Sideways
(Charles Taylor from Slate's Movie Club has been picking on Sideways as "a Cathy comic strip for men." I left this in the Fray.)I made my own top ten list (well, I topped out at six and then chickened out of deciding between another twenty really good movies for the bottom four). And I found myself wondering, what distinguishes Sideways from another well-crafted, emotionally resonant movie like, for example, A Home at the End of the World? Or, for that matter, from the walk-away-slowly wreck of About Schmidt?
I think it's important to answer both questions at once. With Citizen Ruth and Election, Alexander Payne showed himself a satirist without peer*, but Schmidt had him using his guns (and Jack Nicholson's) on unfair targets. Not sacred targets—I don't mean to invoke the faux-populism of don't-pick-on-the-flyover-people—but targets too small and haphazardly picked. The movie veered between satire, farce and black comedy, and eventually veered off course.
With Sideways, then, he found himself mixing once again these three genres. In tenderness and pathos, he found an unexpected coagulant for the three. (This may be what makes comparisons to Preston Sturges stick). So yes, movie critics' fondness for Miles may have its root in music critics' fondness for Elvis Costello (they all look like Elvis Costello). And the golden shimmer of the Santa Ynez valley may have a little treacle in it. But Payne's characters are wicked enough to be very good, and that sets Sideways ahead of the pack.
posted by Josh K-sky at
4:07 PM
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