RKS 2025 Canadian Wine: Southbrook Triomphe Merlot From Niagara

Niagara Merlot appears to be making great strides for itself whether it be Peninsula Ridge or Peller Estates. Could it be a judicious use of oak that is the key?

This Southbrook Organic Merlot was wild fermented in new and used French oak barrels aged for 18 months.

Aroma: Raspberry, black cherry and cassis with a slight earthy funk.

Palate: Moderate and peppery tannins. Chalky if not brackish running hot. Pepper, blackberry and raspberry continuing hotness on the long finish.

Personality:  I admit it I am a bit of a hothead obfuscating that trademark Southbrook purity. You won’t get warm and fuzzy Washington State Merlot from me.

Food Match: Stuffed Ontario field tomatoes and eggplant with lots of dill!

Cellarbility: Can hold into 2028 but can’t see it improving.

Price: $28 CDN.

RKS 2025 Canadian Wine Rating: 86/100. Rick VanSickle 91.

(Southbrook triomphe Organic 2021 Merlot, VQA Niagara Peninsula, Southbrook Vineyards Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada, 750 mL, 13%).

RKS Literature: Imagination (Yukio Mishima)

“Those who lack imagination have no choice but to base their conclusions on the reality they see around them. But on the other hand, those who are imaginative have a tendency to build fortified castles they have designed themselves, and to seal off every window in them.”

Yukio Mishima, “Spring Snow”, 1968.

RKS 2025 Documentary: “Divia”: All Manner of Destruction: All Manner of Resilience

The Euro documentary “Divia” has no dialogue simply music. Its astonishing cinematography is a work of art. It is a panorama of destruction of flora and fauna, man, his environment and his machines of death and destruction. Nature has been wounded but is far from defeat.

If you have watched the documentaries “Russia at War” and “2,000 Meters to Andriivka” you will have witnessed the brutal fighting in Ukraine with the focus on man, machine and technology. While there is footage of destruction in those films “Divia” is more comprehensive and lyrical showing the pristine habitant of Ukraine juxtaposed with its savage defiling. Its pictorial horror at times has a certain artistic beauty a luxury for the viewer and a hell for those humans and animals subjected to it.

All manner of destruction to man, machine, flora and fauna is presented. Rotting corpses of man, marine life and animal, rusted tanks and armoured vehicles, tanks being hit with high explosives, military garbage, bombed bridges, shell casing fragments, land mines, flooded villages, villages on fire, destroyed villages, explosions, huge patches of deforestation and flooded forests.

Yet in all the destruction nature continues the best way she can whether it be sunflowers growing in front of abandoned trenches, a bear swimming in a pond with a huge piece of shell casing seen in the clear pool or pheasants scooting about in tank treads. A sense of resilience imparting some shred of hope that one day Ukraine will be at peace and nature will not have to struggle to repair the damage wreaked upon it.

Divia has a meaning or connotation of something sacred, blessed or associated with deities. If there is anything sacred in this documentary it would the resilience of nature.

Watch the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1rJanwSsiw

This Ukrainian, Polish, American, Dutch and UK production is directed by Dmiytro Hreshko and will be having its regional premiere on 19August2025 at the Sarajevo Film Festival.

RKS 2025 Documentary Film Rating 94/100.

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Film:“Seeds”: Something More Political is Germinating Under the Horror

“Seeds” is most often categorized in reviews as a horror movie with comedic elements. I agree but there is an angrier political layer germinating under the horror moniker namely an Indigenous strike back against colonization both past and present.

We are introduced to Ziggy (Kaniehtiio Horn) as a struggling urban Indian “influencer” surviving on bicycle food deliveries in Toronto as she is influencing very few followers hence without revenue. Her big break is a contract with Nature’s Oath a seed and fertilizer company to promote their seeds.

Someone is watching her at the outset and throughout the film. Suspense!

While watching a horror show (with her beloved cat Potato) narrated by Graham Greene one night after landing her seed gig she dozes off woken up by Graham Greene on the television speaking directly to her. Is the severed bloody ear she finds on the couch just a dream?

The next morning, she receives a call from her cousin Wiz (Dallas Goldtooth) asking her to return to her Mohawk rez to watch Auntie’s house who is in New Zealand. Ziggy returns to the rez and Auntie’s car is not working leaving poor Ziggy alone deep in the woods. Eyes are upon her and next a break in by a man, Drake (Patrick Garrow) that was having his car repaired by Nookie in the rez watching Ziggy with intensity. Potato the cat attacks intruder Drake ripping his ear off and is rewarded by being bludgeoned to death. Ziggy returns and discovering Potato’s murder vows revenge. This airy influencer starts to show her mettle handy with a rifle and knife and brimming with revenge.

