Friday, February 26, 2021

Blood Of The Vines - Get Shafted

Pairing‌‌‌ ‌‌‌wine‌‌‌ ‌‌‌with‌‌‌ ‌‌‌movies!‌‌‌  ‌‌‌See‌‌‌ ‌‌‌the‌‌‌ ‌‌‌trailers‌‌‌ ‌‌‌and‌‌‌ ‌‌‌hear‌‌‌ ‌‌‌the‌‌‌ ‌‌‌fascinating‌‌‌ ‌‌‌commentary‌‌‌ ‌‌‌for‌‌‌ ‌‌‌these‌‌‌ ‌‌‌‌‌movies‌,‌‌ ‌‌‌and‌‌‌ ‌‌‌many‌‌‌ ‌‌‌more‌,‌‌ ‌‌‌at‌‌‌ ‌‌‌Trailers‌‌‌ ‌‌‌From‌‌‌ ‌‌‌Hell.‌‌‌ ‌ This week, we look at a couple of Shafts and a near-Shaft film, with wine and beer pairings for all three.

Shaft '19 is the fifth film in the Shaft series, a surprise to anyone who thought the first one was enough.  Samuel L. Jackson is John Shaft, son of John Shaft, Sr., played by Richard Roundtree, the original Shaft.  There's a grandson involved - named John Shaft III - but they call him JJ due to the unwritten rule concerning too many people in a movie bearing the same name.  Even the film itself couldn't find a title that separated it from the pack.

All three Shafts are detectives of one sort or another and they all try to beat the bad guys - the drug kingpins.  There are shootings, bad feelings and makeups along the way before an ending that leaves the door wide open for another Shaft sequel, possibly with a fourth generation of John Shafts.  The more, the merrier.

While scouring the internet for a pairing with Shaft ‘19, it did not surprise me to come across a listing for Samuel L. Jackson Motherf@#%ing Rye Wine.  It's actually more of a beer, and I don't know if the Pretentious Beer Company still offers it.  They do have one called Chug Life, a Czech-style pilsner which might fit the bill.

In the original Shaft, from 1971, Roundtree is the P.I. who is asked to find the daughter of a Harlem mobster who was kidnapped by Italian mafiosi.  There are shootings, bad feelings and a "case closed" stamp provided by Shaft… John Shaft.

For Shaft, you could scrape together a few grand for a wine once owned by the late mob boss John Gotti.  His collection is reportedly for sale at a wine shop in Queens.  Story goes, his wife once used a thousand-dollar bottle for cooking.  It may have gotten almost as big a laugh as wiping up lines of cocaine with a wet rag, thinking they were Parmesan cheese.

1973's The Slams features former NFL star Jim Brown in what could be taken as a "Shaft goes to prison" tale.  Brown's character is in the hoosegow for pulling a million-dollar job.  People inside want him to give up the location of the cash, but he needs to get over the wall in a hurry.  The clock is ticking, because the place where he hid the loot is scheduled for demolition.

For Brown, The Slams was quite a comedown from 1967's The Dirty Dozen.  The movie falls in with a stretch of celluloid which includes Black Gunn, Slaughter and Slaughter's Big Rip-Off.  Ooh, Netflix me!

Brown is a prisoner in The Slams, so let's pair the film with the wine known as The Prisoner.  I don't know how high the security is in Napa Valley's stoney lonesome, but it is said to be relatively easy to smuggle a bottle or two of The Prisoner out of your local wine shop.  $49 bucks is all it takes to grease the warden's palm.

For the adventurous - or the incarcerated - maybe some pruno will do the trick.  It's prison wine, and here's a spoiler alert: it tastes like something spoiled.


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1 comment:

  1. I don't know which is more impressive, your knowledge of wine, or of film.

    ReplyDelete