Showing posts with label wine pairing with movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wine pairing with movies. Show all posts

Friday, January 31, 2025

Blood Of The Vines - Here Kitty

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 pair wines with catcalls for films featuring feline fur. 

The Cat Man of Paris was Republic Pictures' contribution to the horror of 1946. The story involves an author whose writing is getting him into trouble. We've seen this before, but bear with us. A librarian gets clawed to death, which is not the way it's supposed to go for librarians. The Dewey Decimal System is supposed to be a safe career path.

People start giving the author the side eye for some reason, but they really get nasty when his ex meets the same fate. It's pitchforks and torches time. His current gal pal is given a gun by his friend. I think we can look up "MacGuffin" the next time we are near a dictionary that hasn't been clawed up or spattered with blood. I won't spoil the ending for you, but the gun and the friend who gave it to her end up in the same obituary.

We have to go here with a rosé called La Nuit Tous Les Chats Sont Gris. That translates roughly to "At night, all cats are grey." That may be due to the work of the cold-hearted orb that rules the night, or it may not. But who am I to turn down a rosé that is almost from Provence?

In Cat People, a man marries a woman who is afraid she will become a killer cat if she has sex with her husband. That takes "I've got a headache" to a new level. I'm guessing this wasn't what they meant by a "lady in the parlor, tiger in the bedroom." When I think of cat people, I think of that crazy lady down the street who has about 27 of them living in her one-room apartment. 

I hear that Cat People, the 1942 original, in glorious and shadowy black and white, was shrugged off as a cheap horror flick by critics of the day. Since then, though, they have started calling it a "smart little drama," maybe after a few glasses of wine. Over the years, the film has become a cultural touchstone. It has left its paw prints in the Library of Congress and is even in the New York Museum of Modern Art. Not to mention the references all over the Internet. That's one place where a kitty feels right at home.

Let’s get our claws into a wine pairing for Cat People. Napa's Black Cat Vineyard quotes Mark Twain: "If man would be crossed with a cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat." Meow! Normally, we look for dogs at wineries, but this one went the other way. Their top shelf Cabs run $120, which is also what their bottom shelf Cabs run.

If you want a sequel, here comes 1944's The Curse of the Cat People. Don’t dig in, though. Although several of the characters and actors from Cat People appear, the story is completely detached from the original and cats are all but inconsequential. The film is more like a fairy tale than a horror movie and as TFH guru Joe Dante suggests, it may have been better suited as a Disney production.

The ghost story has a complicated plot and leans heavily on a child and her imaginary friends. I'm not opposed to children, or imaginary friends, but it seems this flick should have had either a different title or a different script. 

Hirsch Vineyards has a Pinot Noir called The Bohan-Dillon, made with grapes grown in western Sonoma County. It's good, I'm told, but what really gets it listed here is the label art featuring a black cat prowling through the tall grass. $45 if you can find it. 


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Friday, January 24, 2025

Blood Of The Vines - David Lynch Week

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 mourn the loss of another film icon. So far, 2025 really sucks. We have some wine pairings to help you get through it.

Descriptions cannot do 1977's Eraserhead justice. You may not understand it, but you'll sure as hell never forget it. The first full-length film from David Lynch features a weird dude who is almost incapable of behaving like a human. Even weirder is his offspring by the Beautiful Lady Across the Hall. The baby-sized creature makes the most annoying sound one can imagine from a living thing. 

Speaking of sound, the whole movie has white noise growing throughout. When it abruptly ends, the silence is deafening. Lynch's title character gets his name from a sequence in which his disembodied head falls on the street and cracks open. A kid gathers it up, takes it to a pencil factory, and it is made into erasers. 

Back in the Golden Tan Summer of '77, a buddy and I traveled an hour and a half to see Eraserhead at an art house in Houston. We were mystified, but not disappointed, by the movie. If you have never seen Eraserhead, you should strap in and prepare for what may well be the strangest film ever made.

Eraserhead is a term used in vineyards, believe it or not. It describes a bud on a grapevine before it opens. Unfortunately, we don't make wine from eraserheads, we make wine from grapes, preferably good grapes.

Lynch designed the packaging for the 2003 Dom Perignon Brut. It runs close to $300 and often sells only in half-cases. The boxed version reportedly had little velvet curtains that rose by pulling a drawstring on the side. The Lady in the Radiator is extra.

The talk of 1986 was, at least in movies, Lynch's magnum opus of weirdness, Blue Velvet. My close friend Tom took his girlfriend to see it during its opening weekend. He called me on Monday, advising me to see it, while warning me not to take a date. "Don't let the title fool you," he said. "It's not a date movie."

It is a disturbing film, but after seeing Eraserhead, I expected nothing less. Many critics panned Blue Velvet, citing its extreme violence, brutal sexuality, and dreamlike quality. Their views have largely mellowed over the years. Now the film is hailed as a masterpiece. Maybe the critics were inhaling whatever Frank Booth was having. 

Dennis Hopper's Frank Booth is the most unhinged and deranged character of the Hopper pantheon. His psychotic violence and reliance on some sort of gas, which he huffs from an oxygen mask, are both horrifying and spellbinding. If you think to yourself, "Hey, I once knew a guy like that," you are lucky to still be alive. 

Kyle MacLachlan, who played Jeffrey Beaumont in Blue Velvet, owns a Washington state winery called Pursued By Bear. Their 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon is a fine accompaniment for the film. It sells for $70. You won't find it on the wine list at This Is It, but you won't find a wine list there, either. Just order a Pabst! Blue! Ribbon!

In 1980, The Elephant Man brought Lynch to commercial and artistic success. The story of Joseph Merrick, a severely disfigured man in 19th century London, was critically acclaimed and a big hit at the box office. The film garnered a heap of Oscar nominations, notably for Best Picture and Best Actor for John Hurt. However, no wins resulted.

At the time, the line, "I am not an animal. I am a human being," became a part of pop culture. Mostly used by ignorant people trying to be funny, the phrase was often spoken in tortured bellowing, cheaply imitating Hurt's incredibly moving performance.

The movie was actually produced by Mel Brooks, whose name did not appear in the credits for fear movie-goers would expect a comedy.

New Zealand's Elephant Hill winery sells a red blend for $150. It's called Hieronymus, which means it will also pair if you're eyeballing some Dutch masterworks, or binge watching Bosch again. 


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Friday, January 17, 2025

Blood Of The Vines - Michael Schlesinger Week

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 remember a guy who was hard to forget. We have wine pairings, too, for the inevitable toasts to his name.

The late film exec and TFH guru Michael Schlesinger was a connoisseur of fine film. The 1963 madcap comedy, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, was one of his favorites. It stars Spencer Tracy, backed up by an all-star cast featuring Edie Adams, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Ethel Merman, Dorothy Provine, (lemme catch my breath), Mickey Rooney, Dick Shawn, Phil Silvers, (did I say Dorothy Provine?), Terry-Thomas, Jonathan Winters and about 200 other notables in cameos.  Mr. Winters was enough to grab me as I was already a huge fan by the tender age of eight years. This movie puts the mad in madcap, the screw in screwball, the slap in slapstick and the road in road comedy. To be precise, it puts four mads in madcap. 

The characters all scramble to be the first to discover the hiding place of $350,000 in stolen cash.  Jimmy Durante spills the beans about the money before dropping dead.  For his "the gold...it’s in the…" moment, Durante tells the assembled mob only that the treasure is under a big W. Let the money madness begin. 

Director Stanley Kramer was reportedly none too happy about the studio ripping out footage like a drywall demo team. Apparently nobody told him that Hollywood didn't need any three-hour comedies. Even with more than a half an hour of celluloid on the cutting room floor, the movie still ran 161 minutes. To quote Robert Vaughn from Blake Edwards’ S.O.B., "That's too long."

