RKS Film: The Assassination of the American President: Insanity? Brilliance? Time Traveller? “Who is Amos Otis? “

Assume Trump actually successfully stole the election resulting in democracy’s continued erosion, race riots, bounties for journalists, scientists concerned about climate change and all enemies of the demagogue snuffed out with the world heading into a crisis. Then imagine Trump was assassinated with crowds dancing in the streets clashing with “patriots”. Well you have the background for this film with Trump not being named but I think viewers we are intelligent enough to know the assassinated American President is Donald Trump.

The evidence is compelling and the admission by a man calling himself Amos Otis rather seals the guilt. So quickly we are launched into a courtroom drama at which point if you can recall “Perry Mason”, “Street Legal” or “L.A. Law” you might start yawning and say, “Not another one!”.

But rather quickly what could become boring shifts into a riveting cat and mouse game. Amos Otis died two weeks prior to the assassination of a heart attack with a pile of opiates at his side and a big wad of cash which the assassin pockets to rent an apartment facing the airport and buy a very deadly and accurate sniper’s rifle. And from that apartment blows the President’s head off on the tarmac. He is quickly apprehended but there are absolutely no markers that show the assassin exists.

The assassin weaves a fascinating story about being from the future sent to assassinate the President and save the world or at least give it a chance to escape the dictators supported by the President and the President himself. He also claims Lee Harvey Oswald was a time traveller as if Kennedy had not been killed America would have descended into chaos.

The assassin weaves a compelling story that the jury seems to be convinced he may be a time traveller. An open and shut case weakened by a clever time traveler. Josh Katawick as the assassin delivers a convincing story. Is it a story or reality? The film does not answer that question leaving that up to you. A solid cast is a necessity in a film like this dealing with what may be absolutely ludicrous premise as a few bad lines could quite easily ruin the film. But the cast is skilled and very tight and successfully converts the unbelievable into possible reality. A courtroom drama like no other.

The film is directed and written by Cincinnati playwright Greg Newberry and will be released on Digital/VOD by Gravitas Ventures on December 28th. My film choice for New Year’s Eve is the original “Blade Runner”. “Who is Amos Otis?” might be a great holiday flick and perhaps suitable for the homebound on New Year’s Eve?

Newberry has this to say about the film, “My inspiration for Who is Amos Otis? came from the daily barrage of headlines and tweets that fueled the dangerously expanding divide among Americans. We are a nation hurtling toward civil war – divided by race, class, culture and religion not seen since the days of Gettysburg. I wanted to create a story that illustrated the devastation we could cause to our future if we failed to act. The stakes for our country were too high to do nothing.”

You can catch the trailer here https://vimeo.com/643665064/850dd2c3b1

RKS Wines: Quadrus Red 2015 from the Douro

You have some of your usual suspects in the Douro grape department. 55% Touriga Nacional, 30% Tinta Roriz and 15% Sousão.

The colour of the wine verges on purple which may be the result of the dark juiced Sousão. As for aromas there is an overall creaminess to the nose which is brimming with lively blackberry within a vanilla framework with black cherry skirting around the edges. The wine has definitely seen some oak some of it must be new French oak. On the palate there are some mild tannins that are seamlessly integrated into the wine. Big lighthouse beams of blackberry predominate the palate but there are hints of licorice and dark chocolate and even a tad of maple syrup. This is a rich full- bodied wine where pure blackberry champions both the nose and palate. It will improve in the bottle over the next three years. Dare I say simple and delicious? You might want to pour into a decanter an hour prior to serving.

It is so good on its own but with food would suit just about any cut of beef and would go well with a vegetarian pasta sauce with fresh herbs topped with Parmesan cheese.

(Quadrus Douro 2015, Douro DOC, Miravino, Porto, Portugal $ 22.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 440305, 750 ml, 14%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me So Rating 93/100).

Poetry Corner: “A Curious or Suspicious Omission?”

Is it strange or suspicious
or perhaps even pernicious?
daily new case counts on two television channels I watch have always included those infected who are fully vaccinated
and they account for about half of the new cases
the effectiveness of the vaccine once said to be 96 % effective and heaven sent
seems to be taking a very bad dent
now for the past two days numbers of the infected that are fully vaccinated
are no longer seen on the screen
stupid are those that thought the media was playing on the fairness team
they’d rather play along with their advertising revenue and the Big Pharma dream
looks to me like they are trying to hide something
so their advertising revenue from Big Pharma goes kaching kaching!

Robert K. Stephen

Passage of the Day From “Bleak House” by Charles Dickens (Money and Responsibility)

” I’ll give you a piece of advice that your husband will find useful when you are happily married and have got a family about you. Whenever a person says to you that they are as innocent as can be in all concerning money, look well after your own money for they are dead certain to collar it if they can. Whenever a person proclaims to you. “In worldly matters I am a child,’ you consider that that person is only a-crying off from being held accountable and you have got that person’s number and it’s Number One.”

“Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time”

Where do I start with a review of this documentary? Should I get personal and thank my brother for leaving Vonnegut novels around in the early 70’s which I picked up and read. My first Vonnegut novel was “Slaughterhouse Five” that was unlike any piece of fiction I had read. Billy Pilgrim a prisoner of World War 2 captured in the Battle of the Bulge transported to imprisonment in a former swine slaughterhouse number 5 in Dresden, Germany safely locked in the basement as Dresden was firebombed in 1944 and reduced to rubble. Billy Pilgrim was then unstuck in time travelling from past to future and to different planets. Mating with was it Montana Wildhack a porn star in a zoo on some strange planet. An ophthalmologist from Indiana.

I was suckered into a whole series of novels, “Breakfast of Champions” and “Welcome to the Monkey House” to name a few. I was never a fan of American literature although there have been flashes of brilliance with Ken Kesey’s “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, Hunter Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”, James Baldwin’s “Notes From a Native Son” and J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye” but has there been the consistency that Vonnegut produced? Now you professors of American literature get your scissors out and cut me up as an ignorant illiterate Canadian!

Director Robert B. Weide (often a director of Larry David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm”) followed Vonnegut for 40 years before taking a deep breath and crafting this documentary and it is a valiant attempt to compress 40 years into a little bit over two hours.

There is no sense in summarize the documentary. But what will it do? If you are a Vonnegut fan you will understand his background and gain a better understanding of what he wrote. If you are Vonnegut deprived it is a fascinating study of a novelist and his struggle for recognition and the toll such a journey takes upon the writer and his social circle. For me after reading “Slaughterhouse Five” I understand its characters are tied up with Vonnegut’s childhood. God bless Indiana! As Kurt said his role as a journalist in his high school paper was spill the beans in the beginning of the story to get readers interested! That is much in the style of his novels he says.

After 40 years of following Vonnegut Weide could have made a documentary that could have lasted hours with an intermission 2 hours in, Like “Lawrence of Arabia” or “Exodus”. However we get what we get and it is good that it reveals Vonnegut the man. Weide scratches the surface but thank goodness he had the fortitude to condense 40 years into two hours and 27 minutes.

So what is the conclusion to be drawn? All those moldy yellowed books of Vonnegut novels that would have lead to some respiratory disease if they had been kept longer by me need to be replaced.

A fascinating and courageous effort by Weide to present a fair picture of what one day may be said to be America’s greatest novelist’. Vonnegut died after a slip and fall in 2007 aged 84. Rest in Peace with Kafka, Dostoevsky, Balzac, Mann, Richler and Solynetzin.

(“Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time”, Director Robert B. Weide and Don Argott, 127 Minutes, USA, 2021, Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema Nov 24/25/27/29)

The Hot Docs website can be accessed here https://hotdocscinema.ca/

RKS Wine: Dão Delights

130 kilometres southwest of Porto you’ll find yourself in Dão’s capital Viseu which is a quaint city and very much lower key than Porto probably as it is a landlocked area and there are none of the culture killing cruise ships with their ruinous trail of destruction. The Dão landscape is in some parts like being in a different planet with huge boulders littering the landscape. The Dão can produce some excellent wines and the area’s cuisine is top notch. We visited some 10 wineries getting a chance for a deep dive. As for reds you can get the same Douro red grapes but you’ll encounter Jaen (most likely the same as Mencía) and Alfrocheiro. And as in the Douro most reds are blends.

Mushroom Risotto in the Dão: Photo Robert K. Stephen

We try a Bergamota Private Selection which is 80% Touriga Franca, 5% Tinta Roriz, 5% Jaen, 5% Alfrocheiro and 5% others. I have a feeling that this is a negociant wine meaning the grapes or the finished wine were bought from third parties and bottled by ENG No4483 for GOTA LDA in a Viseu industrial park.

On the nose black cherry predominates but there is also cranberry and raspberry and some black licorice. On the palate the tannins are gentle initially but intensify as the wine opens up. There is an interesting taste of cherries dipped in melted chocolate with some rather high-toned red cherry. A simple but intriguing wine with a unique personality. It plays with cherry like a coyote playing with a mouse before it gobbles its poor victim up. So lets just call this wine playful. Being on the Portuguese track why not match this with Cataplana? Being playful let’s go Mexican and mix this with a Red Snapper Vera Cruz? Or how about a vegetarian Putanesca Pasta?

I think it might marginally improve over the next couple of years.

Before I go I should tell you a slightly embarrassing story. The winemakers we visited would always give us some wine to take back on the media bus. Well getting into our hotel’s elevator in Viseu a case carrying 4 bottles gave way and the elevator was awash with a pool of red wine. My face turned the same colour as the pool of wine on the elevator floor. All in the life of a wine writer! At breakfast the next morning there was a slight smell of red wine. Not my fault!

(Bergamota Private Selection 2017, Dão DOC, Gota, Viseu, Portugal, $16.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 646893, 750 mL, 13%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me So Rating 89/100).

