A bit of explanation: I am a truly lazy, unfocused, and irresponsible human being. Or, at least, I was over the past two weeks, when I completely neglected to upload any new 'Movie Match' columns to this here blog. For the sake of completeness, however, I have included both of them below, hilariously inaccurate critical/box-office predictions intact -- keep in mind that when I wrote and published these, I had no idea that, for example, 'Meet the Browns' would end up on the dreaded IMDB Bottom 100 list, or that 'Run, Fatboy, Run' would place a miserable ninth at the box office in its opening week. Stay tuned for next week's column, when I'll predict that by the time the new Indiana Jones flick rolls around, we'll all have flying cars (electric, of course) and Lindsey Lohan will have joined a convent.

MOVIE MATCH: Long before 'Drillbit Taylor,' this little movie sparked Wilson’s career

We got spoiled last fall with those few months of rock-em-sock-em great movies coming out almost nonstop; unfortunately, we’re paying for it now during the weaksauce box office season we’re enduring at the moment.

Yes, it’s truly been a pretty cruddy month at the movies, and if not for Horton Hears a Who or maybe Tyler Perry’s upcoming Meet the Browns – his flicks seem to be getting better every time around – the pickings would be pretty slim indeed. Still, I’m going to be very cautiously optimistic about this week’s release Drillbit Taylor, if only because I’m a pretty big fan of star Owen Wilson and I really like the idea of him as a washed-up mercenary protecting freshman nerds from high school bullies. Plus, the film boasts an original story by John Hughes (yes, that John Hughes) and a screenplay by comedy it-guy Seth Rogen and former Beavis and Butt-head scribe Kristofor Brown – meaning that even if the humor is crude, it ought to at least satisfy anyone who can appreciate a good pee-pee joke.

Of course, maybe I’m just being overly positive about Drillbit since I just recently caught up with Wilson’s big-screen debut, a fantastic little indie gem that launched not only his career, but also those of his brother Luke and – maybe most importantly – co-writer/director Wes Anderson. Anderson’s Bottle Rocket, co-written by none other than Owen Wilson, was made in the mid-90s and, as IMDB.com informs me, tested as negatively in early screenings as any Columbia Pictures film up to that point. Truth be told, I wasn’t entirely sold on the film when I first saw it way back when, but now I have to seriously question what those test-screening attendees missed – this flick is a riot, and a very well-made one at that.

Bottle Rocket, basically, has a setup similar to a few billion other post-Pulp Fiction 90s comedies; the difference here is that, while many other filmmakers were content to simply rip off Tarantino’s hard-to-duplicate combination of witty repartee and splattery violence, Anderson instead toned down the ugliness and upped the sentimentality, creating maybe the most heartfelt and charming movie about armed robbery ever made.

The story is about three aimless young men from Middle America who ill-fatedly attempt to start a life of crime – there’s Anthony (Luke Wilson), a former preppie college boy who suffered a nervous breakdown and just got out of a mental hospital; his knockabout buddy Dignan (Owen Wilson), who fancies himself the brains of the operation but has a lot more enthusiasm than he does actual brains; and Bob (Robert Musgrave), a meek rich kid who’s recruited to be the gang’s getaway driver because he’s the only one they know that owns a car. Their plan, which Dignan has mapped out in comically meticulous detail, is to practice on a few low-level heists in order to catch the attention of Mr. Henry (James Caan) who runs both a landscaping business and, so Dignan is convinced, a first-class heist crew.

The film moves at a pretty leisurely pace – a lot of it takes place at a rural motel where Anthony, Dignan, and Bob hide out after knocking off a bookstore – and, like Anderson’s later films, is filled with quirky little details (Bob’s last name, for example), moments of unexpected sweetness, and the kind of hilariously dysfunctional relationships that he’s still exploring in films like last year’s underrated Darjeeling Limited. That said, the filmmaking isn’t nearly as accomplished as his later work, but the seeds of greatness are definitely there; the camerawork is often inventive, the use of jangly guitar-pop on the soundtrack is perfect, and the “big robbery” finale is a hoot.

What really makes Bottle Rocket special, however, is the cast, and that’s all the more impressive since the Wilsons and Musgrave hadn’t done any film acting before – aside from the Anderson student short this film is based on. Owen is particularly impressive, fleshing out a particularly well-developed character; Dignan remains lovable even as we pity his almost infinite stupidity, and Wilson nails the dog-chasing-his-tail qualities that make him tick. Caan is also a lot of fun as a balding suburban mobster (this guy sure ain’t no Sonny Corleone), as are Lumi Cavazos, as Anthony’s non-English-speaking love interest, and future Anderson mainstay Kumar Pallana as a safecracker who looks as if he’d have trouble cracking open a soda can.

