Blue curaao, blue vodka, blue gin, now there is blue-pigmented wine. But why? We explore the psychology of weirdly coloured booze

A company is trying to shake up the wine industry by producing bright blue bottles of the boozy beverage. But will it help the taste?

Blueness and alcohol arent strangers, as anyone who has drunk one too many gins and wept into their lap on the night bus will know. But last week, a Spanish company decided to make that link a tad less metaphorical by launching a wine that is the same shade as the WKD Blue alcopop.

The worlds first blue wine, Gk Live, is the brainchild of six young entrepreneurs with no previous experience of the wine trade, who are attempting to shake things up in what they call the most traditional and close-minded industry out there. They take a wine base that mixes red and white grapes, and add two organic pigments, one of which, anthocyanin, is found in grape skin. Then, hey presto: youve got an alcoholic drink that wouldnt look out of place at a student union happy hour.

Gk Lives creators say there is some psychology behind what theyre doing. (And not just such a desire to be anti-establishment that theyve called their tasting notes an anti-tasting sheet.) The reason that theyve opted to colour their beverage a light shade of Harpic Toilet Duck is because: In psychology, blue represents movement, innovation and infinity and is frequently associated with flow and change.

So by drinking a beverage that is a light shade of Toilet Duck, you will presumably be more psychologically open to enjoying new experiences and will find your mind opening up to a world-changing way to drink wine. Unless you ask a psychologist.

People have an expectation of the way drinks will taste based on their colour, says Charles Spence, professor of experimental psychology at Somerville College, Oxford an expert in the multisensory perception of food who has collaborated with Heston Blumenthal, such as on Blumenthals Sound of the Sea dish. They might expect a blue drink to taste of raspberry or blue curaao or even mouthwash. If you dont get the taste youre expecting, it can be disconcerting.

But what about the element of surprise? After all, when you see a blue drink, youre not thinking: Ooh, I bet thats got a lovely buttery mouthfeel. If it tastes nicer than youd anticipated, surely it could enhance the experience?

If you get something thats a little bit better than you expected, thats a good thing, explains Spence. But if its very different, more often than not your brain goes: Have I been poisoned? Whats gone wrong in my head?

Gk Live isnt the only blue-coloured alcohol to launch recently in the UK. In 2014, The London No 1 launched a range of blue gin. And its part of a growing trend to turn our foodstuffs into the shades youd find in a packet of kids crayons, given the recent popularity of rainbow bagels and cheese toasties, the shade of which also looks as if it was dreamed up by a five-year-old. Given the column inches devoted to what, essentially, seem to be little more than marketing gimmicks, lurid food and drink is something we are likely to see more of.

Actually, its not a new phenomenon, offers Spence. The Italian futurist art movement would serve blue wine to guests at their dinners in the 1930s.

Ah, so its not a fad. Its a traditional and long-established way to render foodstuffs more enjoyable. A spot of culinary wizardry with more than 80 years worth of research into how to tantalise peoples tastebuds.

Well, no: they were doing it to shock people into an altered state of consciousness. It wasnt meant to taste good.

Even if the makers marketing claims may be psychologically flawed, at least theres one advantage. It should be very easy to enjoy this wine until youre blue in the face.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2016/jun/28/gik-live-blue-wine-curacao-vodka-gin-pigmented-psychology

Gimlet tries out sponsored content while Strange Fruit tackles pop culture from a black gay perspective and Turned Out a Punk takes a personal look at the genre

The Pew Research Center recently published its 2016 State of the News Media report, which shows that while podcasts are growing, podcast companies are still trying to come up with creative ways to make money. To that end, Gimlet Creative is now open for business. The sponsored content arm of the company behind shows like Reply All, Start Up, and Mystery Show (please come back soon, Mystery Show!) has teamed up with eBay for their first outing. The six-episode series is called Open for Business and focuses on stories of entrepreneurship. While its easy to be skeptical of marketing masquerading as podcasting, fans of serial drama The Message, which was produced by GE and Panoply Media, already know that sponsored content can make for compelling stories. So far, the stories on the show, which are not produced by Gimlets editorial staff, have been interesting enough to make you forget youre basically listening to an ad. The company also has five new podcasts in the works, including a true crime show from the creators of The Jinx.

