Blood Of The Vines - Flying Monsters

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 examine three films which feature some winged wonders of horror - Flying Monsters - with an appropriate wine pairing for each.

The Flying Serpent took off in 1946 as the living embodiment of the Aztec god, Quetzalcoatl. Ol' Quetzy was one of four main deities of the Aztecs, and the other three had equally hard-to-pronounce names. In fact, the producers of a 1982 remake gave up on trying to educate the public on how to say it and simply called their version Q - see below. 

In this feature, the flying serpent guards an Aztec treasure and really hates it when psycho archaeologists pluck his feathers from him. In fact, that is what sends the killer lizard into a rage, not a threat to the treasure it is supposed to be standing guard over. The lunatic scientist uses that weakness in the monster as a means of manipulating him to kill. "Here, hold this feather, willya?" Then he turns and runs.

Those who pick apart old movies for a living point out that the story was basically lifted from The Devil Bat - also see below - and that ol' Quetzy looks about as scary as a stuffed animal you might win at a county fair.

There was a wine which zeroed in on this movie perfectly, Quetzalcoatl, a limited release from a graphic designer named Efraim Franco. The bottle design seems to be the thing here. Or, you could just do tequila shots.

Q the Winged Serpent is the 1982 remake of the previous film. Director and TFH guru Larry Cohen has the flying dragon-god living in the Chrysler Building in New York City, quite a step up from that cave in who-knows-where, Mexico. NYC has been center stage for other movie monsters through the years - King Kong, Rosemary's Baby, Gordon Gecko, etc.

There is a nest and an egg in this one, providing the viewer with the prospect of more Quetzalcoatl sightings while taking in the Big Apple on the tourist bus. 

The Flying Spaghetti Monster is more of a thing than I could have imagined. It is a deity based on noodles and charged with being the word and the light for the lighthearted religion known as Pastafarianism. The wine seems to be out of stock - wouldn’t you know it - but you could order a Chrysler Building bottle stopper from any number of NYC gift shops and use it with whatever wine you want for your viewing party. I mean, really.

The Devil Bat provided the source material for the aforementioned The Flying Serpent. That film got a lot of heat for its similarity to The Devil Bat, even though they had turned the bat into a birdlike reptile. That sort of script-robbing is the stuff that Babylon was made from last year.

Bela Lugosi plays a scientist driven off his bean by a bad business decision. He gets his revenge by developing jumbo-sized bats - the mammals - to attack and kill his perceived enemies. He also devises a special after shave and trains the bats to go after it. Then, he manages to get his targets to wear the scent. Jesus, I'm tired already. Agatha Christie could have called it The Aqua Velva Murders.  

For a Bela Lugosi movie, you have to be ready for a Bela Lugosi wine. His family makes vino and sells it under Bela's name - despite Dracula's insistence that "I don't drink … wine." I'll bet he'd go for a blood-red Malbec, though, with Bela Lugosi's name on the label.

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Blood Of The Vines - More Movies You Never Heard Of

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 examine three under-the-radar films which more than likely escaped your notice.

Uzmaki is a 2000 horror film based on a manga (Japanese graphic novel) which was still being created while the movie was being made. Hence, the two stories ended up with different endings. The plot centers on a town's obsession with spirals, and the tendency of its inhabitants to turn into snails. The real horror? There is no French restaurant around to take advantage of the suddenly plentiful supply of king-sized escargot. 

Beware if you see this in a theater and one of the patrons leaves a slimy trail as he exits. 

The film was released as the lead picture of a double feature - which leaves us to wonder why the second half was left out of this Blood of the Vines article. Certainly, if you have never heard of Uzmaki, you can't be expected to know its second banana.

There can be no finer wine pairing for Uzmaki than The Holy Snail, a Loire Valley Sauvignon Blanc. Don't get hypnotized by the lovely spiral contained in the picture of the snail on the label.

2018's Overwhelm the Sky is the creation of TFH guru Daniel Kremer. His story - updating an 18th-century novel - concerns a radio personality. Finally, one about me! Just kidding. My radio career wasn't all that exciting, and with movies like this one and Play Misty For Me, I'm glad it wasn't. 

Do you recall the old vaudeville bit in which a man complains to a doctor that he doesn't sleep at night, that he just walks around all night long? The doctor says, "Oh, you're a somnambulist." The man replies, "No, I'm a night watchman." It just goes to show that things are not always what they seem.

Overwhelm does just that, with a black-and-white dreamscape that has been lauded for its cinematic inventiveness. Our golden-throated radio guy stays up nights exploring the death of one of his friends. It's no substitute for a warm glass of milk before bedtime - or a stiff drink for that matter - and if you end up losing sleep over the film, Kremer will no doubt feel that he has done his job.

Some folks feel overwhelmed when trying to choose a wine. One survey says 23% of wine shoppers feel overwhelmed by the choices before them. South Africa's Easy Choice Winery tries to take the angst out of buying wine, with labels like "The One With the Berries" and "The One That Grows on You." Is it a real winery or just a kooky branding idea? I'm still looking for their actual website. There are plenty of articles available, though, on what a kooky branding idea it is. If we can simplify your wine pairing search with a Herzogovenian recco, here it is: Mjesečar, from Brkic Winery. It translates as "sleepwalker," and it's also the perfect gift for the night watchman in your life. The Žilavka grapes were aged in Bosnian oak barrels. Who said choosing a wine is hard?

A movie title like Don't Worry We'll Think of a Title throws up a ton of red flags, and offers a reason why you may have missed this one the first time around. The 1966 comedy stars Morey Amsterdam, Rose Marie and Richard Deacon. To sweeten the deal, they throw in some uncredited cameos from the likes of Steve Allen, Milton Berle, Carl Reiner, Irene Ryan, Danny Thomas, Nick Adams, Cliff Arquette and Forrest Tucker. But wait! Order before midnight and get Moe Howard, not as a Stooge. Now we're talkin’.

Welll, not so fast. Amsterdam - the co-writer, by the way - plays an ordinary Joe, or actually an ordinary Charlie with the last name of Yuckapuck. That's a name only a Catskills comedy writer could love. The humor here gets better the more borscht you have under your belt. The script is maybe a little light on bald jokes aimed at Deacon's invisible hairline, or maybe it's just a little light all the way around.

For Don't Worry, let's uncork a bottle from the Catskills.  Tannerville's Hudson-Chatham Winery has a wine made from the hybrid Baco Noir grape.  Morey might have said, "didja hear the one about the vitis vinifera that got crossed with a vitis riparia?"  Okay, so maybe he would have thrown in a bald joke instead.  This juice is a far cry from the old berry wines of the mid-60s Catskills resort era.

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Blood Of The Vines - Border Incidents

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 examine some films which border on the border.

The stars are here in The Border - Jack Nicholson, Harvey Keitel, Valerie Perrine, Warren Oates - in a noirish 1982 film about the southern US border. You know, the one that's leaking like a sieve? Lie. The one that needs a big, beautiful wall? Big lie. The one that's actually a river for about 2,000 miles? Truth.

Nicholson is an INS agent, one of the guys who patrols the border to keep us safe from those tired, poor, wretched huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Keitel, well, he and Oates are the dark side. You probably saw that one coming. 

The soundtrack is really worth a listen, with a score by Ry Cooder and other borderesque tunes by the likes of Freddy Fender and Sam The Sham. I recall that it made for some great listening while grilling hot links on the patio in the Texas summer sun. 

Remember when some tan seekers would slather themselves in baby oil before draping their bodies over a poolside chaise lounge? Popular radio stations would air a loud "ding" in their top 40 mix to let listeners know when it was time to turn over. If a woman wanted to sauté herself for me, I personally preferred that she used cocoa butter and some Chardonnay. 