Graham Greene appears again and warns Ziggy people are coming to take something special from her but does not say what even when Ziggy asks if these people are after the seeds but he shows Ziggy a past time where Mohawks were farming the land. Greene later says to Ziggy that she is a strong Mohawk woman and go fuck em up!

Aunty had called Ziggy previously and said seeds were stolen at a Māori’s home in New Zealand and please guard the seeds in her house with her life. They are unique to the Mohawk people. Nature’s Oath is genetically modifying seeds which produce plants with sterile seeds so seeds must be purchased again driving up the profits of this near monopoly seed company.

Drake appears yet again at Auntie’s house and a fight ensues with Ziggy a true Mohawk warrior. Mystery and suspense veers toward horror and I can’t tell you what comprises the horror as the film would be ruined. Why don’t we say it is very hearty type of horror!

My thoughts are horror is a smoke screen as disguised in the smoke is razor sharp political and social commentary:

  • A pure Indigenous strike back at colonialism
  • A defeat of the Christian missionary colonizers. Look at the cross worn by Drake
  • A defeat of post Christian missionary colonizers. Look at the underwear with the maple leaf’s
  • A dressing down of fifth column Uncle Tom Indigenous traitors
  • Pride in and protection of Indigenous culture
  • Lambasting trinket trickery of the colonizers
  • The reverence of the land and environment as central to Indigenous culture
  • Mistrust of corporate interests as to Indigenous land
  • The easy manipulation of the media by corporate interests including the use of ignorant profit driven social influencers

The powerful and angry soliloquy of Ziggy crosses the line from acting to a heartfelt lecture against Indigenous exploitation and colonization. Horn, and not Ziggy, is speaking from the heart.

Certainly, there are, thrills, mystery, horror and a tad of comedy but distill these outer layers and there is an intense political-cultural message dominating the film.

The writer and director (and Ziggy) is Kaniehtiio Horn.

You may watch the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-EzLysgD1I&t=12s

Some gaps and weakness in the writing, continuity editing and at times the acting

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Film Rating: 86/100.

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Film: “Sweet Angel Baby”: Newfoundland Explosion!

“Down east”, as they say in Canada, on 6December1917 two ships, one loaded with high explosives, collided in Halifax, Nova Scotia with the resulting explosion killing 1,782 people and injuring an estimated 9,000.

In the film “Sweet Angel Baby” filmed down east in Newfoundland and Labrador a massive explosion occurs but a moral one, not physical.

Eliza (Michaela Kurminsky) has a secret life as a social media photographer with close to 70,000 followers enjoying her racy photo’s whether they show her rubbing her half naked body with homemade preserves or flashing herself nestled in between a moose head. She does her best to conceal her identity but carelessness definitively blows her cover.

Eliza is an in the closet lesbian enjoying the company of town lesbian Toni (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers).

Eliza fornicates avoidance style with blackmailer Sean who “promises” to keep her on-line photos covert otherwise he would blow her cover.

Eliza lives in small town Newfoundland apparently a good churchgoing restaurant manager. Gossip is deadly in such a small town and the sordidness of her on-line “perversion” explodes causing moral casualties. Despite the town’s Roman Catholic priest exhorting parishioners with kindness, compassion, humility and forgiveness in his sermon the worldly overtakes spirituality and the gunpowder of morality spews all about.

Despite quiet Newfoundland expounded in so many Newfoundland and Labrador tourism commercials in “Sweet Angel Baby” expect treachery, blackmail, steamy sex, scandal, residential school mentions, hypocrisy, pride and most importantly DEFIANCE.

There is no need to cancel your Newfoundland and Labrador tourism vacation plans. Unique for its physical beauty its inhabitants may be no different than in the rest of Canada.

Written and directed by Melanie Oates.

Theatrical release in Canada 15August2025.

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Film Rating 93/100.

RKS 2025 Wine: DAC/Dão

On my last trip to Portugal’s Dão region I did not have the opportunity to visit Quinta Pellada where this wine was produced. The Dão is not so far from the Douro region but its topography is far different. Forested in places, green and almost verdant. Gigantic glacial boulders may appear in fields and exotic mushrooms in the forest.

