RKS 2024 Film: “A Family Guide to Hunting”: The Consequences of an Explosive Orgasm

In this American short directed by Zao Wang, Eva (Kahyun Kim) and her boyfriend Peter (Craig Newman) are in the high-country hunting deer with Eva’s parents June (Maragret Cho) and Sam (Keong Sim).

Peter is one of those self-sufficient as the world is ending believers so Eva killing and field dressing a dear carcass will, in his estimation, bring her closer to being a self sufficiency convert. June would rather have Eva finish her MBA studies than cohabitate with Peter in some commune.

Peter takes pains to explain to Eva how to field dress a deer and that progresses to a state of undress and hanky panky with Peter’s biggest orgasm ever. In fact, it is positively explosive.

Despite this sexual diversion and some extra dimensional communications Eva follows Peter’s field dressing instructions.

Be careful as you may never know how your lessons will be applied. The power of substitution. Meat is meat after all!

This short shows at the Tribeca Film Festival starting 14June2024.

RKS 2024 Film Rating 82/100.

RKS 2024 Wine: Escaping Ontario COVID Memories

I recall that during COVID times I went for a tasting with Ed Madronich at Flat Rock Cellars in Jordan, Ontario. Those were eerie times. Can you imagine 50 people at Niagara Falls! Over the years Ed has produced quality Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and I suppose it is time to escape COVID memories and celebrate that liberation with a Flat Rock Cellars 2021 Chardonnay. The grapes were hand picked and sorted.

Aroma: Classic aroma of Niagara Flemish pears, apples, honey and marzipan. The French oak barriques in which it was fermented and aged certainly give the wine an oaked personality.

Palate: Although influenced by oak it is not fat and buttery and in fact has a lean edge to it. A rich mouthfeel with its controlled acidity lending the wine a bit of a spicy if not white peppery finish. Its acidity makes it ideal for food and it suits Lake Erie pan fried pickerel from off the coast of Port Stanley, Ontario with home baked fries.

Personality: Take a whiff and you might be expecting one of those caramelly Cali Chardonnays but I am a cool climate toughie.

Food Match: Pan fried lake fish.

Price: $21.95 CDN (Ontario).

Cellarbility: Drink now or hold until 2026-year end.

RKS 2024 Wine Rating: 91/100. Tony Aspler 91.

(Flat Rock Cellars 2021 Chardonnay (Foundation Series), VQA Niagara Peninsula, Flat Rock Cellars Ltd., Jordan, Ontario, 12.5%, 750 mL).  

RKS 2024 Film: “Copa71”: Patriarchy, Cash and Greed and the Great Forget

Copa 71 was the first women’s football world championship held in Mexico in 1971. It was scorned by FIFA in its true patriarchal view of football. It was not recognized as a “true championship” even by the Women’s Football Association of England. In 1921 the English Football Association stated any of its members that permitted female ballers would be banned and excluded from the association. Other European football associations followed suit topped by Brazil which made football playing by women illegal.

The documentary “COPA 71” delves into the history of women’s football through interviews with members of the English, French, Argentinian, Mexican, Italian and Danish teams of COPA 71. It is foremost an inspiring story of pride and fortitude against all odds. It is a story long forgotten even by today’s women football stars. It is chock full of history, drama and a huge streak of sexism. In short all the members of the various football teams participating in COPA 71 experienced societal approbation if not mockery in their childhood attempts to play soccer. Nicole Mangus of the French national team stated when women’s teams played in France men were the biggest spectators not for the sport but for the female anatomy. One French sports commentator at the time stated female soccer was a curious mix of erotic and comedic.

In addition to the historic analysis the archival footage of the games is exciting especially if you don’t know the winner of COPA 71 of which I am not going to be a spoiler by telling you. Bear in mind the 110,000 spectators of the COPA 71 final held in Mexico’s City’s Azteca Stadium on 5September1971 represents the largest in stadium audience for a women’s athletic event ever.

An incredible and largely forgotten achievement of propelling the growth of women’s football to the point today globally it is the fastest growing sport.

A digital/VOD release in Canada on 25June2024.

RKS 2024 Film Rating 93/100.

RKS 2024 Film: “New Wave”: Vietnamese Escape Artists Groove to the New Wave

Filmmaker Elizabeth Ai weaves an interesting documentary on California’s Vietnamese New Wave craze and the disaffection of many Vietnamese “refugees” that fled to California after the fall of South Vietnam. Ai prefers to call Vietnamese fleeing the communist regime as “escape artists”.

Ai was abandoned by her mother being raised by an aunt and her grandparents. Her mother was too busy making a living to support an extended family to spend time with her two daughters or was it she preferred gambling with less than savoury boyfriends. Ai states that the making of this film was an attempt to forget her unhappy childhood but instead it revived her past. A common theme of first-generation refugee children in the United States, whether Vietnamese, Cambodian or Mexican are the long hours at work their parents must spend to survive in a strange world. Ai was no exception.

Through Ai’s own observations and those from record producers, DJs family members and New Wave singers the history of California Vietnamese New Wave is set forth. The younger generation attempting to assert their independence from their parents and a need to fit in fueled New Wave.

For music buffs a particularly compelling film but more important is a journey of self discovery of Elizabeth Ai. She had less than an ideal childhood but the birth of her first child and the questions she raised about why grandmother was yet to be seen by her force Ai to reconnect with her mother who is armed with a variety of excuses for her dereliction of motherhood. I am left with the impression whether there is true forgiveness or an attempt to try and create a normal family life for her daughter, a childhood she never had.

“New Wave” had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on 8June2024.

RKS Film Rating: 83/100.