Nowadays the movie runs well over three hours. For some people, that's a lot of Terry-Thomas. So, just open three bottles of wine to get through the viewing. Try Madcap, a red blend from British Columbia's Okanagan Valley. The winery, Fairview Cellars, is described as being "on the Reed Creek alluvial Fan at the North end of the Benches of the Golden Mile." I think there may be too many capital letters there, but that's how they wrote it.

2015's The Adventures of Biffle and Shooster uses the comedy team of Laurel and Hardy as a touchstone, right down to the ill-fitting suits and schemes you just know are never going to work. Benny Biffle and Sam Shooster (Nick Santa Maria and Will Ryan) are a vaudeville duo who supposedly ran afoul of Hal Roach's good graces over their copycat film shorts. These efforts are set in 1930s black and white, with jokes that seem about that fresh.

It's all done in great fun, however. The handful of shorts are directed and written by Schlesinger with the love of a true cinephile, not the snarky snickers of someone who doesn't get the source material to begin with.

If you consider Biffle and Shooster a knockoff of Laurel and Hardy, how about a Knockoff Chardonnay from Replica Wines? They say they reverse-engineer their winemaking to imitate the qualities of other, high-priced, wines. Don't know who their sights were set on with the $16 2018 Knockoff Chardonnay, but they say it has a buttery kick to it.

1937's Sh! the Octopus was another Schlesinger fave. The movie is as weird as the title. Warner Brothers mainstays Hugh Herbert and Allen Jenkins serve as the sort of detectives you would expect to find in a '30s comedy-mystery set in a lighthouse and featuring a giant octopus. If, indeed, you have any expectations that fit those parameters. 

This movie proves that every now and then, we need a wine with an octopus on the label. Extra points if it's a really great wine. Holus Bolus to the rescue. The Santa Barbara County artisan outfit has a mollusk on its Grenache, Syrah, and my beloved Bien Nacido Vineyard Roussanne, all for $40 each. I'd suggest an eight-pack. 


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Friday, January 10, 2025

Blood Of The Vines - Monsieur Auteur Jerry

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 deal with wine pairings for three films featuring le roi de la comédie, Jerry Lewis. 

The two faces of Jerry Lewis. There is the lovable loon, the frantic, crazy clown who put a drinking glass inside his distended lips for a laugh. Then there is the smug, super serious Rat Pack wannabe who called for the tote board update once an hour during Labor Day weekends for so many years. If you knew him only through his movies, you probably knew him as the funny clown. If you had ever met him personally, it was likely the sad clown you remembered.  

I saw Jerry Lewis do a one-man show at an off-strip hotel in Las Vegas. It was one of the better live performances I ever attended. The typewriter bit made it worth the money, er, the player's card points.

One More Time did not star Lewis, but he directed it. The 1970 feature found Jerry in his auteur phase, during which he sported a beard. The facial hair did make him look more like a director, but it wasn't funny, so eventually it had to go. He brought it back in his gray years, and it actually looked kinda funny then.

Rat Packers Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford reprise their roles as Salt and Pepper, respectively. Pepper goes to his twin brother, seeking a loan to keep a nightclub in business. Bro declines to front the money, but when he turns up murdered, Pepper takes his brother's identity and becomes wealthy. He also becomes the target of the mobsters who were his associates. The pair then takes on the job of trying to send the bad guys to prison. 

It's not the laugh riot that may have been expected from Lewis fans. That may be why it's the only film Jerry directed in which he did not star. Or vice versa. 

Let's go to Portugal for a wine called MOB. Specifically, it's M.O.B., for the collaborative winemakers Moreira, Olazabal, and Borges. Their M.O.B. Senna White is made from grapes called Encruzado and Bical. I've never heard of them, either, but it'll cost you about $25 to find out what they taste like. Call this one Salt, and the matching red wine Pepper. 

Back in 1961, Lewis helmed and starred in The Ladies Man. Lewis fans will know this film as the origin of what became a Jerry Lewis calling card, his adenoidal yell of "Hey laaady!"

He plays a dweeb who gives up women after losing his girlfriend. I guess he figured there wasn't much more to lose. He takes a job at a boarding house, only to discover that it is populated entirely by females. Wouldn't ya just know it? The sad clown gives way to the funny clown in one misadventure after another. Even those who don't care much for the Lewis brand of comedy say that this is one of his best films. 

Langman Estate has a bottle of old vine Zinfandel from the Sierra Foothills, called Herbert Ranch. I'd love to say it was named for Lewis' Ladies Man character, Herbert Heebert. More likely, it was named for the guy who owns the vineyard. 50 bucks, and it's in limited supply.

In The Patsy, from 1964, Lewis plays a bellhop who finds himself recruited to take the place of a star who just died in a plane crash. Why the dead star's managers decide to groom a talentless bellhop as their new gravy train is left as a mystery. You see this coming, right? His appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show is a smashing success. He is Rupert Pupkin, without the kidnapping, a schmuck who is elevated to star status. Perhaps the scenario presages the rise of reality television, in which schmucks attain star status on a weekly basis. 

There is supposed to be a Schmuck Winery in Franken, Germany and a 5 Schmucks Winery on the outskirts of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, but neither are very accessible. Apparently, they weren't very good, either.  After spending way too much time down the "Schmuck wine" rabbit hole, I came to my senses. 

The Rat Pack supposedly enjoyed J&B Rare Scotch whisky. At least that's what Artificial Intelligence tells me, then just stands there with a casual "what?" on its digital lips. Chivas Regal and Jack Daniels get mentioned, thanks to Sinatra. Hey, if Sinatra was drinking it, weren't they all? "We'll have whatever Frank's having."

Australia's Minim Winery gives us a wine called Patsy, which sounds like as good a choice as any. A white blend of Fiano and Vermentino, Patsy runs about $30. It sounds like a good wine for summers on the coast, or for toasting your recently achieved schmuckhood. 


Friday, January 3, 2025

Blood Of The Vines - Nature Gone Mad

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 get back to a little good ol' fashioned horror, with some, hopefully, not-so-horrible wine pairings for our three films.

If you’re looking for a hotbed of horror, 1984 is probably a good year in which to start, with movies like The Terminator, Bloodsuckers from Outer Space, and C.H.U.D. That last one features a split-level universe, where nuclear survivors live either above or below ground.

In 1984's Rats--Night of Terror, the war survivors do the same thing, living underground in safety or above ground in danger. Fallout, anyone? A group of the less fortunate come across an old research lab. Unbeknownst to them, the lab rats now run the place.

As you might expect, the group is picked off and killed, one by painful one. The rats are relentless, four-legged, pointy-nosed zombies with an appetite for anything that walks into town. Get that popcorn ready!

Curiously, no one tried to make friends with the rats and sing a love song to them, as in Ben from 1972. By the way, if anyone has a story about what made Michael Jackson agree to sing that film's theme song, I'd love to hear it. I know he was just coming out of his Jackson Five stage, but he was apparently old enough then to be making his own decisions. Big number one hit, sure. Can't argue with success. But the derision follows it to this day. 

Sage Rat Winery in Washington's Yakima Valley worked with Sonder of Rattlesnake Hills for their Carbonic Nebbiolo. It's a light-bodied red or a dark rosé, take your pick. It's only $24, so pick a few. 

Steven Spielberg put Peter Benchley's book, "Jaws," to celluloid in 1975. Robert Shaw plays a professional shark hunter, which has to look odd in the "occupation" blank on the tax returns every year. It has to be a tough way to make a living, too. Think how many shark-tooth necklaces you have to sell just to pay the note on your boat. By the way, you'll need a bigger boat. Shaw reportedly didn't like the book and wanted to pass on the role of Quint. His wife and secretary convinced him otherwise, as they did with From Russia With Love.

Jaws caused more changes to vacation plans that year than a Hawaii hurricane. As a kid, I witnessed my neighbor suffering a sting from a Portuguese man o' war. There are things out there that can hurt you. Since then, my beach excursions have ventured no closer to the water than the nearest seaside bar.

