The day after the Samos Wine Festival we heard a man moaning very loudly in the middle of the night. It sounded like moans of pain or someone trying to communicate or perhaps a bit of both. It was Harry the grandfather just up the way next door who had suffered a stroke a few months before we arrived in Samos. The next day for most of the day the moaning continued with two daughters who were besides themselves. In the early afternoon an older man and a preteen arrived with a stretcher who carried down Harry some 50 steps to the main street and then to the hospital. The two daughters informed us in the early evening that Harry was not expected to make it through the night. Well the two daughters were crying next morning as Harry died in the hospital in the early morning. In a couple of days the relatives arrived and Harry was buried. We learnt that doctors neglected to inform the family that Harry was riddled with cancer. A very paternalistic attitude not seen in Canada since the 1950’s.
RKS Film: “Drinkwater”: Intelligent Teen Angst
Yes we have seen countless teen angst films such as “Rebel Without a Cause”, “Breakfast Club”, “Acid Test” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”. There may be a fine line between vapid teenploitation films and intelligent teen angst films.
“Drinkwater” falls into the intelligent teen angst genre. So expect some of usual plot lines;
- Conflict with parents
- High school romance
- Bullying
- Being in the in-crowd
- Bumbling school bureaucrats
- Surviving and learning from adversity
- Self doubt
- Ignored and misunderstood by parents
“Drinkwater” contains the essential elements of teen angst but what sets it apart is the maturity that conflict can generate. Most of the characters learn from their conflicts. The film also explores opposite sex obsession versus a relationship based on a real relationship as opposed to a fantasy.
There is also a boatload of Canadian rock many viewers will be too young to remember or if of the age of 1980’s Canadian rock but not Canadian. Bachman Turner Overdrive, Lover Boy, Trooper and April Wine propel the film with inspiration as opposed to pure nostalgia. Oh if only Carol Pope’s “High School Confidential” had been included!
Shot in beautiful Penticton which is located between Okanagan and Skaha Lakes and gateway to British Columbia Okanagan wine country. There are some beautiful shots of vineyards to boot.
The acting is solid throughout with an unrecognizable Eric McCormack as a self-absorbed insurance fraudster. Daniel Doheny as one of the teens is possessed with great acting potential with un unflappable delivery infused and oozing with charm. His wannabe girlfriend played by Louriza Franco delivers a low-key performance with occasional explosive edges.
As teen angst films go quite frankly in a Canadian way this just may be an answer to “Ferris Buellers Day Off”. It has made a limited Canadian theatrical run but it deserves international exposure.
You can see the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO1bcDym2oo
RKS Film Rating 89/100.
“Travels to a Different Time” :August 2006 Samos Wine Festival
Samos had been famous in antiquity for its sweet wines made from the Muscat grape. Times change and very few North Americans know about this famous wine. A co-operative holds a monopoly on the production of wine in Samos. Each year there is a wine festival. This year it was held in a parking lot by the water overlooking the port in Vathi. There were both table and sweet wines. The sweet wine was the lowest echelon of sweet wines. The table wines are made from Muscat grapes and are bland and unexciting. For 3 Euros you bought a clay cup and filled it up at your will. It was hardly an exciting show of wines. Now the souvlaki, fries, tigantes and loukomis were stellar. Poor Alexandra was exhausted and falling asleep so as the rock band took the stage off home we went. The proximity to the port perhaps was not such a good idea with a funky smell permeating the air. It has been held in more scenic locations in the past. All of us crashed out for a decent sleep. This jet lag is nasty business.
RKS Film: “Shady Grove”: Misandrist Suspense
“Shady Grove” is not a horror film as I see it. It is in the misandrist suspense category. It is one of those films that drops a multitude of hints along its plot line but the hints only make sense after the closing credits roll. Sort of like a puzzle suddenly making sense.
Shaina (Niki McElroy), Mark (Todd Anthony) and their hyperactive friend Elijah (Juhan Jones) rent a cabin in the Catskills wanting to chill out for a day.
Some bad shit is going on around the cabin and in the Grove. Strangely masked animal characters steal a newborn and put it in a crate and nail it shut. Not a good sign. They also kill a teen (male) that was hanging around the cabin with a crossbow shot to his heart. OK so this has grabbed your interest.
