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Left on the Cutting Room Floor
When the list of "Top 10 Wine Movies" was compiled, a few flicks were left on the cutting room floor. The runners-up:
"An Affair to Remember" (1957):
Deborah Kerr agrees to meet Cary Grant atop the Empire State Building for pink Champagne, but she doesn't show up in this very dated melodrama.
"Blood and Wine" (1996):
Jack Nicholson plays a Miami wine shop owner in this tepid, unsatisfying mystery.
"Disclosure" (1994):
Demi Moore sexually harasses Michael Douglas, partly by special-ordering a 1991 Pahlmeyer Chardonnay, a key plot point. The film made Pahlmeyer famous yet is more sensationalistic than fun.
 "Dracula" (1931):
Dracula to Renfield: "This is very old wine. I hope you like it."
Renfield: "Aren't you drinking?"
Dracula: "I never drink ... wine."
"The Godfather" (1972):
As in director Francis Ford Coppola's youth, wine is always on the family dinner table. But the Corleones are not connoisseurs like the Sopranos; it's just there. Still a great movie.
"Mondovino" (2004):
This plodding, anti-American wine documentary excited French audiences and angered some interview subjects who felt misled. If you're not a total wine geek, it's long and boring.
"The Parent Trap" (1998):
Lindsay Lohan makes her film debut as twins separated just after birth; one was raised in London and the other at Napa's Staglin Family Vineyards (under an assumed name). The Napa-raised twin takes a deep whiff of her English grandfather on their first meeting and says she will always remember he smells of peppermint and pipe tobacco. Sadly, many wine parts aren't accurate -- for example, Lohan's dad says that rain in 1921 in Burgundy made for a great vintage, confounding viticultural wisdom. Otherwise, this charming kids' flick might make the Top 10.
"Seconds" (1966):
A disturbing version of the Fountain of Youth tale in which an aging banker is surgically transformed into dashing Rock Hudson, but doesn't adjust well to his new life. A wine-drenched Feast of Bacchus in Santa Barbara, with naked people ecstatically crushing grapes, teaches him to have fun, but also leads to unpleasant consequences.
 "Sex, Lies and Videotape" (1989):
When James Spader tells Andie MacDowell he's impotent, she makes this, um, motion on her wineglass with her hands that we won't describe here.
"Star Trek: Nemesis" (2002):
Capt. Picard toasts a departed friend with his family's Chateau Picard wine in the last voyage for the Next Generation crew. And we learn Romulan ale gives even Klingons a hangover.
"They Knew What They Wanted" (1940):
A must-see for Napa Valley historians. Unattractive Italian vineyard owner Charles Laughton uses Anglo farmhand William Gargan to entice waitress Carole Lombard to Napa to marry him. It's an invaluable film record of Italian-American wine culture, and also has great exteriors. Another one just below the Top 10; the seriously dated "happy ending" is just too bizarre today.
"The Unholy Wife" (1957):
Diana Dors, Britain's Marilyn Monroe, stars as a gold digger who marries wealthy vintner Rod Steiger and plots murder. This interesting, accurate portrayal of a winemaking battle between Napa Valley quality and Central Valley quantity is undone by a preachy, slow-moving plot.
"A Walk in the Clouds" (1995):
Beautiful Napa Valley exteriors in a silly romance starring Keanu Reeves. Inferior to the similar "They Knew What They Wanted," with an even more ridiculous ending.
"Year of the Comet" (1992):
If the TV show "24" was a romantic comedy about wine, it would be this crazy chase film with torture, helicopter crashes and private armies of henchmen. The plot revolves around a bottle of 1811 Chateau Lafite Rothschild. Pretty silly movie but improves as it goes along, or maybe that was just the wine I was drinking with it.
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