That’s what I figured. Thanks.
I enjoyed the movie. Nice, entertaining film.
Oscar material? Nah, not in my book. I think a film ought to say something important to be an Oscar picture. Slice-of-life films are nice, but if you nominate them for Oscars, years later you look back and say “Ordinary People? The Goodbye Girl? What were we thinking?”
But sometimes the “message” movies sort of hit you over the head and leave you senseless like “Gandhi” or “Dances With Wolves”.
Films should be about many topics great and small. If done well, a film about a guy wondering where the men’s room is could be worth watching.
I don’t disagree with either of your points. (Well, except that I liked Gandhi. I’m with you on the Dances With Wolves thing, though.)
I’m all for smaller, slice-of-life movies, too. I just think it’s rare that they rise to the level of Best Picture. And I think Sideways is no exception. Interesting, yes. Entertaining, yes. Worthwhile, certainly. Oscar-worthy? Not in my opinion.
spoke-
You are well on your way to becoming a voting member of the Academy then.
Subtlety is rarely rewarded come Oscar time.
[QUOTE=BobT]
spoke-
You are well on your way to becoming a voting member of the Academy then.
[QUOTE]
There’s no call for insults, Bob! 
Nah. I rarely agree with the academy’s picks. I didn’t think either Seabiscuit or Master and Commander deserved nominations last year.
And there are some slice-of-life picks which I do think rise to the level of Oscar-worthiness. (Or at least nomination-worthiness.) I had no problem with Lost in Translation as an Oscar nominee, for example. And if The Station Agent had been nominated, I’d have been on board with that, too.
I just don’t think Sideways reaches that level. Very good film. Not a great film.
The problem with small scale movies is that they are small scale. When one thinks of BEST PICTURE, there tends to be a requirement that it be something powerful or grand.
Makes it harder for slice of life movies to get there. Fair or not, I find myself using the same standard. Of course, here, I don’t think Sideways is the best picture of the year. Surely it deserves a NOM, but not the award IMNSHO.
Annie Hall comes to mind as one that overcame the odds.
I just saw it this evening. I think Trunk pretty much felt like I did.
My summary is this: What a miserable movie. I’ve never seen anything like it. The movie didn’t make me feel bad for the characters - I did at first - but mostly it just made me feel awful. In a sense it’s a testament to the things the movie did well, like the realism and conveying Miles’s depression. Especially toward the beginning, I did relate to the characters and their love of wine. But that doesn’t outweigh the fact that this movie seemed to go out of its way to make me feel terrible. Successfully. Maybe if it had been a great movie, that’d be okay, but it wasn’t great. I’m trying to figure out exactly why, but it made me mad. I hated Jack. Thoroughly. And eventually that made me pissed at Miles’s enabling.
The movie had a lot to recommend it: good performances, maturity, realistic feel, some funny moments… but after a while I absolutely couldn’t take it anymore. I have to admit to being confused at the way the critics are all going crazy for this movie.
I really liked the movie. FOr me, one of the tests of a great movie is if it leaves something in your consciousness, permanently, and that doesn’t have to be a particularly noble thing (the “Serpentine!” line from The In-Laws once shot through my brain at a particularly inappropriate moment, f’rinstance). So, in the weeks since seeing this movie I’ve avoide merlot and seen four guys with strips over their noses & laughed every time. (He had it coming!)
Speaking of gasoline, one of those trucks said “ET C” on the back of the tank… reminded me of those “JET A” trucks that fuel planes at the airport.
May I be “Mr. PC” for a moment and ask this question: is it appropriate to use physical abuse in a relationship as physical comedy, regardless of gender?
Someone earlier in the thread commented that they thought it was an innapropriate moment to laugh. I disagree in that I think the producers were going for a laugh.
The question is, was it wrong to use such a moment FOR a laugh?
Even if Jack was a bad guy?
If it were gender reversed, the film would be decidedly different!
(NOTE: I think the scene was fine. I subscribe to many a double standard!)
I say yes. Slapstick is an important part of comedy in most cultures. If it’s OK to show an old lady hitting a stranger with a purse because she mistakenly thought he was grabbing her ass, it’s OK to show a lady hitting her boyfriend because he actually was deceiving her. Of course neither action is OK in real life.
But the opposite? Could it be funny if he hit her with a motorcyle helmet? Or are there limits?
(I agree with you, FYI!)
I think it could, in the right circumstance. Perhaps even more so, because it breaks a taboo (like a dead baby joke). We see women hitting men so often in TV and movies that it just gets old.
Frankly, I didn’t think it was funny when Stephanie was hitting Jack. Not because of the violence, though. He was supposed to be a sympathetic character, despite his faults… not someone I was excited to see her take revenge against.
A little physical violence by the wronged woman is almost a staple in a certain kind of classic film comedies. I’m thinking of Top Hat, where Edward Everett Horton ends up with a black eye–or was it two black eyes? And this is compounded when his valet slaps a sizzling (not raw!) steak onto said black eye.
