Neo Noir
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 have three wine pairings for three somewhat recent entries into the film noir oeuvre. And all this time, I thought oeuvre was French for eggs. I guess they’ve been having a good laugh at my expense down at the Noir Diner.
Is The Last Stop in Yuma County a neo-noir or is it a neo-Western? We’re only accepting answers from neo-know-it-alls. The story centers on a traveling knife salesman, and that’s trouble any way you slice it. Don’t get me wrong, some of my best friends are traveling knife salesmen. I just wouldn’t want to be stuck in an Arizona desert diner with them.
If you’re looking for a movie with a happy ending, you’re in the wrong article. Yuma County is just what the title states: the last stop. It’s one of those films where everybody ends up on the wrong end of something, with only a gentle poke required to put them there. A knife won’t help you in a gun fight, and the gun falls way short in an explosion.
There is good wine coming out of Arizona, although from the upper elevations in the north, rather than the low desert south. Arizona Stronghold has a Tannat wine, which should serve darkly enough for a neo-noir.
http://www.nowandzin.com/2012/11/wine-country-arizona-arizona-stronghold.html
Body Heat is the 1981 film that served as the launching pad for Kathleen Turner’s career. Her performance as Matty Walker is the sizzle in Body Heat. I hear that Body Heat was inspired by Double Indemnity. Noir often calls for characters like Walter Neff or Ned Racine, guys who can’t resist the siren call of a woman they know to be trouble.
It was a hot summer there in Florida, but one ambulance chaser felt the need to turn up the heat a few degrees. William Hurt played the shyster who stepped right into Turner’s tangled web and took the fall. Critics either panned it or praised it, but Body Heat became an icon of the eighties anyway.
Tessier Winery has a $28 Femme Fatale rosé. Since Turner’s character was so good at stepping on people to get what she wanted, the Grenache and Pinot Noir grapes for the wine were foot-trampled as well.
https://www.primitiveselections.com/shop/p/tessier-femme-fatale
2011’s Drive stars Ryan Gosling as a Hollywood Jack-of-all-trades, one of those trades being a getaway driver for bad guys. When Gosling was a teenage Mouseketeer, more people probably pegged him as the future star of La La Land and Barbie, rather than as a moody criminal cohort. So much for typecasting. He plays dark really well. As an added bonus, Albert Brooks finally gets to play a guy who gets nobody’s sympathy.
The graphic violence in Drive put off a lot of people, some critics included. So much for the milquetoast set. There were enough people okay with bloodlust to allow the film to gross more than $80,000,000. Put that in your tailpipe and smoke it.
Drive Wines started as a hobby, in a garage in Sonoma County. The car was in the garage just for picking up more grapes, not for driving getaways. Their $38 Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel hails from the historic Olson Vineyard.