NEW VINE-YL POST

LOST REVIEW: RICHARD'S MY CONSTANT

I enjoyed tonight's episode of "Lost" much more than the Season Premiere. For a moment there I thought we were even going to see the ELUSIVE smoke monster! I love everything to do with Richard and his permanently eye lined eyes. He seems to keep the show a bit grounded amidst all of the crazy side-stories and new characters. He is like a beacon, a lighthouse that makes us feel as if yes, we are back on our old island. The island of the others, and polar bears, and strange 70's instructional videos. Not this NEW island with all these brand new people who act like they own the place. While Kate and Jack and Hurley and Sayid, all the best people, are stuck back in L.A. wearing normal, non-tight and non-sweaty clothing and bathing and shaving and stuff. Its just a lot to deal with after all of these years. So its nice to know that Richard is there. He's our constant. Funny side note, if you google Richard Alpert you find out that there is a very real person who has this same name who worked alongside the likes of Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary and Allen Ginsberg. He now calls himself Ram Dass. Coincidence?

-Sara

CHEAP-O WINE REVIEW: JAJA DE JAU

Time for another everyday, affordable wine review. Tonight its the 2007 "Le Jaja de Jau," a Syrah that hails from the Pays d'Oc region of Southwestern France. This wine and I go way back, I've been drinking it for years and it is consistently decent. It is also, consistently around $10, which is pretty impressive given the way most wines have been creeping up in price. This is not a heavy Syrah at all, it is light and juicy. On the nose you get some grapey fruit with an underlying earthiness. The palate continues on with purple berries mixed in with a bit of black pepper. The finish is nice, with light tannins and a lingering bit of fruit. Great for a party or a barbecue where there are a lot of different foods being served. A wonderful bottle for the price if you can find it!





-by the way, this is our new rating system, I think
it's pretty self-explanatory.

-Sara

MOVIE REVIEW: HAPPY GO LUCKY

With the Oscars right around the corner we are doing our best to see ALL of
the nominated movies within the next few weeks. Today we saw "Happy Go Lucky," a whimsical comedy about a single 30 year old woman in London who refuses to grow up and be serious. The lead role is wonderfully portrayed by Sally Hawkins, who keeps the character bubbly and funny without ever stepping into the realm of the annoying. Hawkins recently won the Golden Globe for this role and the film is up for Best Screenplay at the Oscars. The story itself defies any sort of textbook movie formula. It is more of a loving portrait of a child-like woman and her friends, following them through their normal day-to-day activities. Their is no real jeopardy, nor any real obstacles to overcome. The drama in the movie deals with Poppy's relationship with her curmudgeonly driving instructor, Scott. Poppy, in her ernest and sweet ways, seems to think she can win anybody over and tries her darndest with him, both failing and succeeding in the end. There are some great laughs in Happy Go Lucky as well as several really tender moments. Even the most minor characters in the film are masterfully drawn, making the film a beautiful look into the lives of some ordinary folks living in London. It is nothing short of delightful.

-Sara

MORE THOUGHTS ON CHE, A GORILLA’S PERSPECTIVE

1. Che is clearly a Steven Soderbergh film. It has all his visual hallmarks: the rugged, yet incredibly artful hand-held camerawork. The use of multiple perspectives in the same sequence or shot, the contrasting color palette to represent different places, times or states of mind… In a way it is a kind of apotheosis of technique that started in a nascent way with sex, lies and videotape but really became manifest in Out of Sight, a movie that is criminally under-remembered.

2. Two shots in particular leapt out to me. One involves the derailing of a train and a wild dog. It had the immediacy and fluid movement of Lubezki’s work in Children of Men and is destined to become a classic textbook-worthy sequence. The second captures the moment of Che’s death in a personal, subjective manner that beautifully realizes such a personal subjective portrait of the man. In a quiet way, it was groundbreaking and spiritually profound.

3. Part 2 has an elegiac quality that gains pitch as the little disasters of the campaign accrue to their tragic consequences. The tension of watching everything go wrong is almost unbearable, considering the giant heroism Che and many of the Cubans continue to display in the face of losing odds. The final gunfight has an electric quality, a la Fuller’s The Big Red One, that seems to totally nail the surreal reality of guerrilla warfare. And the denouement, or final act, has a beatific poignancy that is transcendent. But the film doesn’t stand alone in the same way as, say, Godfather II.

4. The whole style of the project—which I offer to those who don’t “get” it—is evident during a stirring action sequence in the Cuban jungle that is scored not to triumphal Hollywood orchestral schmaltz but to period-appropriate 1950s-era Afro-Cuban jazz.