In Jaws, Quint chugs and crushes a Narragansett beer, a feat that was tougher in '75 than it is now because today's Narragansett cans are 40% lighter.  As for wine, Roy Schneider's police chief is seen drinking Barton and Guestier Beaujolais by the tumbler. I'll use a wine glass, thanks. It's a $20 bottle. 

Poultrygeist, subtitled as The Night of the Chicken Dead, takes nothing seriously, so neither will we. The topic here is chickens. Chickens that turn the table on man and scratch out a sign in the dirt saying, "Eat Mor Peepul."

As in Poultergeist, this movie involves the invasion of a sacred burial ground. The trouble starts when a fast food franchise moves in on the memorialized dead.  What erupts afterward (and erupts is the right word) is nothing for the squeamish.  If you really are having coq au vin with this film, you've got a stronger constitution that I have, and that's saying a lot.

Lloyd Kaufman, the man behind the movie, says if there's a more graphic depiction of explosive diarrhea than the one in this film, even he doesn't want to see it.  The sight of big chickens exacting their revenge on the employees of this eatery is played for the bloodiest kind of humor.  It's like a chicken dinner in reverse, with the meat served very rare.  

Pairing wine with chicken is easy.  There are hundreds of apps available for the purpose of food and wine pairing. The Rolling Stones might have sung that pairings, in a more digital environment, are just a click away. Or, in this case, just a cluck away.  

Rex Goliath Wines are represented by a big ol' fightin' rooster on the label. The wines are all sourced from that exclusive appellation known as "California," which is located just west of "the rest of the world."  You won't be branded a wine snob when you plop a magnum of Rex Goliath down on the coffee table.  Best of all, it's really cheep. Er, cheap.


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Friday, December 13, 2024

Blood Of The Vines - Clowning Around

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 hope you don't have an aversion to clowns. If you do, the wine pairings for these movies should help get you through.

Your favorite clown movie may be missing from this compendium. Mine is. I suppose there is only so much room on the Internet. Hard choices have to be made. Shakes the Clown didn't make the list. More's the pity. Neither did Clown, The Clown Murders, Wrinkles the Clown, It, The Greatest Show on Earth, and, inexplicably, Joker. Married to the Mob has a great clown scene in it, but not enough to make it a real clown movie.

A Thousand Clowns has only one clown in it, and he's really a chipmunk. The film stars Jason Robards, Barbara Harris, Martin Balsam and Barry Gordon. Gordon was a long-serving member of the Screen Actors Guild, but he played a 12-year-old when this movie was made, in 1965.

Robards plays a single dad who looks after his nephew. He wrote jokes for Chuckles the Chipmunk until it became a J-O-B. His biggest fear is falling into the life of an Average Joe, so he throws real life concerns overboard to hold on to his whimsy. The state doesn't consider whimsy a good environment for a 12-year-old, and they threaten to take the kid from him if he doesn't find work.

He wrestles with the notion of  9-to-5 before caving in for the sake of his nephew. I know that terse description doesn't make it sound like much, but it's actually a pretty good film.

Chipmunk Tinto is made from three wonderful Portuguese grapes: Touriga Franca, Tinta Roriz, and Touriga Nacional. A nice wine from the Douro Valley, it sells online for around $20.

At the Circus is a 1939 Marx Brothers movie. In this romp, Groucho, Harpo and Chico help prevent a circus from going bankrupt. Where were you when I needed you, guys? In addition to the Marxes, you also get the ever-flummoxed Margaret Dumont and the debut rendition of the song, "Lydia, the Tattooed Lady." You had me at Margaret Dumont, one of the great straight men. Er, straight women.

Some of the circus employees, like the strongman, the little person, and the gorilla, aid the brothers in their quest to recapture the outfit from a hostile takeover attempt. Back then, a hostile takeover was referred to simply as "stealing."

It's a fun flick, and if you're one of those clown-phobic types, just cover your eyes while they're on screen. 

Michael David Winery has a Cabernet Sauvignon called Freakshow with some circus types depicted on the label. $15 for a Central Coast Cab is not a bad deal. It's cheaper than buying a circus. 

In 1988, someone greenlighted Killer Klowns from Outer Space. That person is probably at least that far from the movie industry now. 

The working title was simply, Killer Klowns, but the producers thought people would think it was a slasher movie. In a stroke of genius, they added "from Outer Space" to the marquee, ordered a rewrite, and proceeded to make a cult classic. Think of how easily that changes your perception of a film. National Velvet from Outer Space, The Godfather from Outer Space, and When Harry Met Sally from Outer Space all get a conceptual makeover from that technique. 

An online search led me to several Etsy sites which sell glassware devoted to Killer Klowns from Outer Space. If you're into it, have at it. Me, I'll use my standard unadorned wine glass for sipping Mollydooker's Carnival of Love Shiraz. It's a hundred dollar wine. The clowns on the label look more like court jesters at Mardi Gras, but at least it's expensive. 


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Friday, December 6, 2024

Blood Of The Vines - 3 Great Westerns

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 toast to a little Americana. A trio of great movies that feature the American West, in all its rip-roarin', six-shootin', horse ridin' glory. 

When I was a kid, my mom was a night owl. She stayed up late and watched TV until the stations went off the air. Yes, Virginia, there was a time before 24/7 television. The local station played an old movie every weeknight after Johnny Carson. Look it up, Virginia. The station was cheap, and they bought only enough movies to last a month before they repeated them. I remember my mom, about halfway through the summer, bitching endlessly about having to watch Taras Bulba and 3:10 to Yuma over and over. The way she threw her whole being into the word Yuma was hilarious. Occasional viewings were okay with her, but not once a month. 

3:10 to Yuma is from 1957, the year my sister was born. Maybe that was a trigger for mom, I don't know. Glenn Ford and Van Heflin star in the film, which was based on a short story by Elmore Leonard. Ford is a bad guy and Heflin is the good guy charged with taking the captured murderer to justice. There is only a trace of Mr. Eddie's Father in Ford's performance, and it comes at the end of the movie. No spoilers. 

The dusty desert setting calls for a wine that can wet a whistle.  Arizona Stronghold takes the names for their wines from Native American legend - Tazi, Nachise, Lozen - which conjure up images of a saguaro cactus and a guy waiting for a train as the tumbleweeds blow by.

Stagecoach is a 1939 classic from the archives of both John Ford and John Wayne. Ford directed Wayne as the Ringo Kid, and both cemented their legendary status with their work. Stagecoach is one of the most lauded films of all time, and you don't have to take it from me. Orson Welles said he watched it dozens of times when he was preparing to make Citizen Kane, although I don't recall too many cowboy hats in Citizen Kane. No stagecoaches, either. 

The story involves a few characters sharing a stage traveling through dangerous Native American territory. Okay, a boozer, a hooker, and a whiskey salesman, if you must know. Which sounds like the setup to a joke that carries the punchline, "How far is the Old Log Inn?" 

I mentioned that the film has many laurels on which to rest, but the depiction of Indians as ruthless savages is a bone being picked harder harder than your Thanksgiving turkey's wishbone. Since all turkeys have wishbones, did no turkey ever wish to not be decapitated and cooked? Just something that bobs up in my mind this time each year.

For this wine pairing, I'm just going to go generic and let you choose one in your price range. Keep it in mind for Christmas. Sauvignon Blanc goes well with turkey, and maybe you have a few turkey sandwiches left on the platter. Chardonnay will be fine if you have bolder tastes. 

1959's No Name on the Bullet finds Audie Murphy playing the heavy, for a change, as a hired killer.  He never did any alcohol or tobacco commercials, fearing he'd be a bad example for the youngsters.  That's my job.

So, advertising for beer was bad, but playing a murderer was okay?  Whatevs.  Anyhow, No Name on the Bullet is a film which has been lauded for its chin-stroking metaphysical side, even though Murphy, in the film, does not play a game of chess with death.

19 Crimes wine has the most bizarre backstory of any bottled beverage.  The various bottlings are dedicated to British criminals who were sent to live in the Australian penal colony.  Conviction of any one of 19 specific crimes earned the luckless lawbreaker a spot on the ship.  Among the crimes were stealing fish from a pond or river, bigamy, and impersonating an Egyptian. Professional murder was not one of the punishable offenses.  If you get bored with the movie, the criminal on the label tells his or her story through the magic of modern technology.


