Sideways
A review...sort-of.
We rented the movie Sideways last night and watched...some of it. It has a reputation of being a pretty good romantic comedy, and my mother-in-law was in town, so we figured, why not. I can't write a proper review because I didn't watch the whole movie. We watched, waiting for it to get "good". We watched some more, again, waiting to see what all the fuss was about. We gave it a little longer, thinking it has to pick up soon. For those who have seen it, we got to the scene where the two main character guys have dinner with two women in hopes of getting laid. One gets drunk and call his ex-wife, who he recently found out got remarried. That was all we could take.
Here's my biggest issue with the movie. The premise is you have these two guys who are off to have a wild time in the week before one of them gets married. So these two guys, leave Los Angeles, to have a big time 'guy' week, and they go to..........California wine country???? What the hell is that all about? Nobody really does that, do they? More to the point, people don't really watch these two guys doing it and somehow consider it good film, do they? Maybe it was listening to one of them pompously discuss the wine he tasted and all the exciting flavors swirling around in his mouth when he said, 'and yes, just a hint of asparagus' that made me want to reach for the remote early in the movie, and I like asparagus. For the record, I like wine too, but I don't know that I want either of those dropping hints in the other. I could easily be wrong, and I'd try anything once, but the combination doesn't sound all that good comming out of the blocks. For a while I thought, maybe it's supposed to be a chic flick, and the infamous Y chromosome is inhibiting my enjoyment, but mom-in-law was the first to pipe up with, "so how much more time are we going to give it?"
If you're going to do that...if you're going to plan a week of male bonding and doing a last gasp before getting married, aren't there much better choices?
Analogy time
wild 'guy' weekend of debauchery is to California wine county as fun is to......
a) watching paint dry
b) a nap
c) watching grass grow
d) riding down the highway pointing out things that start with 'D'
e) taking the elevator for the tunes
f) all or any of the above
If you start in L.A. and insist on driving, isn't Las Vegas (as much as I may have vilified the place, it says decadence far better than a glass of Pinot) a better choice. Mexico, maybe? If you're willing to fly inside the country, how about New Orleans or Miami? Internationally (and this is a Hollywood movie we're talking about, so why not)? Maybe Berlin, Amsterdam or Bankok, or even Ibiza, but not California wine country. Talk about a serious yawn....which is what I did before turning off the DVD player.
We rented the movie Sideways last night and watched...some of it. It has a reputation of being a pretty good romantic comedy, and my mother-in-law was in town, so we figured, why not. I can't write a proper review because I didn't watch the whole movie. We watched, waiting for it to get "good". We watched some more, again, waiting to see what all the fuss was about. We gave it a little longer, thinking it has to pick up soon. For those who have seen it, we got to the scene where the two main character guys have dinner with two women in hopes of getting laid. One gets drunk and call his ex-wife, who he recently found out got remarried. That was all we could take.
Here's my biggest issue with the movie. The premise is you have these two guys who are off to have a wild time in the week before one of them gets married. So these two guys, leave Los Angeles, to have a big time 'guy' week, and they go to..........California wine country???? What the hell is that all about? Nobody really does that, do they? More to the point, people don't really watch these two guys doing it and somehow consider it good film, do they? Maybe it was listening to one of them pompously discuss the wine he tasted and all the exciting flavors swirling around in his mouth when he said, 'and yes, just a hint of asparagus' that made me want to reach for the remote early in the movie, and I like asparagus. For the record, I like wine too, but I don't know that I want either of those dropping hints in the other. I could easily be wrong, and I'd try anything once, but the combination doesn't sound all that good comming out of the blocks. For a while I thought, maybe it's supposed to be a chic flick, and the infamous Y chromosome is inhibiting my enjoyment, but mom-in-law was the first to pipe up with, "so how much more time are we going to give it?"
If you're going to do that...if you're going to plan a week of male bonding and doing a last gasp before getting married, aren't there much better choices?
Analogy time
wild 'guy' weekend of debauchery is to California wine county as fun is to......
a) watching paint dry
b) a nap
c) watching grass grow
d) riding down the highway pointing out things that start with 'D'
e) taking the elevator for the tunes
f) all or any of the above
If you start in L.A. and insist on driving, isn't Las Vegas (as much as I may have vilified the place, it says decadence far better than a glass of Pinot) a better choice. Mexico, maybe? If you're willing to fly inside the country, how about New Orleans or Miami? Internationally (and this is a Hollywood movie we're talking about, so why not)? Maybe Berlin, Amsterdam or Bankok, or even Ibiza, but not California wine country. Talk about a serious yawn....which is what I did before turning off the DVD player.
John put this out here at 7:42 AM
1 Comments:
Well it's not an Arnold thing. I have seen a few of his movies, but I'm not that big a fan.
As for Sideways, you and I would just have to agree to disagree. I didn't think it was well written at all. I thought the story lacked substance. I didn't think the dialogue was particularly intelligent, witty or entertaining, which for me is the bottom line. I thought Shrek, even handicapped by the sophomoric fart jokes, was far better written.
Now I'll give you that the acting was good. The production is something I only notice when its bad, so the fact that I didn't notice it says it was at least passable. But conceding the acting and production, in my opinion, is like saying the Titanic had some powerful engines, pretty chandeliers and some really cool bathroom fixtures.
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