Big Adventures
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies, and many more, at Trailers From Hell. This week, we enjoy three big adventures on film, and a wine pairing for each.
We’ll open with Peewee’s Big Adventure, from 1985, Tim Burton’s debut in the feature film category. I was never a Paul Reubens fan, so I missed Big Adventure at the time and haven’t seen it in the years since. I am a Tim Burton fan, but not even his graduation to Batman director could draw me into the world of Pee Wee. That won’t stop me from toasting the film, though.
The adventure noted in the title is Pee Wee’s quest to recover his stolen bicycle. Pee Wee’s neighbor wants to buy the bike, Pee Wee won’t sell, and the neighbor warns that he’ll regret the move. Shades of My Mother the Car, with bad guy Avery Schreiber fixated on getting his hands on the car by hook or crook, mostly crook.
There is a wine called Pee Wee. It’s a Nero d’Avola from Australia’s Lino Ramble, in the McLaren Vale. Get your Pee Wee on for $30.
https://www.linoramble.com.au/wine-shop/p/2019-pee-wee-novello-nero-davola-1
John Carpenter continued his fascination with Kurt Russell in 1986 with Big Trouble in Little China. Russell’s truck driver character helps a friend recover his green-eyed fiancée after she was taken in San Francisco’s Chinatown. His adventures have him underneath the city, where he meets a sorcerer, a magician, and delves into the world of martial arts. The big fight also contains some swell knife throwing, if you like that sort of thing.
Big Trouble kinda flopped at the movies, but it has maintained a legion of fans over the years. Personally, I always want to hear Russell say, “The name’s Plisskin,” but I understand that sometimes we must move on.
Gerard Bertrand likes to putter around in his winery in the south of France, making delectable juice. His Trouble xp is a non-filtered, cloudy, organic, vegan wine. I know it sounds like I’m trying to talk you out of it, but it really is good. It’s just $26 and it comes in three colors, red, white, and pink.
https://gerard-bertrand.shop/
2008’s Speed Racer is exactly what it sounds like. It’s the movie version of the cartoon series of my childhood, which was very popular with my younger sister. It was probably popular with a lot of younger sisters. It had to be the introduction to anime for a gazillion kids, too, but I won’t hold that against it.
Half the cast of characters have Racer as part of their names, so it’s nice that they use first names a lot. The Racer family runs Racer Motors, and scion Speed has gasoline flowing in his veins.
Speed and all the other Racers (Racer X, Mom Racer, Pops Racer, etc.) delve into the dark world of racing corruption. A big corporation is fixing races, and those who care want to see that it stops. While we’re at it, can we look into FIFA’s red card corruption? That ref has got to go.
Emile Hirsch plays Speed, and you’ll also enjoy Susan Sarandon as Mom Racer, John Goodman as Pops Racer, and Christina Ricci as Trixie, Speed’s girlfriend. She’s not a Racer. Yet.
Adobe Road Winery has a line called The Racing Series. Owner Kevin Buckler married his passion for racing to his love of the grape. The wines – Redline, Shift, The 24 and Apex – are California-grown and sell from $50 to $80.
Randy Fuller
NowAnd Zin Wine – www.nowandzin.com
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