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Friday, November 29, 2024

Blood Of The Vines - Apes Of Wrath

Pairing wine with movies!  See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell.  This week, a simian trio of films. Big screen apes, and the wines to make them more palatable. 

Monkey Business, the 1952 screwball comedy directed by Howard Hawks, is one of those hard-to-believe-yet-kinda-funny-in-a-way movies. That's the textbook definition of a screwball comedy, by the way. You could look it up.

Cary Grant plays an absent-minded chemist, and the laughs are welling up already. He has invented a youth elixir, but hasn't tested it yet. Here comes the monkey, so fasten your laughter harness. One of his chimps gets loose in the office and pours the fountain of youth into the office Sparkletts dispenser. You can almost hear the audience giving forth with an expectant, "uh-oh." 

Well, everybody and the monkey's uncle unwittingly drink the concoction, sending them into a second childhood. Things get even wackier when an actual baby is thrown into the screenplay. What else could one expect when you keep chimps in your workplace? For laughs, you can't beat this stuff. In addition to Mr. Grant, you get Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe, so the giggles get girly, too. 

We haven't sampled an Arizona wine lately, so let's dip into a barrel of Cheeky Monkey Sauvignon Blanc, from Elgin Winery and Distillery. It's a $25 investment, and they say it's dry. Unlike this film's humor. 

The Banana Monster was originally titled Shlock when a very young TFH Guru John Landis made it in 1971. He also starred in it, wearing a gorilla suit designed by none other than seven-time Oscar winner Rick Baker. Landis explains that after his success with Animal House, the distributor revived Schlock with the new title. People didn't like it under either name and stayed away in droves. It is notable mainly for Landis being perhaps the skinniest gorilla you have ever seen. Jump cut to the drinks.

Banana wine is an obvious choice here, but you apparently have to make your own, as nobody seems to sell it pre-made. Hmm, I wonder why? Here's an idea: Banana Schnapps. Listen, it was good enough as barf fuel for your high school hip flask. Anyway, you're watching Schlock and complaining about drinking Schnapps? A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, you know.

From 1943, Captive Wild Woman features Acquanetta as the Gorilla Girl. Acquanetta had nothing to do with Aquanet hair spray. John Carradine is seen in what is probably not one of his more memorable roles. If you like finding 1960s TV actors in movies that gave them a leg up, you'll love seeing Milburn Stone in a role other than "Doc" on Gunsmoke.

This movie spawned a couple of sequels in Universal's Cheela, The Ape Woman series, one of which is labeled by TFH Guru Joe Dante as one of the worst horror films ever made. But we live for bad horror films, don't we? Don't we?

Denver's Infinite Monkey Theorem is a winery named after the notion that if you turn an infinite number of monkeys loose in a vineyard, somehow wine would be made. Or something like that. They specialize in canned wine with inventive names like "White Wine" and "Red Wine." It's your choice. 


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Friday, November 22, 2024

Blood Of The Vines - Akira!

Pairing wine with movies!  See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell.  This week, a visit to the Far East for some Japanese film treasures, all directed by the great Akira Kurosawa. We also have a wine pairing for each movie. 

First of all, a tip of the green visor to the Trailers From Hell gurus, who named this week's feature Akira! The single word and the exclamation point really make one think of a Japanese monster movie. Godzilla! Rodan! Mothra! Lost in Translation! Well, I let myself go a little too far there. It's not the first time.

I discovered the pleasure of watching Akira Kurosawa's films long before I discovered the pleasure of sipping a good wine. It was in college, a film appreciation class. I remember one criticism which went, "All I got from Rashomon was a stiff neck and a sore butt." That's how I rolled in college, anything for a joke, even one fueled by Annie Green Springs. I was actually criticizing the accommodations at the student center film viewing room. I really liked the film, but there was a joke to be made. I'm still trying to grow out of that habit. Thankfully I did grow out of sipping Annie Green Springs while viewing Kurosawa's treasures.

Maybe the best known Kurosawa film is from 1954, The Seven Samurai. Later translated into English as the western, The Magnificent Seven, this movie has been reimagined more times than A Star is Born

A village of farmers hire a samurai warrior to help them battle a band of thugs who plan to attack after harvest and steal their crops. This was harder back in the 16th century than it is today. With TaskRabbit, a good and dependable samurai is just a click away. Back then you had to know somebody. 

The samurai assembles his team and they go to work protecting and serving like the LAPD can only dream about. Muskets versus swords may not sound like a fair fight, but the bandits only had a few guns and the good guys stole one of them. Also, samurai are fairly good with blades, so the edge was actually theirs. 

The villagers who hired the septet couldn't afford to pay much, so in honor of them, let's splurge on our wine for The Seven Samurai. Black Samurai Cabernet Sauvignon hails not from the mountains of Japan, but from the valley called Napa. Hey, it's a cool label. If you can find it, it will cost about $200. There's no discount if you happen to be a samurai, but it wouldn't hurt to ask. 

Kurosawa's Rashomon is the 1950 examination of how the teller tells the tale. Four people give very different accounts of a crime, their stories filtered by their own perspectives. Toshiro Mifune stars as a robber who murders a samurai, if that's what you want to believe. His performance is powerful, a modern masterpiece of acting. During my college days, I briefly tried to emulate Mifune's vocal mannerisms. After a few blown job interviews, I decided to give it up. However, John Belushi used those mannerisms to great effect in his brief career.

The technique of investigating what people say, and how they say it, was later used to a lesser degree in The Conversation. Gene Hackman discovers that the couple on whom he is eavesdropping are not in fear for their lives, they're plotting a murder. We should employ this sort of discretion when listening to our politicians tell us how great they're going to make America. 

In the legal world, the Rashomon effect is the name given to the explanation of how different people give differing testimony of the same event. If your lawyer is basing your case on the Rashomon effect, you're probably screwed. 

Kurosawa Sake is no relation to the director, but details like that have never stopped me before. Kurosawa Junmai Kimoto is a craft sake, if you will. If you won't, we'll call it an artisanal rice wine. The kimoto style of sake differs from the big brands in that it requires more work, takes longer to make, and costs more. My wife would love it! You can find it for under $30 in a lot of liquor, beer and wine outlets. 

George Lucas says he drew heavily from Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress for his Star Wars juggernaut. The 1958 adventure centers on two paupers who agree to help get a man and a woman across dangerous territory. What they don't know is that he's a general and she's a princess. They're helping the couple for money, so they don't really care who they are as long as they get paid. I'm sure you can relate. 

Fortress did quite well in Japanese theaters, where movie-goers eat puffed rice, not popcorn, and they eat it from a bento box, not a crinkly paper bag. They were also too polite to talk to the screen. American audiences were spoiled by the grandeur of Rashomon and The Seven Samurai, and were not so inclined to applaud. When they talked to the screen, it was not so much to ask for a refund on the ticket price as it was to ask for directions to where Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was playing. Today, Fortress is regarded as another Kurosawa masterpiece, and it garners as many rotten tomatoes as you can throw. 

Fortress Winery of California’s North Coast wine region puts out a namesake Bordeaux style, made from Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, and Merlot grapes. It's not hidden, and this Fortress sells for about $30. 


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If you are making the leap over to BlueSky, I'm there, too.

Friday, November 15, 2024

Blood Of The Vines - Murder Will Out

Pairing wine with movies!  See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell.  This week, our three films are simply killer. So are the wine pairings that go with them.

From the title, we can assume that 1965's How to Murder Your Wife is a black comedy. We can also assume that the title probably read a lot funnier in 1965 than it does today. 

Jack Lemmon and Virna Lisi star. He's an avowed bachelor and she's the person he winds up marrying during a drunken evening. The couple are introduced when she jumps out of a cake at a bachelor party. Talk about a meet-cute. Yes, kids. That's how grammy and pop-pop met before there was Tinder. 

