RKS 2024 Film: “The Body Politic”

The City of Baltimore has a murder rate just about over 300 a year and the cause according to newly elected (in 2021) mayor Brandon Scott is not drugs or gangs but cases of interpersonal violence. The solution espoused by Scott is not increased policing which has failed in Baltimore time and time again but a more personal intervention to reduce the number of violent incidents in Baltimore. Arrests, convictions and incarceration are not the answer. The key will be group violence reduction programmes (GVRS) which is empowered by community groups and financed by federal, state and city funds. Offer educational placement, job placement and training. Divert help to violent types i.e. deter violence.

2021 saw an overall increase in murder rates which rose to 337 but in Western Baltimore where the GVRS was piloted with adequate funding homicides and shootings decreased by 30%. Now with GVRS being rolled out other than in West Baltimore by 2023-year end Baltimore saw a 20% drop in homicides bringing the murder statistics below 300 for the first time in a decade.

It wasn’t easy reaching this statistic. Maryland Governor Logan resisted state funding for GVRS initially but was won over by Scott. The crushing proposed solution by Logan of police intervention, prosecutions and arrests was dealt to Baltimore by Logan for years.

Perhaps we should take the limited success Baltimore to heart. The incessant gun violence in the United States leads one to make many unpleasant conclusions about The United States. Can GVRS Baltimore style stop the gun violence frenzy in the United States?

Directed by Gabriel Francis Paz Goodenough with a theatrical release in New York 27September2024 and in Los Angeles on 18October2024. Streaming on POV on PBS on 25November2024.

RKS Film Rating 82/100.

RKS 2024 Film: “The Invisibles”: Heaven as a Narcotic

“The Invisibles” will be gracing screens in Vancouver and Toronto on 20September2024. Canadian film is largely unappreciated at the box office both in Canada and internationally. “The Invisibles” is one of those “warm and fuzzy” movies like “Peggy Sue Got Married” or “Back to the Future”. Not overly complicated but not simplistic so if it won’t take off domestically and internationally there is yet another loss for Canadian filmmakers and worldwide audiences. And I told director Andrew Currie and Charlotte starring as “Rufus” the dog my views on the film and Charlotte gave me a big tail wag and Currie an appreciative smile.

Charlie Fisher (Tim Blake Wilson) and his wife Hannah (Gretchen Mol) are unhappy married Hamiltonians suffering from a tragic loss of their young son Oskar (Simon Webster). Hannah is in therapy but Charlie doesn’t have the will to join her having the inability to accept Oskar’s death. He suffers further mental battering being passed over for a promotion at work. He is miserably unhappy and suddenly Charlie is invisible and unheard and hanging out in bowling alley headquarters with other invisibles all of whom were once miserable like Charlie.

The warm and effusive Carl (Simon Webster) acts as barkeeper at the bowling alley bar and in effect the manger of this group of invisibles. This place that the invisibles are in has no pain as it has enabled the invisibles to escape worldly inflicted trauma they have left. However persuasive Carl is about the benefits of the world of the invisibles Charlie ( and Nick played by Nathan Alexis Canada’s rising indigenous star actor) wants to return to the living world and his Hannah.

Charlie has a difficult choice as in his new world Oskar has joined him and a former first love as well. Will he leave Oskar and return to Hannah? Is love and regret at not showing it in deeds enough to escape the numbing effect of this world the invisibles are in?

Clever filmmaking. Superb casting. Greenwood, Mol and Nelson absolutely shine in “The Invisibles” a film well blended with dark comedy, tear jerking moments, tragedy, horror and science fiction. Memories of Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz” clicking her red slippers and wishing she was back in Kansas.

You can see the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM8lNnpaZ3c

RKS 2024 Film Rating 93/100.

RKS 2024 Wine: Southbrook 2019 triomphe chardonnay From Niagara

Ontario produces excellent Chardonnay. This is an organic Chardonnay.

Aroma: One of those tropical Chardonnays with pineapple, mango, peach, Royal Gala apple and more than a tad of oak. The wine was aged 10 months in 300 litre French neutral oak barrels.

Palate: Solid and full bodied and quite an oaky influence considering ageing was in neutral French oak. Not buttery and soft though. Let’s call it firm yet it goes down softly! In addition to some pear some guava and lychee. Longish finish.

Personality: Straightforward and right at you.

Food Match: Grilled pork tenderloin marinated in ginger, honey, garlic and soy sauce. Just might hit it off with a Thanksgiving turkey without cranberry sauce mind you.

Cellarbility: Consume by 2025-year end.

Price: $ 27 CDN.

RKS 2024 Wine Rating: 89/100. Rick VanSickle 91.

(Southbrook Organic 2019 triomphe chardonnay, VQA Niagara Peninsula, Southbrook Vineyards, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, 750 mL, 12.5%).

RKS Literature: The Boss Man and Thievery at the Gulag (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)

“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.

RKS 2024 Wine: Featherstone 2020 Onyx from Niagara

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%).

RKS 2024 Film: “Russians at War”: The Russians are Coming The Russians are Coming!

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.

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%).