A Matter of Life and Death

January 6, 2025January 7, 2025 LizLocke2 Comments

Following a brief hiatus over the holidays, Cinema Sips is back today with the question: what even is time? After a lackluster couple of weeks (honestly, more like fifty-two weeks) spent spinning my wheels, I’m starting to wonder if, like the main character in this week’s pick A Matter of Life and Death (Disc), I too have been visited by Conductor 71. Did the rest of the world stop in time, or did I?

If you’re shaking your head in confusion, then pause what you’re doing right now and go watch this Powell and Pressburger classic. The film features David Niven as a doomed British WWII bomber pilot who escapes a trip to the afterlife thanks to an accounting error from the great beyond and a thick English fog, plus Kim Hunter as the American radio operator who falls for him right before he bails from a burning plane without a parachute. Unfortunately, the higher ups realize their mistake and send an eighteenth century Frenchman to collect him from Earth, but Niv argues that it’s too late: he and the American girl are in love, and it’s not fair to punish her for their mistake. A trial is arranged in which he must argue the case that it’s possible for an American and an Englishman to fall in love at first sight, and while he takes a trip up the heavenly escalator to choose his defense attorney (options: Lincoln, Plato, and presumably Jesus), his mortal body is fighting a mysterious brain disorder. The film tackles a lot of big ideas, such as belief in the afterlife, immigration, xenophobia, and justice, but the biggest idea of all is that love conquers all; even death.

What makes this movie such a fantasy, even beyond its plot and themes, is the amazing Technicolor cinematography by Jack Cardiff. Switching between color for the Earthly scenes and black & white for the Other World, the result is a stunning display of visual achievement (in large thanks to the fantastic restoration efforts this film has benefited from over the years). Naturally, I took my cocktail cues from the vivid colors of Earth, as well as the frequent motif of a rose, which captures the tear of a woman terrified to lose the man she loves. While watching A Matter of Life and Death, I recommend drinking this Conductor 71 cocktail.

Conductor 71

1 1/2 oz Empress 1908 Gin

3/4 oz Cardamom Simple Syrup

3/4 oz Lemon Juice

7-8 drops Rosewater

3 oz Club Soda

Dried rose petals (garnish)

Combine gin, cardamom syrup, lemon juice, and rosewater in a shaker with ice. Shake to chill, then strain into a glass filled with fresh ice. Top with club soda, and stir gently to combine. Sprinkle dried rose petals on the top.

This film may have started as a simple request from the British government to smooth over post-war relations between America and the UK, but I don’t think anyone could have predicted how profound and enduring it would turn out to be. It leaves me feeling as though I just spent a couple glorious hours in suspended animation, and now it’s time to wake up and move forward. I can’t think of a better film to watch at the start of a new year. Cheers!

Dramas

Love & Basketball

February 12, 2024February 10, 2024 LizLocke2 Comments

When I watch a movie with ‘love’ in the title, I always hope it’s going to trigger the same kind of feeling I get from reading romance novels. When a story works, every part of me is rooting for these characters I know intimately, even though we only just met. I think about them the next day, and I wonder if they’re still off living their happily-ever-after’s. Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Love & Basketball (Disc/Download) has all the hallmarks of my favorite sports romance novels, but it’s a story that truly comes alive on the screen. If you’re looking for a great Valentine’s Day pick, make some time for Monica and Quincy this year.

Starring Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps as neighbors, friends, lovers, exes, and potentially lovers again, Love & Basketball gets its title from the movie’s signature quote, “All’s fair in love and basketball.” Both characters dream of becoming star athletes, but along the way their slow-burn romance starts to heat up. The audience knows they’re better when they’re together (on the court and off), but of course there would be no movie if the characters knew it too. We follow them from childhood into adulthood, and it’s a romantic journey that feels honest. Neither of these characters is perfect on their own, but the great thing about romance is that it has the power to turn people into the best versions of themselves. Monica and Quincy challenge each other, and that’s why you know they’re meant to be together. They are soulmates who can survive anything—injury, infidelity, distance… even cringe-worthy nineties fashions.

