The golf scene alone is worth watching Sideways again.
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So what counts are the shoes people wear who drink great wine, or what cars they drive. WOW
The retrieve the wallet scene? The car into the tree scene? I love it. Really, it’s Alexander Payne’s ability to make horribly awful people interesting and almost lovable that makes the movie. See also: Election and About Schmidt.
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Oh dang. I guess no free Peloton hoodie and sweats while drinking DRC huh…
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Before they got into the droptop racket, SAAB used to take used 4th fill Burgundy barrels and fashion them into the bulbous 29 airframe.
Even uglier than Miles’ car.
Saw the movie about 15 years ago and recall it as amusing, but truthfully barely recall it at all.
My long-term irritation with the film is every article about Merlot’s (supposed) resurgence has to lazily cite the film’s signature line. Get some new f**cking merlot material.
Loved the movie, loved the book. Enjoyed the second book where it becomes very clear that Miles is indeed an alcoholic. Haven’t gotten around to the third book yet. It’s all slapstick. If you don’t enjoy that well then the series isn’t for you. I still watch it every once in a while when I’m missing California.
Still an awesome dialogue. The 1:12 moment still give me that “are we still talking about wine”
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+1 It reads like it was written by a 3rd grader. It is amazing how the screenwriters came up with a coherent 2 hour picture based on the book. Paul G way overdelivered in that picture and it rightfully lifted him out of the rest of the Hollywood crowd.
People may dis the movie, but it’s obvious that it still has an impact even though it’s 17 years old. I find movies like Bottle Shock wooden in comparison. And does any one think that Netflix thing from last year about som school had any credibility?
Agree, Sideways is much better than Bottle Shock. The latter is a terrible movie with a few well played characters.
-Al
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Just the opposite for me. Found Sideways ponderous and slow. But that’s what makes the world great, everybody thinks different.
Miles’ car is a classic and you all have terrible taste in movies and cars (TBD on wine).
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Gotta love it when a thread reviews movies, books, shoes, SAABs, fuselages, and (specifically) Fort Ross Pinot Noir, all in 33 posts. I’m in for the duration.
Cheers,
Doug
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I find the book a good deal darker than the movie, so I’m right there with you.
I can watch the movie about once a year, but I actually think it’s a excellent movie. Again, it’s not a wine movie, but it does have wine as a back drop, so I view the movie more as the movie.
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I also think it’s a pretty good movie and agree that the book is a good deal darker. For those of us who visited the area frequently, there was an added interest of spotting locations and people used as extras.
FWIW, to me, the monologue by Maya linked above was right at the border of being too much.
-Al
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Paging Kevin Shin. I think some folks see great wines and wine tastings as wonderful experiences that build memories with friends. Like concert tickets to your favorite band, sports tickets to a playoff game. That kind of thing. 3 hours with your best buddies with a sensory experience that is something you won’t forget. While you’re having fun. But then again, maybe the memories you’ve got from going with a buddy to a killer sporting event is worth less to you than some $400 shoes.
We all make judgment calls on what we spend our money on. Some folks fall in love with wine. Some folks spend crazy money on cars which, to me, is a tremendous waste of money. Some folks like to travel. Some like to have 30 pairs of shoes, or watches, or art, or an unnecessarily large home.
Let’s face it, if you look at wine from an objective point of view, unless you’re buying as an investment and re-selling, it’s a tremendous, ultra-privileged, preposterous waste of money. It is a consumable that you literally piss into a toilet when finished. It’s the stupidest spend I can think of, and I own hundreds of bottles of it. My non-wine friends think I’m insane for wasting my money like that. We could all probably retire a year or two earlier if we took our annual spend and just stuck it in Vanguard index funds.
But we don’t. Because we like wine.
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Your statement reminds me of a joke I’ve shared on here a few times over the years:
Civilian: How many bottles of wine do you buy per year?
Wine Geek: Usually about 250
Civilian: How much do you pay per bottle on average?
Wine Geek: About $80
Civilian: And how long have you been collecting wine?
Wine Geek: About 20 years, I suppose.
Civilian: So a bottle costs $80 and you buy 250 bottles a year, which puts your spending per year at approximately $20,000. Correct?
Wine Geek: Correct
Civilian: If in one year you spend $20,000, not accounting for inflation, the past 20 years puts your spending at $400,000, correct?
Wine Geek: Correct
Civilian: Do you know that if you didn’t buy so much wine and such expensive wine, that money could have been put in a step-up interest savings account and after accounting for compound interest for the past 20 years, you could have now bought a new Ferrari?
Wine Geek: Do you drink wine?
Civilian: No
Wine Geek: Where’s your Ferrari?
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Movie had as much to do about wine as Raging Bull had to do about boxing. Film Appreciation 101.
I liked Sideways a lot, and I’ve seen it a few times. I also liked Election, Nebraska and The Descendants, though I didn’t really care for About Schmidt.
Most of the movies I watch (not counting stuff I watch with the kids) are in that general category. I watch most of the Duplass brothers movies and movies from their related circles (e.g. Lynn Shelton). A lot of the movies I’ve really liked in recent years did well under $1M in box office.
But those movies aren’t for most people. I don’t say that in a snobby way, they’re just not what most people want in a movie, and that’s totally fine, people should watch what they want.
I think occasionally, a movie like that (e.g. Lost in Translation, Sideways, Nomadland) catches some buzz and reaches a wider audience, most of whom are folks who don’t really watch movies like that plus who only saw it after hearing it hyped up to them. And then there is disappointment and a backlash.
[I don’t mean that necessarily describes anyone or everyone in this thread saying they didn’t like the movie, I’m just speaking broadly about how certain movies are received when they bust out of their type of audience.]
Again, no judgment, but I think Sideways is an interesting small contemplation about certain people and situations, with wine geekiness as a side story, and I wouldn’t expect most people to dig it.
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