Bottle Shock morphs into Top Gear via Citroen

Just what my August Dog Days lethargy needed, Cynthia and I caught a showing of the new Alan Rickman film, Bottle Shock, about the 1976 Paris blind wine tasting where the Californians whooped the asses of the French and set in motion the changes that have led to the current success of wine producing regions from all over the world.  I didn't realize that Cynthia actually grew up in Fresno and had a much more personal connection to the story than I did.  Her review is brilliant and very informative.  I'm going to talk about other things.

Cars.  The Citroen DS.  The film was full of them!  Wonderful vintage* "Clam" Cars!  Or so we called them in my circle of friends.  I hung out with the 'faculty brat' crowd despite my family's very blue collar background.  All of my best pals were the kids of U of O professors or administrative staff and had spent years of their lives - on sabbatical -  in exotic places like Paris and London and knew about these foreign things.  Beckie's dad drove (and may still drive - he was religious about oil changes and maintenance) a toothpaste-bluegreen 1967 Peugeot station wagon.   That and there were a couple Citroen DSs on the road in Eugene Oregon in the 1970s.  We thought they were the epitome of cool even though none of us had driven or even sat in one.   Many years later when I finally made it to Paris myself, I got the hairy eyeball from a French businessman who thought I was inspecting his parked beautiful bronze-brown metallic coated DS just a little too closely. 

Captain Slow agrees:

I didn't realize that all those things were done by Citroen first.

You know, back in 1988 when I bought my first VW Jetta, a 1989 GL, Black, which I knew was the car of my dreams I did take a look at two other cars.  They were a 1989 Peugeot 505 STI that came absolutely loaded for about $26K and a Saab 900 S that was in the same ballpark.  Peugeot has pretty much pulled out of the US now so for practical reasons maybe it was a good thing I couldn't really afford it at the time.  The Jetta was half the price and she (Gretta) served me well for 14 years.  In fact all this week I've been kind of nostalgic for Gretta - to the point of looking in cars.com to see if any worthy 1989s are available now -  and kinda wish I hadn't sold her.  I wonder how well the Peugeot would have fared?  It's too bad that we Americans are so limited, car-wise.  Especially where French cars are concerned.  Anybody remember "Le Car"?

One Bottle Shock point that Cynthia didn't make:  Alan Rickman driving a beater AMC Gremlin is very funny.  Another:  Dennis Farina can actually steal scenes from The Master, Rickman himself.   Kevin Costner finally got paybacks for Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.

The Search For John Gissing came Saturday in the mail from NetFlix.  I'm having myself a Mini Rickman Filmfest this weekend!

  

*They weren't vintage cars at the time the film is set; they were in production until 1976.