Post-college, Monica lands a spot on an international women’s basketball team based in Barcelona. While Quincy is never far from her thoughts, I imagine she was able to enjoy some of the perks of her foreign city, namely sangria! I’ve never done a rosé sangria on the blog before, so now seems like a great time. While watching Love & Basketball, I recommend drinking a Sparkling Rosé Sangria.

Sparkling Rosé Sangria

½ bottle dry Rosé Wine

½ bottle dry Sparkling Rosé Wine

1 ½ oz Brandy

½ oz Cointreau

Fresh Raspberries

4-5 slices Blood Orange

4-5 slices Cara Cara Orange

Combine Rosé, Brandy, Cointreau, raspberries, and orange slices in a small pitcher. Chill for two hours in the refrigerator. Top with Sparkling Rosé, then pour into ice-filled glasses.

If you enjoy Love & Basketball as much as I do, then I’d highly recommend the Hoops book series by Kennedy Ryan. It’s sad to me that more love stories like this never make it onto the big screen, so I’m even more grateful this one did. And thanks to the tireless preservation and curation work of The Criterion, we can keep watching Monica and Quincy find their way back to each other again and again. Cheers!

Dramas

Before Sunrise

February 27, 2023February 25, 2023 LizLockeLeave a comment

I have to apologize. There’s just no excuse for the bizarre oversight of excluding Before Sunrise (Disc/Download) from this blog for so many years. Sure, I’ve mentioned the trilogy as a whole. I’ve written about it in my favorite film zine Moviejawn. I’ve recorded a podcast episode about it (releasing in a few days from the folks who brought you Dazed and Confused 33 1/3!). I even wrote a novel inspired by the concept of two lovers meeting in a faraway place, never knowing how or when they’ll see each other again (Follow the Sun, coming out June 6^th 2023 from Random House Canada). In short, I love this movie. I’m obsessed with this movie. And finally, at long last, I’m ready to talk about it over a cocktail!

In looking at the Before trilogy as a whole, my current favorite film out of the three is Before Sunset. I say “current” because I believe these films grow and change as their viewers do. That’s what’s so magical about them. Now that I’m smack dab in the middle of my life’s journey, some triumphs and setbacks under my belt, but still a vast unknown up ahead, it feels comforting to watch a film about a writer who’s still trying to make sense of the past while figuring out how he wants to move forward into the future. Boy, do I get that. But back when I was seventeen, watching Before Sunrise for the first time, there was no “past” to reckon with; there was only anticipation. It was all in front of me: love, career, passion, a home. Watching Jesse (Ethan Hawke) meet Céline (Julie Delpy) on a train to Vienna felt like the answer to life’s great puzzle. Connection was the root of happiness, even more so than love. We connect with cities and occupations just as we do with people. I connected with this movie because it conveyed so much of what I was feeling at the time, and I connect with it still because of the memories of what those “firsts” felt like. The first time you felt a mutual attraction. The first time you kissed someone new. The first time you understood how big a role fate and timing play in our lives. The first time you truly didn’t want the sun to rise after one perfect night. Maybe I’ll never have some of those “firsts” again, but this movie reminds me that I did, once. And I’ll have other ones, in time.

If you’re going to spend all night walking around a foreign city, talking about philosophical theories and encountering a random collection of poets, palm readers, and players (I still want to know how things ended up for Wilmington’s cow!), then you’re going to need some caffeine. While watching Before Sunrise, I recommend drinking the popular Viennese sipper, the Café Maria Theresia.

Café Maria Theresia

1 Tbsp. Sugar

3 Tbsp. Cointreau

8 oz Fresh-brewed Coffee

Whipped cream

Orange Zest

Combine sugar and Cointreau in a cup, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Add coffee and stir gently to combine. Top with whipped cream and orange zest.

