Sideways
Steph,
Your torturing silence on the subject of the film "Sideways" has been too much to bear. All I have been privy to so far is : 1) what I seen from the preview and 2) the fact that you and David needed a stiff glass of wine afterwards. I have suffered long in my ignorance, but tonight it ends. We are going to see it. Ha!
-A.
posted by Abbey von Gohren at 6:08:00 PM
9 comments
9 Comments:
Me too ... refraining from revealing my opinion is killing me.
2/13/2005 09:29:00 PM
I saw the film “Sideways” last night. If you don’t want to know what I think, skip this post.
(Spoilers ahead)
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Good Movie.
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I'm a thumbprint on the first-floor window of a skyscraper, a smudge of excrement on a tissue surging out to sea along with millions of tons of raw sewage.
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Did you drink and dial?
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Priceless…..
2/13/2005 11:53:00 PM
Okay. Well, for starters, it was an amusing movie in the laugh out loud sense. That is, I cracked a chuckle at a fairly good clip. (See oneliners cited above.)
There was one HUGE turn-off, and that was Miles' friend's apalling behaviour. I week to the wedding and he is chasing every (I mean EVERY) skirt that comes his way. At first I just called him a jerk. Then I began to see him through Miles' eyes - basically, that he's a pitiful human being. The scene when he's tearfully begging Miles to go back and get his wedding rings. (By the way - why the tears? Is he genuinely in love with his fiancee or is it another act? K & I were discussing this....)
I liked the character of Maia, because she was the only truly upstanding individual, but she also seemed a little flat in this way. Too predictable. Same with Stephanie, only she's the other extreme. They gave her a daughter and a cool job at a winery to make her seem deep, I suppose. But she just seemed like your typical party girl that could be found on any American University campus.
Miles' character, of course, was most often in the spotlight, and I thought he developped throughout the film rather nicely (albeit awkwardly!) He, too, had his pitiful moments, but they were to good ends.
The scenery was beautiful, and the hardest thing was WATCHING people drink wine steadily for 2 hours without being able to participate. So I say: Napa Valley or bust!!!!
2/14/2005 10:52:00 AM
I think what the movie was about mostly was male sexuality and the struggle in finding identity (however fleeting) within it. James (Miles' friend?) is converting his indentity from player to monogamist, albiet gradually....
Then the contrast between informed experience and salesmenship could'nt be more severe between the 2 guys. James does'nt know what he drinks or what he should find in each sip. His palette wasn't figurative and niether was his enjoyment of women. To him they were as plain as ripe berries waiting to be picked. But he could sell the book that was "published" and turn it into something present.
Miles was the savorer. Talking about his ex, describing wine and cherishing each bit of pain from his own life through his less than succinct book were acts of savor. But while he worked words, all he had was the literal in daily life. His moral sense could'nt sell anything that was'nt already there qny better than he could sell his own book.
Not only that but the intermittent code of conduct and consequences for pick-up sex. The values are not just different than christian values, but appear to shift constantly, like when Stephanie complains "but you said you loved me?!". She seems to mean a few days of sex then poof, never hear from the person again was OK to her.
2/14/2005 09:05:00 PM
So long as don't profess love.
2/14/2005 09:19:00 PM
And wrecking your friend's car to cover up your fooling around is another fine act of salesmanship.
2/14/2005 09:24:00 PM
I guess I see myself in the character of Miles (Paul Giamatti). Miles is an open wound of a man, drowned in self-loathing and wine (which eventually reveals itself to be a metaphor for the character), and while Giamatti has played this type of role before (many, many times), he does a magnificent job finding the slippery edges to the character, forging his best performance yet. Miles is a heartbreaker, not only because his life is falling apart around him, but because he recognizes the crumbling as it happens. Its gut-wrenching work often infused with a welcome subtlety that the actor has never displayed before. The Director of ‘Sideways’ has made an absorbing and funny film about two losers on a wine tasting road trip. Usually I would avoid at all cost a movie with a singular focus that has little intrest to me, and the rest of the general public, but the casting of this film is one of the best I have ever seen.
2/15/2005 11:38:00 AM
"Quaffable but far from transcendent" is perhaps the best summary? But, where's David's opinion? I hope refraining from it didn't really kill him...
2/15/2005 12:43:00 PM
Abbey just stole my summary. Thanks a lot.
I was similarly appalled by whats-his-name's behavior, and spent a good chunk of time wishing that Miles would stand up to him.
It's not even a Rake's Progress of dissolution, more of a Rake's "Minor Consequences Only" Holiday.
Admittedly (with some grudging) it is a realistic bit of writing in that it doesn't moralize, doesn't tie everything up in a nice good-is-rewarded-evil-is-punished ending (where's Dickens when you need him?).
Ending felt Lost in Translation-esque, but less effective. Ambiguity for the sake of ambiguity, not because it was a better way to end our glimpse of Miles.
QBFFT. It's the acronym of the week.
2/16/2005 09:43:00 AM
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