With cake in mind, let's pair this film with a nice Cakebread Cellars Grenache. It pairs well with this movie, and it could pair well with a wedding cake. Unless, of course, it's a cake that someone is hiding in until everyone is drunk.

Now it's dark. Murder By Contract is a 1958 film noir which has held a lot more sway than its initial reception would suggest.  Martin Scorsese has hailed the movie as an influence on his style of filmmaking.  Vince Edwards stars as a hit man who carries no gun, has no conscience, and takes a little too much pride in his work.

He routinely kills men at the request of his bosses - guys with names like Mr. Brink and Mr. Moon. However, he experiences angst when an important witness in a big case is targeted, and it turns out she's a woman.  Nah, he's not the hit man with a heart o' gold.  He simply thinks women are too unpredictable to make good targets.  He thinks they're trouble. He finds out that in his case, they are.

San Diego County's Cheval Winery has their Bullet Cabernet Franc on offer for $77. It could be an offer you will refuse at your own peril.

Alfred Hitchcock was always pouring drinks down the throats of his characters. The director used alcohol as medicine in many of his films, particularly as a cure for the nervousness his suspenseful storylines caused. If a character survived a near-death experience with a homicidal maniac, a vehicle, or some birds, the next thing heard was likely to be "Here - have some brandy."

In Dial M For Murder Hitch really put drinking on a pedestal. Ray Milland must have had Lost Weekend flashbacks during the filming of this 1954 classic. He suggested drinks to everyone except the key grip, and that offer may have ended up on the cutting room floor.

Thanks to Milland's character, Grace Kelly and Bob Cummings are always drinking. "Have a drink!" "Let’s meet for a drink!" "Sell the ticket and have a drink on the proceeds!" "She's a filthy cook. Let's have a drink!" "Dahling, you framed me for a murder??" "Yes, dear. How about that drink now?"

By the way, have you ever been bothered by the key-in-the-handbag thing? Grace Kelly had just one key? Really? Having just one key represents a rather uncomplicated life. It's hard to imagine a one-key person getting involved in this sort of intrigue.

Further, Milland just reaches into Kelly's handbag and pops the key right out. What else was in there, just a pack of gum? Have any of our gentlemen readers ever tried to find something in a lady's purse? How quickly did you give up?

Another sidebar: The depiction of the rotary phone and its creepy analog workings take on an almost steampunk quality in today's digital atmosphere.

With all that off my chest, let's fire up the movie machine and have a drink! "Won’t you join me?" "I’m afraid it's too early for me." "What's the harm in just one?" "Well, alright..."

Since brandy seemed to be Hitchcock's favorite drink, at least in the movies, let's pair this elixir with Dial M. Most brandy is distilled from grapes, so it's sort of a half wine. Remy Martin VSOP Cognac is made from primarily Ugni Blanc and Colombard grapes. I see it selling online for anywhere from $25 to $80, much more if it comes in a fancy bottle.


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Monday, November 4, 2024

Blood Of The Vines - The Body Politic

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 have a trio of films to remind us that November 5th is Election Day. Vote, please. And enjoy the wine pairings for each movie.

There are some places in the US where a person cannot get a drink on Election Day. Prohibition-era laws are still on the books in Alaska, Massachusetts and Puerto Rico that prevent people from buying alcohol on the same day we vote for president. That's the day we may need it most. The ban resulted from politicians who tried to buy votes with free booze. Today, politicians try to buy votes with promises of tax cuts and big, beautiful walls. And tariffs. Tariffs? You expect to get votes with tariffs? Whatever works. 

The Best Man is a 1964 political film written by Gore Vidal, who also wrote the stage play. It's not about the guy standing next to the groom at a wedding. It's about which man is best suited to be president. It was 1964, so the thought of a woman running for president was only for little girls playing with their D.C. Barbies.

Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson play the candidates here, a principled veteran and a smarmy upstart, both vying for their party's nomination. We don't know which party, because way back then, there actually were principled people on both sides. 

Kevin McCarthy is in the movie, but not as a candidate. However, his real-life cousin Eugene McCarthy would run for president in 1968. Remember that great McCarthy scene at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers? He screams at the camera, "They’re here already! You're next!" Could the pod people have been the beginning of the MAGA movement? Seems a little far-fetched, but then so does the MAGA movement. 

Lodi's Michael David Winery has a Bordeaux-style wine called Politically Correct Red Blend. It's a speak-no-evil concoction that sells for $50. Enjoy it before it gets canceled. 

From 2005, Good Night and Good Luck brought us a reminder of what can happen when unprincipled people gain power. US Senator Joseph McCarthy was a howling lunatic, and I hold papers in my hand which prove it. You know I'm lying because how could I type while holding papers in my hand? He fooled a lot of people with that gambit though. 

Joe McCarthy was no relation, by the way, to Senator Eugene McCarthy, although the two did debate each other on TV in the early 1950s. That must have been confusing for the moderators. "The next question is for Senator McCarthy, er, Mr. McCarthy, er, oh hell, the guy on the left."

George Clooney played CBS News exec Fred Friendly, and David Strathairn's Edward R. Murrow had me believing that the venerable newsman had been resurrected, complete with a pack of Rod Serling smokes. 

Hope Family Wines makes the Troublemaker Red Blend. It takes grapes from the Central Coast, from Paso Robles down into Santa Barbara County. Odd pricing: a bottle is $20, a 3-liter bottle (4 regulars) is $100. I guess the huge bottle is worth something. 

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was directed by the great Frank Capra and starred Jimmy Stewart as senatorial neophyte Jefferson Smith. He wants to take a piece of land and do good with it, while an elder statesman wants to make money with it. Let the clashing begin.

Nobody could do an impassioned speech like Stewart. His verbal takedown of the bad pol in the chamber is a classic. You haven't seen such sweating on the Senate floor since Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings. 

The movie was criticized at the time by politicians. You had to see that coming. They said the film cast Washington in a bad light. Reading that sentence in today's political climate is cause for guffaws. What kind of light do you have that will make Washington look good? A magic lamp? If you turn it on and a genie pops out, ask it for some principled Republicans and a nice bottle of Chianti. Sim sala bim. 

Master of Wine Tim Atkin writes that when politicizing wine, the big, bold reds are usually favored by conservatives, while more restrained efforts capture the hearts of liberals. I don't know about that, but from France, where they never accepted the idea of Freedom Fries, comes Château Haut-Bages Liberal. It's a Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot blend that sells for around $50, depending on the vintage. Liberal, by the way, is the name of a previous owner of the estate a couple hundred years ago. Just goes to show, if you get your name on a French wine, it stays there. 


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Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Blood Of The Vines - Halloween Haunts

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 scare up wine pairings for three movies that fit right into Halloween week. 

Eye of the Devil is a British horror film from 1966 starring Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Donald Pleasence and Sharon Tate. Wait, did you say Donald Pleasence? Well, that's how we know it's a movie fit for Halloween. Who could forget Dr. Loomis in the Halloween movies? Not to mention, he was Blofeld for Bond's sake! I will always have a special place in my heart for his portrayal of a sniveling POTUS in Escape from New York. I'm sure I'm not alone there. 

The story of Eye of the Devil is a real horror tale for a wine lover. A Bordeaux vintner's grape vines stopped bearing fruit three years ago. *GASP* Not that! Believe it or not, it gets worse. The old chateau is hella creepy, but aren't they all? They're all old, too. Nobody's making any new chateaux. 

When a dead dove falls at your feet as you step out of the car, and the bird gets sacrificed at some sort of altar, logic would intervene and tell you to get the hell out of that creepy, old chateau before you become an appeasement. But is that what happens? Nooooooo, it's not. He thinks he'll beat the odds after a couple dozen estate owners before him have died mysteriously. Ask any gambler: the chateau always wins.

