Sideways
Synopsis
Miles (Paul Giamatti) (an alchoholic onophile, failed author, and erudite
English teacher) takes Jack (Thomas Haden Church) (a washed up former actor and
womanizer) on a tour of wine country, California, on his last week before
getting married.
What I Thought
Sidways is a movie about two ordinary, flawed, and scarred people doing
ordinary and scarring things. Affairs, alchohol, etc. They both find girlfriends
and some self-knowledge, blah blah.
I wanted to go see Alexander that night but wasn't terribly interested in
starting a 3-hour movie at 10 pm. So I still had that "action movie" frame of
mind when we chose to see Sideways on a friend's recommendation. Keeping this in
mind, the first half hour or so was a little painful for me. No swords, robes,
or wars. No invading, like, 90% of the known world. However, plenty of drinking,
sex, and driving around in a car (chariots, same thing).
If, on the other hand, you didn't have any sort of gladiatorial expectations,
Sideways is an OK-funny movie. You may have heard critics raving about it, but
it's funny nevertheless (none of that Lost *snoooore* in *snoooore*
Translation). The comedy comes from the sad state these two losers are in, and
how they keep digging themselves further and further. Yes, this is funny,
especially when my life is going so well.
In the end, there's really not much satisfaction in the movie, though there's
not much that happens anyway. Lost in Translation is a pretty good movie to
compare this one to. Solid acting, some funny parts, and not terribly
meaningful.
If it feels like I'm vacillating between liking it and not liking it, I would
agree with you. I still don't know, but I'm leaning towards liking it. Let's
just say that the lectures on wine making tempted me to take up drinking. Wait,
is that a good thing?
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