RKS 2024 Wine: Burly Barossa?

Think Aussie Red Barossa think burly? Full bodied but not overly aggressive? Crowd friendly? Too much alcohol?  Destination wine lake?

Looking for a dainty red from Barossa? Are you hallucinating? Or are we here in Canada suffering with liquor monopoly purchases that are safe from a profit perspective. Is there more than “easy Barossa”? I suppose the only way for me to fully agree or disagree is to visit Barossa but unlike the Italians media trips there are rare or perhaps my unpopularity has denied me entry? Perhaps one day I’ll tell you the demonstration awaiting me at OPO after a negative Port review!

What about a Barossa Shiraz from Escapade Vineyards? It has been sourced from various growers in Barossa so as a blend does it entirely speak to the essence of Barossa?

Aroma: Heady and forceful but it is not clumsy. Yes Aussie footballers at 320 pounds may have a certain grace! Black plum, cassis, blackberry jam and some dark chocolate.

Palate: Surprisingly restrained tannins making this Shiraz almost “full bodied” smooth. Prune, blueberry and black cherry with acids well integrated. Moderately long finish. Discrete oak indeed.

Personality: This Canadian reviewer from Toronto must frequently deal with weakling Ontario Syrah. Ontario Shiraz from an Australian viewpoint is so weak kneed it would be laughed out of the Barossa.

Food Match: Steak Florentine. Ground lamb Sloppy Joes. South African Bobotie.

Cellarbility: Marginal improvement through to 2026-year end.

Price: $18 CDN.

RKS 2024 Wine Rating: 89/100. Wine Align 87.

(Escapade Vineyards Barossa Valley 2021 Shiraz, Shanahan Wines, Green Rock, South Australia, 750 mL, 14%).

RKS 2024 Film: “Take Cover”: The Dangers of Retirement

I recently watched an episode of “The Sopranos” where a lower-level member of “the family” inherited two million dollars and wanted to retire to Florida with his wife and young children. You can’t retire from the Mafia. And the British film “Take Cover” starts with Sam Lorde (Scott Adkins) as a sniper for the “Company” eliminating his mark but also wounding the mark’s girlfriend for which he begins to suffer from guilt mixed with burn out. He advises his Company handler Tamara (Alice Eve) he wishes to retire.

His decision leads to deadly complications. His retirement wishes expressed to Tamara are indicative to Tamara of empathetic weakness and unreliability for the Company. Lorde is set up for a very special type of retirement, death by sniper. With his spotter partner Ken (Jack Parr) they head off on Lorde’s last assignment where they are pinned down in a luxurious hotel penthouse suite by Lorde and Ken’s sniper and spotter successors. Joined by two prostitutes they are sitting ducks.

There is interesting chatter amongst the ladies, Ken and Lorde particularly about Lorde’s role as a sniper and why he is disillusioned and burnt out.

Then the intense action begins and bodies fall here and there amidst escalating tension set in an ocean of betrayal. Tamara with a silky and smooth Brit voice once supportive of Ken and Lorde morphs the supportive and replaces it with Arctic brutality.

Against all odds poetic justice is partially realized. Such treachery.

Tightly choregraphed fight scenes and lots of bullets whizzing here and there. Exciting.

Lorde and Ken make an excellent squabbling pair with their acting ability. Supporting actress Mona Bellaria Ion as Mona is a character with insight and delivers a compelling performance. Aside from a weak death scene of one of the good guys flawless acting. And what constitutes the “good guys” is the intellectual component of the film.

Directed by Nick McKinless.

In theatres and On Demand commencing 4October2024.

RKS 2024 Film Rating 84/100.

RKS 2024 Film: “Space Cowboy”: Art in the Big Fall! Awesome! Spectacular! Addictive!

“Space Cowboy” is the perfect title for this American documentary. Joe Jennings is a cowboy of the air as a high-altitude camera flyer where air represents the Oregon Trail. His camera has caught sky diving stunts and sky surfing competitions. Sky surfing is an extreme sport were a parachutist jumps out of a plane on a sky board performing a routine somewhat akin to a figure skater, ballerina, snowboarder and breakdancer. A camera flyer is part of the team. Both the surfer and camera flyer are high performance athletes.

And it can be very dangerous for both the surfer and the camera flyer. Yes, there is the illusion of peacefully floating in the air but it is a descent at high speed and one wrong move may be death. The camera flyer must carefully move around the sky surfer and do flips and twists to capture the sky surfer. The camera flyer is no passive participant in sky surfing.

Jennings began by filming first time jumpers moving to being a flying cameraman for sky surfers. In a sky surfer competition a surfer requires a flying cameraman to participate. Jennings then moved to filming stunts for films and making innovative commercials. Jennings’ good friend Rob Harris died in Vernon, British Columbia filming a James Bond stunt when his complicated equipment malfunctioned. Another French sky surfer Jennings had worked with also died in Hawaii.