5. Most of the casting was impeccable. It was particularly nice to see Catalina Sandino Moreno given another nice, nuanced role. But Matt Damon’s cameo in Part 2 totally blew. At that moment as the events were spiraling downward, his brief presence took us completely out of the movie.

6. Che is myth-making of a high order. It is photo-journalism as hagiography and in its way, grandly reminiscent of those 60’s/70s biopics like Becket, A Man For All Seasons, and Mary, Queen of Scots that elevated their subjects through careful, humane storytelling and awesome acting into the realm of the sublime.

7. As we said in a previous post, there’s no good reason why Che isn’t among the finalists for Best Picture of the year. It is deserving on so many levels, it’s sick. Benicio del Toro’s performance is easily among the most captivating and layered of the year. In the craft categories—directing, editing, cinematography, music, etc—what work was significantly better? To me, the fact that pictures such as Che, The Dark Knight, and The Fall (adapted screenplay, costumes, cinematography, at the least…) were shut out of the Oscars, demonstrates the wrong-headed attitude that motion picture craft is not as important as social message. Doesn’t that hypocritical stance seem to undermine the whole industry? For whatever reason, the Academy of Motion Pictures has become the official arbiter of intellectual content rather than a recognizer of spectacular film achievement, which is sad.

-Derek

"CHE" OSCAR SNUB SHOULD INSPIRE ARMED UPRISING

We are fresh out of seeing "Che" in its entirety, back to back at the Landmark Theatre in L.A. ( which is by the way an awesome movie theatre) and we are both somewhat in shock. For one because it is a long, intense film which shows you the rise and fall of this enigmatic, mythological revolutionary turned hipster t-shirt logo favorite. But, also because it did not receive a single Oscar nomination. Not one. Not even "Best Costumes," or "Sound Editing," it was completely shut out. Benicio del Toro deserves at the very least a nod for his performance in this epic. He masterfully portrays this character and blends so into the persona of Che, that I did a double take when searching for images for this post and I was confronted with a photo of the actual Che Guevara. The film is shown in two parts, the first "The Argentine," tracks Che as he aids Fidel Castro in their fight to take over Cuba. This part of the film is really well done. As we cut from pre-revolution Che in Mexico, to post-revolution Che in New York City and to mid-revolution Che in the jungles of Cuba, we get a nice, rounded portrait of this fascinating man. The second part of the film, "The Guerrilla," while interesting and certainly intense, plays more like a documentary about a political uprising gone awry. Soderbergh does a great job of portraying the imminent danger and terror of fighting a losing guerrilla war. The suspense is real, and the cinematography wonderful, but the second film doesn't stand on its own the way the first one does. Watched together, "Che" is an entertaining and inspiring film. You leave not feeling as if you know everything about Che Guevera and his struggles, but with more curiosity than you ever had about the man. You want to find a book to fill in the gaps in his history, discover more about his motivation, and the aftermath of his demise. Which to me, is the most you could ask for an historical biopic to do, leave you wanting to learn more.

-Sara

CHEAP WINE, IT'S NOT JUST FOR POOR PEOPLE ANYMORE

A little bit about me, I used to be in the wine business. For over three years my job was to choose the wines for a popular little wine shop in Brooklyn. We didn't carry very expensive wines, mostly bottles that were under $20. I then honed what was to me the most coveted skill I learned in my adult life, the ability to find really good, yet inexpensive wine. I used this skill in my second wine job, with my customers and for my own drinking pleasure. And then, I got out of the business. I was faced with the biggest challenge of my wine career; now I had to find wine to drink at regular stores and pay (shudders) retail prices. And on top of it all, I am now poor. Gone are the days of paying cost for expensive bottles, gone are the days of drinking $15 bottles every night. Now, I would have to drink like normal people. Buy my wine at grocery stores and even, (gasp) Trader Joe's. I was forced to come to terms with my palate, to try and make it forget the last few years, all that it had learned about what good wine was supposed to taste like. I needed to revert back to the girl that drank jug wine in college, or cheap boxed wine while living in Africa. I needed to find the joy in the simple, cheap bottles. However being me, I still have my standards. So whenever possible, I will try to post reviews of inexpensive wines that I have drunk that are worth buying. Our latest VINE-YL post has a great one. This one, Trader Joe's 2007 Captain's Catch was surprisingly good, I actually remember being sad when the last few drops were poured into someone else's glass. Derek bought it for the label, and we popped it open with a couple of friends. One of them even exclaimed, "Wow, this is from Trader Joe's? But it's so buttery and smooth." It was smooth and had nice dark, rich fruit but wasn't overly sweet which is always an issue with your cheaper bottles. It was incredibly drinkable, everyone agreed. All and all worth the $6. A perfect party red.

-Sara