Film Pairing — Of Death And Freezers

I’m going out on a limb here.  One of the movies I’m recommending was blasted by the critics when it came out.  The other was hailed, but ended up in small, arty theaters for the most part.  I loved them both and will take the stings and errors of outlandish criticism in stride.

The first is Crazy in Alabama, a movie that nearly earned Melanie Griffith a Razzy.  It is about two parallel plots, each about injustice — a woman abused by her husband who resorts to murder, and Blacks not allowed to swim in a public pool in Industry, Alabama.  It was also noted that roadblocks were put up to prevent African Americans from voting as well in the 1960s.  Seems like so long ago.  Or, does it?

“Crazy” (1999) is an important word in the title.  There is a kind of sensibility that the viewer is going to have to buy into in order to enjoy the film.  Melanie Griffith’s over the top character runs around the country with the head of her dead husband in a hatbox (the body is in the freezer). And there is the matter of her life’s ambition as well, which is to appear on the TV show, Bewitched. This half of the film borders on outright goofy.  The other story is warm, moving, and somewhat more believable.  One of the reasons you might want to take in this unheralded movie is to watch a talented Lucas Black and a surprisingly talented Meat Loaf (as the bigoted sheriff) as well as witnessing Rod Stieger chewing up the scenery as the judge who brings the film to a satisfying but unlikely end.  Just remember this film is rated “S” for silly, not entirely a bad thing. Fannie Flagg and Robert Wagner have cameo appearances.  Antonio Banderas directed.

Bernie (2011) is based on a true story.  It is also silly.  When you switch from Crazy to Bernie, you will not move into a different reality.  What’s odd about this is that Bernie is true — or as true as these things can be.  It is based on a story in the Texas Monthly about a beloved mortician in the East Texas town of Carthage who kills his wealthy companion and stuffs her body in a freezer. The story was entitled “Midnight in the Garden of East Texas.”

Jack Black as Bernie

The true stars of Bernie are the town residents (not actors) who offer their views on the murderer and the murder in the spirit of such shows as 48 Hours and 20/20, only much better.  Jack Black is the gay chubby charmer who puts a spell over elderly women church goers and eventually charms an extremely prickly Shirley MacLaine, a wealthy and somewhat sadistic 81-year-old widow into an ill-fated relationship.  Bernie, who was drawn to the benefits of the high life her wealth offers, discovers that hadn’t really conned Shirley as much as he’d fallen into her trap.  There appears to be only one way out.

Matthew McConaughey plays it straight and low-key (he never takes off his shirt) as the law, allowing Black to pretty much steal the movie.  In my view, Bernie is not any less silly than Crazy, just because it’s true.  The similar tone of the movies make them a set.  Bernie is directed by Richard Linklater.  Incidentally, the film provides great insight into the various geographical and cultural aspects of the great state of Texas.

For my drink recommendation, let’s stay in the original South and have an Alabama Slammer — equal parts vodka, Southern Comfort, Amaretto, sloe gin and orange juice.  I think this will work for the Texas as well.  For those opposed to alcoholic drinks, remove the alcohol and you’ll have an Anita Bryant.

Observations — San Francisco Street Art, Lower Haight

Most of the world knows Haight Ashbury, or “The Haight,” as it is called here.  It’s several blocks starting roughly at Central and going out to Stanyan at the eastern edge of Golden Gate Park. This Haight Street is a magnet for tourists and residents alike with more than a little attention paid to its Hippie past.  There are head shops and Medical marijuana centers amidst the shoe shops and tee-shirt stores.  However, there is another Haight — Lower Haight.  It is the continuation of Haight street east of Divisadero and down to Market.  It too is interesting.  Unusual shops, a variety of restaurants and great residential neighborhoods. My favorite spot in this area inhabited by a few serious anarchists is a saloon called “Molotov’s Cocktails.”  Most tourists don’t know about Lower Haight, so it is a place for those who live in the neighborhood and other city locals aware of its charm.  Here is a sampling of some of its street art.

Observations — Street Art In Indianapolis

Artist Pamela Bliss recently painted a 38-foot-tall mural of legendary Indiana author Kurt Vonnegut as part of the 2012 Super Bowl XLVI public art project. It may be found on Massachusetts Avenue, a bustling street in the exciting Lockerbie neighborhood in downtown Indianapolis.

