES

Vintage Movies: “Bottle Rocket”

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 500 titles—from the silent era through the ’90s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

BottleRocket

Bottle Rocket (1996, 91 minutes)

Closer in spirit to 2012’s Moonrise Kingdom than the Euro-shenanigans of The Grand Budapest Hotel (his current comedy), Bottle Rocket was Wes Anderson’s 1996 directorial debut, and he came out swinging for the fences at the tender age of 27. Two years later, he hit the critical jackpot with his sophomore effort, Rushmore. If anyone still wonders what J.D. Salinger might have produced if Catcher In The Rye hadn’t turned out to be a brilliant personal cul de sac, Anderson’s work might bear further scrutiny.

In the grounds surrounding a mental rehab hospital for teenagers, a crow sounds his distinctive cry. To tell the truth, the “caw-caw, caw-caw” sounds more like a bad imitation of a crow by a pubescent boy than the real thing. Anthony (Luke Wilson) opens the window of his second-floor room, notices a friendly face below and quickly ties four bedsheets together. He anchors one end to his bed and tosses the other out the window.

“Anthony, what’s this? What’s going on?” asks the boy’s young doctor who’s walked in at just the wrong moment. “Uh, see, my friend Dignan didn’t realize this is a voluntary hospital,” Anthony stammers. “He had this whole escape thing worked out. He got so excited I didn’t have the heart to tell him. I gotta do it this way, Dr. Nichols. It’s only one floor.” Nichols (Ned Dowd) closes his eyes and, counter to every medical impulse running through his veins, says, “OK, but can you do it fast? This doesn’t look good.” Anthony replies sincerely, “Thanks, you’ve been a great doctor.” Nichols bids Anthony farewell at the window as the boy shinnies effortlessly to he ground. “Hey, Anthony, don’t try to save everybody, OK?” advises the doctor as he tosses the boy his overnight bag.

“Any problems?” asks Dignan (Owen Wilson) breathlessly as Anthony joins him behind a large clump of silver-tipped swordbrush. “Wait, wait! Who’d you get to do that?” he asks as someone begins to reel in the bedsheet escape ladder from above. “Did you bribe the janitor!?” he asks, waving to the figure above, even before Anthony can answer the question. Dr. Nichols slowly waves back.

The two boys are barely seated in the tidy little shuttle bus headed into town before Dignan plops a red-covered, spiral-bound notebook into his friend’s lap. “Look this over,” he says of the rambling plan he’s painstakingly developed to make them both financially independent, all done in Crayola colored-ink felt-pens. Subtitles include “Practice Jobs” and “First Real Heist.” Anthony’s eyes open wide when he sees subsequent pages devoted to “The Next 25 Years” and “The Final 50 Years.” “So, did you enjoy your visit to the nut house?” he asks Dignan. “Hey, put it behind you! You’re out, you’re better!” Dignan says testily. “And so it begins.”