If you’d asked me prior to 2004 whether Jesse and Céline really met up again in Vienna six months after they said goodbye, I would have said yes. Unequivocally, yes. You see, I believe in happily ever after’s, and I don’t want to live in a world where these two people can’t make it work. We may have come to the end of their onscreen journey with Before Midnight (unless Linklater decides to pull another rabbit out of his hat), but my views on this couple are unchanged. They may find themselves separated over and over again by fate and circumstance, but in my mind they will always make their way back to each other.

On that note, I’d like to give a quick plug once again for Follow the Sun because if you like the anticipation and romance of Before Sunrise, you’ll probably enjoy these elements in my book. To read an early copy, be sure and sign up to receive the Cinema Sips weekly posts via email before March 1^st 2023 (you’ll find the sign-up field on the right-hand side of the screen on the Cinemasips.com desktop site, and if you’re a mobile user, scroll up/down until the “Follow” button appears at the bottom). My publisher has graciously agreed to send NetGalley links for an advance copy of the e-book to my loyal followers since so many of you have told me how excited you are to read it. Of course, if you’d rather wait and throw the final print version in your beach bag this summer, pre-orders are always an option, and deeply appreciated!! Cheers, and thanks to all my current and future readers for getting off the train with me 😊.

Dramas · Foreign

In the Mood for Love

March 22, 2021March 20, 2021 LizLockeLeave a comment

Get ready to have your goddamn heart ripped out this week with Wong Kar-wai’s timeless masterpiece In the Mood for Love (Disc/Download). I’m sorry to do this to you, but it can’t be helped. I can’t NOT talk about one of the greatest romances in cinema history—even when I know it’s going to hurt all over again.

I first saw this film in 2000 when it came to my town’s tiny little art house theater, and I remember being overwhelmed by its style and emotional punch. Because the story takes place in 1960s Hong Kong, viewers are treated to colorful mod wallpapers and gorgeous mandarin-collar dresses worn by lead star Maggie Cheung (and believe me, this woman has a lot of beautiful dresses). In the Mood for Love is so undeniably sexy, with its sultry Latin Nat King Cole tracks, dark alleyways, and longing looks shared between the film’s protagonists, that by the end you feel like you need the lipstick-covered cigarette left behind in Chow’s apartment. It’s an impossible romance between two married neighbors whose spouses are sleeping with one another, and for the briefest of seconds you start to believe that a happy ending is possible for these star-crossed lovers. Surely, the perfect soul mate doesn’t just slip right on by, like a noodle off a chopstick. Surely fate isn’t that cruel.

Although this is by no means a cocktail-heavy film, that doesn’t mean we can’t draw inspiration from some of the amazing dishes prepared and consumed onscreen. Food becomes a conduit for the love between the two characters, and we see it clearly when Mrs. Chan makes Chow sesame syrup while he’s fighting a cold. You might not think sesame could be used in a cocktail, but I’m open to experimentation this week. While watching In the Mood for Love, I recommend drinking a Sesame Highball.

Sesame Highball

3 slices cucumber, plus a cucumber ribbon for garnish

¾ oz lemon juice

¼ tsp. toasted sesame oil

Pinch of kosher salt

2 oz Vodka

1 oz Simple Syrup

3 oz Club Soda

Line a highball glass with cucumber ribbon, fill with ice, then set aside. Muddle cucumber slices in the bottom of a shaker with lemon juice, sesame oil, and salt. Add vodka, simple syrup, and ice. Shake until chilled, then double strain into prepared highball glass. Top with club soda and stir gently to combine.

In the Mood for Love is a movie about destiny, love, missed connections, and secrets, with not a single inch of wasted celluloid. Told in a very precise manner, the brisk story pacing forces the viewer to search for a place to rest—often finding it in the brush of a sleeve against a hip, the cloudy exhalation of smoke, or the reflection of a street light on wet pavement. If it sounds dreamy and otherworldly, it is—because that’s what falling in love feels like. Cheers!

