Movie Reviews 2:40 pm Sun November 5, 2006  A Good Year  A
pleasant diversion  "The prototypes of strong sensation: blazing
lights, red earth, blue sea, mauve twilight, the flake of gold
buried in the black depths of the cypress; archaic tastes of
wine and olive, ancient smells of dust, goat dung and thyme,
immemorial sounds of cicada and rustic flute." Robert Hughes on
Provence  I have excessively drunk the house table wine at
extended lunches in Provence, and I won't forget them for their
savory simplicity and seductive subtext. It was a good year. So
a film about a Brit en Provence who loves wine, women, and song
can be a winner on concept alone. Max Skinner (Russell Crowe)
could skin you alive as a world-class stock trader. As the new
owner of on aging estate in Provence, however, he is as likely
to be fleeced by local vintners or irritable restaurant owners.
Peter Mayle's popular travel pieces on France turned into a
jaunty fiction in A Good Year, an endearing light piece about
the intrigues of wine mak