For non-sponsored business-related content from Gimlet, Start Up had a fascinating story of a man who came up with his big business idea while sitting in solitary confinement for running a multimillion dollar drug operation. As Ramadan continues, On Being features the stories of 16 Muslims who share beautiful memories of faith and family in their exploration of the holiest month in the Islamic calendar.

The Toasts Mallory Ortberg has finally taken up residency on Slates Dear Prudence podcast. The highly anticipated pairing of Ortbergs exuberant ideology and the advice column has Ortberg waxing on important topics like the inner lives of people who spill drinks on themselves and Paneras clean salads. Bad Feminist author Roxane Gay and Lindy West, who penned Shrill, came to This American Life to talk about weight and self-esteem in a fascinating episode called Tell Me Im Me Fat.

Journalist Susan Faludi stopped by Open Source to talk with host Christopher Lydon about her real-life Transparent. In an episode titled My Father the Woman, Faludi continues the themes from her book, In the Darkroom, to discuss her relationship with her trans father. Fans of shows like Another Round and the Show About Race may want to check out Strange Fruit, the podcast from community activist Jaison Gardner (Jai) and University of Louisville professor Dr Kaila Story (Doc), who take deep dives into politics and pop culture from a black gay perspective. For more stories from behind the rainbow flag, subscribe to Cocktails and Cream Puffs, which takes a decidedly lighter tone in their conversations about gay culture, whether they are going out with contestants from RuPauls Drag Race or experiencing the exuberant joys of pride parades.

Podcasting tends to be talk-centric, but there are plenty of music-based podcasts that offer a lot more to listen to than talking heads. Seattles listener-sponsored radio station KEXPs Music That Matters has been keeping music fans in the know for years now thanks to their playlists of under-the-radar acts and indie outfits that are about to make it big. Recent episodes have featured songs from Twin Peaks, Speedy Ortiz, Sharon Van Etten, Lisa Prank, The Julie Ruin and more, all curated by the stations savvy DJs.

To further beef up your music library, there are plenty of Song of the Days podcasts including those from Austins KUTX, Minnesotas The Current, and Los Angeless KCRW. NPRs Alt. Latino takes listeners on a tour of whats next in Latin and Spanish rock and alternative music and Homoground gives listeners a playlist filled with queer (and queer friendly) bands and musicians for all their Pride parties (and beyond).

For those who like talking about music almost as much as listening to it, there are plenty of options for nerding out with other fans. Switched on Pop takes a closer look at the messages behind saccharine-soaked pop music. On their recent episode All About Those Baseline Assumptions About Feminism in Pop, hosts Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding teamed up with We Were Feminists Once author Andi Ziesler to explore the selling of feminism in pop music from Taylor Swift to the commercialization of riot grrl rebellion to Meghan Trainors corporate-approved feminism.

Song Exploder takes fans behind the music to get into the technical details of their favorite songs, like on a recent episode where they sat down with Chvrches to talk about their song Clearest Blue. The Talkhouse features great interviews between great artists, including a surprisingly interesting conversation between Sean Lennon and Les Claypool. The Combat Jack show is the reigning champion of hip-hop podcasts with every episode delivering a knock-out punch of music news, cultural conversations and interviews with industry heavyweights, proved once again in a recent chat with hip hop radio legends Stretch and Bobbito. On Turned Out a Punk, Fucked Up frontman Damian Abraham spoke with rock legend Priya Panda about how punk music shaped her life, including how she went from listening to the Misfits to working alongside the bands Jerry Only.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/jun/27/best-podcasts-strange-fruit-gimlet-punk-music