Dan Wakefield

This photo was included as part of a great story by former NUVO editor and Indianapolis Star writer Will Higgins about the return to Indianapolis of another great Hoosier-born writer, Dan Wakefield. Wakefield, who wrote the best sellers Going All The Way and Starting Over (both made into feature films), returned to Indianapolis to write a biography of his friend, Kurt Vonnegut.

Vonnegut, often compared to Mark Twain, is considered by many to be among the greatest American writers. His novels include Slaughter-House Five, Cat’s Cradle and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, among others.

As a writer and human, Vonnegut was often at odds with conventional wisdom.

He called out the year 1492 in his novel Breakfast of Champions.  “As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America. Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them.”

Photo courtesy Indianapolis Star, Frank Espich, photographer. Thanks to cousin Adam Newton for tipping me on the mural.

Film Pairing — I Wake Up Screaming And Quicksand, Puttin’ On The Noir

 “Putting on the Ritz” can be dangerous, even deadly.  What we have in this mid-century double feature are two dark, shadowy films with actors not normally cast in dark, shadowy films — Betty Grable and Mickey Rooney

 

I Wake Up Screaming (1941) picks up where Pygmalion ends. Promoter Victor Mature chooses to transform and promote a diner waitress (Carole Landis) as the next society/glamor girl in New York.  He succeeds so well she drops him like a hot lug wrench, waving goodbye on her way to Hollywood for a career in the big time.  The heartless beauty might have pulled it off if she hadn’t been murdered before the plane takes off.  Betty Grable plays the victim’s sister who believes, in spite of the evidence, that playboy promoter Mature didn’t do it.

Somehow, this turns out to be an interesting movie even though there seems to be some confusion about whether this is a light-hearted romantic comedy or a dark, scary murder story with an innocent man heading toward the electric chair.  And somehow this works despite a little too much mugging from Mature and an awkward attempt by Grable to deal with a serious role. Somehow the film overcame these obstacles.  Still, I wondered two things.  Why hadn’t I heard of Laird Cregar, who looked like he’d have quite a career in film, and why they called the film I Wake Up Screaming?  It turns out Cregar died at 31.  And I never figured out what relationship the title of the film had with the film itself. Maybe the title made more sense in the book, which was written by Steve Fisher, who, incidentally also wrote Lady in the Lake as well as others you might well have heard of.

In Quicksand (1950), Mickey Rooney tries to bridge the gaping abyss between being a successful child star to being successful adult actor.  Many don’t make it.  And it might have been harder for Rooney since he remained small and he kept his baby face throughout much of his life. At 92, he’s probably convincing now, but at 30, when this film was made, he still looked wet behind the ears. Even so, he does a great job as everyman, a mechanic who makes one little mistake. In films like these, one little mistake is all it takes.  Standard noir.  He’s stepped into quicksand.  And if you remember those “Ramar of the Jungle” episodes, you’ll know the more he struggles to get free, the worse it gets.  As the poster suggests, the mink coat is at the heart of it all.

We spend days and nights in the 1950s at Santa Monica Pier where penny arcade owner Peter Lorre helps to set up the once harmless, but increasingly desperate mechanic on his downward slide.  Lorre, while appropriately restrained, pulls off his sleazy role very well. And despite the hype of the movie posters this is a surprisingly believable film.  The end may not be entirely tragic, but it too seems to mirror real life more than Hollywood usually allows.

Now the question is: Are you able to switch from champagne to beer?  Certainly the high life of I Wake Up Screaming deserves some celebratory bubbles; but in Quicksand, Mickey and the boys at the bar do a shot with a beer back.

Opinion — On Writing, Reviewing, Promotion And Ethics

What prompted me to start thinking about ethics for authors is the intense attention paid to writers who write their own reviews anonymously, pay a firm to review them and even write negative reviews of those writers they perceive as competitors. Cliché alert:  Necessity is the mother of invention.  Once such companies as Amazon and Barnes & Noble become the central pipeline for the sale of books — and especially now with the swarms of e-books — how does one get noticed? Standard reviews from The New York Times, Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus and Booklist can’t possibly provide the nearly complete guidance they once did.  They simply don’t have the resources to read, measure and report on every book that comes out. And if what I understand is true about on-line booksellers — that is that the number of reader reviews and the number of stars books are given are the major arbiters of the amount of attention a book receives — there is the tempting motive for hanky panky.