The magazine Wine Enthusiast is enthused this year with haunted wineries. One of them is in Napa Valley. At Trefethen Family Vineyards, a thief was reportedly caught red-handed about a hundred years ago and hung from the rafters. They say his shadow still swings to and fro when the light is just right. Trefethen's Oak Knoll District Red Blend goes for the swingin' price of $85.

The Evil Dead is a 1981 horror film directed by Sam Raimi in his first outing behind the lens.

Five college kids are having a holiday at a cabin in the woods. Uh-oh. A cabin in the woods. That's bad news. How many horror films do you have to see that center on a cabin in the woods before you start looking at better accommodations? "No, let's hide over there, behind the chain saws!"

Anyway, this is the film that put the character of Ash Williams on his way to being a franchise. Five films, a TV series, a video game, and comic books; this movie hit the jackpot. 

The kids find a cassette tape, and when they play it all hell breaks loose. Like, literally. It was a mantra in the '80s: "Always know where that mixtape came from." Inevitably, a bloodbath ensues, most of it caused by Ash. A superhero walks among us. As the last eye has been gouged out and the Tibetan Book of the Dead thrown into the fireplace, all is quiet on the woodsy front. Or is it?

The Beringer estate in Napa Valley says the halls of the Rhine House echo with whispers. Hopefully, none of those whisperers are giving away any trade secrets from the 1880s. If any of those ghostly apparitions are whispering that they are "not drinking any f*cking Merlot," pour them a glass of Beringer's Winery Exclusive Merlot for just $35 a bottle.

In 1977's The Sentinel, we see a woman renting a room in an old house that's been divided into apartments. As it turns out, it's owned by the Catholic Church, and it contains a portal into hell. Is anyone surprised at that?

What have we told you about creepy, old houses? Was the fact that one of the tenants is a blind priest not plain enough for you to see? Look, if you insist on ignoring all the signs that you're in a horror movie, we're just gonna have to let you go.

The portal to hell is a regular Penn Station for demons. They're coming and going, inviting others to join them, seemingly having a grand old time. Grand enough for demons, anyway. "I'll see you in hell" isn't part of an Irish curse for these demons. It's their way of saying "au revoir."

Demolition and reconstruction of the old brownstone isn't enough to take care of that doorway into Hades. The building may be newer, but now the resident on the top floor is a blind nun. To whom, presumably, a nod is as good as a wink.

The Winery at Marjim Manor claims to have five people and a dog haunting their space in upstate New York. No demons reported, but what's that portal there in the cellar room? They have a four-bottle package called Ghost Story Gift Pack for just under $50, if you order before midnight tonight. Operators are standing by. 


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Friday, October 25, 2024

Blood Of The Vines - FEMJEP: Women In Trouble

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 pair wines with three films about women in various kinds of danger. 

In Kinky Friedman's detective novels, he and his posse had a code to use in instances when one of them needed help. MIT stood for Man In Trouble, and it carried the same effect as 911 does today in a text. There is a well-worn film trope to add suspense to a script: put a woman in trouble. Would that be WIT? Well, I guess it would be FEMJEP in this article. Let's roll with that and get to the good stuff.

Looking for Mr. Goodbar is the 1977 film that was based on the real-life murder of a woman. Diane Keaton played the role to the hilt. She was a nice girl in the daytime and a sexual thrill seeker at night. Spoiler alert: her taste in men was her downfall. This character wrote the book on "good girls like bad boys."

Her string of one night stands was adventurous, if maybe ill advised. If you're looking for Mr. Gere, you'll find him as one of her dangerous liaisons. In theaters, you could hardly hear the dialogue over the audience collectively muttering, "Girl, get outta there."

The film was the talk of the town that year, but Keaton did not get an Oscar nomination for her performance. That's because Annie Hall happened. That movie not only brought her a nice piece of hardware, it let her play a character who was a lot less likely to die during sex.

As luck would have it, there is a wine called The Keaton Red Blend. It is a combination of Zinfandel, Syrah, and Petite Sirah sourced in California's North Coast area. It sells for around $20. If you can't find it, keep looking.

When I started researching Private Parts, I thought, "Wait a sec. How much danger was Robin Quivers actually in?" Oh, right. The 1972 Private Parts was less funny and much scarier than the 1997 affair, unless you're not a big Stern fan. In which case it was funnier and not so scary. 

In this horror flick, the character Cheryl runs out on her roommate and goes to a creepy, old hotel full of weirdos and peepholes. Again, we mutter, "Girl, get outta there." But this time, it's not just FEMJEP, it's EVERYBODYJEP. 

I never had a life size, blow-up doll I could dress up in lingerie. It's one of many things for which I am thankful in my life. I never lived in a creepy, old hotel full of weirdos and peepholes. More thankful. Even without those touchstones, I could see the end of this movie coming during the lingerie modeling session. The twist, however, was interesting.

In France's Loire Valley, there is a spooky, old château known as the Château de Brissac. They say the place is haunted by a woman killed there centuries ago by her jealous husband. Haunted it could be, but it doesn't stop them from making wine there. Their Cremant de Loire is a Chenin Blanc sparkler that sells for less than $20. 

Caged Heat is the 1974 women-in-prison epic in which Jonathan Demme popped his directorial cherry. If the mere phrase, "women-in-prison," makes you think of producer Roger Corman, you are correct. You get slightly fewer points if you had to sneak a peek at the tagline: "WHITE HOT DESIRES MELTING COLD PRISON STEEL!" All caps and an exclamation point, please. 

The women who are the titular caged heat are set against a sadistic warden, the part for which Barbara Steele was born to play. Multiple jailbreaks, shock therapy, various forms of assault and plenty of vehicle chases deliver all the action the film's title promises. In some corners, Demme's direction was hailed for stylishly lifting a sleazy exploitation film to the level of a feminist manifesto. Cheers.

The Prisoner Wine Company has red and a white for a prison film, and both are far better than pruno. You've probably had the red blend. It's very popular. The Blindfold Blanc de Noir is a white Pinot Noir. They have the set for about $80.


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Friday, October 18, 2024

Blood Of The Vines - Make It Again, Sam

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 have wine pairings for three films that are into recycling. 

Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within is a 2010 remake of the 2007 original. It's a Brazilian action film, which may explain why you didn't see it. That may explain why you didn't see the original, either. Everybody in Brazil saw both of them. Where were you? At a soccer match?

The script concerns the laughs and loves of the Polícia Militar do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. You can call them PMERJ for short, although it could be the worst acronym ever devised. It's easier to acronymize Park Reverse Neutral Drive Low into PRNDL. In the movie, they sidestep this awkwardness by calling the special ops group BOPE. It still sounds dumb, if you ask me. 

The film's story is incredibly dense. I would love to have listened in on the pitch meeting. "Think Serpico meets The Godfather!" "Which Godfather?" "Doesn't matter." I shouldn't poke fun. It was the biggest box office smash ever in Brazil. 

The action is beyond realistic. One scene, filmed in a residential neighborhood, included 80 real cops, two helicopters and a boatload of badass artillery. The neighbors were ducking and covering. It would have been nice had the producers dropped leaflets first. 

Let's have some wine. North Carolina's Duplin Winery has an Armed Forces Wine, as well as a First Responders Wine. They're made from Muscadine grapes, so let the buyer beware. Since the PMERJ dates back to the Portugal days, try a nice Portuguese grape. Miolo makes a Touriga Nacional in Brazil. If my conversion app is correct, it sells for around $15.

Guess what genre 1984's Ninja III: The Domination falls into. That's right, it's a martial arts film. That's not the reason I like it, though. I like it because James Hong appears in it, like he has in *checks notes* a million other movies and television episodes. Hong is the hardest working man in show business. 

Ninja III follows Enter the Ninja and Revenge of the Ninja in the Ninja trilogy. In this one, a dead ninja takes over the body of a good looking, big haired aerobics instructor. It's a 1980s time capsule, is what it is. She should have used a Thigh Master in her aerobics class.

The call goes out for a Japanese exorcist, which is where Hong comes in. He explains that only a ninja can destroy a ninja, so he leaves an invoice for his services and a ninja's phone number and exits, stage left. There's a lot more ninja action, but you probably won't keep watching this long. Nobody does. 

