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- Cert:
- Cat.no: 2785403000
- Running time: 122 minutes
- Year: 2004
- Pressing: 2005
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 32 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English for the hearing impaired
- Widescreen: 1.85:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras: Deleted Scenes, Featurette, Audio Commentary
Director:
- Alexander PAyne
(About Schmidt, Citizen Ruth, Election, Sideways)
Producer:
- Michael London
Screenplay:
- Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor (based on the novel by Rex Pickett)
Music :
- Rolfe Kent
Cast :
- Miles: Paul Giamatti
Jack: Thomas Haden Church
Maya: Virginia Madsen
Stephanie: Sandra Oh
Miles’ mother: Marylouise Burke
Victoria: Jessica Hecht
Cammi: Missy Doty
Christine: Alysia Reiner
I do enjoy a good road trip movie, and that’s what you get with Sideways.
Miles (Paul Giamatti) wants to give his best friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church) a final weekto remember before he gets married, so takes him travelling round California sampling fine wines, playinggolf and doing a spot of male-bonding before the rigours of life call them back and normality returns.At the same time, Jack sees that Miles, a would-be writer who’s having great problems getting his latestopus published, is depressed and needs to be reminded what it’s like to have fun and not live like VictorMeldrew… Miles also needs to get laid, although he’s got so much emotional baggage regarding his ex-wife,who’s since been remarried, it’ll take a miracle to shake that off and achieve a result.
The closest he’s going to get is with the waitress of a nearby restaurant, Maya (Virginia Madsen, right with Giamatti),whom he’s met on a number of occasions before as he tours the vineyards. However, he discounts this thought,despite Jack’s reassurances, because Maya wears a wedding ring when serving customers… but is she stillmarried, and would that matter anyway? So many possibilities. And how does horny-as-hell Jack do with herfriend, and server at a wine-tasting bar, Stephanie (Sandra Oh)? He wants to get his rocks off onelast time before settling down, but events begin to take anything less than the ordinary with thatrelationship.
It’s entirely fascinating to watch and hope Miles and Jack get what they want, and that Miles gets overhis ex-wife. You can tell Miles and Maya hit it off over their loves of fine wines, while Jack driftsoff with Stephanie (right), but while it would sound daft to suggest you should expect the unexpected, not everythingwill turn out as you expect and it’s all there to be cherished. Madsen and Oh provide good support, theformer doing better and showing she can hold her own in such a movie when she’s not relegated to a daftlove-interest (seeHighlander 2). However, it’s the fanasticchemistry between Giamatti and Church that makes this one a real winner. These are two fantastic actors,both undervalued by the mainsteam movie industry and/or not being the household names that they deserve,although Giamatti took a role in the recent animated movie Robots and Church is in 2007’sSpiderman 3, so let’s hope their stars are both in their ascendancy.
And unlike many films out there today, I would say it has the perfect ending. Of course, I won’t say why,but even if I did it wouldn’t make sense without you having taken the full trip with Miles and Jack first.
With a film like Sideways there’s not a massive amount you can say in a review other than describethe premise and comment on a few things without giving spoilers since there’s so much of it that’s just thereto be watched and to see what surprises you amongst the pleasantly-pedestrian. By the latter words, there’snothing bad about this film at all, I mean that as the film progresses and for those scenes where not muchhappens I can really enjoy those, too, and you let the surprises come as and when they’re due.
The film is presented in anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen and suffers from Occasionally poor encodingduring fast motion which makes things appear ‘sticky’. The disc also stuck in one DVD player betweenthe 1-hour point and another 13 minutes later so I hope any such problems are fixed with the retailrelease compared to this promo disc, as I had to change DVD players.
The soundtrack is in Dolby Digital 5.1 and with that I can find no fault, butit never uses the soundstage to any great degree so you’re not missing out ifyou only have a surround sound setup.
The extras aren’t much to write home about. There are allegedly some hidden easter eggs on this disc, butI’m damned if I can find them. As for the rest:
- Deleted Scenes (16½ mins):8 scenes, all with written introductions from the director, and all of which are definitely worth a lookoutside of the film – particularly the two involving the dog, but as it was intended to keep the filmdown to around two hours in length, certain things had to be excised from the final cut. All arein letterboxed 1.85:1 and surround sound.
- Behind-the-scenes featurette (6½ mins):A typical short, in 4:3, with the main cast and the director giving soundbites inbetween letterboxed clipsof the film. Worth a look, given that it was a great film to watch, but not an extra you’ll go back to.
- Audio commentary:With the lead actors, Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church.
The disc is also inflicted with a few piss-annoying trailers that you’reforced to sit through the second the disc boots up as if it was a rental title. You can skip past them, butthey’re preceeded by an even more “DON’T PIRATE THIS!” patronising advert for FACT. Jeez, I just wantto watch the freaking thing, but I can’t with all this crap getting in the way first!
The film contains a good 32 chapters, subtitles are available in English and themain menu is animated and scored with a looped piece of music from the film.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.