In “Space Cowboy” Jennings works on a project to drop a car from an airplane with chuted passengers in it. The first attempt failed despite modifications to the car to keep it stable in the fall. It spun wildly and dangerously. Further modifications were made to the car and the film concludes with incredible cinematography that is stunning, mesmerizing and addictive. Addictive in that is so beautifully captured you are compelled to watch it again and perhaps again!

Although the cinematography is the star in “Space Cowboy” we learn about Jennings in his own voice and those of friends and family. Battling depression after the deaths of his two friends he struggled to jump again. Sky falling is the main subject of the film but Jennings free fall into depression is also recounted.

The co-directors are Marah Strauch and Bryce Leavitt.

Festival runs in October are Hamptons International Film Festival, Heartland International Film Festival, Newport Beach Film Festival and Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival.

RKS 2024 Film Rating 93/100.

RKS Literature: Russians, Vodka and Strength (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)

“Pasha, vodka can’t make it any worse, you’ve got to realize that. Vodka is a cure for all illnesses. I’ll drink some pure spirit before the operation, what do you think? Here, I’ve got it in a little bottle. Why spirit? Because it gets absorbed right away, it doesn’t leave any surplus water. When the surgeon turns out my stomach, there’ll be nothing there. Clean as a whistle! And I’ll be drunk! You fought at the front yourself, didn’t you? You know how it is: before an attack they give you vodka.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “Cancer Ward”, 1968.

RKS 2024 Wine: The Great Gamay Comeback in Ontario?

Was it a decade or so ago that Gamay in Ontario looked like the next oenological prince of the Ontario wine kingdom? Then it faded like Harry and Meaghan and then made a comeback like Camilla?

No discussions please on royalty who in Canada are seen as ready to meet the fate of Marie Antoinette by some and worshipped by others like the grannies, 6 six-year-old school children still relishing fair tales and subscribers to “Hello” the National Enquirer for the monarchy. How many craps did that Corgi have at Balmoral’s juniper bushes anyways?

We move from this delicate discussion to sample a Vineland Estates 2022 Gamay.

No oak treatment.

Aroma: Light smoky goodness of raspberry and Niagara cherry.

Palate: That lightness carries through on the palate. Not much tannic impression. Quite a connective match to the aroma as the influence is cherry and raspberry. Short and juicy finish.

Personality: I have no pretensions of sophistication and elegance. A decent lightweight but not a Manny Pacquiao.

Food Match: Grilled wild run salmon with maple syrup glaze. And yes turkey with cranberry sauce and not gravy.

Cellarbility: Consume by 2025-year end.

Movie Match: Most likely a rom com like the Greek “Listen to Who’s Talking”. My review of this film is here https://setthebarlifestyle.wordpress.com/2024/07/31/the-4th-annual-greek-international-film-festival-tour-canada-listen-to-whos-talking-yes-greeks-can-make-romcoms/

Price: $23.

RKS 2024 Wine Rating: 88/100.

(Vineland Estates Winery 2022 Gamay, VQA Niagara Peninsula, Vineland Estates Winery, Vineland, Ontario, 11%, 750 mL.).

RKS Literature: The Never-Ending Imprisonment of Soviet Soldiers Who Fought in The Second World War: Seen as Spies! (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)

“Only a prisoner in his first years of sentence believes, every time he is summoned from his cell and told to collect his belongings, that he is being called to freedom. To him every whisper of an amnesty sounds like the trumpets of archangels. But they call him out of his cell, read him some loathsome documents and shove him into another cell on the floor below, even darker than the previous one but with the same stale used-up air. The amnesty is always postponed-from the anniversary of victory to the anniversary of the Revolution to the Supreme Soviet session. Then it bursts like a bubble, or is applied to thieves, crooks and deserters instead of those who fought in the war and suffered.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “Cancer Ward”, 1968.

RKS 2024 Film: “Zombie Town”: Don’t Be Sucker Punched by Rent a Star

If you aren’t zombified by the time the final credits roll you are a superhuman and perhaps ready to star in the 467th Marvel movie.

Not being attracted to zombie films I watched “Zombie Town” because Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase were featured actors. Their screen appearance was minimal all for the better as the poor writing gave them and all the other actors little to work with. Don’t be duped into watching this film by the rent a star strategy of the film producers.

9ELLYDASSAS.com

Neither does the film work as a teen romance film. Aside from a few skillful twinkles in Madi Monroe’s eyes any romantic inclinations or possibilities must have been hiding under a rock.

