Movies You Missed from 20 years ago

by Josh Lucia

28 Days Later…20 years later… holds up really well. This film is one of the first responsible for bringing back public interest in zombies since the late 1970s. Along with the popularity of undead video games Resident

Evil and House of the Dead as well as their film counterparts, 28 Days Later would be followed by a sequel, 28 Weeks Later, along with other films like Shaun of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead (2004 Remake), Warm Bodies, World War Z, Zombieland, and more. We also got the recordsetting The Walking Dead television series. 28 Days Later brought a fresh take on the genre with a future Oscar winner at the helm. Director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, The Beach, Sunshine, Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours) took a more realistic approach to the zombie outbreak, pulling inspiration from real-world pandemics and epidemics. Here, the undead are FAST and simply full of rage, and this makes for an intense horror film. Boyle also leans into the drama, dealing with many of the emotions and outlying factors that might come from a catastrophic event like this. Cillian Murphy (Nolan’s Batman Trilogy & Peaky Blinders) got his break as the lead in this film, playing Jim, a man who wakes up in an empty hospital to find London void of life. He is eventually introduced to the zombies, the result of a laboratory outbreak which causes human beings to be filled with unstoppable rage when they are exposed to infected blood. Eventually, he finds other survivors, and the film follows them as they journey to some form of safety. However, zombies are not the only horror that exists in this broken society. The gore is intense, and the jump-scares come silently, but the dramatic storytelling sets this movie apart from others in the zombie genre. If you don’t do zombies or gore, skip this one. If you enjoy an intense, well-made zombie movie, this should be at the top of your watchlist. Check out the sequel and keep an eye out for a third, 28 Months Later, currently in pre-production. Also, be sure to get to the theater next month and catch Cillian Murphy as the lead in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, releasing July 21, 2023.

Also released in June of 2003: Hulk (6/10), The Room, Charlie’s Angels Full Throttle, Rugrats Go Wild, Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, 2 Fast 2 Furious (4/10), From Justin to Kelly, Hollywood Homicide (follow @ jlucia85 for these reviews and more)

Yes, it can, when paired with the right wine. Choosing the right wine depends on the type of cheddar cheese. For example, mild Cheddar is aged from 1 to 3 months. This style of Cheddar is creamy, slightly sweet, and mellow with subtle hints of butter and salt, according to www.darkcheese.com. They say, “The idea is to pick a wine that won’t overpower the delicate flavors of mild cheddar,” such as light-bodied white wines like Riesling, Chardonnay, and Sauvignon Blanc. I’ve found that a slightly oak barrel-aged Chardonnay works well, or a sparkling wine made for the Chardonnay grape makes for a delicious match.

Medium cheddar cheese is aged a little longer and is more flavorful than mild cheddar cheese. Medium cheddar pairs well with full-bodied whites such as Viognier or fruity reds like Pinot Noir. These wines are bold enough to stand up to the more pronounced rich, nutty flavors of medium Cheddar.

Sharp Cheddar is usually aged from 6 to 12 months. This style becomes drier and crumblier, yielding a robust and intense flavor. According to Dark

Can Cheddar be Even Better?

Cheese, sharp cheddars are best paired with bold red wine such as Cabernet Sauvignon or Syrah/Shiraz. These wines have enough flavor to stand up to the sharpness of this flavorful cheese without overpowering it. They say you’re likely to find deeper notes of caramel, nuts, and smoke that come through in sharp Cheddar.

Marissa Mullen, writing for Food52, states, “Cheddar was first crafted in the 12th century, hailing from Cheddar Village in Somerset, England.” But let us not forget Irish Cheddar. Dark Cheese states, “Irish Cheddar is typically less sharp and intense in flavor than English cheddar, somewhat in between sharp Cheddar and Parmesan. The mildness, earthier and richer flavor of the Irish variety allows for some interesting pairings with French-style wines such as Chablis (Chardonnay), Sancerre (Sauvignon Blanc), and Beaujolais (the fruity, light red wine from the French Beaujolais region). These light-to-mediumbodied dry whites are delicate enough to allow the cheese flavors to shine through while still offering a bit of complexity.”

For many of us, when told to say cheese, we say Cheddar, and to that, I say Cheers!

Dine In

by Mack Williams

Irecently went straight from one grocery store to another one in order to complete my shopping. This, of course, is not unusual; as many shoppers include the food “bargains” available at the “dollar” stores in order to save some money.

But in this case, it was the sight of only one item which made me complete the checking off my grocery list elsewhere.

Blackberries! (I’m glad it wasn’t “strawberries; “ but perhaps not many people remember or know about Captain Queeg of The Caine Mutiny (1954) nowadays).

The blackberries weren’t moldy or rotten. And it wasn’t because of the advisory, printed on their container: “Wash before consuming,” as some companies tend to spoil us with “steam bags” and other containers with messages to the effect: “No need to wash. We already did.”

An aside before continuing: (as a child, when consuming blackberries straight from roadside “volunteer vines,” instead of washing, some “thumping” might be needed to dislodge a chigger or two).

The reason for my alternate grocery trip was that a shopper in front of me at the first store was picking up each plastic blackberry container, opening the lid and gently “pinching” each blackberry within.

Since the container was clear plastic, there was no worry about this shopper buying the blackberries “sight unseen,” but I guess, to him, the idea of “purchased unsqueezed” was anathema.

I started to wait him out; but then the thought occurred to me that maybe he was just “finishing up,” and had possibly “tweaked” every blackberry in every container within the bin.

When I arrived at the other store, I told the cashier about how surprised I was at what I’d seen. He said on prior occasions he had witnessed some members of the public not only individually squeezing a variety of packaged, fresh berries, but picking the berries up and popping them into their mouths.

The only thing I’d done similar to that was years ago in a late summer while my late wife, Diane, and I were helping my late father-in-law, Hoyt, in his garden. In the midst of picking corn, I pulled back the shuck on one ear and took a bite. Perhaps I was temporarily overcome, as the hot summer day and smell of rows of raw, aromatic corn must have engendered a sort of “delirium” (just now, Van Gogh’s Crows over Wheatfield comes to mind).

But that was in the garden, not the “green grocer” section of a grocery store!

The cashier told me that apple cores and banana peels have been found not far from the fruit bens (but so far, no avocado skins and pits).

He also told me that occasionally, people have been known to take a chicken wing out of the “hot deli” and walk through the store, eating it “on the fly” (“on the wing” seems more appropriate here); and then, behind a roll of paper towels or a canned good, they deposit the bones (a “sort of” burial).

I then recalled a story from another store where bags of inthe-shell peanuts had been found open, minus goodly portions of their contents. The culprit had left a zig-zag trail of shells throughout the store, making it difficult for store personnel to follow (or, for that matter, Hansel and Gretel).

This caused me to remember the Joe Namath movie, C.C. Ryder and Company (1970), where Joe Namath nonchalantly pushes a grocery basket through the store, taking two slices of bread from a sliced loaf, one slice of ham from a pack of sliced ham, one slice of cheese from a pack of sliced cheese, one leaf of lettuce from a head of lettuce, and the necessary “squirts” of one “off-theshelf” mustard bottle to assemble a ham sandwich, which he eats and then politely asks a store employee: “Excuse me. Where are the cupcakes?”

Still mulling this over, I went to my car with my container of blackberries, of which I felt and hoped had been sorted and packed by anonymous, sans fingerprint, robotic hands.

I looked up at the restaurant sign across the street, which proudly states, in “screaming” letters: “DINE-IN.”

And I pondered the multiple and hypothetical meanings of words and phrases.