RKS Wines: Wines from the Outer Limits: Portugal’s Tejo

We get more wines from Hungary in the Liquor Control Board of Ontario’s Vintage releases than we do from the Tejo region which runs behind and parallel to the Lisboa wine region.

One has arrived like a spaceship in Ontario and it’s a Quinta da Escusa. It is a white blend of the dry Arinto and Moscatel a heavier and more flavourful grape. It will be interesting if we are getting an off dry wine here.

On the nose you can smell the Moscatel out duelling the Arinto! There is peach, apricot, honey, pineapple and butterscotch. On the palate this is a dry wine without much character. You are getting on the palate the same influences you get on the nose but it is dilute and diffuse. I don’t usually comment on tannins when trying white wine but the cheeks are getting a dose of tannins and the wine has a certain funkiness to it. I am sorry to say this but this wine doesn’t know whether it is coming or going. Even with the discounted price way overpriced.

(Quinta da Escusa Branco 2016, Vinho Regional Tejo, Romana Vini, Portugal $ 31.85 (Manager’s Special $22.15), Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 736172, 750 mL, 12.5%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me So Rating 84/100).

RKS Wines: White Port You Say? Stay Away Tonic Water!

On my visits to The Douro White Port was rarely seen and so little is imported to Canada. It most often seems to be used in a cocktail of Port and Tonic. It can be refreshing but I will admit it is not compelling but then again the most exotic I get is a Mojito when there is fresh mint in my garden.

Now to be fair a few years ago while in Porto I stumbled across a small bar serving a wide range of White Port most from small producers and the couple I tried were brimming with character.

So let’s give a White Port from Martha’s Wine and Spirits a try. In colour it is not white at all but more of a golden orange. On the nose there is orange, quince, apricot and caramel. Excuse my inexperience with White Port but there are similarities with a Tawny Port on the nose. On the palate electric peach, quince jam, baklava, spice, pear and honey. By Jove this is a complicated creature. A long finish with no presence on the nose or palate of spirits. This one should be chilled and savoured on its own. Do you remember Dorothy throwing water in the “Wizard of Oz” on the Wicked Witch well don’t throw tonic on this beauty or you might kill it.

(Martha’s Fine White Port, Gold Mountains Company, Santa Marta de Penguiao, Portugal, $19.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 249044, 750 mL, 19.5%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me So Rating 91/100)

Go Go! Clap Clap!

Go Go! Clap Clap!

Of course get your vaccine if you wish!
but you may not have a choice
I think that is called coercion but the apologists for despotism may call it fulfilling the social contract?
but do you recall the initial trumpeting of 96% effectiveness of the V
not quite hearing that now in the media as half the infected every day are fully vaxxed
and the media salivates and promotes the 90% coverage goal like a duty

Clap clap!

Go Go!

Contrary view ignored?

Simply stupid?

Or Hookers for Big Pharma?

History may show they are rotted full of the Clap

Clap Clap!

Go Go!

Robert K. Stephen

Photo Robert Tuomi

RKS Wines: Some Portuguese Wines to Finish Off the Year: Part 1: Vinho do Bispado

After just about finishing off an intensive virtual tasting of Ports from the Douro it might be time to come back to earth and finish off the year with some Portuguese table wines. While there is no real competition to Port there is plenty of competition raging against Portuguese table wines.

The Douro produces some very worthy red wines with mostly indigenous grapes. One wonders how long this rigidity will last. It was the Super Tuscans in Italy that challenged Tuscan categorizations so I query just how long before we see Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon or Syrah sneaking into the Douro to shake things up. The last thing I want to see is the demise of Touriga Franca, Touriga Nacional or Rebigato but the time may come when some excitement will shake up the Douro as it has done in Alentejano or Lisboa.

We try a Vinha do Bispado with a blend of 40% Touriga Nacional, 30% Tinta Roriz and 30% Touriga Franca 40% of which has aged 8 months in French barrels and 60% in stainless steel.

Black cherry in colour. There is a creamy base to the wine on the nose with effusive blackberry, fig, rhubarb, coconut and hazelnut wafer cookies. On the palate the tannins are mild and the palate has a refreshing lightness to it perhaps my reaction to reviewing 6 successive Ports. The light and airy body has blackberry, cassis and cherry pie to it. Could we say “light and airy” gives the wine a dash of “freshness” to it? This lightness is not often my experience with Douro reds but don’t they say a change is as good as a rest?

Can I say not your typical Douro red? In fact its uniqueness is rather enchanting. The finish is short and light. While many Douro reds are ideal for beef, goat and duck this lighthearted wine would suit Bachalau very well which might be a generalization as there are over 300 recipes for this “national” Portuguese dish!

(Vinha do Bispado 2018, DOP Douro, Casa Agrícola A Roboredo Madeira, Almendra Douro Superior, Portugal, $10.30, LCBO #923903, 750 mL,13.5%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me So Rating 89/100).