Tag: Rose Sangria

Dramas

Love & Basketball

LizLocke2 Comments
Image credit: Love & Basketball, 2000

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!

Musicals

Grease

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Image credit: Grease, 1978
Image credit: Grease, 1978

Olivia Newton-John in skin-tight pants. A thin (okay, pretty hot) John Travolta, before he lost his mind and started Adele Dazeem-gate. Frankie Avalon in a creepy heaven-as-beauty parlor dream sequence. This is the stuff that high school is made of.  This week’s back-to-school classic movie musical always made me feel better about having to return to classrooms and social cliques, after blissful summers spent watching Nickelodeon and reading alone in my room. Maybe, just maybe, I’d have a gym teacher as cool as Sid Caesar. Or by some miracle, no gym class at all! I was a big dreamer back then….

Grease (DVD/Download) is a wonderful film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical, starring John Travolta as greaser Danny Zuko, and Olivia Newton-John as his good-girl love interest Sandy. They meet at the beach over the summer, then inexplicably, amazingly, Sandy moves from Australia to Rydell High. She makes friends with the Pink Ladies on her first day of school (a pretty awesome girl clique led by Stockard Channing), and spends most of the movie alternatively pissed at Danny for being a typical high school guy, then in love with him as soon as he acts like a normal human being. I’m not a fan of the ending, when Sandy decides that the only way she can be happy is to slither into some tight nylon pants and tease her hair in an effort to be “bad” like Danny, but that’s a discussion for another time. All in all, Grease is a fun movie with catchy songs, charismatic actors, and a cavalcade of 50’s TV stars. Seriously, Eve Arden as the principal?? Joan Blondell as a waitress at the local teen hangout? My town was so boring in comparison.

For the past few months I’ve been drinking La Ferme Julien rosé wine from Trader Joe’s. It’s light, fruity, and perfect for the last of those hot summer days. And summer ni-highhhhhhts! At only $6 a bottle I definitely don’t hesitate to use it in a sangria, and what better occasion than this movie to invite your girlfriends over for a boozy slumber party, a la Frenchie’s house? While watching Grease, I recommend drinking Pink Lady Sangria.

Pink Lady Sangria

1 bottle rosé wine

¼ cup brandy

2 tablespoons sugar

1 ½ cups raspberries

1 ½ cups strawberries

1 sliced lemon

1 ½ cups club soda

Mix the wine, brandy and sugar together in a pitcher, then after the sugar dissolves, add the fruit. Refrigerate for at least an hour, then add the club soda just before serving. Twinkies optional.

pink lady sangria

Grease is an easy film to mock, due to the prevalence of 30 year old actors pretending to be 17, campy jokes, and John Travolta’s bizarre falsetto.  But there’s something undeniably appealing about young love and Stockard Channing’s boozy, bawdy Rizzo.  Plus- that Bee Gee’s intro- amazing!  Grease is the word. Cheers!