response 250 of 342:

Feb 19 05:17 UTC 2006

I found it an effective movie; it presents complex characters struggling
with realistic situations and, most of the time, with themselves.  This
is a harder thing to do well; a bad action movie can still be enjoyable
as meaningless fluff, while bad drama just leaves you with the feeling
that two hours (or, unforgivably, more) of you life has been sucked away
by the big bad pretension monster.

response 252 of 342:

Feb 19 12:13 UTC 2006

I understand.  Not all movies click with me either, even though they
are wildly popular in general.

I'm not nearly as crazy about Brokeback Mountain as most seem to be. Yeah, 
it was tragic - really tragic that homosexuality was (is) treated with 
such prejudice and hostility.  But this particular relationship seemed to 
spin around sex, not love.  Both were unfaithful to each other and each 
other's needs (outside of sex) didn't seem all that important or at least 
get much attention.  Homosexuality doesn't give someone license to use 
others, like they used their wives.  That was tragic too.
 
The movie would have been stronger had they held the homosexual 
relationship to the same standards to which we hold heterosexual 
relationships, despite society's prejudices.  You know, moral 
homosexuals.  That would have been a statement.

I saw the characters as tragic, for sure, but not as posterboys for
loving and respectful behavior in homosexual relationships.  

response 254 of 342:

Feb 19 23:49 UTC 2006

re #252 but they weren't INTENDED to be "poster boys for loving and 
respectful behaviour in a homosexual relationship", or any relationship 
for that matter.  That was the whole point, that tragically some people 
can be in love and yet be in no way capable of returning that love or 
in some cases, like with the Heath Ledger character, not even be 
capable of being in the relationship for the most part.  

Heath Ledger's character feels love, both for his wife and for the Jake 
Gyllenhal character, but in neither case is he capable of confronting 
it, or accepting that he has any ability to accept and give love as 
strongly as he feels the love.  "Brokeback Mountain" is a classic 
Shakespearean tragedy.    

response 256 of 342:

Feb 19 23:58 UTC 2006

Well, *I* thought Sideways was pretty funny - though to be honest I watched
it in between flights at a friend's wine-tasting.

response 258 of 342:

Feb 20 02:24 UTC 2006

re #257
I didn't think age had anything to do with it.  

response 260 of 342:

Feb 20 06:06 UTC 2006

I also found the characters in SIDEWAYS remarkably unsympathetic.  In a
character study, if you cannot relate to the characters or at least find
something absorbingly interesting about them, what motivation would you
have for staying with it?  Mine was the hope that something would
happen, and the desire to understand what it was about this film that
made it so popular.  

I'm bereft on both counts.

response 262 of 342:

Feb 20 06:50 UTC 2006

I own a mirror. Why should I pay?

response 264 of 342:

Feb 20 15:20 UTC 2006

"Sideways" is a movie I saw once and will most likely only see again if
someone asks to watch it.

My favorite scene remains, hands down, when Miles (Giamatti) is retrieving
Jack's (Haden Church) wallet.  It was a sequence of events that still makes
me laugh.

response 266 of 342:

Feb 20 18:34 UTC 2006

hi happyboy !

response 268 of 342:

Feb 20 18:45 UTC 2006

I'm just glad to see her finally getting some great work.  She was really
great in that role.

response 270 of 342:

Feb 20 19:10 UTC 2006

re #260 I thought the two main characters in Sideways were both 
sympathetic and likeable.  These are two guys who are swallowed up in 
their own neuroses (one guy has an inferiority complex, the other is a 
narcissist) and because of that may always ultimately fail at every 
relationship they have.  By the end of the movie, you know Haden 
Church's impending marriage is never going to last because his 
narcissism will never allow him to be faithful.  Giamatti's character's 
relationship with the Virginia Madsen character probably won't last 
either, because he-- like his friend-- is too self obsessed, albeit in 
a different way.

But there is one relationship which will not fail, which has not 
failed, and that is the one they have with each other.  When we first 
see Haden Church's character, he is in a roomful of his soon-to-be 
inlaws and he lights up when he sees Giammati's character.  You can 
sense immediately that he's closer to this guy than he is to his 
fiancee or to anybody else in that room.  There is a great deal of 
tenderness in their relationship, you can see they really care for each 
other, and if that doesn't make those characters sympathetic, what 
will?  No matter what happens in their lives, even if they get 
swallowed up in their neuroses, they will always have each other.

There is an allegory in the wine storyline, because wine changes with 
age, gets better.  The Giammati character relates to wine, because 
while he has his inferiority complex and failed at his first marriage, 
he hopes that he-- like wine-- can and will get better with age.  
There's a scene where he describes why Pinot Noires are his favorite, 
because pinot noir grapes have a difficult early life and require a 
great deal of caring, and if they survive, end up making great wine.  
Pinot Noir grapes, he also points out, have a limited timespan where 
they are of great quality, before they go downhill.  Again an allegory 
for a man in a middle age crisis wondering if he'll ever get in another 
relationship before his time passes and he's aged too much and goes 
downhill.

There's a sad scene where the Haden Church character, having had the 
crap kicked out of him by one girl, picks up a waitress in a restaurant 
almost immediately, and he tells Giamatti that he isn't going to hang 
out with him, that he's going to wait for her to get off work.  There's 
a sadness in Giamatti's eyes as Haden Church's character says, "I have 
to do what I have to do"  His character is trapped in his neuroses and 
will never escape from it.

The movie ends on a hopeful note because we see Giamatti's character 
going back to Madsen's apartment and knocking on the door.  A poignant 
moment because it signals that maybe, just maybe, he will escape his 
neuroses and be able to commit to another person again.  Maybe, like a 
good pinot noir grape, his time has come.   

response 272 of 342:

Feb 20 20:06 UTC 2006

ELECTION-- This is another really good movie I just watched on dvd.  
Matthew Broderick plays a high school teacher having a midlife crisis. 
He's the advisor to the student council and has to monitor the upcoming 
elections.  The problem is he can't stand the girl running for 
president, a conceited type-A resume-obsessed student played by Reese 
Witherspoon.  So he decides he wants her to lose, and secretly recruits 
another student, the airhead former star quarterback, to run against 
her.  Then this guy's lesbian sister also decides to run, on 
an "abolish the student council" platform.  As the election nears, and 
Broderick's feud with Witherspoon's character gets worse, he slowly 
cracks up.  This is a terrific "dark comedy", and Broderick and 
Witherspoon-- who alternate narrating-- create memorable characters.  
Witherspoon deserved a nomination for this in fact, but it came out too 
early in the year.  I liked the final scene, which takes place a couple 
of years after the "election, when Broderick's character-- having had 
his life utterly destroyed by the earlier events, is in Washington D.C. 
as a tourist, and sees Witherspoon getting into a limo with a 
congressman, and he chucks his soda cup at the back window as they 
drive off.    

response 274 of 342:

Feb 20 20:28 UTC 2006

re #273 yes! I was wondering if anyone would pick up on that.  I 
rented "Election" because Alexander Payne wrote it, he is the same guy 
who wrote "Sideways".  Good for you Edina, you know your screenwriters.