That's a good pairing idea for The Border, a nice, buttery Chardonnay. There is one called Butter which you can pick up at the supermarket for less than $15. It also comes in a box, if that's how you roll in your double-wide. If you want to step up your game, Edna Valley Vineyards makes a great buttery Chardonnay for about $40.

Border Incident is an actual film noir, from 1949. Ricardo Montalbán and George Murphy star, along with Howard Da Silva, in a tale of two undercover agents trying to stop the smuggling of migrant workers from Mexico into California. It was done on a shoestring budget, and it shows in the lighting. So many shadows! Oh, I'm being told that cinematographer John Alton shot it that way on purpose. So that's where the noir comes in.

Montalbán, from Mexico by the way, said this was one of the few movies he made in which he was allowed to portray a Mexican. The narration that opens and closes the picture gets a bit jingoistic, but if you can get past that, the rewards are there with a story that is before its time, a visual presence that is stunning and acting that surpasses what might have been expected from MGM's tight purse strings.

Mexico's L.A. Cetto Winery offers a wide range of wines from the Valle de Guadalupe, just across the border. They make a nice Nebbiolo that sells for around $20 and is readily available in the U.S. 

One, Two, Three deals with a different border - that which existed in 1961 between the two halves of Germany. Directed and co-written by Billy Wilder, it's what the blurb writers used to call a Laff Riot, but you'd expect nothing less from Wilder. 

The film is set in West Berlin, before the wall between east and west was built. James Cagney delivers a tour de force performance as a big wig with the Coca Cola Company. He is called upon by his boss in Atlanta to play host to the big guy's teenage, southern belle daughter - who gets hitched to a card-carrying commie while vacationing in the Rhineland. Horst Buchholtz turns in a stellar job as the Red Devil from the East, while Pamela Tiffin scores as the impressionable Lady Coke. 

Spätburgunder is the German version of Pinot Noir, even though it sounds like Jimmy Cagney responding to a sneeze. Rudolf Fürst is considered a "magician" with the grape, and his wines run in the $30 range. One: buy the movie! Two: buy the wine! Three: enjoy your evening! Go!

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Blood Of The Vines - Raquel Welch 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 look back fondly at the late Raquel Welch. We will also lift a glass to her with a wine pairing for each of these films in which she graced the screen. However, my personal favorite Raquel moment is when she showed her comedic chops on television - playing a diva'd up version of herself on Seinfeld.

The movie that put Ms. Welch on the map was One Million Years BC, back in 1966. Never mind the anachronisms - humans and dinosaurs did not roam the earth together. But if they did, the humans surely would have been dressed in fur bikinis. Standing around ogling the females, though, would still get you branded as a neanderthal from the Rock tribe.

Aside from the spectacle of Raquel in a fur bikini - the iconic poster of which was used in The Shawshank Redemption - special effects from the great Ray Harryhausen are worth watching. In fact, whether you prefer the Harryhausen stop-action or the fur bikini probably says a lot about you.

The movie established Welch as a full-blown sex symbol, a tag that stayed with her throughout her career. She did overcome that stigma by showing time and again that she had acting chops and was more than a pretty face.

Well, some bubbles to celebrate Raquel would certainly be in order, especially since she starred in a commercial for Freixenet in 1985. The cava - that's the Spanish bubbly wine - sells for around $10 in most places and tastes as good as a sparkler from a higher price range.

1970 saw Welch starring in Myra Breckinridge, the sex-change comedy adapted from Gore Vidal's novel. The movie was so bad that Vidal later looked around, pointed at himself and said, "Me? Nah, I didn't write that."

Most critics felt that "comedy" was an unfair description of the film, since the humor was thought to be as tasteless as anything that had ever splattered against the big screen. It received an X rating due to the graphic sexual content - and maybe due to the general crappiness of the feature. Today it has a cult following, proving that there is actually an audience for everything.

The one-sheet movie poster may be the best thing about Myra, as it has Welch again donning a bikini - this time a star-spangled one.

Continental Divide Winery is in Breckenridge, Colorado. Although spelled a bit differently than Myra's name, they boast that they are the world's highest altitude winery. That's a claim that may draw a quibble from some winemaker in the Andes Mountains. Continental Divide makes their Winter Is Coming red blend from Colorado grapes and sells it at California prices. 

Fantastic Voyage was from 1966, but just before the cavewoman epic. It stars Welch as one of a team of scientists who are miniaturized and injected into a human so they can clear a blood clot in the guy's brain. Right, it's unbelievable, but it's science fiction, so suspend your sense of what is possible now. 

The producers had yet to get the memo that Raquel in a bikini equals butts in the seats, but they were kind enough to provide a form-fitting inner-space suit for her to wear. 

Voyage is actually a pretty good sci-fi, one that still holds up today. The movie got a handful of Oscar nominations and won a pair of them, for art direction and special effects.

I ran across a cocktail named Fantastic Voyage - Riesling, whiskey and vanilla liqueur, if you're interested - although I would imagine its greatest appeal is to fans of vanilla liqueur. Voyager Estate makes wine along Australia's Margaret River, and their Shiraz goes for about $40.

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Blood Of The Vines - 70s Scuzz

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 take a look at a few movies which detail some of the more disreputable aspects of the Me Decade. We will try to class up the joint a bit with wine pairings for each film.

Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston 40-Brick Lost-Bag Blues is a 1972 film based on the novel from two years earlier. I think I read the book, but I'm not sure that I ever saw the movie back then - but, there is an awful lot from that era that I don't remember.

The film does feature John Lithgow's first role, as a drug dealer's second banana. It's a pretty cool read, if I remember correctly. It's a sort of hip thriller aimed at those daring souls who stuffed a dime bag in their sock after scoring some weed. Those were the days. It's just not the same, buying pot in a boutique shop.

Now, for a fake wine pairing. First off, Wakey Wines is owned by a convicted drug dealer. He was even bounced from Tik Tok for posting things that were not true - sort of like how Trump got kicked off Twitter. And just as Trump was reinstated on that platform, Tik Tok gave the Wakey guy his megaphone back. His social media shows him dealing nothing but scuzz here in the 21st century. 

Coca wine was a blend of wine and cocaine, but it fell on hard times when cocaine was banned in the US in 1914. When alcohol was banned six years later, coca wine found itself s.o.l.

I have had fun exploring the scuzzy wine pairing possibilities for Dealing, but it's time to actually deliver the goods, with a real wine pairing for the film. If you do enough dealing, you're bound to get busted. Busted Grapes Winery is in upstate New York - about as upstate as it gets. The winery is in a placid community called Black River, just outside of Watertown, away from Lake Ontario. They make wines from those cold-hardy grapes - Marquette, Catawba, Niagara, Frontenac. No prices are given, but they can't cost that much, can they? And, they ship.

Fuzz was a 1972 action comedy. As a 1972 action comedy, could it have starred anyone else but Burt Reynolds and Raquel Welch? A better looking pair of detectives you'd be hard pressed to find. And Reynolds was fresh off his centerfold appearance in Cosmo. But wait, there's more! For the same low price, you also get Jack Weston, Tom Skerrit and Yul Brenner - crazy man, crazy. If you call before midnight tonight, we'll throw in the fabulous Peter Bonerz, whose work on The Bob Newhart Show made him a dentist forever. The story, eh, well, did we mention it stars Burt Reynolds and Raquel Welch?

