RKS 2024 Wine: Château Calet Blaye Côtes de Bordeaux

Blaye is where affordability and quality can happily co-exist.

Aroma: Blackberry, blueberry, chocolate and licorice.

Palate: The long finish is the first factor that meets your palate. Gentle tannins. Some chalkiness. Where’s the fruit?

Personality: I am about as exciting as a day-old baguette.

Food Match: Scrambled eggs with grilled tomatoes and Mennonite summer sausage slices. Quaff after a chomp or two on the sausage.

Price: $15.

Cellarbility: None.

RKS 2024 Wine Rating: 83/100. Wine Align 87.

(Château Calet Blaye Côtes de Bordeaux, 2019, AOP Blaye Côtes de Bordeaux, Vignobles Bayle-Carreau, 750 mL, 13.5%).

RKS Literature: Thoughts of a Convict (Aleksander Solzhenitsyn)

“A convict’s thoughts are no freer than he is: they come back to the same place, worry over the same thing continually. Will they poke around in my mattress and find my bread ration? Can I get off work if I report sick tonight. Will the captain be put in the hole, or won’t he? How did Tsezar get his hands his warm vest? Must have greased someone’s palm in the storeroom, what else?”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, 1978.

RKS 2024 Film Reviews: The Vancouver Queer Film Festival Presents “Paradise Burning” (Pardiset Brinner)

The Swedish feature film “Paradise Burning” will be showing at the Vancouver Queer Film Festival running from 11-22September2024.

Three sisters ranging from 6-16 survive in a Swedish working-class suburb without parental presence. Their drug addict mother is often absent abandoning her children. Social Services queries Laura (Bianca Delbravo) the oldest of the three sisters when can they meet with her mother to discuss some unauthorized absences from school. Should Social Services discover the absent mother good luck to the three children should they ever enter the rocky and failed more often than not land of foster care.

Laura is no saint with her fascination for breaking into flats to “poke around”, her shoplifting, her smoking and her drinking but she does what she can as a teenager supposed to be testing the rules not acting like a mother. Given the circumstances the children are thriving albeit in a bit of a cinematographic fantasy which overlooks the daily grind and is more interested in focusing on the teenage girl gang exuberance but given this is sisterhood movie what is the point of the daily grind?

Laura encounters and befriends a recent new mother Hannah who has perhaps an unnatural interest in Laura. Laura had hoped Hannah could impersonate her mother for the Social Services visit but that is not looking promising. Hannah has a puzzling interest in discovering what interests Laura and includes the two of them breaking and entering a flat. There is a brief cannabis kiss between Laura and Hannah so is this sufficient to have the film showing in a queer film festival?

Do the girls escape the Social Services dragnet? Only the doorbell knows.

A film by Mika Gustafson.

RKS 2024 Film Rating 72/100.

RKS 2024 Wine: An Ontario Cabernet Franc from The Accidental Winery

Ever discovered an orphaned winery so far from its brothers and sisters? Well on my way from Toronto to Elora in the middle of cornfields there she lay….Cox Creek Cellars on the outer limits of Guelph, Ontario. Beautiful grounds and a simple tasting room and retail outlet and yes they host weddings too!

We try a 2022 Cabernet Franc from Cox Creek Cellars.

Aroma: A plenitude of black cherry, raspberry and a bit of milk chocolate in the mould of a typical Ontario Cabernet Franc.

Palate: Escalating tannins. Acidity here could have been raging but it is held in check, for the moment, lending a bit of peppery influence. Given the danger of the acids breaking through with age certainly a bit risky to age. The lovely aromatic fruit fails to fully translate on the palate. Short finish.

Personality: Ok so I am not a fruit head but to save face please consider me a better match for food than a sipping wine.

Food Match: Stuffed field tomatoes.

Cellarbility: Consume by 2024-year end.

Price: $26.95 CDN.

RKS 2024 Wine Rating: 84/100.

(Cox Creek Cellars 2022 Cabernet Franc, VQA Ontario, Cox Creek Cellars, Guelph, Ontario,750 mL, 14.8%).  