RKS Literature: The Modesty of David Copperfield (Dickens)

“I laboured hard at my book, without allowing it to interfere with the punctual discharge of my newspaper duties; and it came out and was very successful. I was not stunned by the praise which sounded in my ears, notwithstanding I was alive to it, and thought better of my own performance, I have little doubt than anybody else did. It has always been in my observation of human nature, that a man who has any good reason to believe in himself never flourishes himself before the faces of other people in order that they may believe in him. For this reason, I retained my modesty in very self-respect; and the more praise I got, the more I tried to deserve.”

Charles Dickens, “David Copperfield”, 1850

Photo: R. Kennedy Stephen

RKS Literature: Newly Married Copperfield in Marital Bliss (Charles Dickens)

“It seemed such an extraordinary thing to have Dora always there. It was so unaccountable not to be obliged to go out and see her, not to have any occasion to be tormenting myself about her, not to have to write to her, not to be scheming and devising any opportunities of being alone with her. Sometimes of an evening, when I looked up from my writing, and saw her seated opposite, I would lean back in my chair, and think how queer it was that there we were, alone together as a matter of course-nobody’s business anymore-all the romance of our engagement put away on a shelf, to rust-no one to please but one another-one another to please, for life.”

Charles Dickens, “David Copperfield”, 1850.

RKS 2024 Wine: Château des Landes from Lussac Saint-Émilion

100% Merlot from 50-year-old vines. Aged 16 months in new French oak. The British wine writer Jancis Robinson wrote in February 2023 should 2019 in Bordeaux be seen as the best vintage ever?

Aroma: Subdued and compact with blackberry, black cherry and some vanilla. A skillful use of new French oak as it does not shout out vying for your attention but with aeration it creeps out of the corner to moderately assert itself. To avoid any burgeoning oak best not to decant.

Palate: Medium bodied with well guarded oak. Moderate tannins requiring further time to settle down. A slight brackishness appears on the palate. Moderately long finish. Imperative to serve cool to better control the whopping 14% alcohol level. Has France become Australian?

Personality: If only my alcohol could be reduced to 12.5% you might consider me elegant so instead you have a well-made wine with simply too much alcohol detrimental to a sophisticated palate looking for a classic Bordeaux that may have disappeared twenty years ago.

Cellarbility: Drink or hold until 2026-year end.

Price:  $24 CDN (Ontario).

RKS 2024 Wine Rating: 89/100. Wine Align 90.

(Château des Landes, 2019 Cuvée Prestige, AC Lussac Saint Émilion, France, 750 mL, 14%).

RKS 2024 Wine: Quinta Do Espírito Santo from Lisboa

I rated the 2018 vintage an 87. How about this 2020?

Aroma: A torrent of blackberry with some blueberry, black cherry and some dark chocolate identical descriptors I used for the 2018.

Palate: The blackberry in this wine just won’t leave you alone! Blueberry too. A medium length finish. It handles its 15% alcohol well as there is no hot burn on the finish. As with the 2018 the wine is a bit gruff…a street fighting wine!

Personality: I prefer getting down to business with your palate in a direct and non pretentious manner. No need to close your eyes and spend seconds trying to unveil my soul. You get what you get and you get it almost instantly.

Cellarbility: Perhaps sitting the bottle until the end of 2025 might reduce the gruffness a bit.

Food Match: Serpa cheese with blackberry jam on the side.

Price: $15 CDN (Ontario).

RKS 2024 Wine Rating: 88/100. Wine Align 87.

(Quinta do Espírito 2020, Vinho Regional Lisboa, Casa Santa Lima-Companhia das Vinhas, Quinta da Boavista, Portugal, 750 mL, 15%).

RKS 2024 Wine: A Shiraz/Cab Sauvignon Disaster from Australia’s Limestone Coast or Siberia? A Disgrace to Australian Wine and the Liquor Commission Board of Ontario

Aroma: Upon opening the wine it stinks of oak. Not fatal if with aeration it dissipates but not the mark of an exceptional wine. Some 20 minutes later the stink has diminished to simply far too much oak. Heck but if you like oaked wine is there a chance? Putting the oak aside or turning a blind eye to the perfidious grip of oak there is some blackberry, cassis and dark chocolate. Geek it up deception style and say “unintegrated oak”.

Palate: Zippy acidity compounds this disastrous wine to the extent a more polite term cannot be found. Hot-on acidic prickly this palate which doesn’t like “Some Like it Hot” in their wine but enjoys the movie of the same name.

The Mercy Rule: Stay clear of this Aussie disaster. It reeks of wood, has excessive alcohol and deserves to be sent convict style to Australia. If you want to familiarize yourself with a poorly made wine, very necessary to your wine education, try and return.

Price: $17 CDN (Ontario).

RKS 2024 Wine Rating: 59/100. Natalie MacLean 91.

(Hollick 2021 Stock Route Limestone Coast Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon, Hollick Estates, Coonawarra, SE Australia, 14.5%, 750 mL.)

My Intel Reveals: ‘Brewed” in Siberia and grey labelled to the LCBO!

RKS Literature: The Importance of Earnestness (Dickens)

“I have always been thoroughly in earnest. I have never believed it possible that any natural or improved ability can claim immunity from the companionship of the steady, plain, hard-working qualities, and hope to gain its end. There is no such thing as fulfillment on this earth. Some happy talent, and some fortunate opportunity, may form the two sides of the ladder on which some men may mount, but the rounds of that ladder must be made to stand wear and tear: and there is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent and sincere earnestness. Never to put one hand to anything, on which I could throw my whole self; and never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was; I find now, to have been my golden rules.”
Charles Dickens, “David Copperfield”, 1850.