Bottle Shock (2008)

Director:

Randall Miller

Writers (WGA):

Jody Savin (screenplay) &
Randall Miller (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

19 September 2008 (Hong Kong)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Tagline:

Based on a true story of love, victory and fermentation.

Plot:

The story of the early days of California wine making featuring the now infamous, blind Paris wine tasting of 1976 that has come to be known as "Judgment of Paris".

Plot Keywords:

Wine | Wine Making | Airport | Paris France | Father Son Relationship

Awards:

1 win

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Chris Pine	...	Bo Barrett
Hal B. Klein	...	Shenky
Alan Rickman	...	Steven Spurrier
Jean-Michel Richaud	...	Maitre d'
Dennis Farina	...	Maurice Cantavale
Bill Pullman	...	Jim Barrett
Kirk Baily	...	Loan Officer
Freddy Rodríguez	...	Gustavo Brambila (as Freddy Rodriguez)
Philippe Bergeron	...	Pierre Tari
Rachael Taylor	...	Sam Fulton
Louis Giambalvo	...	George Taber
Jean-Pierre Gillain	...	Pierre Bréjoux
Greg Collins	...	Trucker
Luis Saguar	...	Man #1 (as Louis Saguar)
James Hiser	...	Man #2

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for brief strong language, some sexual content and a scene of drug use.

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | French | German

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

USA:PG-13 | Netherlands:6 | Singapore:NC-16 | South Korea:15 | Hong Kong:IIA | Australia:M | Portugal:M/12

Filming Locations:

Buena Vista Vinyards - 18000 Old Winery Road, Sonoma, California, USA

Company:

Shocking Bottle

Trivia:

Bill Pullman lost his sense of smell after a head injury and two-day coma.

Goofs:

Continuity: In the scene where Gustavo pours some of his red wine into a water glass and tells Bo, several times, "try it", the level of wine in the glass is constantly changing, from nearly full to only a sip, even before Bo drinks any of the wine.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Bo Barrett: [voice-over during a vineyard pan] It wasn't always like this. Before Paris, people didn't drink our wine. I mean, my friends did. But you could hardly consider their palates discerning...
Bo Barrett: Hell, we were farmers... sort of...
[pan to empty bottles of Montelena label and several early twenties/late teens smoking hookah]

Movie Connections:

References What Price Glory (1926)

Soundtrack:

Listen to the Music

Ambitious Effort, Gone Astray

Too bad, tch tch tch. They had something great to make a film about, but instead they overdid the effort and created a bit of a mess. To wit: individually the performances are good, but the dialogue and direction want for lack of finesse. Take for example the two chicks, Sam and Joe, who together (in character) do not a faux Meg Ryan make, despite all their attempts. This is the director's fault, who should have let Ms. Ryan's type go and tried for something historically correct and original . And the cut is wrong, because there is no tension or build-up along the way, as we are led through irrelevant adolescent-like romances, annoyingly. We want a film about wine, not whine. Plus the film fails to make us believe it's 1976; the dialogue style is much too current, the music too long-forgotten. The little gimmick of run-down cars in Napa is very overdone -- one VW Bug example is enough. Such a disappointment when the fun parts are in the ending credits where they let us in on the actual people's lives. The rest of the film is, well, just a sad little mess, casting a bright light on the author's, director's, and editor's ambitions or pretensions.