Has the whole world gone crazy? Am I the only sane person left?! Sideways is an absolutely brilliant film about emotionally stunted men who use sex and alcohol to mask their pain. But, apparantly, when you tour the Santa Ynez wine region you can be one of 40,000 to pick up a brochure called The Sideways Guide to Wine and Life. Did they see the same movie I did?
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Welcome
Jordan Hoffman is a New York-based writer and film critic working for The Guardian, Vanity Fair, Thrillist, Times of Israel, NY Daily News and elsewhere.
He is the host of ENGAGE: The Official Star Trek Podcast, a member of the New York Film Critics Circle and challenges you to a game of backgammon.
I hope that the guide book is fully illustrated like the laminated pamphlets airplanes use to instruct passengers in case of an emergency. A very instructional guidebook would come in handy as I am not exactly sure how to steal money from my mothers private stash before going on vacation.
I forgot about stealing from the mother — that’s a good call.
I just read your November review of Sideways. I think you and I saw the same film and the rest of the country didn’t. I actually saw it for the first time this past Sunday (I would have seen it earlier except the movie theatre was on fire or something at the time).
You’re absolutely right on about the rib shack waitress. It’s not a big part of the film and it definitely has very little to do with the overall plot but when you remember the girl getting fucked by her husband is the same sweet girl that was nervous and tongue-tied at the restaurant over Jack – that truly is unsettling in a way. But it’s truth, you know? I mean, that’s real life. And it takes guts and intelligence to show truth in a truthful way.
The wine part never much appealed to me but I can see why it would to others. The idiots here talked about what Miles said about this label, and how the winery where he drinks from the spitoon was the only one that wasn’t real (but was based on one), but that wasn’t the soul of the movie to me. I KNOW that pinots are difficult to grow. I KNOW that the color of wine comes from the skin, etc. But it’s the subtleties like when Mile says his 700+ page book takes on a Robbe-Grillet feel that totally makes this film brilliant.
But I have to say that my friend and I did not like the cinematography. I mean, when the 4 of them are picknicking, it’s beautiful but it didn’t feel like that it would have been a given provided the natural beauty of the area. All you have to do is point the camera and shoot. And I didn’t think that split screen effect did anything for the movie at all. It seemed experimental, like Payne just wanted to try something and it had nothing really to do with the film itself, kinda like, I want to throw in a 70’s feel here.
But you’re right about everything. The most poignant part for me is when Miles and Jack and sitting near water, I think, and Miles says he’s too insignificant to kill himself. He names all the writers who’ve killed themselves and he can’t because he hasn’t published anything yet. That really spoke to me.