RKS 2024 Film: “Guy Manley Super Spy”: Vacuous Spy Spoof

The Swedish film “Guy Manley Super Spy” is a 100% spoof of spy and espionage movies. It has a “Once Upon a Time in Uganda” flavour in that it revels in the absurd. Blood and guts in profusion replete with special effects and low on an intelligent plot.

Guy Manley (Baltazar Ploteau) is a spy graduate of The Academy of Intergalactic Espionage but his stellar reputation has taken a beating as a divorce and too much drink has rendered him a hopeless drunk like Otis on the long defunct “Andy Griffith Show”.

Guy Manley is propelled into action by a generous cash offer by Buck Cash (Knut Wistbacka) to eliminate his bother Rich Cash (Anton Sjölund). The Cash brothers are both running for mayor and Buck wants mayoralty power.

Get this and you’ll understand the intellectual depth of the film; Rich Cash is perpetually constipated and has been emotionally wounded by the mocking attributed to his constipation and for revenge wants to poison the city’s water supply by lacing it with prune juice so the citizenry will be shitting in their pants.

The film is an exercise in absurdity as Guy Manley in his Steve Erkel Pants and Tom Waits’ voice battles the evil Rich Cash.

The film is very much like a graphic novel and a comic book no surprise as the credits state the film was “made by NattKomick”. At times Guy Manley is like a demented Batman and Rich Cash like one of his victims perhaps The Penguin, laughable as opposed to the demonic evil of The Joker.

Perhaps I should stop here and say tuned for;

  • Satire
  • Overdone violence
  • Video game graphics
  • An excess of blood
  • Oedipal overload
  • Juvenile and bathroom humour
  • Generous borrowing of spy movies both serious and farcical

Loads of one liners.

If you are over the age of 15 the absurdity simply can’t save the movie from its awfulness unlike “Once Upon a Time in Uganda”. But thinking of watching the film with teenager in the family they most likely will enjoy it more than you.

The film is directed by David Andersson and will be available On Demand as of 13September2024.

RKS 2024 Film Rating: 68/100.

RKS 2024 Film: More Canadian Indigenous Misery in “I’ll Tell You When I’m Ready”

Documentaries are rarely uplifting preferring an endless stream of negativity and when the topic is Canadian indigenous life the negativity is often escalated to misery.

Another plate of angry misery fills the screen in Hayley Morin’s documentary about jaye simpson a poet, activist and drag queen. Abandoned as a child her single mother died in Vancouver’s drug infested Downtown Eastside.

jaye simpson was equally abandoned by the foster system she was dragged into. Her anger is understandable and her view that given the “hungry nature of white supremacy” which fosters indigenous stories of trauma causes jaye to fight back from the beast that “you have made me” she defiantly states if the system is now going to eat her alive it will have to chew!

Query though if with this type of documentary Morin is perpetuating the trauma that simpson refers to? simpson says as the result of her experiences her hands were transformed into into claws and she just may have used those claws to drag herself out of the hole she was thrust into.

Credit to simpson for using the creativity of her poetry and drag performances to escape her misery. Query again was the predominant strain of the documentary one of augmentation of misery or the positivity of an attempt to escape it? Probably a bit of both.

“I’ll Tell You When I’m Ready” will be part of the Opening Night Presentation of the Vancouver Queer Film Festival on 11September2024 where jaye will be performing in her drag persona of Persephone Estradiol.

The documentary will be available to Canadian audiences on 16September2024 on Telus Optik TV Channel at watch.telusoriginals.com

RKS 2024 Film Rating 64/100.

RKS 2024 Wine: What Batman, Robin and Alfred Drink After Hours

My sources tell me that although Bruce Wayne has lots of dough he prefers inexpensive wines. Of late apparently Batman, Robin and Alfred are drinking an Italian wine named “Dark Knight”. Alfred was seen unloading a case of it from the Batmobile. 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot and 20% Sangiovese.

Aroma: Full of black cherry, blackberry, purple plum and a hint of hazelnut wafer cookie.

Palate: Upfront tannins fade quickly. Blackberry mingled with black cherry and gentle vanilla. Enormously and immediately approachable. Short finish.

Personality: I am an easy going Italian great for your next Bunga Bunga party.

Food Match: Cibreo. Rocky Mountain oysters too!

Cellarbility: The drinking window ends mid 2025.

