Sideways
June 2005 Reviewed by: Rad Bennett Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

It is harder to make a comedy everyone will enjoy than a drama or thriller. Every viewer brings something personal that will insure that the piece works, or that it does not. I remember seeing the original cast of A Little Night Music in New York. I had a great seat, sixth row. On one side of me was a slightly inebriated working-class guy, on the other a husband and wife that were obviously more prim and proper. The man on my left laughed at all the bawdy bits, the couple on the right chuckled at composer Stephen Sondheim’s clever plays on words. I was fortunate enough to be amused on both levels.

Other critics have found Sideways the comedy of them all. It was nominated for Academy Awards and it won Golden Globes. I don’t get it, so I must be carrying something to it that others are not, or be lacking in something else. The main character of this movie is an alcoholic, the supporting actor a womanizer, yet they are scripted and played to be completely lovable. And they never get their comeuppance. There is no piper to be paid.

Miles (Paul Giamatti) is a middle school English teacher with a wannabe-novelist complex and a taste for wine. At wine tastings, he tastes and tastes, usually getting drunk. His buddy Jack (Thomas Haden Church) is a washed-up actor who does voice-overs for commercials. The two take a trip together through the California vineyards a week before Jack’s pending wedding, tasting lots of wine on the way. They meet two women and that is where the confusion starts. Miles can’t let go of his past marriage, a partnership he himself scuttled, long enough to notice that the woman he is with (Virginia Madsen) is A-OK. Jack feels compelled to bed any woman he can before tying the marriage knot. The banter between the two mismatched friends, one negative, one positive, makes for the best humor in the movie. At a wine tasting Miles asks Jack, who likes about every wine he tries, "Are you chewing gum?"

The DVD transfer is good, just missing excellent. The colors are natural and the images clear without having that last bit of sharpness that would make them outstanding. The sound is better. All the dialogue, no matter at what level, can be heard clearly, and the music has good transparency and presence. The surrounds are not used a lot, the sound is largely up front, but that seems to suit the movie’s small scale. The extras are not so good. The commentary is handled by Giamatti and Church in a backslapping party manner. I am sure they had a good time, but you might not. There are the usual behind-the-scenes featurette and deleted scenes, as well as a theatrical trailer. None of these really add much to the enjoyment of the film, but then they do not detract either.

I liked this movie and would recommend you see it. Depending on who you are, you might like it better than I did, and no one can say it was a waste of time. It is just that like my companions at the Sondheim show, some might laugh at some parts and others at other parts, and this time I was not the person who could be amused by it all.

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