Criterion, who had already shown the Wes Anderson love with their Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic discs, announced back in 2007 that they were going to be putting out an edition of Bottle Rocket. This was met with much joy, especially because the previously released version, which came out back in 1996, was about as bare bones as you could get. The only real special feature it could claim was widescreen on one side of the disc, and full screen on the other. Big whoop.

The new version, which just came out in late 2008 has a ton of features, and is available in both standard and Blu-ray editions. But it also contains one of the single most sour notes ever hit in an Anderson DVD. It’s so extremely painful that it makes the package almost worth avoiding.

Just to be fair, here’s a list of everything the new edition of Bottle Rocket includes:

• a new digital transfer, approved by Wes Anderson and director of photography Robert Yeoman
• DTS HD 5.1 soundtrack
• Commentary track from Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson
• The Making of Bottle Rocket documentary with interviews from the actors, director, and producer James L. Brooks, directed by Barry Braverman
• The original 13 minute Bottle Rocket short film
• Eleven deleted scenes
• Storyboards and location photos
• Photographs by Laura Wilson
• The Shafrazi Lectures, No 1: Bottle Rocket, a sort of scholarly lecture about the movie
  
• Murita Cycles a 1978 short film from Barry Braverman

Altogether, that’s a lot of Bottle Rocketry for anyone. But the biggest draw for most people will be the new transfer, and the commentary from Wilson and Anderson, who also wrote the film.

You think they’d have some interesting insights into the making of this film. After all, Wilson and Anderson have known each other since college, and have collaborated on several films together. Instead what you get is a sleepy commentary from Wilson, with Anderson constantly prodding him and desperately trying to add some value to the track. At one point Anderson asks Wilson if he got the suggested questions or topics that were sent to him, in case they ran into long silences on the commentary, to which Wilson replies, “No. What questions?”

Unfortunately, it ends up sounding like someone from Criterion called them that morning, and said “Oh, we need to record you guys in about two hours.” Both Wilson and Anderson sound pretty much bored by the entire process, and there are several moments where vast expanses of silence pass by like icebergs in the night. Even if they ran out of stuff to talk about from Bottle Rocket, couldn’t they just shoot the breeze? No funny stories from the set? No anecdotes about all the Wilson brothers? No, instead you get stuff like Wilson saying to Anderson, “Hey, isn’t that your hair in that shot?” Why not just feature Anderson by himself? He did a great solo job on The Royal Tenenbaums commentary.

I don’t know much about the history of DVD authoring, so I’m not sure if there’s ever been a time when a DVD producer has gone back to the talent to say “I’m sorry, this just isn’t usable. Can you guys try that again?” The only commentary that comes to mind that is this inexplicably bad is from The Goonies, when Sean Astin has to leave in the middle because he had to attend a dinner with Joe Pantoliano. No kidding.

The other extras on the disc almost make up for this, particularly the eleven deleted scenes. There’s a scene called “Temple Nash Jr.” where Dignan, Bob, and Anthony are asking all kinds of gun questions of a redneck gun nut. It’s hilarious enough to be a standalone short film. Most directors comment on deleted scenes, but sadly Anderson doesn’t chime in on why these were cut. I’m assuming it must have been for time.

The Wilsons’ mother Laura, a professional photographer, took photos during the making of the short film and during its Sundance run, and also documented the crew’s initial meetings at Columbia Studios. These are shot in black and white, and they look terrific. There’s something about young Wes Anderson with his shock of Eraserhead hair that smacks of an Ivy League prep school, even though he was born and raised in Texas. Plus, seeing the pure joy on both Anderson and Wilson’s faces as they jump Toyota-commercial style off of the Columbia steps is a treat.

The only bad thing about the doc The Making of Bottle Rocket is that it’s only 26 minutes long. Filmmaker and longtime friend of the Wilson/Anderson set Barry Braverman gets pretty much everyone involved in the film on camera, and the best quote comes from James Caan, who says about his experience working on the movie, “Well, it was like three days. It was like being in the left hand corner of the Hollywood Squares or something.” There are some great remembrances in this that aren’t in the commentary track, and it’s also been shot in high-def widescreen as well. It’s too bad they couldn’t have made this feature length.

Also included on the disc is a short film from Braverman, this one made in 1978. It’s called Murita Cycles, and is about Braverman’s father who ran a bicycle shop on Staten Island for years, and Wilson and Anderson both said it was one of their inspirations for the Bottle Rocket short. It’s a touching look at an eccentric guy who goes from normal father to packrat kook and is documented and interviewed by his son.

The Shafrazi Lectures, No 1: Bottle Rocket is an 11-minute, very strange discussion of the film from Tony Shafrazi, the owner of the Shafrazi Gallery in New York. He’s the artist who spray painted “KILL LIES ALL” on top of Picasso’s “Guernica” in the Museum of Modern Art in 1974. It’s a near-incoherent praise of the film, and he compares it to films like East of Eden and Breathless, while displaying scenes on sheets of paper that he’s holding up in a dark room. It’s hard to decide if it’s sincere or not, since they including fake Charlie Rose style interviews from “The Peter Bradley Show” on the Tenenbaums disc. It’s almost worth watching just for the sheer bizarre factor. “I don’t like all this serious stuff,” Shafrazi remarks at one point.

There’s one other special feature nearly as painful as the commentary, but for different reasons. That’s an anamorphic test scene that was shot when they considered shooting the movie in the widescreen Panavision format. It looks completely gorgeous, and would have made Bottle Rocket even prettier than it already is. Granted, it’s a fairly perfect movie by my standards, but the movie geek in me yearns for a non-existent widescreen version of this to get unearthed sometime. Maybe in an alternate universe.

DVD booklets are not always worth remarking on, but this one includes Dignan’s complete 75-Year Plan along with essays from James L. Brooks and Martin Scorsese, all done in Dignan’s handwriting, which I assume is from illustrator Ian Dingman. If I admit that I’m giving serious consideration to scanning and framing the 75-Year Plan, then at least I’m on the first step to recovery from Anderson addiction.