We writers are desperate to get noticed, most of us, anyway.  The temptation to do whatever is necessary has to be great. If my mother were alive, she would be the first to say my latest book was a sensation and if she were also computer literate, she would do so on all the Internet book sites as well as fill in every star available.  She might even ask her friends to do the same.  This is what people do.  How unethical is that?  The truth is:  I don’t know.  But all the discussion has me thinking about it.

At election time, I have similar questions.  What I’m about to say is related to the subject at hand.  Obama, when he ran in 2008, said that marriage should be between a man and a woman.  After the election, he said that his position was “evolving.” As time moved on and the polls began to show support for gay rights, he repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and took some other positive steps for equal rights for LGBT people.  More time passed and the needle showing support for gay marriage went above 50 percent.  The President said he now supported gay marriage.  I do believe in evolution, but this one?  Because he is a sensible politician he waited until the time was right.   To be fair, the policy weathervane that Romney has embarked upon in his career should have caused him terminal whiplash.  But the point I’m making is that the discussion of ethics is, like most things, a matter of degree.  If Obama said what he thought in 2008, would he have won? Are we okay with that? That’s really the question.  In the end, marketing is selling.  What do we want and what will we settle for?

Another, perhaps slightly oblique example: I was reading every book a certain writer wrote.  Great stuff.  Really.  He took me to places I could not go myself.  His work was colorful, insightful, and he created a main character about whom I cared and with whom I wanted to identify. However, the character became more and more a vigilante.  He seemed to have lost his ethical center.  This is fiction, so this isn’t wrong in a universal sense, of course.  The writer might have been after a greater truth and used the development of the character to do so.  But he lost me.  Others have avoided the moral dilemma by creating a strictly principled main character who happens to have a psychopath as a good buddy. The psychopath can do all the bad stuff that needs to be done, keeping the main character as high-minded as I might want him or her to be.  Some sleight-of-hand ethics here.  Does that make it better? For some.

The reason I bring this up is that writing, like most professions, does have ethical issues to consider.  Plagiarism for example. That's an easy one. But writers steal plots and characters. Some abscond with another writer’s style. Shakespeare was a notorious thief. I use a P.I.  Would I have even known to create a P.I. character if there weren’t all those writers before me?  Is that theft?  The truth is we tolerate a certain level of questionable behavior.  How far does that extend?  And now that the marketing burden falls more heavily on writers, how do we handle that?

Writers have had to engage in self-promotion for decades, perhaps centuries. The demand to do so may be quite a bit greater now. With book promotion in the hands of the authors more than ever, the ethical issues can be treacherous.  We have the ability to stuff the Amazon or B&N ballot box with fake reviews.  Based on what I understand to be the algorithms of Internet booksellers, the number of reviews and average numbers of stars may put a certain book in a special, highly promoted category.  If that boosts sales, then it hits the bestseller lists, which in turn boosts sales still further.  If the stats are actually based on falsified data, then it’s all wrong. It is not only inaccurate, but has also misled readers while increasing the writers’ royalty checks.  It is fraud.

But only a few short years ago, when nearly all people picked up books from store shelves or display tables, we looked at the book jacket to guide us. There was almost always the publisher’s blurb that extolled the virtues of the writer and the book.  There were also blurbs from established writers, some of which seem suspect.  “John Doe is the greatest mystery writer since Poe,” says Bill Smith.  On Bill Smith’s next book, “John Doe says, “Move over Hammett and Chandler, Bill Smith just moved to the top of the list.” And what about the quotes we extract from Publisher’s Weekly or The New York Times?”

The Times said of my debut mystery, “The pragmatic investigator makes a good first impression.”  The Times said a few other things as well; however we focused on the positive.  We didn’t lie.  The quote is exact, if not complete. Careful extraction of quotes can turn a mildly positive review into a rave.  Dishonest? Possibly.  Where do we draw the line?  Whose judgment do we accept?