South African producer Testalonga has an odd line of wines under the El Bandito banner which include I Am the Ninja and I Wish I Was a Ninja. They are sparkling wines, one made from Chenin Blanc and the other made from Colombard grapes. The most interesting thing about these wines may be that the label of one features a dog and the other features a guy in a swimming pool. You'd think one of them would have James Hong's picture on it.

We don't have to tell you what came before Exorcist II: The Heretic. The sequel to that iconic horror film has been described in terms that would make a sailor blush. One critic slammed Exorcist II as "a piece of sh*t," "a f*cking disgrace," and "one of the worst movies ever made." And those comments came from the director of the original Exorcist, who said he'd rather watch a traffic accident. John Boorman, the guy who drew the short straw and had to direct II, wanted the film exorcised from his IMDB page. When they made Exorcist III, they pretended that II had never happened.

When it comes to Exorcist II, the sooner we start drinking, the better. Manos Wine has two California Cabs in etched Exorcist bottles, $74 for the pair. Some customers say they have yet to open the bottles and are using them as decor, which may be the best advice we could give you. 


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Friday, October 11, 2024

Blood Of The Vines - Biopix

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 have wine pairings for three films which the Dewey Decimal System would categorize under 921. 

Inquiring minds want to know. That's why we people-watch. Why else would we care about what other people are doing, except to satisfy our own curiosity? When I see a bottle of wine in someone's shopping cart, I'm curious about it. I crane my neck to see what wine this person is buying. I spin a tale in my mind about why that person chose that wine. Sometimes I'll even ask, which usually gets a mind-your-own-business stare directed at me. Biographies satisfy our craving to look inside the lives of famous people. They also give us an opportunity to have a glass of wine, which is always appreciated. 

From 1994, Ed Wood takes a lighthearted look at the filmmaker who gave us Glen or Glenda and Plan 9 from Outer Space. What a cast! Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Bill Murray, Sarah Jessica Parker, Lisa Marie and Patricia Arquette, to name more than a few, all tug on the heartstrings with comedic chops. 

Director Tim Burton says he made the movie because he's an Ed Wood fan. That's why there is so little snark in it. It was made from love. Wood might be known as the King of the B-movie, if not for his films ranking several notches below B.

It's the one-word quotes from Ed Wood that resonate with me. Murray's laconic "Sure," in response to whether he had accepted Jesus as his savior. And I love Depp's answer to his crew when they ask him what to do as they see the cops coming toward their unpermitted street filming: "Run!"

Forget Bela Lugosi's "No. I never drink… wine" comment. We have two wine pairings for Ed Wood. The film's star, Johnny Depp, reportedly doesn't drink any more. Try to resist the cheap "but he doesn't drink any less" gag. When he did drink, though, you see where all that pirate money went. He had a taste for Bordeaux, namely Château Cheval Blanc and Petrus. If you don't happen to have a few grand lying about for those sorts of purchases, we'll scale it back some. Le Petit Cheval is Cheval Blanc's second label wine. It goes for right around $200, so drink up. 

1964's Becket is more a British historical drama than a biopic. And we all know what a basket of laughs those British historical dramas can be. Just kidding. I'll watch anything starring Peter O'Toole, Richard Burton and John Gielgud. Just have them read the phone book and argue over it.

I'm a little light on my British history, but Thomas Becket was a pal of King Henry II. They probably drank mead together, but they drank something, that's for sure. Henry relied upon Becket to run his court, get him women, be Lord Chancellor, get him women, go hunting with him, get him women. 

The high and mighty behind the king took a genuine dislike to Becket, what with him just being a Saxon and all. The king, a bit drunk at the time, wondered aloud if he'd be better off with his friend-turned-enemy dead. The high and mighty do the honors at Canterbury Cathedral. It's one of the Canterbury Tales. You could look it up.

Hundreds of years later, in the 16th century, an "a" got slipped into his name, making it Thomas a'Becket. Somehow, that was supposed to make him more palatable to Protestants. I don't know how that works. It must have been in the British history book I never read. Anyway, I only bring it up because…

The wine pairing comes from a'Beckett's Vineyard. Seems there's an extra "t" in there, too. Ah, nevermind. The Langham family makes a nice his-and-hers English sparkling wine duo, a brut and a rosé from the soil of Wiltshire. Cheers. 

Isadora is the 1968 biopic of dancer Isadora Duncan. She gained worldwide fame as a dancer, someone who created beauty yet suffered unimaginable pain during her life and died tragically at only 50 years old.

We all know what happens to free-spirited artists who seem to have things going along too nicely. That's right, torture. This film covers Duncan's too-short life in all the detail that fits in nearly three hours. Over the years the running time has been altered several times. So you may miss a few highlights. Save your tears for the right times. And do not cut any of Vanessa Redgrave's lines!

Duncan lost her two children when the car they were in drove into the Seine river. An automobile figures prominently in her own death, too. She took a ride in someone's Bugatti convertible in Nice. Her long scarf - flapping in the breeze behind her - got tangled in the car's wheel and strangled her. I must admit, that is a bit more tortured than I want my own demise to play out.

The Wine Collective, out of Baltimore, has a rosé named after Duncan. Isadora is made from Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Petit Manseng and Merlot grapes that were grown in Virginia. Having had good experiences with Virginia wines, I can venture that sipping this one will be nothing close to torture.


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Friday, October 4, 2024

Blood Of The Vines - Babs

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 have wine pairings for a trio of films featuring everyone's favorite Babs.

Up the Sandbox, released toward the end of 1972, had Barbara Streisand as a New York City housewife and mom who escapes her mundane existence through wild fantasies. Already caring for two kids and a husband, she finds that she is pregnant again. Her eventual awakening: "You can either like me the way I am, or shove it."

Everyone liked Streisand in Sandbox, but the movie didn't exactly burn up the box office. The film was seen as fun, as opposed to "funny." Babs herself opined, after the fact, that America didn't mind seeing her as a housewife. They simply wanted her to be a funny housewife.

As Fidel Castro says to Streisand's character in a fantasy, "Would you like for some wine?" For a sandbox, why not Sand Castle Winery? It’s in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and is more centered on weddings than wine, but they have rosé for $19 and Pinot Noir for $33. The countryside is beautiful, there are not quite as many Trump yard signs as in other parts of NEPA, and they offer helicopter rides to the tasting room from anywhere in the northeast. Babs would like that. I'm guessing there is an additional charge to get a chopper to the tasting, discounted if you have a wedding there. 

The version of A Star Is Born which hit the screens in 1976 was a remake of the 1937 original. It was the second of three remakes, but who's counting? The story has Janet Gaynor, er, Judy Garland, er, Lady Gaga… I'm sorry, I've got my remakes mixed. What's the name of this piece? Oh, yeah. Babs. The well-trod story has Streisand as the up-and-coming singer who hooks up with a big star and passes him on his way down. 

Sadly, we lost the male lead this week. Kris Kristofferson was 88 when he passed on Saturday. His absence may be felt more in the music world than in film, but he did a fine job as the falling star here, and also played well in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. He will be missed by many. 

Babs is featured musically, of course. The film's love theme, "Evergreen," was a giant hit. The lyrics, (love, soft as an easy chair) always made me want to get teary and violently ill, at the same time. That Paul Williams really knows how to churn out a tune. He won a Grammy and an Oscar for that one. No doubt, it paid for a lot of lunches at The Ivy.

Conveniently, there is a Barbara Streisand wine, a Chardonnay offered by Celebrity Cellars. The fact that it is a 1996 vintage is puzzling. Either they were incredibly judicious about doling it out over the decades or it didn't sell well at all. You can find out which it is, for $40. Or, you can pick up a wine from Barbara's neighborhood, Malibu. Saddlerock Estate Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon is available in various vintages for less than $60.

