Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies, and many more, at Trailers From Hell. This week, it’s all about the movies. For me, it’s more about the wine pairings for our three feature pictures.
1991’s Popcorn is a horror movie starring “scream queen” Jill Schoelen. Seriously, she’s been in more slasher flicks than a knife. This one has a group of college students putting on a film festival. “Sure, gang, we can have it in the old movie theater where the crazy killer hangs out!” Purrfect, as the younger folks are fond of saying.
The films that are screened are Mosquito, The Attack of the Amazing Electrified Man, The Stench, and Possessor. Each movie has a crucial plot point associated with it. By the way, one of the pictures is shown in Shock-o-Scope and another in Odorama. I’ll let you guess which ones. Don’t forget about the prop from Mosquito. It comes back pointedly in the climax.
Pairing wine with popcorn, the food, is easy. Wine Enthusiast recommends sparkling wine if your snack is flavored with olive oil, ice wine if it’s caramel coated, and Pinot Noir if you get really fancy and use duck fat and mushroom powder. For good ol’ movie theater popcorn, though, there’s nothing like a buttery Chardonnay. My fave comes from Edna Valley Vineyard. Their Central Coast Chardonnay carries a ramekin of butter flavor and sells for $15.
https://www.ednavalleyvineyard.com/
Let me start this section by disclosing that Matinee, 1993, was directed by the Chief Guru at Trailers From Hell, Joe Dante. He is the guy who opens the emails containing my little articles each week, laughs his way through them, hopefully, and sends them off to be placed on the website. So, naturally, I think Matinee is the best movie ever made. Ask me about Citizen Kane and I’ll tell you, “Well, it’s no Matinee.”
Seriously, Matinee is a great movie, dripping with more movie-buff treats than Cheez Whiz on theater nachos. It has a permanent place on the “must watch” list for my wife and me. But as good as Matinee is, who among us didn’t want to see a full-length version of Mant!, the movie within the movie. As half-man half-ant movies go, it’s either Mant! or Ant-Man, and I’ll take Mant! all day long.
New York state’s Fulkerson Winery has a name-check wine for our film. Matinee is a white wine made from the Himrod grape. Yeah, it stumped me, too. Himrod is a hybrid cross of Ontario grapes with seedless Thompsons. It’s sweet and special, like Matinee, but it’s probably tough to find on the West Coast. $14.
Matinee
Day for Night is one of François Truffaut’s best films, and it’s generally considered one of the best movies ever. The 1973 rom-com not only has a great director behind the camera, it’s got Jacqueline Bisset in front of it. Any movie with Jacqueline Bisset in it has a lot going for it already.
It’s about the making of a movie, and all the melodrama that goes along with such a foolhardy endeavor. The title of Day for Night comes from the photographic stunts used to film a scene in daylight when it is supposed to look like night.
Even as a kid, I could tell when the night scenes in those old B movies had been shot in daylight. I didn’t know the tricks of photography that made that happen, but I knew it when I saw it. It was the hallmark of a low-budget film. It was also something I grew to love pointing out when I saw it, to the sorrow of everyone who ever went to the movies with me. “Shut up, know-it-all!”
I am so sorry to note that the Australian rosé called Day For Night is no longer available. They say it paired well with pickles! We’ll just change one little word and go for an Italian Pinot Noir called Day & Night. I know, words mean a lot. Maybe if you shoot this one in daylight, it looks like night. Stranger things have happened.
Randy Fuller
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