Certainly there is something wrong with buying reviews and pawning them off as genuine.  Or stuffing the ballot box with self-praise under various alias.  It’s even worse when we start demeaning the work of other writers, thinking it might boost our own status. It’s kind of sleazy.  I can’t imagine that this is effective, even in the short run. But I think we had to expect — though we don’t have to accept — this kind of opportunism in the current wild-west publishing environment.  It is a result of the disarray we experience as readers, writers, publishers and reviewers while we try to adjust to the monumental changes we are experiencing.

Meanwhile, everyone, not just Amazon or B&N, needs to find a way that some sense can be made of how books are marketed to potential readers, how we can fairly guide the reader through the overwhelming volume of books available to them.  How can we help get the right books to the readers who would enjoy them?

Opinion — Self Analysis, Self Promotion and Background for Death in the Haight

Most of the readers who know my work probably follow the Indianapolis-based Deets Shanahan series. It’s been around awhile and it’s been popular in the libraries. The newer series is set in San Francisco and features an eclectic group of investigators in an office South of Market Street. 

There are 10 Shanahans. The last six have been published by the UK’s Severn House, a quality publisher for many high-quality writers.  Severn House also introduced the first two in the Carly Paladino/Noah Lang San Francisco mysteries at a time when the publishing industry was in the first throes of horrendous disruption.  I say first throes because there appears to be continuing throes or, at least a bunch of after shocks of the e-book explosion.  So, not inappropriately considering San Francisco’s familiarity with quaking disruptions and eruptions as well as finding a way to survive them, the San Francisco series adapted to the changing environment. The series is still alive and delivering fresh stories.  But let’s start at the beginning.

The San Francisco Mysteries

Death in Pacific Heights — This double-barreled mystery wasn’t my first book outside the Shanahan series.  But it is the first of a second series.  I wanted to use my 20 years in San Francisco as a backdrop for some new stories and new characters. Private eyes Carly Paladino and Noah Lang meet for the first time and have to relate to each other’s very different approaches to the investigation business.  Carly is from a prestige security firm and Noah picked up his knowledge from life on the streets.  In this book there are two different murders, two different P.I.s, two different stories — yet somehow the two main characters must learn to get along.  This is a full-length novel that takes place in the wealthiest San Francisco neighborhoods.  It was published as a hardback to good reviews.  The trade paperback version sold out quickly.  Unfortunately, e-book versions aren’t available at this time. This first in the series was published by Severn House in 2009 and is currently available in hardback.

Death in North Beach — This was Carly’s and Noah’s second adventure.  It’s a little quirky.  My attempt at a light-hearted homage to the kind of ending that gathered all the suspects in the parlor was meant to be fun. While a number of reviewers liked the book, some found the end unsatisfying.  I was also chastised by a fellow panelist at a national mystery conference in front of hundreds of attendees because Carly slept with a gigolo. The public takedown wasn’t as good as being banned in Boston, but it was interesting just the same. The panel discussion was about the place of women protagonists in mysteries.  Are there different standards for male detectives and women detectives? How tough can a woman P.I. be?  How many womanizing heroes are there in the P.I. genre?  How many “manizing” women?  Much like all the books in the series, there is a strong sense of place. In this case, the legendary North Beach is a prominent character. Readers who only know the standard tourist spots in the City by the Bay will learn a little more about this exciting world destination. Death in North Beach was published by Severn House in 2010 and is available in hardback, paperback and ebook.

Mascara, Death in the Tenderloin — This was actually the first book I’d written featuring Noah Lang.  Because it was released later, it acts as a prequel.  Tenderloin goes back a few years. This is Noah’s story. It’s also about how he met his good friend Thanh and made an enemy of a tough San Francisco homicide inspector.  Long out of work, the P.I. gets two cases at the same time, both life threatening. The setting is one of the toughest neighborhoods in San Francisco, but moves throughout the city. Because few publishing houses wanted mysteries in novella-length forms at the time and because I had always wanted to be a publisher I took advantage of the new, relatively inexpensive technology and my background in communications to publish it myself.  I formed a small publishing company, worked with talented designers and used this as the first book of five, so far, from Life Death & Fog Books. Death in the Tenderloin was published late last year.  It is available in trade paperback at $13.99 and in ebook formats at $3.99.  Even though this book came out third, if I were choosing a first book to sink my teeth into, this would be the one.