In 1972, director Peter Bogdanovich asked the celluloid question, What’s Up, Doc?  Bogdanovich called it a "screwball comedy, something like Bringing Up Baby: daffy girl, square professor, everything works out all right." I'm sold. Streisand was the daffy girl, Ryan O'Neal was the square professor, and all was well in the end. That's the first law of the romantic comedy. All has to end up well.

The San Francisco chase scene reportedly cost a million dollars to shoot - a quarter of the film's budget.  The title was borrowed from the Warner Brothers cartoons.  "What’s up, Doc?" was Bugs Bunny's signature line.  Look it up, youngsters.

The sorely missed Los Angeles restaurant, Cube, had on its marquee the phrase "what's up D.O.C.?"  Their partiality to Italian wines spawned that little vino pun.  D.O.C. means Denominazione di Origine Controllata, a classification of wine regions in Italy.  So let's pair a wine from the Veneto D.O.C. with What’s Up, Doc?  You can pick a Valpolicella for red lovers, or a Soave for white grape fans. Or, the Ruggeri Valdobbiadene winery makes a very fine, extra-special Prosecco from the tiny Cartizze region of Veneto. Even though it is very fine and extra special, it costs only about $20. Sure that's double the price of the Prosecco you get from Ralphs, but it's still just $20. 


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Friday, September 27, 2024

Blood Of The Vines - Jean Renoir

Pairing wine with movies!  See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell.  This week, a trio of subtitled classics from one of the all-time great directors. Wine pairings, too, of course. 

Jean Renoir's father was an artist, too. He operated before the era of motion pictures, so his canvas was, well, a canvas. The elder Renoir was that Renoir. The French impressionist. The National Lampoon Radio Hour once did a bit entitled, "The French Impressionists." The announcer introduced it, and another voice came on, doing an over-the-top impression of a French comic. "First," the comic said, "I like to do zee Ed Soo-lee-von. Eet eez a reeelly big shew." The bit was mercifully short. Anyway, until I took an art appreciation class in college, that was my exposure to French impressionists. And it was in film appreciation class that I learned of Jean Renoir, the French director. I really appreciated college. 

Everyone's introduction to Renoir, the auteur, is likely 1937's Grand Illusion. Set in World War I, with World War II looming, the story of the French airmen in a German POW camp bid a not-so-fond adieu to the idea that aristocratic bonds could transcend the atrocity of war. 

Back then, battlefield conflict was thought to be the war that would end all wars. Turns out it doesn't work that way. Where would we be without war? Four more years of LBJ, no more years of Nixon, no peace sign memes, no Wolf Blitzer. I guess I could live with that. Oh, and no Hogan's Heroes. 

For Grand Illusion, let's salute the de Nonancourt family, who hid the best vintages of their Laurent-Perrier Champagne from the Nazis. Their Grand Siècle cuvée of grand cru Chardonnay and Pinot Noir blends three vintages, 2012, 2008, and 2007, for those who know their Champagne years. It's Iteration 26 and it sells for about $250. Sing "La Marseillaise" while sipping, please. 

A Day in the Country was released in 1946, a decade after it was shot. It is the story of a love affair that begins and ends on the same day. Well, maybe not a love affair. Maybe it was more like, "Hey, my dad and fiancé are going fishing and these fellows have a boat they want to show me." Anyway, it turns into a picnic on the banks of the Seine, without, you know, the food. The moral of the film is never let your daughter go boating with a guy wearing a horizontal striped t-shirt. That goes double for your wife. 

If you want rosé, you want Provence. And if you want Provence, you want Bandol. Château Vannières Rosé is the perfect pink for a picnic or if you just want to get that nice young lady into your boat. It sells for around $30. 

In case you don't get enough exposure to feelings of entitlement in your average day, take in a viewing of The Rules of the Game. The Renoir film from 1939 brings enough biting satire to the table to cover a full day even in an entitlement-rich place like La-La Land.

The setting of the hard-nosed comedy is a country estate in France, where a group of bougie pals get together for a weekend soirée. The dance card includes staring down the impending world war with an overnight bag in one hand and a magnum of Champagne in the other. You have a dashing aviator's hurt feelings, mistaken identities, and death, as the recipe for a bunch of king-sized mal de têtes. 

You'll want only the best for this viewing party, and we're not talking about Veuve Clicquot. A good bottle of vintage Dom Perignon will run you about three bills - but it could still leave you with stars in your eyes if you gulp too much of it.


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Friday, September 20, 2024

Blood Of The Vines - R.I.P. James Earl Jones

Pairing wine with movies!  See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell.  We've lost another great one. James Earl Jones and his fantastic voice will be sorely missed. We have wine pairings, suitable for toasting.  

The movie that pitted James Earl Jones opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1982 was Conan the Barbarian. The film put Ahnuld on the map, but Jones was reportedly chosen to play the evil Thulsa Doom, at least partly, to serve as a model for the novice actors in the picture. Some were right out of Acting 101, some fresh off a surfboard, and at least one was still sweaty from an eight-hour stint at Gold's Gym. Jones was a seasoned veteran of stage and screen at the time, and it was hoped his work ethic would rub off on the newbs. Jones appears in Conan as a sort of sorcerer who controls his victims hypnotically. The character has been compared to cult leader Jim Jones. It's a great chance to see JEJ with long hair.

Conan drank wine, at least according to a Reddit thread, and isn't that where all the really interesting information is? Most Conaphiles figure he would drink whatever was on hand, which gets dicey if all they have is Budweiser. But let's say he came across a wine made by barbarians. He'd down it by the jug, right? Barbarians is a group of independent family wineries in the area around Mendoza, Argentina. Malbec is the king of grapes in Argentina, and Apogeo makes one of many available there. 

In 1992's Sneakers, Jones plays NSA agent Bernard Abbott. The comic thriller stars Robert Redford, who leads a team of hackers to steal a black box for the NSA. However, they end up using their skills to bankrupt the Republican Party and make huge donations to liberal causes. Of course, nowadays, the Republican Party has found a new way to bankrupt itself.

For my money, and some of yours if you'll let me, this is the kind of role Jones was born to play. All business. Government business, mind you. Stern, authoritative, over a barrel and knows it, writing US Government blank checks to a bunch of nerds. If only he could have come through on that request for peace and goodwill. Oh yeah, the government doesn't do that sort of thing. 

Cline Cellars has a red blend they call The Sneak. It's from Carneros, features Merlot, Syrah and Grenache, with a dab of Cab, a dash of Sangiovese and a splash of who knows what. Yes, this wine is a rule breaker. $55.

Bingo Long and the Traveling All Stars came along in 1976, a pretty good year for baseball. Not only did the Reds blank the Yankees in the World Series, but Oscar Charleston made it into the MLB Hall of Fame. Charleston, in case you didn’t know, played and managed in the Negro leagues for more than four decades. He died in 1954 and was honored with admission to the HoF 22 years later. It's a shame he wasn't allowed to play on the big stage. A true shame.

The story of Bingo Long centers on the stars of the 1930s Negro League who form their own barnstorming baseball team. They're rather like the Harlem Globetrotters on a baseball diamond, traveling from town to town, picking up games wherever they could. The movie was rather loosely based on reality, a reality where a 45-year-old man still had the knees to play catcher. 

Jones plays Leon Carter, the team's power hitter and moral compass. I must admit, sitting here today it just doesn’t sound right to hear Jones doing a rural Southern black dialect. But he does it so well. And it's hard to resist his smile from behind a short stogie sticking from the corner of his mouth. 

For the Bingo Long barnstormers, let's choose a wine from Barnstormer Winery, located right next to Seneca Lake in New York's Finger Lakes region. Yes, I know the barnstormers referenced in the logo are the airborne-in-a-biplane variety, but thanks for the fact check. The winery has only been there for a little more than ten years. However, the old barn that houses it dates back before the Civil War. Maybe that's where they keep their biplanes. True to their upstate heritage, they’re partial to grapes that grow well in the cold, like Riesling, Cabernet Franc, and Blaufränkisch. Most of their wines are in the $20 to $30 range.


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