BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

tagheue I watched this documentary because it said that it is about the globalization of wine and how this is impacting different wine regions of the world. My interest in wine is rather new and I am still in the initial research phase, so I thought that this would be something educational for me. Instead, it brought me mostly frustration.Basically the movie is about this: in Nappa valley there is this guy named Bob Mondavi, a real power player in the wine world. He tried to buy in his way into a french wine producing village to extend his "domain". He failed. He goes to Italy instead where he has more success. Oh, and he has set up shop in other parts of the world as well, mainly south America.In detail, 3/4 of the documentary is about the french affair, where the locals are presented, the small players, the big players, Mondavi is being presented, some fancy wine consultant is presented and a guy named Parker who is a wine critic that can make or brake wine companies worldwide. The french bicker amongst themselves and lament about how Mondavi, Parker and the consultant has changed the way of doing business and these 3 in return say that there is nothing wrong with their way. In the last quarter of the documentary, the focus is shifted towards Italy, how they came in contact with Mondavi and have found that everything is OK. At the very end there is about 10 minutes of shots from south America, not that it matters anyway.This documentary bothers me. First, it doesn't knows what it wants to be. It is not about globalization, because it covers only one business deal and its consequences (barely). Its scope is not global, it doesn't even mentions the emerging Asian markets, hell, it doesn't even covers Europe, just some parts of France and Italy... Also, it tries to give an insight into the way of life of the wine makers, on a personal level, but does so in a manner that is totally distracts the focus about the main theme of the documentary. However, the main problem with this documentary is the low technical quality, that make its weak substance even worse. Whoever shot the movie had no idea what it is doing. The camera shakes, the angles are all wrong and the focus is all over the place. Some wine maker is being interviewed and the camera just zooms in on hie eye, or his mouth so I can see how bad his teeth are. Or it zooms in on the fat old guy in the background that is going down a latter. The dialog still goes on but all I can see is Santa coming down from the roof. The editing is also abysmal. Every dog that the crew encountered during the making of the documentary gets a good 5 seconds of close ups in the movie. I know now that the worlds most influential wine critics french bulldog farts... Why is this important? Why was this not cut out? I know that the wine consultant sends out his driver to buy him newspapers and cigars. The maid comes in, sees the camera, gets shy but eventually asks if anybody wants to have a drink or something. Some guy passes trough the room where a woman is being interviewed, than passes back a moment later, both times they have a brief chat that has no value to the documentary whatsoever, yet everything makes it into the documentary. Some kid is being washed in a sink, on a porch in south America, I can see clearly that its a boy. An ugly/old piano player woman puts up makeup at a dinner event.There are countless such distracting elements that have no relevance, no added value, no contribution for the subject whatsoever. They should have been cut out. High-school kids could achieve better production value with their cell phones. And even if this movie is from 2004, I expect better quality from somebody that has the budget to travel around and the access to talk to VIPs. Over all, this is a mediocre at best, shoddy, narrow view documentary that does not worth your time and effort.

JohnDoes3 i do not understand at all why this movie received such good grades from critics - - i've seen tens of documentaries (on TV) about the wine world which were much much better when (if) you watch it, please think of two very annoying aspects of mondovino : first, the filming is just awful and terrible and upsetting : to me, it looked like the guy behind the camera just received the material and was playing with it : plenty of zooms (for no purpose other than pushing the button in/out) for instance - - i almost stopped to watch it because of that ! secondly, the interviewer (the director i think) is not really relevant : he looks like and ask questions like a boy scout, not like a journalist, even if the general idea and themes would have been interesting, too bad conclusion: overrated documentary, maybe only for guys who do not know nothing about wine => not recommended at all (2/10)

mark watson The filmmakers try to paint the influence of the Mondovis and Robert Parker as a travesty on par with the German occupation of France and the reign of Fascism. But they never find a victim in this film. We hear wine makers, critics and distributors bemoan that while the wine industry grows it becomes increasingly homogeneous. But the film never makes a case that this has resulted in the loss of any good wine or exploitation of any person or culture other than naive Wine Spectator readers with lots of cash. If they want to pay hundreds of dollars for a dull wine, so be it.If this were a film about the diamond trade, where the DeBeers corporation's market domination results in human suffering, the muckraking style might have been appropriate. But as it is it just comes off as anti-American, anti-modernization and anti-capitalist. Had the filmmakers been around in the 1870s they most likely would have protested the grafting of American vines in the effort to save French wine.

housesforhire Our reviewer from Toronto told you what you need to know about this film (except note that it needs editing-the hand held technique gets really old, really fast). I saw this film last night in Menerbes, France-we are in the Luberon Valley, which is covered with vineyards and of course wine makers. They were all there in the Salle de Polyvalente for the showing-crammed in. Polite, patient, genial. Although my French is testy, I got the gist of the film but noted that the audience loved the "old" terror growers interviewed-esp. the one from a communist village in Languedoc. He got a lot of laughs. This is unusual in France-laughing aloud. There is no question which side of the terror-globalization war they are on! SM