The film’s got a lot of depth for something so breezy, and also might be the most accessible thing Anderson has done to date. It’s definitely worth seeing again especially if you enjoy Wilson, or if you’re trying to remember why you used to.


MOVIE MATCH: Miss ‘The State’? Then you’ll love ‘The Ten’

Chances are, if you grew up during the 90s and watched MTV for more than just the Salt ‘N Pepa videos, you at some point caught the network’s unfortunately short-lived sketch comedy series The State.

The show was a cult favorite at best, but it offered plenty to satisfy its alternative comedy-craving fanbase – from its memorably subversive and side-splitting sketches (like "Eating Muppets" or "The Jew, the Italian, and the Red-Headed Gay") to the one semi-famous catchphrase – “I wanna dip my balls in it!” – that still, sadly, makes me laugh to this day.

The good news about The State’s long-ago demise is that the show’s alumni have gone on to some pretty impressive comedic careers. Take castmember Thomas Lennon, for instance, who splits his time between writing mega-successful Hollywood comedies like The Pacifier and Night at the Museum and appearing as Lt. Jim Dangle in the ongoing, very funny Comedy Central series Reno 911! (which co-stars his fellow Staties Kerri Kenney-Silver and Robert Ben Garant).

And then, of course, there’s Michael Ian Black, probably The State’s most recognizable graduate thanks to his ubiquitous presence on VH1’s I Love the 80s, I Love the 70s, and I Love the 90s series as well as his many commercial gigs. Like Lennon, Black has also embarked on a screenwriting career, which brings us to this week’s release Run Fatboy Run – a Black-penned tale of romance, rejection, and, um, running directed by David Schwimmer and starring Shaun of the Dead’s Simon Pegg (who co-wrote with Black). The film looks funny, and maybe even sweet, but definitely pretty mainstream considering where Black came from – and if you’re an old-school State fan like me, it’s probably not exactly what you’d hope for one of that show’s kookiest cast members to come up with.

Don’t worry, though, because I do still have a movie for you. The Ten, released last year, is probably the closest thing to an actual State movie we’ll ever see; it’s a sketch-comedy anthology film featuring ten interlinked vignettes, each of which takes on one of the Ten Commandments. Writer/director David Wain is yet another veteran of the show – he’s also the guy behind the cult-fave summer camp comedy Wet Hot American Summer – and the film’s cast is split between State alums (Black, Kenney-Silver, and Ken Marino, for starters) and surprisingly big-name actors like Live Schrieber, Gretchen Mol, Wynona Ryder, and Adam Brody.

Like just about all sketch-comedy movies, The Ten is hit-and-miss, but the comedy is pretty bizarre and clever throughout, even when it’s not laugh-out-loud funny. Skits include a foreign-film parody about an American librarian (Mol) who has a very unusual sexual and spiritual awakening while vacationing in Mexico; a rather creepy tale about a newlywed (Winona Ryder) who falls head over heels for a ventriloquist’s dummy; a “false idol” story about a skydiving accident survivor (Brody) who becomes a national celebrity; and even a raunchy animated segment about an untrustworthy rhino and some deviant wiener dogs. The segments are linked by a framing story in which Paul Rudd introduces all the various commandments, though he gets increasingly tripped up by falling in and out of love with Famke Janssen and Jessica Alba (Moses never had it so tough).

As is probably obvious, Wain’s sense of humor hasn’t really changed much since his television days, and while The Ten isn’t too over-the-top in its outrageousness, the freedom of the R rating gives him the chance to get away with some things that even MTV would have balked at (i.e. the dummy sex scene). It’s a lot of fun seeing performers like Ryder and Schreiber let their guard down to embrace the film’s State-style absurdity, and there are at least three or four sketches on display here that rank with the show’s best material – the final one, involving the commandment about keeping the Sabbath day holy, is an absolute riot.

If nothing else, The Ten ought to tide State fans over until MTV finally releases the full-series DVD set they’ve been promising for years. It was a comedy series that, like its contemporaries Mr. Show and The Ben Stiller Show, never got the appreciation it deserved, but did at least launch the careers of some very funny people – and I, for one, am happy to see them working to keep the show’s spirit alive.