I didn't expect this pairing to be so easy. Fuzz, the Gamay wine, is made by Brendan Tracey. He also puts his name on wines called Capitalism Rouge, Mellow Yellow and Rue de la Soif - Thirsty Street. He is New Jersey born, raised in California and lives in the land he loves, France. He sells Fuzz for around $35. 

Switchblade Sisters came from 1975, and shares a slice of life from an all-girl high school gang. Now, I went to high school a long time ago, but our "bad girls" were more inclined to give you a hickey than a stab wound. That I do remember. 

These Switchblade Sisters could stand toe-to-toe with the male gangs and go tit for tat with the violence. Shootings, murders, assaults, knifings - and that's all before fourth period. 

It could have been called The Jezebels, but the producers reportedly didn't think viewers would know what that meant. The film was destined to fall into obscurity, but it got a new lease on life as a cult classic when Quentin Tarantino cited it as a personal fave and re-released it. There's a guy who knows a Jezebel when he sees one. 

Oregon's Willful Wine Company is apparently among those who are not equipped with a working definition for Jezebel. That is the name they gave to their Pinot Noir, which they call easy-going, well-balanced and fruit-forward. Well, at $20, at least it's cheap. 

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Blood Of The Vines - The Kitchen Sink Movement

Pairing‌ ‌wine‌ ‌with‌ ‌movies!‌  ‌See‌ ‌the‌ ‌trailers‌ ‌and‌ ‌hear‌ ‌the‌ ‌fascinating‌ ‌commentary‌ ‌for‌ ‌these‌ ‌movies‌ ‌and‌ ‌many‌ ‌more‌ ‌at‌ ‌Trailers‌ ‌From‌ ‌Hell.‌ This week, three movies from the early 1960s which make a close examination of some harsh realities. We have wine pairings for each, to take the edge off. 

The Kitchen Sink Movement came about in British arts in the late 1950s. It was an antidote to the prim, fussy attitudes of plays and movies at the time, giving viewers a super-realistic look at life from the seedy underbelly of UK society, whether they wanted it or not.

In 1962's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, the British version of reform school gets a long look. Tom Courtenay takes the lead in his Borstal training and discovers that the lead is something he can choose to give up. Courtenay's character finds out that there is little else to do while running long distances than obsess over the poor life choices that put him under lock and key. Dead dad? Tough. Caught stealing? Too bad. Legs feel tired? C'mon, lad. 

In their Ooh La La album, the Faces made Borstal life sound more like an adventure than the penitential slap in the face it was. "We're up here boy, and you're down there, and don't you forget it." Maybe a good long run will help him forget. Or, maybe not. Forgetting isn't easy. 

Ghostrunner makes only one blend - Cab and Petite Sirah from the Central Coast. But, no matter how far you run - there you are. Drink up, but allow a half hour before undertaking a 5k.

In 1963, Tom Courtenay took the lead again in Billy Liar. His character has a sort of Thurberesque way of dealing with the unpleasantness of his mundane life. He imagines himself to be a hero in some more consequential scenario. Imagining is the extent of his bravado, however, which is underscored when he falls for a gal who seems to have the gumption to actually reach for the fruit that is higher up in the tree.

Does Billy Liar have what it takes to bring himself into full sociopathic bloom? No. He daydreams when he could think, shrugs when he could act. Even when presented with the prospect of the marvelous Julie Christie. He's doomed to live his life in the shadows of what he imagines himself to be. And that's probably good for all concerned if Alex from A Clockwork Orange is seen as the result of his natural evolution. 

Red 55 Winery has White Liar Chardonnay available for less than $20. The song of that name was a big hit for Miranda Lambert in 2009, in case you had forgotten. Red 55 is run by the family of that Texas songstress. If it makes you feel any better about purchasing from a celebrity winery which features Valentine's Day party packs, a wine called Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and an Electric Pink White Zinfandel, it was named after Miranda's first pickup truck, a red '55 stepside. 

Sidney Furie's The Leather Boys is about a gay biker in London's rocker subculture. The film was pretty steamy for its time and has been hailed as a watershed moment in queer cinema. Everybody seems to be sleeping with everybody else, and no one is really all that happy about it. Ah, life in the south London suburbs - all the grit, at no extra charge.

There is an unhappy marriage, a fake pregnancy, a motorcycle race, a homosexual encounter and a dream of a better life in America dashed on the rocks by the gay pub. 

I was tempted to pair a wine from the southern Rhône Valley with this film, due to the hint of leather one would expect on the nose. Then I found this Paso Robles Zinfandel from Four Vines, The Biker. The label shows a young lady biker who has limited the leather to her head and feet, opting for lace elsewhere.

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Blood Of The Vines - Going Aloft

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 up, up and away for a trio of flying films. Of course, there are wine pairings for each.

Test Pilot, from 1938, stars Clark Gable, Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy, who were three of Hollywood's top box office draws of the day. The film was directed by Victor Fleming, who also directed another movie featuring flying, but in this one the house stays on the ground and there are no munchkins in the script. However, a farm in Kansas is involved. 

The script, by the way, was based on a story by a real-life pilot who also served as a co-writer. The tale has Gable and Spencer as flyboy buddies with a woman between them. As you might expect, only one of the buddies makes it out alive. I mean, it's a romantic drama, not a romantic comedy.

The movie was a big hit with critics and paying customers alike. The flying sequences are still lauded today due to their realism and use of the latest aircraft of the era. There is a certain cachet to watching a film in which the B-17 bomber was considered cutting-edge. 

George Cooper was an actual NASA test pilot who turned to winemaking with his wife, Louise Garrod. The Garrod Farms Test Pilot wines are named after all the planes Cooper flew, including his description of them on the back label. Try the F-104 Starfighter, a Côtes-Rôtie-style co-fermentation of Syrah and Viognier. There are six wines in the line, so a half case would be fine, especially if you plan to watch Test Pilot repeatedly.

Someone must have thought airborne romance was a good idea, because a year later, in 1939, Howard Hawks helmed Only Angels Have Wings. Hawks was involved in Test Pilot, so his head stayed in the clouds awhile. 

This time around, it's Cary Grant and Jean Arthur who provide the earthbound sparks, while the flying scenes again drew kudos from those who appreciate a good shot of an airplane doing its thing. The next time you're at an air show, look around. The people closest to the action are the audience for this film.

These pilots deliver air mail over the Andes Mountains, which seems like a more dangerous occupation to settle for than for most flyers of that ilk. Today, they would probably be flying a rocket full of gaskets to the space station. The planes are once again co-stars, with a Ford Trimotor serving as a dramatic vehicle. "Engine number one is on fire!" "Engine number two is on fire!" "How many engines did you say this crate has?"

Cheval des Andes is the South American branch of Château Cheval Blanc, the great Bordeaux estate. Their blends utilize Argentine Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon mainly, and run on the high or low side of $100, depending on the vintage. 

These days, a title like The High and the Mighty might be taken as an ad for cannabis delivery. Back in 1954, it was taken as Big John Wayne's most recent action flick. It was also a precursor to all those disaster films which would come decades later - and to the spoofs of said films. This was the first movie in which Robert Stack picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue, although this time as the pilot, not the ground crew, as in Airplane.

The flight takes off from Honolulu, headed for San Francisco, and endures engine failure, a fuel leak, a passenger with a gun, and the looming prospect of ditching the DC-4 in the ocean. All-in-all, there is considerably more trouble than just running low on peanuts.

The flight attendant has to deal with a multitude of personalities, which make those scenes look like Airplane by way of Gilligan's Island. There's an actress, a millionaire, a former beauty queen, a giddy tourist, and a guy with a terminal illness and a pocket watch. There is no record of The Professor and/or Mary Ann on board.