Elijah off to get some beer and chips meets Chloe at a convenience store and invites her to a party at the cabin. Chloe shows up with gal pal Taylor and there is something about the two girls that is off kilter.
HINT: Is Shaina a closet lesbian?
HINT: Shania is pregnant. Remember the opening scene!
HINT: When Taylor says she hopes the child that Shania is carrying is a girl. How did Taylor know she was pregnant?
HINT: Taylor says we are all the same here in the town.
HINT: Why doesn’t the sheriff shoot the attacking masked crowd instead shooting in the air warning them.
HINT: Why the sex scene between Mark and Taylor?
You should be able to identify the bad guys here but predicting the ending will prove far more difficult but when you do reach that point these hints make sense.
Aside from an overdone and cheesy escape scene the acting works and Jones adds some spark with his zany self-absorbed sex crazed and obnoxious behavior (HINT).
No you won’t be quaking in your boots with this film but its ending adds a nice spin to a lumbering film.
You can see the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18njbzzRIWs
The film will be released on digital platforms on 25October2022.
RKS Film Rating 67/100.
RKS True Story: Dancing in Hell with a Slight Problem
Years ago sitting with my father in law and my son my father in law seemed not to worry if he ended up in hell upon his demise. He could party nonstop, drink, smoke and dance . A true paradise of course until my son casually mentioned that perhaps it was true but you’ll be burning up in flames! That obvious fact had not registered but suddenly it did. I believe after that he abandoned the idea of a non-stop party. It seems shortly after that he attended church regularly!
RKS Wine: A Tidal Wave of Price Increases for Wine: Chile Remaining Affordable
If you have seen the latest Liquor Control Board of Ontario’s October 22 Vintages release catalogue you may say WTF has just happened! Prices are obscene. This makes the wines of Chile most compelling from a price and quality perspective. Most Chilean wines appear to be rated by James Suckling a hero it seems to the Liquor Control Board of Ontario so one has to discount his overly generous rating of Chilean wine. He gave the San Pedro 1865 Selected Vineyards Carmenére 2020 a 91 rating.
On the nose a tight wine with blackberry, blueberry, milk chocolate and a gentle tad of allspice. On the palate moderate tannins with elements of Christmas cake, pepper and spice.
Enough fruit to make this a decent sipper. Drink now or hold until the end of 2024. This would be a good match for so many foods but as we are in the death throes of local produce eggplants are a plenty so why not Eggplant Parmesan? My produce contact at Lady York in Toronto says from here on in expect peppers, Swiss Chard and Dandelion. With fires in California and a hurricane in Florida who knows what awaits us in Canada. I made loads of jam, pesto and tomato sauce.
(San Pedro 1865 Selected Vineyards Carmenére 2020, Valle de Maule, San Pedro S.A.Molina, Chile, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 249201, 750 mL, 14%, RKS Wine Rating 89/100).
“Travels to a Different Time” : August 2006: Samos, Greece: Feast of the Dormition of Theotokos
August 15 is a big day on the Greek Orthodox calendar. Everything is shut tight except what directly serves the tourists like mini marts and restaurants. I watched a bit of coverage on Greek TV and just like the old days the priests, politicians and military seem glued to each other. Still in 2006 the pillars of Greek society! On August 16th a high-ranking Greek Orthodox priest arrived in Vathi to enlighten the flock. The main street was full of political, military and religious officials. In Canada there is not the cosiness of the military, state and church you see here in Greece.
RKS Film: “Nelly and Nadine”: One of Europe’s Best in 2022?
“Nelly and Nadine” is a Belgian/Swiss/Swedish documentary and is one of 13 films on the short list for the best film for the 2022 European Film Awards that will be announced in Reykjavik on December 10th.
The documentary begins with the narrator commenting on a film reel shot on April 28, 1945, in Malmo Sweden filming a boatload of 2,000 women survivors arriving from German concentration camps. The narrator explains he has spent years tracking down the stories of the survivors on the film reel. He is on a voyage of discovery.