Death in the Haight — The edge can be taken off the thrill of self-publishing when one discovers that marketing your own work is a challenge.  There are many benefits of having a publisher where there is a full staff of talented people to support your efforts. Because my brush with the mystery novella was exhilarating even if I had to do it myself, I was thrilled to learn that the novella was born again among traditional publishers. They see the need to be flexible and some of the old firms are indeed limbering up.  Penguin Group announced they were reviving Dutton’s Guilt Edged Mysteries — a fine, vintage label from the ‘40s and ‘50s — and that they were looking for short stories and novellas in particular. I sent them Death in the Haight and they wanted it as the third book under their new imprint.  This is also a Noah Lang mystery. I hope to follow up with a novella focusing on Carly next time around. Meanwhile, Death in the Haight has just been released (2012) in all ebook formats at $2.99. 

If you like San Francisco and private-eye novels, take a look at one of these.  Start small, if you like.  Small is good.

Film Pairings — Suddenly An Albino Alligator or the Hostage Days of Summer

One of the reasons I like baseball is that it reminds me of summers in my childhood — hot, sunny days, lemonade, the sound of propeller airplanes in the sky and the sound of the wood-framed screen door slamming shut.  Fewer clothes and the world moving more slowly.  I also associate summer with baseball, a kind of slow, almost lazy sport.

Today, I watch the Giants whenever the game is on TV.  I look forward to it.  Maybe some fried chicken, baked beans and potato salad.  I also look forward to not having that intense commitment to the game as one might to basketball or football as it unfolds.  Baseball on radio was actually pretty good. Most of the time, I can look at a magazine, talk on the phone, or jot some notes down on a book I’m working on — all while the game goes on.  You can’t do that with other sports.

Sometimes I’m in the mood for movies like that.  Most of the time I’m looking for a film to take me completely away or draw me completely in.  I’ve written about them before here. A good, not quite spine-tingling, not obsessively engrossing story with competent writing and performances can, in the right mood, be desirable.  And here are two of them.

Both are hostage dramas.  Both have good casts.  Both should have been in black and white.  Only one of them was.

Frank Sinatra plays a tough, little hood in Suddenly (1954). Three thugs descend on a home inhabited by “decent folks,” in order to use the house’s strategic location to assassinate the President of the United States.  The film got and is still given pretty good reviews, though I suspect many younger viewers will see it not only as dated (and not stylishly so like The Maltese Falcon or Casablanca), but also stilted. It is considered by many to be in the “noir” tradition. I don’t think so. It is, in the end, hopeful and upholds the values promoted in the 1950s.  Sterling Hayden is the good-guy, male role-model sheriff.  One suspects J. Edgar Hoover approved.

Matt Dillon in Albino Alligator

Oddly enough, Suddenly was one of the first films to be colorized (I saw and recommend the b&w version).  Albino Alligator (1997), the other film on the double bill with hostages, should have been in black and white.  It is far more “noir” than Suddenly.  And the title, if not the story, should have motivated director Kevin Spacey to go retro in black and white.  As in most decent hostage films, the drama is about the interaction of those held in close quarters under stressful circumstances.  Reviewers have not been kind to this film with Faye Dunaway singled out for particularly bad acting. Certainly, there was nothing subtle about her performance. Others also saw it wasteful of the talents of Matt Dillon, Gary Sinise, Viggo Mortenson, Joe Mantegna and Skeet Ulrich.  I liked it.  I tend to like anything set in New Orleans, but it really didn’t matter in this case.  We spend all our time in a dark cellar bar, where we witness the appropriate disintegration of humanity and a genuine noir-style ending.

It’s definitely a beer night.  Any beer.  And if you get bored, switch over to a baseball game.

Observations — San Francisco Street Art, Murals On Balmy Alley

I would bet a good sum of money that there are more murals in San Francisco’s Mission area than any other.  Perhaps the most famous alley for murals is just off Valencia in Clarion Alley.  However, there are other spots farther into the Mission neighborhood with some highly creative work, including Balmy alley off 24th.  Here are four of them:

Book Notes — Long Jumping Genres, Chiaki’s Death Sentences

Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther has been accused of encouraging suicides, so forceful a piece of literature it was.  But that is nothing compared to Kawamata Chiaki’s fictional poet who writes “The Gold of Time,” poetry so powerful that whoever reads them dies.  Or, do they?