An airliner really is not the best place for drinking wine. The higher altitude robs us of our sense of taste, while the dry air in the cabin saps our sense of smell and further inhibits our taste buds. How else do you think they get away with that airline food? The best bet for a wine for the Mile High Club is one with higher alcohol and lower acidity, so the diminished senses still have something to work with. Try a Syrah, Merlot, Chardonnay or Viognier for a better tasting experience. 

Wine Enthusiast magazine says Cathay Pacific has the best in-flight wine program, followed by Etihad Airways, Qatar Airlines, LAN Airlines, Singapore Airlines, ANA, SWISS, Virgin-Atlantic, Qantas and British Airways. I generally get a martini while flying first class to Saint-Tropez, but it's entirely up to you. 

 

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Blood Of The Vines - Lurking With Lorre

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 dig into a few movies featuring Peter Lorre - with wine pairings for each.

Peter Lorre was an amazing actor, we don't need to beat that horse to death. However, beyond his emotive skills was that voice - that incredible voice. His take as Joel Cairo in The Maltese Falcon is a superb example of the unconvincing convincer. When he tells Sam Spade to "kindly clasp your hands behind your neck" it’s no surprise that the table is turned faster than a Lazy Susan. There was a comic - I can't remember who - who did a quick impression of Lorre as a sportscaster, running down how one team killed, murdered… annihilated the other. In that voice. That incredible voice.

The Face Behind the Mask came to us in 1941 - prime time for film noir. Lorre stars as Johnny Szabo, a Hungarian immigrant who quickly learns the ropes in the US of A. Disfigured in a fire, he finds the only means of earning a living that's available to him is safecracking. If safecracking is in your toolbox to start with, it's possible that you aren't that nice a person anyway. However, if Lorre is in the role, you can expect that something is amiss somewhere. And something is.

There is a New England IPA called The Safecracker - who knows why. Oregon's Pheasant Run Winery used to have a Safecracker Syrah, but it seems that has been bumped in favor of their Bank Robber Red. That'll do in a pinch. We know whodunnit, we just won't say how.

From 1935, Mad Love started out as The Hands of Orlac, but what was no doubt a team of marketers somehow got Mad Love out of those words. You know how sometimes on your way home from work, they're doing a perp walk with a knife-throwing murderer down the street? Yeah? Well, that's what happens to Lorre in this film. He ends up in possession of the late murderer's hands and uses them in a transplant. "Just happen to have a couple in the laboratory." "But doctor, will I ever be able to throw a knife again?" "Yes, but your piano playing days are down the toilet, I'm afraid."

There are plenty of T-shirts for sale with funny bits like, "Just another wine drinker with a knife-throwing problem." The level of hilarity probably depends on whether you are the thrower or the throwee. In Texas, there is even a sub-culture of axe throwers, of which the less we know, the better. 

In the movie's frenzied climax, Lorre mistakes a real woman for a wax dummy, which makes one wonder how he managed to pull off a hand transplant. It's a good thing she didn't employ him to do a breast augmentation.

VineOh! - the name just rings of oeno-sincerity, doesn't it? - has a Mad Love Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and a Mad Love sweet white blend. One of those has to be good for viewing this film.

The Beast With 5 Fingers gave 1946 a dose of Hollywood horror. It's the old "severed hand" trope brought back to life in grand fashion by Warner Brothers. The poster beckons, "Your flesh will creep at the hand that crawls!" However much they paid ad men back then, the one who wrote that log line earned his day's pay. Depending on your gullibility, it can be either the subject of those campfire tales about what happened in "the next town over" or an early glimpse of Cousin Itt. 

A dead piano player's hand comes back from the grave and tickles the ivories a little more, in between strangulations, of course. Lorre's character tries to end the five-fingered fiend by flinging it into the fire. Spoiler: He lives just long enough to regret it

In Washington's Columbia Valley there is a red blend known as Sinister Hand. I'm not one to point fingers, but soft, juicy, and vanilla doesn't sound all that sinister to me, but maybe I would feel differently with a hand crawling up my leg. 

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Blood Of The Vines - Brain Drain

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 brain movies. That's brain, not brainy.

The 1958 sci-fi The Brain Eaters was produced by Ed Nelson, who also stars, and an uncredited Roger Corman. Director Bruno VeSota was a longtime Corman accomplice, having played more than a dozen roles in his films. The movie poster declares that the brain eaters are "crawling, slimy things, terror-bent on destroying the world." I know, it sounds a lot like House Republicans trying to elect a speaker. 

American International Pictures distributed the film, in all its glorious black-and-white. AIP is much like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for low budget celluloid. Special effects in a '50s drive-in sci-fi? You bet! The flying saucer has dimensions of 50 feet by 50 feet, which sounds more like a flying bowl to me. I suppose the brain eaters figured out a way to circumvent topheaviness. 

Hall Wines produces a Napa Cabernet Sauvignon which bears the name Harebrained. It is the winery's way of blowing a raspberry to those who once said pursuing world class wine in the Napa Valley was a harebrained idea. Drink it before the brain eaters get to it. 

Brain Dead is a 1990 horror movie masquerading as a psychological thriller. It was produced by TFH guru Julie Corman and stars Bill Pullman and Bill Paxton, two actors who are at the top of every guy's list of who should play them in the biopic.

There are plenty of labcoats in this picture. And plenty of cerebellums to play with. Everybody is a neuroscientist, it seems. Hey, it's not brain surgery. But wait - it is. Or is it? They keep you guessing until the credits roll. Just remember - it's not paranoia if they really are out to get your brain.

Sine Qua Non chief wine surgeon Manfred Krankl figured out a way to turn wine into money better than most others who have learned the trick. His 17th Nail In My Cranium is listed online at well over $1,000. There are those who feel that anyone paying that much for a bottle of wine should have their heads examined.

We trip back to 1962 for The Brain that Wouldn't Die, a sci-fi that was actually made three years earlier than its release date. No doubt the producers wanted to wait until just the right moment to hit the big screens. When "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" was climbing the hit parade, it must have seemed like - why not now?

Ah yes, that title. You may remember the film as The Head That Wouldn’t Die or The Brain That Couldn't Die. Maybe it's the film that refused to be remembered. American International rears its fuzzy head again as the distributor of the flick, on a double-bill that wouldn't - or couldn't - die. 

Here we have a mad doctor - who are we kidding? He's a mad scientist, and he has discovered a way to keep a head alive after the body has shuffled off this mortal coil. It's a discovery he lives to regret. The finale has a monster carrying a damsel through a flaming laboratory. Where have I seen that before? There are no pitchforks in the shot this time around.

Dave Corey has been called a mad scientist of wine, due to the bold choices he makes in his blends. A hearty "mwa-ha-ha-ha" has been heard coming from the cellar as he pours beaker into beaker, never knowing what he's going to get until he gets it. You can find his CORE Wines at the Santa Maria tasting room or at Hancock College, where he leads the institution's wine program. 

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Blood Of The Vines - Serial Killers

Pairing‌ ‌wine‌ ‌with‌ ‌movies!‌  ‌See‌ ‌the‌ ‌trailers‌ ‌and‌ ‌hear‌ ‌the‌ ‌fascinating‌ ‌commentary‌ ‌for‌ ‌these‌ ‌movies‌ ‌and‌ ‌many‌ ‌more‌ ‌at‌ ‌Trailers‌ ‌From‌ ‌Hell.‌ This week, the wine is the color of blood as we serve up some pairings for three films concerning serial killers.

