“What the boss man doles out is all you will get. Only you won’t get even that, what with the cooks and their stoolies and trusties. There’s thieving on the site, there’s thieving in the camp, and there was thieving before the food ever left the store.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, 1978.
33% Merlot. 33% Cabernet Franc. 33% Cabernet Sauvignon.
Cabernet Franc thrives in Ontario and almost always makes wines that do not disappoint. Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon are most often mundane but when judiciously oaked can shine.
Each varietal was individually fermented. The Merlot was fermented and aged in French oak barrels. The Cabernets were fermented and aged in American oak.
270 cases were produced.
Aroma: Blackberry, black plum, cassis, black cherry and a bit of lavender.
Palate: I was expecting something rich and decadent considering the oak used here. Instead, the result is a wine with a juicy character and almost a bit sour like Bing cherries. God help me but the wine has a strong Baco Noir/Marechal Foch character. Short and sour finish.
Personality: I really dislike disappointing those who might have been looking for a rich Bordeaux blend but some say I came up short like George Constanta’s father with his rotund Korean sweetie.
Food Match: Eggplant Bolognese.
Cellarbility: I will give Featherstone the benefit of a doubt when they state this wine will do well anywhere between 5 and 15 years in the cellar. Being brave I will say give this until 2026 before you open. The youthful sourness may have dissipated but at $40 a bottle I would rather take my chances with a Bordeaux future wine.
Price: $40 CDN.
RKS 2024 Wine Rating: 86/100. Wine Align 90.
(Featherstone 2020 Onyx, VQA Niagara Peninsula, Featherstone Estate Winery, Vineland, Ontario, 750 mL, 13%).
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) issued a statement on 12September2024 the Canada-France film “Russians at War” directed by Anatasia Trofimova would be “paused” and there would be a screening “when it is safe to do so”. TIFF said it was aware “of significant threats to festival operations and public safety”. It would seem there are some (how many) that label the documentary as Russian propaganda. Yes harken to the 1966 film “The Russians are Coming The Russians are Coming! At bit of paranoia in the air here?
Director Trofimova takes the battle right to the front and Russian troops from medics, cooks and seasoned and unseasoned soldiers speak their minds.
The documentary is unlike most war documentaries and may be unsettling to see many soldiers in the film being killed or wounded in action. There are open, bitter and cynical views of the Russian soldiers about the justification of the mutual slaughter. Yes there is a “patriot” or two but the patriotism seems vague and without any passion. Like many soldiers in combat many of the Russian troops are doubtful about why they are in a foreign land fighting a war.
What is the conclusion to be drawn once the film credits roll. The Russian troops are frightened or numbed out. They are demoralized after they are hammered by the Ukrainian forces. Comparisons to “Platoon” and “All Quiet on the Western Front” can be drawn here. Mismanaged grunts quickly realizing the brutality of war minimized and glorified of course by Russian politicians and the media.
A TIFF “pause” ensures greater demand to see the film. Wasn’t it the Soviet Union that banned films in its totalitarian days?
Watch the trailer here https://tiff.net/events/russians-at-war
RKS 2024 Film Rating 95/100.
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%).
“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.
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.
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%).
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;
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.
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.
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%).
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