Death Sentences is a fascinating experiment.  And I write this with the caveat that I am not academically or historically up to the challenge. I can only comment on the challenge.  The ideal reader should probably be familiar with not only the history of noir and of science fiction, but also have more than a passing knowledge of surrealism.  I am a lightweight in all three departments.  However, I am curious.  And that characteristic is what kept me going, even when I should have noticed, I’m told, the subtle references to Philip K. Dick, William Gibson and others.

We begin the story in relatively contemporary Japan with sleazy, corrupt cops and ugly sex in a cheap hotel.  Noir most tawdry.  Next, we find ourselves in Paris with the art and philosophy of the surrealists dominating the narrative in a much earlier time. Eventually, after some time behind the scenes in the world of Japanese publishing, the reader arrives on a primitively populated Mars in 2031. Earth people, apparently, were in a hurry to get off their planet. Inhabiting an inhospitable Mars in 19 years will be preferable to staying here. And it is on Mars that the truth unfolds.  Or does it?

When I read a book like this, one that doesn’t fully engage my attention, but won’t quite let me go either, I suspect it is my deficiency that keeps it from being compelling. I remained, it seemed, always on the verge of enlightenment.  Maybe that was the point.  However, when I read the comments of others on the Internet and on the book jacket, all more learned than I am in such matters, I tend to think that reading it, I repeat, might be very worthwhile for those who have serious academic interests in noir, surrealism and science fiction. I would love to hear other comments on the book, perhaps from those more grounded in the various disciplines.

Chiaki is also highly respected in Japan and is often compared to or contrasted with Haruki Murakami, an author whose work I almost always enjoy.

Death Sentences was published in Japan earlier, but is making its English translation debut in the U.S. now. Next book up for me is Red Harvest. I need to get back to the basics.

Film Pairing — Cate’s Characters Dump Dependence To Accomplish Mission

Charlotte Gray

In Hollywood, many of our protagonists seem to be born strong, noble and fearless.  These two films, which feature Cate Blanchett as tough protagonists, are not related to the kind of heroines we see in Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with Dragon Tattoo or La Femme Nikita, people we meet whose characters are formed.  Not to disparage these great fictional creations, the two women Blanchett plays in Charlotte Gray and Heaven, become tough characters because they have to and they do so gradually, as we watch.

In Charlotte Gray (2001) we are taken to Vichy during the Second World War. Gray, played by Blanchett, becomes a spy for the English to assist the French Resistance not just for the cause, but to find her husband, a downed or perhaps dead, British pilot.  It’s a tougher game than she bargained for.  War itself is hell, of course, made worse by not knowing who you can trust.  Deceit and betrayal mix with politics and the absolute horror that the Nazis brought to most of Europe.  It is beautifully filmed, romantically so, but is not for those seeking only action and adventure. It is a film intended to arouse other emotions. Billy Crudup is magnetic as the Communist who knows that he is welcomed by the resistance only because they have a common enemy.  And Michael Gambon is masterful as Crudup’s war weary father and reluctant hero.

Melancholy dominates both films.  Heaven (2002), which takes place in Turin, Italy, is also incredibly well acted. Blanchett and her co-star Giovanni Ribisi are dazzling.  And the cinematography is even better than Gray, no easy achievement.  However, while there is no question about the rightness of Charlotte Gray’s actions, there are serious questions about Blanchett’s character, Phillipa.  She intends to kill a drug pusher responsible for the death of her husband and for the addictions and deaths of school children.  But, through a series of unintended and unpredictable events, the bomb she uses to kill the evil man kills four innocent people instead, two of them children. She expected the arrest for the killing of the drug lord, but she is devastated to find out whom she had unwittingly murdered.  What follows is as much poetic as it is dramatic and suspenseful.  Ribisi, who has a strange, yet enchanting, and clearly angelic presence, is a policeman who, during her interrogation, falls in love with her.

Neither film relies on the action to carry it, though certainly there is some. After watching the Bourne Legacy earlier in the day, these films almost come across as still photography; but they are well worth a quiet evening. If you are a couple, one of whom likes war and crime films and the other romantic stories, this may be the double feature you can enjoy together.  And you may feel comfortable in choosing either an Italian or French wine or both.