In Cold Blood is a movie from 1967, based on Truman Capote's book about the brutal real-life murders of a Kansas family by a pair of criminals in 1959. Their killing spree was a short one - they slit and shot the four family members in the middle of the night, after failing to find a safe full of cash they had hoped to crack. Robert Blake plays one of the killers while John Forsythe plays a state investigator.

When the two felons get out of prison and decide to resume a life of crime, they head to southwestern Kansas as the logical place to get their careers back on track. That's a six-hour drive from the Leavenworth Big House. It goes to show that law enforcement's best friend is the stupidity of criminals. 

In tribute to the unfortunate Clutter family, a Kansas wine will be the pairing here. Even though Holy-Field Winery is in a suburb of Kansas City and the Clutters were butchered six hours west, way across the state, the juice is great. Try their midwestern grapes, Chambourcin or Cynthiana. Both are red wines which have won awards for their excellence, like In Cold Blood did.

If you speak Italian, you may know 1975's Deep Red as Profondo Rosso. The only Italian I speak is "più vino, per favore, "and I can say that only because I just googled "more wine please" in Italian. 

Deep Red - Imma stay in my English language lane - stars David Hemmings as a musician who investigates a string of murders. Don't ask me why a musician is doing a cop's job. I just hope the cop isn't playing a sax on a street corner somewhere.

It's one of those things that strike me about Italian film. Weird happenings don't draw anyone's attention. Arguments about unrelated events seem to pop up out of nowhere - and disappear just as quickly. Anytime a car is moving, it's like a chase scene. And even if it's called a giallo film, it's still just a slasher flick to me.

It may be just a slasher flick to me, but it was a regular War and Peace to someone - the original script reportedly ran more than 500 pages. I'll pause here for the audible gasp from every studio reader in Los Angeles. Never fear - writer/director Dario Argento cut it down to a mere 321 pages. Despite the heft of that screenplay, the movie clocks in at just over two hours running time. 

The wine pairing for this giallo film is one from Iruai Winery called Giallo - although it is from the Shasta-Cascade mountains of California's Siskiyou County, not Italy. They do, however, pay homage to the "rugged, savage red wines of the Italian Alps." It’s a blend of Teroldego, Nebbiolo, and Refosco grapes, and it has the film genre right there on the label, so you don't forget what you're watching.

Out of 1971 comes 10 Rillington Place, a British crime drama with Richard Attenborough as real-life serial killer John Christie. The title of the film is the address of the house where many of his victims were slain. John Hurt got rave reviews for his portrayal of Timothy Evans, who was tried and found guilty of two murders that were committed by Christie. Both Evans and Christie eventually swung from a noose, although Evans was posthumously pardoned - a little late to do him any good. 

It's difficult for me to think of a British serial killer. In my mind, he would sound like a James Bond villain - all posh and proper as he describes how he plans to end you. Or like the great Bill Hicks comedy bit about "hooligans" knocking over a dustbin in Shaftesbury. But, I suppose the bad seeds turn up everywhere, even in Notting Hill. 

For this movie about crime in London, let's go down to Surrey for Denbies Redlands, a crimson blend of Dornfelder, Rondo and Pinot Noir grapes grown in the Denbies estate vineyard. I don't know whose idea it was to plant a German grape variety like Dornfelder in quaint little Surrey, but if they are good with it, so am I. Prost. 

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Blood Of The Vines - Revisionist 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 look at a few westerns that turned the genre around to view it from a different angle. We also have wine pairings for the films, even though a shot of redeye might be more appropriate.

1970's Little Big Man is an early version of a revisionist western. 1970 was a time when a lot of cultural shifts started to churn, and this film was a western while also serving as a satire and an anti-war statement. And a pretty damned good one, too.

Was Little Big Man the first western to side with Native Americans and line up against the U.S. Cavalry? Maybe. Dustin Hoffman stars as the title figure, who, as an old man, tells the story of his life - a series of unbelievable events and coincidences. Do we believe that this old man was really a student of Wild Bill Hickock, an advisor to General George Armstrong Custer, the only white survivor of Little Big Horn? Sure, why not. It's really more fun to believe an outlandish tale than not.

Big Little Wines produces small batch vino from Michigan's Leelanau Peninsula. If it surprises you to learn that Michigan is a good wine state, try this on for size - they now have a completely blue state legislature! Will wonders never cease? Their bigLITTLE Underdog is 100% Gamay Noir, and they ship to 17 states of which California is one.

Django Unchained is a fairly recent entry for these pages, 2012. Director Quentin Tarantino calls his film a "Southern" rather than a "western." It sets American slavery against a tapestry of violence and cruelty in the style of a Spaghetti Western. 

Jamie Foxx stars as the slave-turned-bounty-hunter Django, a role which he paints as meticulously as Eastwood painted the Man with No Name. Foxx plays his character as a man with a fistful of revenge. Audiences seem to love the grisly ways this angry black man exacts his vengeance - the grislier, the better. Gun? Easy. Dynamite? Cool. 

There was a ton of blowback to this movie due mainly to the extreme violence within it and its perceived disrespect towards African-Americans. Spike Lee won't have anything to do with it, saying it dishonors his ancestors. After a mantle full of awards for Django, Tarantino can no doubt rest easy.

Bounty Hunter's Cabernet Sauvignon The Vigilante is available from Napa's Benchmark Wines, which has expensive wines for serious collectors. It's $141 for the 2012 vintage, and the prices go up from there.

Ulzana's Raid gets us back to the weird old '70s - 1972 to be precise. Robert Aldrich directed it and Burt Lancaster starred as the army scout sent to bring the Apache renegade Ulzana in for justice. He has led a brutal Native American attack on white settlers in 1880s Arizona, and he is number one with a bullet on the army's most-wanted list.

The film is called revisionist due not to its view of the Native American war party - depicted as ruthless killers - but because of its view of American involvement in Vietnam. The cavalry cluelessly chasing an enemy is seen as a direct swipe at the U.S. Army's pursuit of the Viet Cong. 

D.A. Ranch in Cornville, Arizona has a variety of tasty wines produced from their estate-grown grapes. It looks like the D.A. Stands for Dancing Apache, which is the name of the road where the vineyard and winery is found. Does Ulzana dance well enough to escape the raid? Watch and find out, with a bottle and a glass on the coffee table. 

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Blood Of The Vines - Jive Junction

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 three films which feature the swingin’ sounds of the big bands, and a wine pairing for each.

The music we are dealing with this time is more than soundtrack fodder or score. The music is the focal point. We're going back decades to relive the sounds that were "a hit before your mother was born." Maybe even before your grandmother.

In 1942's Orchestra Wives, Glenn Miller plays the leader of a big band. It wasn't a stretch for him, since that's what he was in real life. The story centers on the jealousy that arises in one of the musicians' wives due to his previous relationship with the cute little singer in the orchestra. It's a malaise that soon infects the whole band, as one wife after another falls victim to the green-eyed monster. It seems that the band members' wives all travel with the tour, something which would change in the rock era so that guitar players would be free to have a honey in every city along the way. I'm told that bass players and drummers had to work a little harder.

The songs include the great "(I've Got a Gal in) Kalamazoo," which, with its "a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h" walk-up to the title line would have made a nice Sesame Street segment. Miller's "Moonlight Serenade" sneaks in over the credits. It was a huge hit on the radio back then and it's a shame they didn't market soundtrack albums the way they do now. Of course, the 12-inch vinyl record didn't become a thing until well after this movie was made. Look for Jackie Gleason, Harry Morgan and even Dale Evans in uncredited performances where Gleason, especially, steals the scene. 