Action/Adventure/Heist · Dramas

Out of Sight

October 1, 2018October 1, 2018 LizLockeLeave a comment

I tend to spend a lot of time explaining the romance genre to people. The books I read (and attempt to write) usually feature intelligent, capable heroines who find love in unexpected places, and never compromise their own integrity for a roll in the hay. Elmore Leonard and Steven Soderbergh tackled romantic suspense with this week’s film Out of Sight (DVD/Download). And the weird thing is, they got it SO RIGHT.

I’m going to warn all you ladies who are still mourning the loss of bachelor George Clooney- he is at absolute peak sexiness in this film. As Jack Foley, the bank robber with a heart of gold, he’s charming, a little dangerous, and oh so chivalrous. When he meets-cute with Jennifer Lopez’s federal marshal Karen Sisco, sparks fly along with bullets. They’re trapped in the trunk of a car together, and instead of copping a feel, he banters with her about old movies. Be still my heart! Karen follows him from Miami to Detroit, Jack gets caught up in a burglary gone bad, and even when things get dark (as they always do in an Elmore Leonard novel), Lopez and Clooney still share a crackling chemistry.

One of my favorite scenes is when these two star-crossed lovers pretend to be strangers in a bar, just for one night. With the snow falling outside, they’ve got bourbon and a steamy attraction to keep them warm. Let’s keep this cocktail simple with just a dash of ginger liqueur.

Bourbon & Ginger

2 oz Bourbon

.75 oz Ginger Liqueur

Combine bourbon and ginger liqueur over a large ice cube. Stir to chill.

Out of Sight is smart, sexy, and everything I love about romance. As Jack says, you’d be surprised what you can get when you ask for it the right way. Hollywood- I’d like more films where love is inconvenient, yet unavoidable. I want an intelligent script, and I want the heroine to be a total badass. And if it’s not too much to ask, I would like more Don Cheadle. Is that clear enough? Cheers!

Comedies

Shakespeare in Love

February 12, 2018August 12, 2022 LizLockeLeave a comment

This Valentine’s Day, I know just what I’m in the mood for- love, and a bit with a dog. Throw in some sumptuous Elizabethan-era costumes, one of the most genius scripts of all time, a saucy Judi Dench, and what have you got? This week’s Ultimate Romance film Shakespeare in Love (DVD/Download).

Before GOOP, before vagina steaming, Gwyneth Paltrow was Viola de Lessups, beautiful muse to Will Shakespeare and feminist icon to every girl who ever dreamed of doing a “man’s job”. I wanted to hate her, she of the porcelain skin and perfect hair that doesn’t even need a comb in the morning. Except, damn it- she’s just radiant in this film. Her chemistry with Ralph Fiennes is amazing, and her joy at playing this character is completely contagious. Plus there’s that script, which takes all the brilliance of Shakespeare’s plays, adds some subtle, witty nods to Elizabethan history, and sparkles with one double entendre after another.

I love a good “putting on a show” plot, so naturally I’m enamored with The Rose theatre’s production of Romeo and Juliet née Mercutio née Romeo and Ethel- The Pirate’s Daughter. This film does a fantastic job of showing the humorous side of Shakespearean theatre, and therefore it deserves a light, rose-inspired cocktail to put you in the mood for romance. While watching Shakespeare in Love, I recommend drinking a Rose by Any Other Name.

Rose by Any Other Name

2 oz gin

2 oz Elderflower Liqueur

1 ½ oz lime juice

½ oz simple syrup

½ tsp Rosewater

Fresh rose petals

Combine liquid ingredients over ice, shaking well to combine and thoroughly chill. Strain mixture into a glass, and garnish with rose petals.

Rose by Any Other Name

Can a play (or a film) show the us the very truth and nature of love? I certainly believe it can, and this film does it perfectly. By the final scene, I’m a true believer in the idea that it will all come out right in the end. How? It’s a mystery. Cheers!

Dramas

The Bodyguard

January 8, 2018August 12, 2022 LizLockeLeave a comment

With awards season ramping up, I can’t help but feel a little “can’t care” about the whole dog-and-pony show. Viewership of the Oscar telecast has steadily declined over the years, likely due to its Groundhog Day-level of sameness. If only award shows could be as exciting as they are in the movies. If only they could be like The Bodyguard (DVD/Download).

