I enjoyed watching Bottle Rocket, Wes Anderson's first film. It has much of the elements of his work: deadpan tone, and a focus on family–even though Luke and Owen Wilson don't play brothers, it's pretty hard to forget that they are.

Bottle Rocket is also a good reminder of why Owen Wilson is so much fun to watch on screen.

I think that one of the reasons the movie succeeds is that Anderson allows his characters to break the deadpan-ness that characterizes his later films. Both The Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling Limited suffered from too much distance, I felt. Here, the relationship with Inez has real joy in it, something lacking from his other films.

I still think the best Wes Anderson films are The Royal Tenebaums and Rushmore. But this holds up pretty well, too.