(Mmm, I hope I didn’t need a spoiler tag for that.)
You didn’t see him actually get the black eye. But you did see Ginger slap Fred.
Iit’s slapstick. But it wouldn’t have been as funny if he hadn’t deserved . . . something.
As to the opposite, I don’t know. There is a scene where John Wayne spanks some woman (I think it might have been Maureen O’–somebody…Sullivan?) and it wasn’t funny, anyway I didn’t think so. I believe I would have laughed if Katharine Hepburn had ever gotten hit on those zany romantic comedies because she, ah, needed a good slap.
It was Maureen O’Hara, and the movie was McLintock! (With a VERY sexy Stefanie Powers as his daughter!)
Not only does John Wayne spank Maureen O’Hara, but Patrick Wayne spanks Stefanie Powers too.
And I’m sorry to disagree with Hilarity N. Suze, I think those scenes are Hil-fricking-larious! You have to remember those movies were made when men where men, and women were proud of it.
Anyway, I digress. I just watched Sideways for the first time at the recommendation of a friend because I’m going to San Francisco June 2nd, and plan to spend a day or two in Sonoma Valley. Personally, I felt a mixture of hatred and pity for Paul Giamotti’s character. I mean the guy was such a loser! Wow, I can see now why being over emotional and feeling the need to blurt out how you feel is wrong on so many levels. Come on Paul (Miles), act like you have some confidence!
Good movie, not great.
E3
Sory for bumping this, but I just watched it tonight and all I have to say is wow… It was a very good film and I mean that with the highest respect. It didn’t try to be flashy or go for high concepts like some of the other films I enjoyed, American Beauty, Memento, Eternal Sunshine, Being John Malkovich. But it’s a demonstration of how good a film can be if you just get all the right elements in place and just bang out something solid. It’s very much a craftsmans film and not an artists and I respect them for that.
Given that, I can see why many people hated it. It’s a film deeply rooted in personal experience and empathy, their not telling the story of Miles so much, they’re telling your story. Personally, I found all the charecters sympathetic and I recognised elements of me and people I know in all of them. The way they crafted the charecters managed to reflect so many deep and personal insights into their charecter using all of these incredibly subtle hints.
I also loved how they were masters at manipulating tension and suspense. Again, if you didn’t find the charecters sympathetic, then I can imagine how you would be bored or disgusted for most of the time, but when you truly were sucked in to the plight of these people, then they could strain your emotions just to the breaking point, and then give just enough release to make it worth while. I felt the pacing was incredible and managed to keep you on that knife edge the entire time.
The plot was mundane but deliberately so. It was the standard “guy fooling around but doesn’t want the wife to know” cliche but they managed to pull so much more out of it.
In short, I think this was what Lost in Translation should have been, a glaring insight into 4 very real charecters who are struggling with the very essense of what it means to be human.
Sorry, but the film did not connect with me. I felt no sympathy or empathy for these characters, just contempt at their shallowness and constant whining. The characters were one step removed from a “Friends” episode, IMO.
I think I made my feelings known in the other ‘Sideways’ thread, but I feel compelled to chime in. Bear in mind that I am more of a movie slut than a movie snob. I like explosions…but i can certainly appreciate a well written script and moving characters.
We couldn’t finish this one. The plot was blah, the characters completely unsympathetic, and the entire movie was humorless. I can stand quirky comedy, I can stand unsympathetic characters (we loved The Royal Tannenbaums), but this movie just left me angry. I assume it wasn’t supposed to do that…it was all just so vacuous, pretentious, and ‘I’m trying to be clever, but I’m just a fucker’ type humor.
I found myself remarking to **Faeriebeth ** as I popped it it of the dvd player, “This is why I hate white people.”
It should. The uptight stiff / carefree jackass pair is pretty much a movie/TV staple. The two complement each others character flaws. Without the loser, the jackass would probably be in a homeless shelter or jail and without the jackass the loser would never get laid.
Swingers is a little different because we are witnessing a group of young guys at the beginning of their careers. We are hopeful that Mikey (Favereu) will eventually figure stuff out with his ex. The other guys will eventually have success in their careers. Eventually things will work out - basically what every 24 year old thinks.
Sideways is basically fast forwarding 20 years and things didn’t work out. It’s one thing watching a bunch of 20somethings make their transition to the post-school ‘real world’ in movies like Garden State, Ghost World, even St Elmos Fire. It’s quite another thing when it’s people in their 40s and they still don’t have their shit together.
Other than a few chuckle scenes (like the car ‘accident’ or the merlot bit), I found the entire movie very depressing. Basically we are watching two losers go through a mid-life crisis. You have a divorced failed writer and a second rate actor on the verge of a weding he doesn’t really want on the lamest bachelor party in history. Miles is horribly depressed to the point of not being able to function and his life is a complete mess (which is the cause and which is the effect is unclear). Jack is basically a 40+ juvenile having dificulty coming to terms with adulthood so he has ‘ego sex’* with everyone he meets.
*Basically extra-relationship sex just to prove to yourself that you are still attractive.