Sideways
film — USA — 2004

8.0
Am I turning Japanese or is this the second film with Paul Giamati I`ve seen over the last couple of days? I guess the last option could be true. My first experience with this film wasn`t a positive one - upon watching the trailer to this film at a cinema I expected it to be a boring mediocre piece of crap. You know, something like "Road Trip" for middle-aged people. That does seem a bit disturbing, don`t it? There`s those two fellows - one of them is a teacher at school and a wanna-be writer, while the other one is a TV commercials actor, who is going to get married in just one week, and his pal organizes a bachelors party for him. The party isn`t that much of a party - Giamati`s character has planned a week of wine and golf, but it happens that his pal wants some real action, and they hook up with some girls (ok, none of them are boys or girls by my standards - the youngest of chicks is 33 by now, the older one is in her 40s already). But nobody tells the women that one of the party-goers is getting married in just a couple of days. Giamati`s character is quite similar to the one he played in "American Splendor" but the film is much better constructed, and less of a comedy and more of a drama. This ain`t surely a mainstream Hollywood film - it has very few "for your consideration scenes", not too much pretty faces, and a realistic view of life. Probably, there`s a bit too much information about wine for me but this still is the best candidate for Oscar as the film of the year I`ve seen so far (beating out "Neverland" and "Ray").
2005-02-21
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