BLOOD INTO WINE — ★★★ — Documentary feature about musician-turned-winemaker Maynard James Keenan; not rated, probable R (profanity, brief drugs, vulgarity, slurs, brief nudity); Tower Theatre
It's a good thing "Blood Into Wine" doesn't take itself too seriously.
Interspersed throughout this winemaking documentary are jokey, mock-talk show sequences featuring Tim Heideker and Eric Wareheim (Adult Swim's "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!"), a closing-credits skit featuring Bob Odenkirk, as well as a brief interview with comic actor Patton Oswalt.
Again, this is a good thing, because the story telling here occasionally gets messy. Also, the film features a main subject who sometimes takes himself much too seriously.
That subject is musician-turned-winemaker Maynard James Keenan, front man for the alternative-rock acts Tool, A Perfect Circle and Puscifer.
For the past decade, Keenan has settled in tiny Jerome, a northern Arizona community where he's started his own vineyard and has formed a winemaking cooperative with another man, Eric Glomski.
It's been a long, painful and expensive learning process for both men — and still, Californian and European wine elite are looking down their noses at Keenan and Glomski's efforts.
Co-directors Ryan Page and Christopher Pomerenke manage to stuff a lot of facts into their film. This may be one of the more informative, nonfiction movies made about winemaking.
But there are a couple of loose ends that aren't tied up properly. We're never told what the exact conclusions from a blind tasting by a well-known wine judge are, for example.
They do, however, have an interesting subject. Keenan is shown as being committed to winemaking — perhaps too committed, as a matter of fact.
So it's good that he has Glomski to balance out his eccentricities. He's realistic and is good-natured, especially in a sequence that shows the two men doing wine-signing appearances.
He clearly knows that people are there to see Keenan and not him, and he openly jokes about that fact.
"Blood Into Wine" is not rated but would probably receive an R for strong sexual language (profanity, crude slang and other suggestive talk), brief drug content and references (during a segment about growing medicinal marijuana), other off-color humor and references (including a toilet gag), derogatory language and slurs, and brief nudity (glimpses of nude photos). Running time: 100 minutes.
e-mail: jeff@desnews.com