One of the women on the film reel is Nadine a Chinese woman who was the daughter of the Chinese ambassador to Spain. We are not told why she was imprisoned by the Germans. Nelly was a well-known French singer arrested in 1943 by the Germans in Paris.
Nelly’s granddaughter Sylvie Bianchi lives a quiet agricultural life in Belgium. Sylvie has a large collection of letters, journals and super 8 films documenting the incarceration of Nelly in a series of worsening German concentration camps the last stop being Mauthausen in 1945 Austria a stone quarry where prisoners had to climb down and up 186 stairs of death after debilitating forced labour and very little food.
Understandably Sylvie simply can’t complete the review of her grandmother’s legacy. She is so traumatized she can’t complete the task. She finally decides it is time and what she discovers liberates her tortured soul so finally she is at peace and with understanding of her secretive grandmother.
By confronting reality she accepts it and understands who her grandmother was. Her grandmother was Nelly Mousset-Vos a renowned singer and also a member of the Resistance. And she and Nadine were lovers! They fell in love in a camp and were separated when Nelly was transported in a harrowing 1945 journey to Mauthausen packed in a cattle car where 17 women died in a five-day journey.
We listen to some of her memoirs describing despair and the horrid conditions she managed to survive and it was her love for Nadine that propelled her last reserves of energy at Mauthausen where falling down in exhaustion meant a bullet in the head. Many of us are familiar with these German barbarities but to hear it firsthand is painful and very personal.
So we move beyond the war and Nadine and Nelly wishing to escape Europe move to Venezuela to establish a life. Sylvie as a child had no idea Nadine and Nelly were lesbians but it becomes apparent to her, particularly through the Super 8 films that Nelly and Nadine were lesbians.
Sylvie’s journey of discovery is one that viewers can share and there is no need to repeat it. But perhaps more important is that by accepting the facts of Nelly’s and Nadine’s relationship and fully understanding what they went through liberates Sylvie from her fear and apprehension so that she finally accepts and embraces her grandmother to the extent she finally smiles and appreciates Nelly and Nadine. Accepting reality as opposed to ignoring it was the best way of honouring the fortitude and bravery of Nelly. The narrator that started the film was on a voyage of self discovery as Sylvie was.
You can see the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0X0gP2zxv8
The film has English subtitles.
Directed by Magnus Gertten.
RKS Film Rating 88/100.
“Travels to a Different Time” : August 2006: Steve the Original Lonely Guy of Samos!
Steve is the original lonely guy of Samos. Alexandra and I encountered Steve at the establishment we were having coffee at. Steve has retired from Germany and moved to Samos. Steve is in his mid seventies and every day he takes the bus from Pythagorio to Vathi and sits at the same table in the same seat and talks with as many people as possible. Steve admits he is a lonely guy as his two children have not spoken to him in 4 years. They received a loan to start a business in New York from Steve but the business failed so Steve thinks his two children are too embarrassed to talk to him so to avoid loneliness he sits and drinks coffee all day and chats up passersby’s . We left him and said see you later. We chatted with him regularly. Alexandra ran into Steve one day without me and he said, “Where s the old man?”. Was he referring to me!
“Travels to a Different Time” : 4August2006: Amsterdam/Samos: The Spectacle of a Thorough Search!
Up at the absurd hour of 04:00 for a shower in a groggy fog. No breakfast and hopped in a taxi to the airport delayed by bridge construction sending the meter on its happy way with the result a staggering 80 Euro taxi fare to Schiphol. Happy my booking on Martinair to Samos was successful. Not speaking Dutch didn’t prevent a successful booking. Martinair is a Dutch charter airline. I suppose we were the only Non-Dutch on the flight. Just my luck as a nasty terrorist looking type subject to a thorough body search to the enjoyment of my family. A spectacle for sure. What incredible shopping at this airport with electronics, food, records and books to name a few items. The departure area resembled a shopping centre more than the usual airport duty free. A smooth three-and-a-half-hour flight with a boxed breakfast. Arrived at the Samos Airport and grabbed a taxi into Vathi to Fotini’s parent’s house. It is great to have returned to Greece but I think all of us are craving a good night’s sleep.
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