Pick out a few contradictions in the script as part of your viewing fun. For example in the beginning of the film Len Carver (Dan Aykroyd) as director of a 1978 film tells the press he will never make any more films yet at the end of the movie one discovers he has made many.

And the convoluted explanation of the rise of the zombies is nonsensical and confusing. An interesting soundtrack but too little of it.

It will be released in Canada on the Hollywood Suite Network on 25October2024.

RKS 2024 Film Rating 56/100.

RKS Literature: Comrade Rusanov Once a Proletarian and Now a Party Bureaucrat Despises the Proletarian Kind (Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn)

“Gradually over the years he and Kapitolina developed an aversion to teeming human beings, to jostling crowds. The Rusanovs found streetcars, buses and trolley-buses quite disgusting. People were always pushing, especially when they were trying to get aboard. Insults were always flying around. Builders and other workers were always climbing in in dirty overalls, and you could get lime or oil all over your coat. The worst thing was their inveterate habit of clapping you familiarly on the shoulder and asking you to pass a ticket or some change along the car. It meant you were at their beck and call, endlessly passing things on.”

Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn, “Cancer Ward”, 1968.

RKS 2024 Wine: Boas Quintas Dão’s 2020 Gandarada

I had the pleasure of a recent visit to Boas Quintas in the Dão region of Portugal. After a hearty breakfast we headed off in a slight November fog to the winery. It was strangely North American in set up both in tasting room design and in marketing. Special Christmas combo packages were available rather surprising for the Portuguese wineries I have visited.

A blend of Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz and Alfrochiero. Has spent three months in oak.

I do not recall tasting this wine but the wines I tasted at the winery were all high quality.

Aroma: Black cherry, cactus pear, raspberry and a smidge of chocolate and black licorice.

Palate: Cassis, blueberry and blackberry with moderate tannin with a thin seam of acidity and a slight peppery finish.

Personality: A perky red wine am I. Not complicated but satisfying and yes there is more to Portuguese red wine than the Douro a mere 3 hours away.

Cellarbility: Will not improve in the cellar. Drink by 2025-year end.

Food Match: Arroz de Pato (Duck with rice casserole).

Price: $14 (CDN).

RKS 2024 Wine Rating: 89/100. Wine Align 88.

(Gandarada 2020, Dão DOC, Boas Quintas, Mortagua, Portugal, 750 mL, 13%).

RKS 2024 Film: “Inedia”: A Deadly Convergence of Flummox and Eating Disorders

Cora’s aversion to eating spirals out of control to the point that she considers herself allergic to all foods even parsley. While at dinner at her sister’s she has a few bites of a bizarre vegetarian dish and runs to the toilet to induce vomiting.

Her condition worsens. Her GP does not share her thoughts on a mass food allergy diagnosing her nasty rash as eczema caused by stress and prescribes hydrocortisone. Then consulting with Dr. Google, Cora watches “Joanna” espousing light therapy as a cure for eating disorders. Who needs food if you have the sun which offers all the nourishment you require? Incredibly ridiculous and dangerous but desperation often nullifies logic so off thirtyish Cora (Amy Forsyth) leaves Vancouver taking the ferry to Saturna Island to join a community of like minded desperados hanging on to the ridiculous flummox spewed by Joanna (Susanne Wuest).

Arriving at the community Joanna offers Cora her “last meal” but she self induces vomiting and her last meal never reaches her stomach. Even when Cora pikes some food leftovers from a child (Joanna believes growing children require nourishment) of a community member she expels it out and that terrible rash spreads rather strange as no food is consumed so how could there be an allergic reaction to it?

A veritable commune like that one portrayed in “Easy Rider” but at least in that commune they ate! I found it a bit strange that for those who don’t eat they all look rather well fed. Could that loaf of bread hidden in the tool shed found by Cora be evidence of widespread cheating?

Early on Cora is warned by a banished community member the entire “community” is founded by lies. Then a fatal tragedy strikes despite the faith by the community that Joanna knows everything and a doctor is not required.

Is Joanna an evil swindler? Hmm she looks very fit for a person who does not eat food. Criminal negligence?

Is Cora doomed or has she found refuge only to return to her death. Is that what transpires to both start and conclude the film?

Aside from the personal struggle of Cora the film is an interesting glimpse at the onset of bulimia nervosa and its psychological profile.

Wuest proffers a steely performance making some good “marketing sense” at times but mostly it is flakey palaver. She delivers a solid chilling performance bordering on a psychopath and a genuinely misguided prophet. Forsyth fits in well with the starry-eyed youngster community members. An excellent portrayal of a reluctant not fully convinced character.

Directed by Elizabeth Cairns.

Shows next on 29September2024 at the Vancouver International Film Festival.

RKS 2024 Film Rating 83/100.