WineLovers Discussion Group

R Cabrera wrote:What? No James Bond fans here? How about double-oh-seven and a nice Bordeaux?
Speaking of great wine scnenes - the train scene in Casino Royale where the man with the license to kill ordered a 1982 Ch. L'Angelus.

All true, but this specific poll dealt with movies about wine or wineries or in which wine played a primary role. Great wine scenes is a worthy side topic, but not part of the ballot.

From Ground to Glass http://www.fromgroundtoglass.com/indextoo.html. No work of art but a moving actually about wine and which wine geek can't love a movie were Paul Draper, Wes Hagen and others get camera time.

Shaji M wrote:When I think of wine and movies, strangely the one that always jumps into my mind is "Ratatouille". The vision of Skinner trying to prise out information from Linguini while plying him with Chateau Latour is priceless..

+1 That was my FAV scene as well!!!! Completely unexpected!....least fav scene was the Angelus placement in James Bond....seemed soooooooo corporate and not smooth.

Peter May wrote:Mondovino made me feel physically sick because of its waving camera.

Me too. At least when I first watched it, from the front row of a cinema. The subtitles just made it worse - reading them while the background kept moving around. A DVD played through the TV is a lot easier on the eyes.

My vote went to Sideways. Yes, flawed characters, but very human I thought. And I thought the humour was very English for an American film. Considering the negative comments here it is rather surprising that it is so high up in the poll, don't you think?

R Cabrera wrote:What? No James Bond fans here? How about double-oh-seven and a nice Bordeaux?
Speaking of great wine scnenes - the train scene in Casino Royale where the man with the license to kill ordered a 1982 Ch. L'Angelus.

I'm a classic James Bond fan here. The modern ones arent as much to my taste, for whatever reason. For me, I always remember the champagne references which I naturally enjoy. One of the "definitive" scenes for me, in the Dom Perignon reference is the famous hotel bed scene with Shirley Eaton in Goldfinger...

Jeff

I cannot believe that my-likely-all time favorite movie was not mentioned. And to add insult to injury, my all-time worst movie was. How about the wine in "Babette's Feast"? It almost made me want to try Burgundy. And "My Dinner with Andre"??? The only way I kept awake during the 'film' was by needing to elbow my friend who went with me as his snoring bothered some people around us. Who cares what the wine was? They were busy yapping about nothing YEARS before Seinfeld, but at least HE is funny!

Sideways.

So sue me.

Harry Cantrell wrote:I cannot believe that my-likely-all time favorite movie was not mentioned. And to add insult to injury, my all-time worst movie was. How about the wine in "Babette's Feast"? It almost made me want to try Burgundy. And "My Dinner with Andre"??? The only way I kept awake during the 'film' was by needing to elbow my friend who went with me as his snoring bothered some people around us. Who cares what the wine was? They were busy yapping about nothing YEARS before Seinfeld, but at least HE is funny!

Good points all, Harry. In the original post accompanying the poll, I invoked Babette and suggested that we set up a similar discussion for food-related movies in FLDG. Sure, there's some crossing over, but I think of Babette's Feast as being primarily a food movie with wine in it ...

Eric Rohmer's "Autumn Tale" is perhaps not that much about wine, but it has scenic pictures of french vineyards in autumn.

Winfried

Sideways is not a good wine movie, it is quite simply a good movie. The flawed principle characters are credible and very well acted and the plot is amusing and poignant.

I've only seen three of those movies but I voted for "Sideways." I saw it on an airplane and again in a theater and found certain scenes hilarious both times. Thought all four principal actors were great and loved Virginia Madsen's ode to Pinot Noir which was my favorite red wine grape before the movie came out. I also like "The Secret of Santa Vittoria."

I also voted for Sideways. Not a great film, but a good one (what's wrong with dislikeable characters?). More than you can say for most of the others (except maybe Secret of SV), though I haven't seen couple of recent ones.

My favorite Bond wine scene is when the killer "waiter" is unmasked because he doesn't know Mouton is a claret.

Peter May wrote:Mondovino made me feel physically sick because of its waving camera. *

I had to force my self to watch it all the way through.

That's a common complaint against Mondovino, and I certaintly don't begrudge anyone for not liking liking the film on that basis.

Sideways? Funny, great scenery, lovely ode to Pinot Noir. What's not to like?

I'm sorry, but I didn't find a single minute of Sideways to be funny. In fact, I found a fair bit of it to be rather sad. And the modicum of wine geekery just didn't come close to redeeming it for me, especially since it was so incongruous with the rest of the film.

Robin Garr wrote:(I'm also thinking that this poll has an obvious partner for food movies in FLDG. Actually, off the top of my head I can think of a bunch of even better food movies - Babette's Feast, Big Night, Ratatouille, Tortilla Soup, Eat Drink Man Woman ... and I'm just getting warmed up.