Alvaro Castro inherited Quinta da Pellada, his family’s estate in 1980 which he replanted. The Quinta has been producing wine since the 16th century. It is surrounded by pine trees on a 500-meter-high hill overlooking Serra da Estrela Portugal’s tallest mountain (2,000 meters).

The wine is a blend of Touriga Nacional (30%), Jaen (20%), Tinta Roriz (30%) and Alfrochiero (20%). Fermented in stainless steel vats and aged for 12-18 months in used 2–3-year-old French oak barrels.

Alvaro Castro and his daughter Maria are the winemakers.

Aroma: Black cherry, cassis, root beer and blueberry all dense and compact.

Palate: Guarded tannins. Firm but not distracting acidity. Well integrated oak. Blueberry tucked in nicely. A husky finish smooths out at a leisurely pace. Distinctly different from a Douro red.

Personality: In terms of Canadian familiarity with Portuguese wine I fall behind wines from the Douro and Alentejo but that is a matter of volume exported and certainly not quality.

Food Pairing: The winery suggests, “Simple fare, charcuteries and smoked meats, hard cheese as Parmesan or Manchego. Meats like veal, pork and roasted turkey.” As for meats it all depends on how the meat is prepared. I would suggest pork tenderloin broiled and topped with a blueberry jam and red wine reduction sauce.

Cellarbility: Drink no later than the end of 2026.

Price: $24. CDN.

RKS 2024 Wine Rating: 91/100. 94 Joshua Greene wineandspiritsmagazine.com

(DAC 2019 Red Wine Blend, Dão DOP, Olé & Obrigado, Portugal, 750 mL, 13%).

RKS 2025 Documentary: “A New Kind of Wilderness”: A Metaphorical Yet Entirely Real Wilderness

Nik the Brit married Maria the Norwegian and with Maria’s daughter Ronja move to a small, dilapidated farm deep in the Norwegian countryside. They subsequently have three children Ulv, Falk and Freja.

Self admitted tree huggers, quite evident in the opening frames of the documentary, the children are home schooled without screens, learn how to farm including raising farm animals and interact with nature. The rat race has been left behind in the search for independence and a life full of love. Post modern hippiedom?

Tragedy strikes felling Maria at 41 years of age. Nik is left continuing on in Norway as per Maria’s wishes although moving back to his native England and his family would make his life so much easier as Maria’s photographer income is no longer and Nik is not working. Unable to pay the mortgage the farm is sold and the family moves to a small Norwegian farming community to a new life which is metaphorically a new kind of wilderness.

Homeschooling is replaced by kindergarten and schools which the children adapt to quickly and happily. iPads and an online existence are introduced and mastered by the children willingly perhaps even more so than for Nik their father.

Ronja, Maria’s daughter from a previous relationship felt alienated after her mother’s death and left the farm to live with her father.  The farm was not the same after the death of her mother Maria and in therapy she struggles to cope with her loss. Her loneliness is her wilderness. But over time and with a couple of visits with her siblings and Nik she adapts as well.

Adaptability means survival initially then flourishing in new lives thrust upon all by Maria’s death. Once refugees from society they rejoin it and initially become refugees in society and after Maria’s death at points become refugees amongst each other.

Watch the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WUX8Vxai3M

A “New Kind of Wilderness”, directed and written by Silje Evensmo Jacobsen, makes its broadcast premiere on PBS stations in the United States as part of PBS’ doc series POV on 25August2025/streaming premiere via PBS Passport App, also starting 25August2025 through 240ctober2025.

RKS 2025 Documentary Rating 69/100.

RKS 2025 Canadian Film: “Skeet”: Newfie Neo Noir?

“Skeet” a 2024 Canadian film shot in the Chalker Place east end neighborhood of St. John’s, Newfoundland indicates there is more to Canadian film than Ontario and British Columbia productions! Immediately prior to watching “Skeet”, “Sweet Angel Baby” another Newfoundlander film was on my screen and will soon be available in theatrical release in Canada. Is Newfoundland the new Hollywood North?

What is a “skeet”? It is a Newfie term for a tough guy with a heart.

What is a “Newfie”. For me it is a term of endearment for residents of the far eastern Canadian province and island of Newfoundland so Newfoundlanders please do not pelt me with dried cod when I arrive to receive my Order of Newfoundland” from the Vice Admiral of the “Newfoundland Fleet” on a date yet to be announced because for many less than culturally sensitive Canadians a Newfie is a derogatory term.