If you’re a fan of film noir, you might be disappointed with this loose contribution to the genre. If you’re a fan of romance (like I am), prepare to be thoroughly entertained. Although Whitney Houston’s mega-pop star has limited chemistry with her strong, silent bodyguard played by Kevin Costner, that doesn’t stop me from cheering when he picks her up in his arms, rescuing her from wild, handsy fans. Or when he jumps in front of her, literally taking a bullet at the Academy Awards as Debbie Reynolds probably swoons from all the excitement backstage. Or during that ending, which is without a doubt one of the best Hollywood endings a viewer could ask for. Take all the frustration you’ve ever felt when Audrey Hepburn lets Gregory Peck walk away in Roman Holiday, wrap it up, and toss it out in favor of the plane-side kiss between Houston and Costner. THAT’S how you do romance.

Because Costner’s Frank Farmer is almost always on duty, he never gets to let his guard down and have a drink. The man imbibes so much plain orange juice, he’s single-handedly keeping the Florida citrus industry in business. This makes me want to drink a cocktail, if only because he can’t. While watching The Bodyguard, I recommend drinking a Screwdriver. Strong and uncomplicated- kind of like Frank.

Screwdriver

1.5 oz Vodka

3 oz Orange Juice

2-3 dashes Grapefruit bitters

Orange Twist

Screwdriver

Build drink over crushed ice, stirring gently to combine. Garnish with an orange twist.

I’ve never been one for remakes, but I’m just going to throw this out there: Beyonce + Solange + Kevin Costner (yes, the age-defying Costner should ALWAYS play The Bodyguard). Let’s make this happen. After all, isn’t it time for a new Queen of the Night? No offense, Whitney- I will always love you. Cheers!

Dramas

Return to the Blue Lagoon

May 8, 2017May 7, 2017 LizLockeLeave a comment

Remember when movie studios used to wait over 10 years to make a movie’s sequel, rather than 10 months? Maybe they thought audiences forgot about the original by that point, clearing the way for a nearly identical plot structure. How else to explain Return to the Blue Lagoon (DVD/Download), technically a sequel to the Brooke Shields/Christopher Atkins romance classic, but in my mind more of a reboot. Do I care that they’re basically the same movie? Of course not!

I actually saw Return to the Blue Lagoon years before The Blue Lagoon, and I gotta say- I prefer the sequel! Mainly because I never found Christopher Atkins remotely attractive with his labradoodle perm, but also because these new kids seem to have a better handle on thatched hut engineering. Milla Jovovich is abysmal in Return, but hey, what do you expect when her biggest task is to hide her nipples behind her long hair and feathery jewelry? And Brian Krause looks like a blonde Taylor Kitsch in minimal clothing, so that’s just all kinds of irresistible.

Although these teens didn’t need alcohol to loosen their inhibitions and relax (being naked all the time tends to do that anyway), I still prefer watching this with a tropical tiki drink. While viewing Return to the Blue Lagoon, I recommend drinking a Blue Beachcomber.

Blue Beachcomber

2 oz light rum

1 oz blue curaçao

1 oz lime juice

.5 oz maraschino liqueur

.5 oz simple syrup

Shake all ingredients together in a cocktail shaker with ice, then strain into a rocks glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish with an umbrella.

Blue Beachcomber

For anybody who fears that this is just a romance novel in cinema form, let me re-assure you- it’s actually Jaws with better looking actors. There are some serious close calls with a hungry shark, and this one actually looks like a real predator (as opposed to Spielberg’s mechanical version). But I admit, there’s also a lot of butt and side boob action. Have I convinced you to yet to give this one a chance?? Cheers!

	We’re No Angel… on Donovan’s Reef
	Concluding thoughts… on Ocean’s 11 (1960)
	The Blue Gardenia… on The Goonies