When you get to that one, don't forget No Reservations and Who is Killing the Great Cgefs of Europe (the latter probably not out on DVD)

Bill Spohn wrote:

Robin Garr wrote:(I'm also thinking that this poll has an obvious partner for food movies in FLDG. Actually, off the top of my head I can think of a bunch of even better food movies - Babette's Feast, Big Night, Ratatouille, Tortilla Soup, Eat Drink Man Woman ... and I'm just getting warmed up.

When you get to that one, don't forget No Reservations and Who is Killing the Great Cgefs of Europe (the latter probably not out on DVD)

Or Tampopo (my personal favorite food movie of all time).

I like "Mostly Martha." "No Reservations" is said to be heavily based on the earlier German film but I prefer the original.

Dale Williams wrote:My favorite Bond wine scene is when the killer "waiter" is unmasked because he doesn't know Mouton is a claret.

Diamonds Are Forever.
The waiter/villain was Mr. Wint.

Mike Filigenzi wrote:I've not seen them all, either, but I enjoyed Sideways a lot. It was goofy, disjointed, and the idea that someone like Virginia Madsen's character would ever have anything to do with Giamatti's was ridiculous. Still, I thought it was a lot of fun. And heck, in this genre, we're not looking at any Citizen Kane or Godfather quality films.

My feelings exactly. I actually liked Thomas Hayden Church's character better than Giamatti's--I hate morose sad sacks, and he was that. I found it implausible that Virginia would be attracted to him; at least, once she got to know him. Church did a great job with his character--he turned a dimwit rounder into someone big-hearted enough to be likable--if it weren't for that, none of us would have had enough fun to sit through the movie.

Jenise wrote:My feelings exactly. I actually liked Thomas Hayden Church's character better than Giamatti's--I hate morose sad sacks, and Miles was that. I found it implausible that Virginia would be attracted to him; at least, once she got to know him. Church did a great job with his character--he turned a dimwit rounder into someone big-hearted enough to be likable--if it weren't for that, none of us would have had enough fun to sit through the movie.

Taking up the cudgel for the movie just a little bit, the Central Coast photography was outstanding - next best thing to being there. And I'm going to step out on a limb and suggest that Payne did a surprisingly good job of portraying - and skewering - both over-the-top wine geeks and their tastings AND the tour-bus phenomenon in the California wine country.

Finally, look at Payne's overall body of work. I think most of the movies he wrote are good, but not everyone agrees. One thing they have in common, though: From Sideways, About Schmidt, Election and Citizen Ruth all have in common that they take essentially unlikeable characters and somehow gets us to care about them.

Bill Spohn wrote:

Robin Garr wrote:(I'm also thinking that this poll has an obvious partner for food movies in FLDG. Actually, off the top of my head I can think of a bunch of even better food movies - Babette's Feast, Big Night, Ratatouille, Tortilla Soup, Eat Drink Man Woman ... and I'm just getting warmed up.

When you get to that one, don't forget No Reservations and Who is Killing the Great Cgefs of Europe (the latter probably not out on DVD)

If you liked No Reservations and haven't seen Mostly Martha (as reccomended by JC), the German film it's (too) loosely based on, by all means you MUST see Mostly Martha. No Reservations is, by comparison, fluff.

I hated virtually every minute of Sideways. I voted for A Good Year purely for Russel Crowe falling into the empty pool!

I don't really believe there has been a good wine movie.

David M. Bueker wrote:I hated virtually every minute of Sideways. I voted for A Good Year purely for Russel Crowe falling into the empty pool!

I don't really believe there has been a good wine movie.

You're probably right.

I'm not sure that it has been mentioned anywhere, but A Good Year is a complete rip-off of the Robert Daley novel Strong Wine, Red as Blood. IMO, neither were very good.

Cheers,
Bill

I voted for Mondovino. Mostly for the Anti the MAN Dogma.

Cheers,
Bill

Robin Garr wrote:Taking up the cudgel for the movie just a little bit, the Central Coast photography was outstanding - next best thing to being there. And I'm going to step out on a limb and suggest that Payne did a surprisingly good job of portraying - and skewering - both over-the-top wine geeks and their tastings AND the tour-bus phenomenon in the California wine country.

Finally, look at Payne's overall body of work. I think most of the movies he wrote are good, but not everyone agrees. One thing they have in common, though: From Sideways, About Schmidt, Election and Citizen Ruth all have in common that they take essentially unlikeable characters and somehow gets us to care about them.

I agree with everything you said.

About Schmidt was a masterpiece on the subject of retirement, btw. All people over 50 should be required to watch it while they have time to make plans for what NOT to do.