In this black and white film, imparting to it a raw a jagged feel, Billy Skinner (Sean Dalton) is released from Her Majesty’s custody after serving three years for a violent assault. Billy was a “manager” of crime boss Leo’s (Garth Sexton) drug operations. Fellow thugs attempted a hold up of Billy and his brother Bobby, blowing off the latter’s arm. Billy exacted revenge and bashed up one of the robbers leading to his incarceration.

Billy returns to his neighbourhood and a Syrian refugee community has sprung up to replace victims of drug overdoses.

Billy’s super raunchy pill popping mother Mae, brilliantly portrayed by Wendi Smallwood, “welcomes” home her son with baloney sandwiches as she sits in a disheveled fashion swilling beer from a coffee mug, pills in an ashtray by her side. Billy declines his welcome home feast stating he consumed far too many such sandwiches in prison. Leo had set up Billy with compensatory payments made to Mae while he was in custody. Mae spent the dough on her drug habit diverting these funds from Billy’s wife and son.

Billy is estranged from his son and embarks on a journey to develop a relationship with him but Billy is entirely snarled up by pride in the Skinner name hence his influence on his son is far from positive. Mr. Skinner, Billy’s dad was a nasty alcoholic that beat Billy regularly as a child. Billy carries on the violent Skinner tradition.

As a condition of Billy’s parole there is compulsory attendance at group “therapy” sessions most participants ravaged victims of drug addiction. There is a bad drug problem in the hood fuelled by Leo’s narcotics ironically noted by Leo who says the neighbourhood needs more paramedics not heroes.

Leo is a gentleman poet with a vicious psychotic core. Deservedly this poet, a delightfully disturbing character, meets “poetic justice”!

Billy befriends Mohamed, or Mo as he prefers to be called, a Syrian refugee living with his family in the hood. The immensely charismatic Mo (Jay Abdo) stands by Billy through thick and thin explaining his escape to Canada with his family’s stint in a refugee camp being comparable to Billy’s time in prison.

Billy’s marriage is shot but a love interest develops with yet another top notch Rauncho Leah Locke (Kate Corbett) so intertwined with narcotic abuse she has lost custody and visiting rights to her young son.

Amid a drug infested lumpenproletarian neighbourhood populated by a host of nefarious low life desperados and decent Syrians, belittled by the criminals in the hood, Billy struggles for redemption while working at a chicken processing plant. A man with the odds stacked against him from infancy.

Is this a Newfie Neo Noir film? Debate this from left to right you genre obsessionists but shot in stark black and white, full of shady characters, drug ridden and a pure and thick streak of desperation and a highly flawed love interest woman, far from a “babe” it could well be within the noir family but in lieu of theoretical discussions on genre I’d rather spend my time watching what should become a Canadian classic film replete with grit, rawness and unforgettable characters.

“Skeet” has recently played in Germany and Ireland and is currently available on VOD at Hollywood Suite in Canada.

You may watch a teaser here https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=352078724537674

Directed and written by Nik Sexton.

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Film Rating 92/100.

RKS Literature: “The Decline of the Japanese Man” (Yukio Mishima)

“In the present day-when places called cafés are springing up everywhere, drawing thousands of idle people with money to spare, when male and female students behave so shockingly in streetcars that it has become necessary to segregate them-men have lost all trace of that fervor that drove their ancestors to accept the most frightening challenges. Now they are good for nothing but to flutter their effeminate hands like dry, fragile leaves shaken by the merest puff of air.”

Yukio Mishima, “Spring Snow”, 1968.

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Wine: Norman Hardie’s County Unfiltered Cabernet Franc from Ontario’s Prince Edward County

Aroma: Heavy duty and intense black cherry and raspberry jam. Blackberry and cocoa.

Palate: High toned almost disinterested above it all raspberry, strawberry and Catania cactus pear.

Personality: Admire my bouquet worthy of a standing ovation expecting something stellar. Taste me and you might ask what just happened with the fruit?

Food Match: Pizza or spoonburgers.

Do spoonburgers still exist or were they lost in 1968?

Cellarbility: No sense in ageing.

Price: $35.20 CDN.

RKS 2025 Canadian Wine Rating: 85/100.

(Norman Hardie 2021 County Cabernet Franc Unfiltered, VQA Prince Edward County, Norman Hardie, Wellington, Ontario, 750 mL, 12%).