Motherhood's disastrous performance at the box office provokes bitter confrontation between producer and UK distributor

The following correction was printed in the Guardian’s Corrections and clarifications column, Saturday 17 April 2010

This news feature reported that few people went to see a new Uma Thurman film, Motherhood, during its UK opening weekend. Trying to analyse why, it reported the producer, Jana Edelbaum, as saying she intended to demand an explanation from Metrodome, the company responsible for UK marketing of the film. However, Metrodome and Jana Edelbaum have asked us to make clear that, contrary to the conclusion which our story went on to draw from this, no “bitter confrontation” between the two had taken place. Metrodome also notes that a launch method was discussed between them, and that a preview screening shortly before the release date mentioned in the piece as a sign of nervousness followed routine preview practice in its timing and in the type of audience feedback sought

It should have been a red carpet event. When just one British cinema was given exclusive permission to launch Uma Thurman’s new film earlier this month, the film’s producers presumably hoped that exclusivity would create a buzz around the movie. Though limiting the release would obviously limit takings, they must have hoped word of mouth could make it a slow-burning success.

But the tactic backfired catastrophically. Instead of audiences queueing round the block of the Apollo West End in Piccadilly Circus, London, to see the star of Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill, they stayed away in record-breaking numbers.

Over its opening weekend, no more than a dozen people went to see Motherhood, a semi-autobiographical account of stressed-out Manhattan parenting written and directed by Katherine Dieckmann. The film made just 88 on the weekend of Friday 5 March. On its debut Sunday, box office takings were 9, meaning one person bought a ticket.

The disaster has now degenerated into a bitter confrontation between Metrodrome, responsible for marketing the film in the UK, and producer Jana Edelbaum, who blames the company for Motherhood’s atrocious performance.

The film, thought to have cost $5m to make, earned just over 40,000 when it opened in the US last October, but Edelbaum had no idea quite how badly it had performed in the UK until contacted this week by the Guardian. “You’re kidding?” she said. “We must have broken a new record for grosses.”

Edelbaum is adamant that Metrodome must be to blame, and insisted that she would demand a full explanation. “Think how much crap succeeds at the cinema,” she said. “Motherhood is not bad. It’s a very decent movie. I’ve seen movies that are not half as good.”

In fact, Motherhood, which also features Minnie Driver, Anthony Edwards and a cameo by Jodie Foster, cannot lay claim to the dubious title of Britain’s lowest-ever grossing film on its opening weekend: that honour is taken by My Nikifor, the 2007 film about Polish artist Nikifor Krynicki, which took just 7 on its launch.

But it has, according to the veteran film critic Barry Norman, confounded expectations of quite how resounding a flop a mainstream film featuring a bona fide star can be. “Good God. I have never heard of anything like this before,” he said. “This is not some small, independent movie. It’s astonishing that only about 11 people could be bothered to go and see Uma Thurman.

“The reviews were very poor indeed but that alone isn’t enough to explain this. It’s a reasonable assumption that there was a marketing and advertising catastrophe, and people didn’t know it was showing. But it should have attracted more than 11 people in passing trade alone. Apollo cinemas, after all, aren’t in tucked-away places. They’re all prominently located. I’m baffled.”

The Apollo cinema chain which later briefly screened the film in Burnley, Fareham, Redditch, Stroud and Altrincham failed to return calls from the Guardian.

But Metrodrome, which has manoeuvred films including Monster, Donnie Darko and The Counterfeiters to financial and critical success, defended its approach in the week after the launch.

“Over the course of the week leading up to Mother’s Day we also released the film on DVD, video on demand, and pay per view so customers could choose how to watch the film,” the company said. “Inevitably some films will work better on some platforms than others. In this particular case the DVD was stronger than the theatrical result.

“It is important that experimentation is encouraged at a time when the entire film industry is in transition,” the statement continued. “We all need to adapt to new models of distribution in the future and discover new opportunities.”