Price: $18 CDN.

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

(Gabbiano Dark Knight 2022, IGT Toscana, Beringer Blass Italia, San Casciano, Italy, 750 mL, 14%).

RKS 2024 Film: “Out Come the Wolves”: Human Horror Intertwined with Animal Horror

The Canadian feature film “Out Come the Wolves” presents a combination and intertwining of both animal and human horror set in the remote Canadian woods.

Rugged and highly experienced hunter Kyle (Joris Jarsky) travels to a remote cabin in the woods to assist Nolan (Damon Runyan) in writing an article about  “the hunting experience”. Sophie (Missy Peregrym), also at the cabin, is a since childhood friend of Kyle and yes they were intimate once a mistake on their part. Nolan and Sophie are engaged.

Tension and jealousy overtake Nolan and liquored up he probes Kyle about intimate details about what he believes was a steamy romantic relationship between Sophie and Kyle. At least 30 minutes is spent at the beginning of the film building up the past relationship between Sophie and Kyle and viewers need pay attention to it. Is it worth murdering for?

Sophie is a skilled hunter but for “compassionate grounds” has abandoned the practice.

Kyle and Nolan head off into the woods as Nolan needs material for his article and Nolan simply can’t fire his rifle to kill a deer but Kyle makes the kill with his bow.

Then the big bad wolves attack leaving a trail of blood and gore. As Nolan falls to a nasty wolf mauling think murder momentarily as is it Kyle who is the jealous one so much more than Nolan?

Sophie then joins the fray and more blood and gore thanks to the nasty wolves.

The film is a combination of horror, misguided romance, a lesson on the ethics of hunting and is essentially a smart thriller.

Prosthetics are top shelf and the haunting soundtrack judiciously used along with spectacular cinematography will not disappoint. Who are the evil ones? The humans or the wolves? Are the wolves simply a didactic element about hunting turned on its head?

Directed by Adam MacDonald.

The film was released in Canada and the United States on 30August2024 with a VOD release to follow.

RKS 2024 Film Rating: 86/100.

RKS 2024 Wine: Shuffling Around in the Bargain Bin: 2021 Carro from Yecla Region in Spain

For $14, at least in Canada, you most likely are shuffling around like my friend The Penniless Pensioner, in the bargain bin. And in the bargain bin you never know what you may discover.

In this case it is a Carro 2021 from DOC Yecla in Spain.

From 30-year-old plus vines this wine is a blend of Monastrell, Syrah and Merlot.

Aroma: Lots of black cherry with some lesser notes of blackberries and blueberries with a dusting of cocoa powder and black coffee.

Palate: Brusque tannins that sucker punch and run off quickly. A bit peppery with a flash in the pan sweetness but no mistake here as this is a dry wine. Much blackberry. Longish finish. Well disguised acidity. Definitely a food wine and very well suited to just about any dish prepared with in season field tomatoes.

Personality: I am a down to business wine and a poster boy of wine that has developed to suit local cuisine.

Food Match: Eggplant parmesan with a sauce made from local field tomatoes and eggplant preferably. I bought a case some local eggplant and Roma tomatoes today and spent the afternoon making the sauce with herbs from my garden. Yes it smells like the best Italian restaurant in town here! Portuguese grilled chicken with Piri Pirri sauce would also be happy to mee the wine! I will be preparing some eggplant in oil and garlic Italian style in two days and wonder if this wine would suit that?

Cellarbility: Don’t go past the ball dropping in Times Square this year.

Price: $14 CDN.

RKS 2024 Wine Rating: 86/100. Wine Align 88. Jamessuckling.com 90.

(Seňorío de Barahonda Carro 2021, DO Yecla, Seňorío de Barahonda, Yecla, Spain,750 mL, 14%).

RKS Literature: In the Mood of Money (Kurt Vonnegut)

“Quinn sat down in the booth next to the bandmaster. He was a bachelor, a small, dark, humorless man. He wasn’t a well man. He couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t stop working, he couldn’t smile warmly. He had only two moods: one suspicious and self-pitying, the other arrogant and boastful. The first mood applied when he was losing money. The second mood applied when he was making it.”

Kurt Vonnegut, “The Kid Nobody Could Handle”, 1955.