Miller broke up the band in 1942 so he could volunteer to join the U.S. Army Air Force. A plane that was carrying him from London to Paris in 1944 disappeared over the English Channel and he was never heard from again. It was a national catastrophe for such a beloved entertainer to be killed - especially in a time of war. Speculation on why the plane vanished has run the gamut, from pilot error to frozen fuel lines to friendly fire to assassination. 

Legh Knowles was a trumpeter with the Glenn Miller Orchestra back in the day, and he went on to become chairman of Napa Valley's Beaulieu Vineyards. Their Georges de Latour Cabernet Sauvignon tops out at $150, but we will opt for "Maestro," their $35 Sauvignon Blanc, in honor of the great Glenn Miller.

Rhapsody in Blue is the 1945 biopic about the life of composer George Gershwin. It's a fictionalized account - Gershwin's actual life must not have been exciting enough for Hollywood. Critics have slammed the movie for that, and - oddly - for having too much music in it. Nearly complete versions of "Rhapsody in Blue" and "An American in Paris" are featured in the film, along with "Summertime" from "Porgy and Bess," so it is a treasure trove for Gershwin fans.

Like Miller, Gershwin also died young. It was a brain tumor that got him when he was just 38 years old. If you want even more of Gershwin's music in a movie, try Woody Allen's 1979 film, Manhattan. It is brimming full of Gershwin originals, if you haven't yet canceled Allen and his works from your life.

Opolo Vineyards has the perfect wine for Rhapsody. In fact, it is named "Rhapsody," a Paso Robles Bordeaux blend described as plush and lush, a lot like Gershwin's music.

Footlight Parade, from pre-Code 1933, features the sort of racy jokes and scanty costumes that disappeared for decades after the Hays Code "cleaned up" moving pictures for America's tender sensibilities. James Cagney pressed hard for the lead role, and got it. The former vaudeville hoofer plays a guy who makes short live musicals - prologues - which were shown in big movie houses before the film. It was Cagney's first chance to dance on the big screen, an opportunity that dwindled as he took on his more well-known gangster persona.

Joan Blondell co-stars as Cagney's secretary and love interest. The action concerns the creation and presentation of three spectacular show-openers over a span of just three days. Some of the dialogue is risqué, but seems quaint by today's standards.

Cagney once owned a summer estate on Martha's Vineyard - way before it became a haven for immigrants looking for work. Right across Buzzard's Bay is Westport Rivers Vineyard and Winery. They make a wide range of tasty wines, including Chardonnay, Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir, which are worthy of a Cagney pairing.

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Chenin Blanc Wine For Cooking And Drinking

The Vignobles Lacheteau Vouvray 2021 is a semi-dry white wine from France's Loire Valley. Vouvray is an appellation, not a grape. Most of the white wines of Vouvray are made from Chenin Blanc grapes, as is this one.

This Vouvray - I bought it for cooking, but drank what was left - is a great match for something spicy, like Thai or Indian food. Alcohol is restrained, at 11.5% abv and the wine ran me just under ten bucks at my local Trader Joe's grocery.

The very pale straw-tinted wine has a floral bouquet which carries with it a tangerine scent that also appears in the flavor profile. A flinty note balances the fruit with some minerality. Acidity is nice, but not too racy, perfect for pairing with those spicy cuisines. 

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Blood Of The Vines - Trippin' 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, trip out with some movies that might mess with your head, with wine pairings for each.

If you remember the TV series Then Came Bronson, you may also remember the Mad Magazine parody of it. Bronson is sitting astride his motorcycle at a traffic light when the driver of the car in the next lane asks, "Takin' a trip?" He replies, "No, this is a regular cigarette I'm smoking." With that in mind, and with no apologies to Dick Dale, let's go trippin'.

The 1978 horror film, Blue Sunshine, does for LSD what Reefer Madness did for pot - sensationalizes it, fictionalizes its effects and builds a weird story into a sort of cautionary tale. Past users of a brand of LSD known as Blue Sunshine suddenly start turning up with psychotic breaks from reality which sends them into a homicidal rage. 

As the body count mounts, one guy seems to find himself at the center of the killings and has to prove that he is innocent. How is that gonna sound down at headquarters? "So, like, it was years ago and a guy gave us all some Blue Sunshine and now we’re all going bald and killing dudes…" Your cell is right this way, sir.

The movie landed with a thud in the '70s but has become a bit of a cult item, with a legion of fans, including TFH head guru Joe Dante.

Skip the Blue Nun and pair a blue California sparkler with Blue Sunshine. Blanc de Bleu is really blue, and really sweet, so they say. There's a pic on the website which shows a group of youngstahs drinking the stuff out of blue Solo cups. Proceed with caution.

Any compilation of movies about hallucinogens has to include 1967's The Trip. Written by Jack Nicholson, directed by Roger Corman and featuring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, the movie delivers exactly what one might expect from that group, at that time. In addition to Corman's, er, trippy direction you get some nice 1960s views of L.A. locales like Laurel Canyon and the Sunset Strip.

Fonda plays a guy who drops acid for the first time after a divorce. What could go wrong? The trip turns a bit sour as he envisions hooded figures chasing him along the Pacific shore. I'll paraphrase Diner here and say, "I’ve been to Malibu a hundred times and never saw death walkin' a beach."

Australian producer St. John’s Road makes a Barossa blend called LSD. It does not stand for lysergic acid diethylamide, by the way. The letters are for the grapes - Lagrein, Shiraz and Durif. We call Durif Petite Sirah, but LSPS clearly does not have the same ring to it.

Nicholson was busy the following year with Psych-Out, a 1968 movie that had him billed with Dean Stockwell and Bruce Dern. The psychedelic cash-in was produced by Dick Clark, who, as the square-in-residence, insisted on the film's anti-drug message.

The story centers on a deaf runaway in San Francisco. The Haight-Ashbury setting perfectly captures the squalid nonchalance of the hippie lifestyle there. There is a search for a lost brother, helpful hippies, live music, a freak-out and a good trip turned bad - all the ingredients for late '60s psychedelia wrapped up in an 82-minute ball of celluloid.

For Psych-Out, let's try a Washington state wine, from Sleight of Hand Cellars. Psychedelic Syrah is such an alliterative delight it's a wonder no one had thought of it before. Critics like the wine, too.

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Blood Of The Vines - Tortured Artists

Pairing‌‌‌ ‌‌‌wine‌‌‌ ‌‌‌with‌‌‌ ‌‌‌movies!‌‌‌ ‌‌‌See‌‌‌ ‌‌‌the‌‌‌ ‌‌‌trailers‌‌‌ ‌‌‌and‌‌‌ ‌‌‌hear‌‌‌ ‌‌‌the‌‌‌ ‌‌‌fascinating‌‌‌ ‌‌‌commentary‌‌‌ ‌‌‌for‌‌‌ ‌‌‌these‌‌‌ ‌‌‌‌‌movies‌,‌‌ ‌‌‌and‌‌‌ ‌‌‌many‌‌‌ ‌‌‌more‌,‌‌ ‌‌‌at‌‌‌ ‌‌‌Trailers‌‌‌ ‌‌‌From‌‌‌ ‌‌‌Hell.‌‌‌ This week, pour up wine pairings for three movies concerning the lives of fine artistes who had it rough.

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 trimmed - even the director's cut is 24 minutes shorter - and the current feature spans just over two hours. So you 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 Isadora 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 no torture.