There were, however, signs that Metrodrome had already begun to suffer a lack of confidence in Motherhood before it was premiered.

At the beginning of the month, 70 tickets were given away to members of the website Mumsnet for a special screening at which they were asked to give detailed responses.

“Interested to know why the company wanted opinion on the film so close to its general release?” queried one after the screening, to which fewer than 20 of the winners went. “It is proper pants. In fact it’s one of the rare movies I didn’t stay until the end for.”

But Edelbaum defended the film: “Our effort was noble. It’s a love letter about how difficult it is to be a mum and an individual, and have an identity outside of that. I think we have proved that mothers are too busy to have fun. That they are overstretched and overburdened by the difficulties of their job.”

Others, however, disagreed. “It’s a yummy-mummy newspaper column splurged onto celluloid, like baby sick on your best cashmere sweater,” said Ellen E Jones on film review website, Total Films. “This whiny drivel makes me ashamed to be a woman,” said Wendy Ide on the website Rotten Tomatoes which gave the film a rock-bottom 20% Tomatometer success rating.

Edelbaum admitted she dreaded telling Dieckmann, who also directed the 2006 comedy drama Diggers, how badly Motherhood had gone down in the UK. The film was, she said, a labour of love that had “taken up many years” of Dieckmann’s life. “I can’t bear to ring her and tell her,” Edelbaum admitted . “I’m a producer; I’ve got a thick skin but, well, she’s a creative.”

The film is no longer being shown at a single cinema across Britain. Indeed, it has sunk so quickly and untraceably that, back at the Apollo West End, it has not even left a ripple.

The woman behind the popcorn counter in Piccadilly Circus didn’t remember the screening at all. “It’s very strange,” she admitted. “Even if I’m not paying attention to what’s being screened here, I can usually tell you every film because customers talk to each other and the names just stick in your head. But I’m sure I’ve never heard that one being mentioned.”

The man selling tickets also had no memory. “Have you got the right cinema?” he asked, looking puzzled. “There’s another cinema down the road perhaps it was on there instead?”

Hollywood’s greatest flops

Can there be any sweeter justice than some bloated Hollywood mega-production going down in flames at the box office? Whisper them quietly, because mentionThe names of films such as Cutthroat Island ($104m loss), The Adventures of Pluto Nash ($112m loss) and still the biggest Sahara ($121m loss) are enough to turn the blood of any studio executive to ice.

Of course, every film is a risk, but some you suspect are asking for it. When word got out that the Unification Church had financed Inchon ($40m loss) in 1981, audiences stayed away in droves. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez had so irritated filmgoers with their public romance that their co-starring vehicle Gigli ($66m loss) didn’t have a chance. John Travolta chose to get artistic with Scientology, and the resulting film, Battlefield Earth ($43m loss) became the focus for distaste with the movement as a whole.

Some are more than just financial duds; they bring down entire studios. The champion is Heaven’s Gate: it sent United Artists into bankruptcy and ended the artistic flowering of the Hollywood new wave after losing $40m, a frightening sum for 1980. Cutthroat Island did for Carolco, the outfit behind Rambo and Terminator 2.

In our modest British way, 1980s powerhouse Goldcrest collapsed after releasing three duds in 1985 and 1986: Revolution, The Mission and Absolute Beginners. More recently, the All Saints vehicle Honest did for the 1990s Britfilm revival, earning only 111,000 in its first week after costing 3m to make.

Motherhood is not likely to have such seismic effects, and in any case, the distributors will have an eye on the DVD market; it will have been stuck in cinemas as a loss leader generating publicity ahead of Mother’s Day.

But it’s got nothing on a 2006 independent film, Zyzzyx Road, which is generally held to have the lowest box office result of all time. It was released briefly in one Texas cinema, and took the grand sum of $30.

Andrew Pulver

This article was amended on 29 March 2010. The original named Atrincham as Altringham. This has been corrected.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/mar/26/uma-thurman-motherhood-flop