1973's Payday features Rip Torn as a country music singer who is living life just a little too large. You can actually stop right there - you had me at Rip Torn. He has a certain amount of fame which he keeps in his Cadillac, right next to the Wild Turkey he uses to bribe deejays. He also uses the Caddy as a rolling motel room in which he beds women, usually to no great pleasure for either party. Touring, too many angry women, a knife fight gone wrong - this guy's torture is all self-inflicted. The car plays a role in his own inevitable end, by the way, even though he is not wearing a scarf at the time. 

Here's a site which pairs wine with candy bars. Really. They recommend a Ruby Port with the candy bar called Payday, so let's do that, if your local deejay has run out of Wild Turkey.

The Music Lovers hails from 1970. That was a great year for a lot of things - pop music, TV, bell-bottom pants - but it was not a good year for Ken Russell's movie about Tchaikovsky. This film was so abused by the critics you'd have thought they were all relatives of the composer. "Tedious," "grotesque," “perverse” and "wretched excesses" were just a few of the epithets hurled at Russell's film, and those were from the critics who liked it.

Tchaikovsky's torture started at an early age, when he watched his mother die a violent and painful death. His marriage to a bizarre woman - described variously as a "crazed half-wit" and a nymphomaniac - didn't last long. That could have been because Tchaikovsy preferred men, but the topic apparently never came up between him and his bride-to-be. Oops! Eventually he drinks poisoned water and dies of cholera, the same illness that plagued his mother. The film sees it as a suicide, and who could blame him? 

For a complicated guy like Tchaikovsky, who made some pretty complicated music - how about a nice, complicated Pinot Noir? Melville's Estate Pinot comes from the Sta. Rita Hills part of Santa Barbara County. It is a rich, complex and elegant Pinot which will pair perfectly with Tchaikovsky's music - and hopefully with Russell's vision of it.

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Blood Of The Vines - Future Shock

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 gaze backwards into our crystal balls to see what moviemakers of yesteryear thought the future would be like.

If you have yet to see it, we'll start with a spoiler: 1973's Soylent Green is people.  "It's people!"  This sci-fi touched on ecological issues while Earth Day was still wet behind the ears.  Pollution, global warming, dying oceans and overpopulation have turned the earth from a big blue marble into a living hell, where the lack of food has caused the Soylent Corporation to make plankton a taste treat.  But those dying oceans have stopped giving forth with the plankton, and that green food has to come from somewhere.

Charlton Heston plays a cop who, in the course of investigating a murder, discovers what the poor people are eating.  Soylent Green also features Edward G. Robinson's last credited appearance in a movie.

Some say Champagne pairs well with anything, but expecting it to elevate Soylent Green may be asking too much.  However, let's get a sparkler from a lower shelf to go with this film.  Portugal's Vinho Verde region produces what is called "green wine," but that’s a reference to its young age.  The effervescent white should go nicely with a plankton salad, especially if you’re a "people person."

Things to Come, from 1936, was written by H.G. Wells - who had a way with envisioning the future.  This vision looks at the span of time from 1940 - barely the future at that time - to 2036 - a century down the road.  In Wells' story, world war drags on for decades as civilization crumbles, only to find rebirth after guys in fantastic flying machines arrive to save humanity from itself.  There's even a moon shot, which almost doesn't happen when the Luddites decide to stand in the way of what they consider to be unnecessary progress.  Damned Luddites, anyway.

Nearly a dozen different cuts of Things To Come were made, of varying lengths, ranging from a little over an hour to two hours.  The movie did okay with critics and paying customers back in the '30s, but it has evolved into what is considered by many to be a masterpiece of science fiction.

Santa Barbara County's Future Perfect Wine certainly has the market cornered on optimism, especially with the experts saying that climate change presents a bleak future for California wine.  Future Perfect has a 2021 Sauvignon Blanc which they call a "breakfast wine."  That’s right - in the future we'll have wine for breakfast, in case you aren't already doing that.

Canada's 1983 entry into the world of body horror, Videodrome, is David Cronenberg's vision of a future of mind control by television.  The chief suit of a Toronto TV station happens upon snuff films on a satellite signal.  Being a broadcast executive, he naturally figures that this is the future wave of his medium and he begins to rebroadcast the shows.  The situation gets political pretty fast, as the suit delves deeper and deeper into a real-life battle for the minds of the viewers.  Videodrome is a trippy, creepy whiff of the future from 1983 - a future which, like things in a rear-view mirror, may be closer than they appear.

Certainly films that feature the torture and killing of human beings fall into the category of deadly sin.  So, let's grab a 7 Deadly Zins for Videodrome.  Lodi Zinfandel has not been associated with eternal damnation since the 1970s, but we'll make an exception for this Cronenberg cult classic.

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Blood Of The Vines - If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Weld

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 star the vivacious Tuesday Weld.

Weld starred in A Safe Place in 1971, alongside Orson Welles and Jack Nicholson.  She played a New York City "hippie chick" who was a few cards short of a deck.  She has two men in her life, neither of whom are right for her, so she seeks comfort in childhood memories, including some gifts given to her by a Central Park magician.  Wonder where he's doing time right now?

The public wasn't buying it, and the critics were even harsher.  Director Henry Jaglom took most of the heat.  He says he started making films after seeing 8½, but nowhere except on the movie poster was he mistaken for Fellini.

Freaked Out Hippie Wine is really just grape juice, sugar and yeast - make it yourself and no guarantees that it won't taste like something you'd find in prison.  Not much more hope goes out for Fish Hippie Seersucker Red.  It's made from Muscadine grapes and is available at Total Wine, although you may have to pick it up at a North Carolina store.

1968's Pretty Poison had Weld paired with Anthony Perkins, as a cheerleader and an ex-con, and you don't need two guesses to figure which was which.  Trouble doesn't take long to find them, and when it does, it turns out she has the flair for crime.  The Perkins character decides it's safer back in prison than hanging out with Ms. Poison, and that's the best move he makes in the whole picture.  Beware a cheerleader who knows how to kill and doesn't mind it one bit.

It is reportedly not poisonous, but Bitch Grenache comes from Australia and actually gets favorable reviews from users on websites not usually associated with fine wines.  The moniker suits the essence of Weld's character like a 9 mm pom pom.  Find Bitch wherever you buy your wines, beers, malt liquors, hard seltzer or rubbing alcohol. 

In Sex Kittens Go to College, from 1960, forget the cast - even though it features Mamie Van Doren, Weld, John Carradine, Jackie Coogan, Louis Nye, Vampira (not as herself) and Elektro the Robot as Thinko the Robot.  Check out the character names - Admiral Wildcat MacPherson, Legs Raffertino, Woo Woo Grabowski (his real name) and Tallahassee Tassel Tosser, among them.  That last name is a tipoff that strippers are involved, but don't get too excited unless you have the version which was released to adult theaters, featuring a lengthy dream sequence starring those exotic dancers.  Essential viewing?  You be the judge.

When sex kittens go to college at UC Davis, they join the Aggies Uncorked wine club, which sends out monthly shipments of wines with a connection to the old oenological alma mater.  At some point, the university will sell the wine made by students in the wine program - for upwards of $100 a bottle.

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Blood Of The Vines - Board Room Blues

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 down to business with wine pairings for three films about the corporate world.  The first person to say "You're fired," gets fired.

Richard E. Grant and Rachel Ward star in the 1989 black comedy How to Get Ahead in Advertising.  It's hard to describe the plot without first warning of a spoiler alert - Grant's ad executive character develops a boil on his neck, which turns into a second head.  It talks to him, tells him what to do and eventually takes over his body, leaving his actual head as … a boil on the neck.  Some say that likening an adman to a boil on the neck isn't that much of a stretch.

Grant's acting is stupendous, as his character takes on different personalities in the course of the film.  Maybe you can pick up several bottles of our wine pairing, one for each personality.

Arizona's Coronado Vineyards makes Two Heads Red, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese.  If that's too tough to find, you might have more luck locating a Gnarly Head wine.  The name comes from the winery's old Zinfandel vines, not from our salesman's predicament.

1957's Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter stars Jayne Mansfield and Tony Randall.  It was inspired by the Broadway play of the same name, but director Frank Tashlin took such liberties in writing the screenplay that any resemblance is purely coincidental.  

The movie aims its satire at Hollywood and advertising - mostly TV commercials.  If only they had been able to view a few million-dollar spots that run during the Super Bowl, perhaps they would have sharpened their satire a bit.  More probably, they would have advertised the movie there.

Australia's Hunter Valley has plenty of wineries there in New South Wales.  Try McGuigan for a nice Chardonnay, Shiraz or Semillon to pair with Rock Hunter.

The 1954 film, Executive Suite, is about a furniture manufacturer whose founder, CEO and driving wheel drops dead during a business trip.  I've heard of difficulty on the road, but this is ridiculous.  With no one officially in line to take the reins of the company, a free-for-all ensues.

The movie shows the backroom and boardroom maneuverings of the company's execs, who display their skills in backstabbing, blackmail, short-selling and insider trading.  So it's just another day at the office, really.  

Talk about a lineup: the film stars William Holden, June Allyson, Barbara Stanwyck, Frederic March, Walter Pidgeon, Shelly Winters and Nina Foch, who was nominated for an Oscar.  March's performance pretty much defines corporate sleaze.  It's no wonder that the film was such a big hit.

With so much negativity in the boardroom, why not finish sweetly with Dow's Boardroom Reserve Tawny Port.  If you are not a Port fan, get in line before someone else cuts you off at the knees.  It's a cutthroat world out there.  

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Blood Of The Vines - The Devil You Say

Pairing‌‌‌ ‌‌‌wine‌‌‌ ‌‌‌with‌‌‌ ‌‌‌movies!‌‌‌  ‌‌‌See‌‌‌ ‌‌‌the‌‌‌ ‌‌‌trailers‌‌‌ ‌‌‌and‌‌‌ ‌‌‌hear‌‌‌ ‌‌‌the‌‌‌ ‌‌‌fascinating‌‌‌ ‌‌‌commentary‌‌‌ ‌‌‌for‌‌‌ ‌‌‌these‌‌‌ ‌‌‌‌‌movies‌,‌‌ ‌‌‌and‌‌‌ ‌‌‌many‌‌‌ ‌‌‌more‌,‌‌ ‌‌‌at‌‌‌ ‌‌‌Trailers‌‌‌ ‌‌‌From‌‌‌ ‌‌‌Hell.‌‌‌  This week, the devil made us do it.

The Devils is a 1971 British film taken from actual events of the 17th century - ripped from the headlines of a French gazette, if you will.

Urbain Grandier was a Catholic priest accused of calling up evil spirits to possess a group of nuns.  This may seem far-fetched by today's standards, but I have friends who went to Catholic school and they think it's pretty much on the nose for the nuns who served as their teachers.

Spoiler alert here - Grandier was tried for witchcraft, found guilty and burned at the stake.  But these days people think he was railroaded by Cardinal Richelieu.  A French cardinal as the bad guy?  Hey, it worked for Alexandre Dumas. 

If you think that a movie which puts violence and sex in a religious setting sounds like a job for Ken Russell, award yourself ten bonus points and skip right to the wine pairing.  Russell wrote the screenplay and directed the film.

San Antonio Winery was the only Los Angeles wine producer to survive the thirteen year torment we now call Prohibition.  They did it by grabbing a loophole by the lapels and making sacramental wine for churches.  They have a much broader appeal today and still base their operation on Lamar Street, just across the tracks from the L.A. River.

We shall now remain in 1971 for another British scary story.  The Blood on Satan's Claw has 18th century England as its setting.  A farmer digs up a skull with fur on it and, well, you know how teenagers get when something like that happens.  All of a sudden it's devil this and fur that.  They can't wait to get over to the abandoned church and call up some furry evil.

Townsfolk start growing claws - furry claws, of course - until it starts to look like a bad night at Red Lobster.  Some deaths occur throughout the tale, as you might expect, and the farmer - remember him? - finds his leg has grown fur.  It's a regular epidemic.  Sure hope someone with a sword gets involved, and fast.

This pairing gets a little too deep into devil imagery for my comfort level, but here goes.  The Wine of Satan - Vinnum dei Satanas - is a Greek Syrah sold by an outfit that likes heavy metal music at least as much as they like wine, probably more.  A bottle will run a man 30 euros, and it's almost as much to have it shipped from Greece. 

Satan Met a Lady was a 1936 adaptation of The Maltese Falcon, sandwiched five years apart between the two other versions of the Dashiell Hammett detective yarn.  This one had no Sam Spade, no falcon, nothing from Malta and a different title.  It did have Bette Davis, however, and you'll have to guess whether she's the devil or the lady.

Davis hated the film, telling Mr. Warner in no uncertain terms that she would not appear in it.  After a few days without pay, though, she returned to the soundstage and resumed working.  You know, mortgage payments on a mansion were high in Los Angeles even back then.  The critics of the day mainly figured that the cast should be put into a witness protection program.

The Velvet Devil Merlot comes from Washington's Charles Smith Wines.  The velvet is smooth, but the pitchfork is gonna leave a mark.  Despite the rather cheesy label, the wine is actually pretty good.

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Blood Of The Vines - Peter Bogdanovich 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 salute the recently departed director and actor Peter Bogdanovich.

1968's Targets gave Bogdanovich his start as a director.  Boris Karloff plays a retiring horror actor while Tim O'Kelly serves as a sniper.  Karloff's character is quitting the monster movie business because he feels the actual news events of the day are much more horrific than anything he could ever act out on celluloid.  As fate would have it, the movie was released shortly after the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, boosting its topicality.

Fans of L.A. location shooting will want to see the finale, filmed at a Reseda drive-in movie.  Spoiler alert:  The climax is terrific, when Karloff's character disarms the shooter by hitting him with his cane.  So much for the scary sniper - defeated by an old man with a walking stick.

For a wine pairing with Targets: no, not a box of wine from Target, although there will be no judging from me if you choose to go that way.  There is a gun club in North Carolina which sports a "Shoot Then Sip" night for ladies.  Let's hope they keep the shooting before the sipping.  For Californians, Sonoma's Wing and Barrel Ranch brings gunplay and drinking together.  The ranch offers both shooting and hunting, so you can opt for clay pigeons or, I guess, real pigeons.  Turley Cellars is one of their vintner partners, so get one of Turley's great Zinfandels and shoot out the cork.

In 1971, Bogdanovich painted a heartbreaking portrait of hopelessness in The Last Picture Show.  The film takes place in a small, desolate Texas town.  I grew up in a slightly larger, slightly less desolate Texas town, but the movie rings true to me.

For pairing with The Last Picture Show, you can grab a Lone Star Beer - longnecks only, please - or get fancy with a wine from Lone Star Wine Cellars.  The winery is on the North Texas Wine Country map, in McKinney.  That town has more than one traffic light and several picture shows.  

Just a year later came What's Up, Doc?  Bogdanovich called it a "screwball comedy, something like Bringing Up Baby: daffy girl, square professor, everything works out all right."  The daffy girl was Barbara Streisand, the square professor was Ryan O'Neal and all was well in the end - as it always is in the land of the romantic comedy.

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?.  Just pick a red Valpolicella or a white Soave, you can't miss.

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