Sideways

One sure Oscar contender is Alexander Payne's follow-up to ELECTION and ABOUT SCHMIDT, SIDEWAYS, a bitterly funny buddy movie in which Paul Giamatti (the should-have-been-an-Oscar nominee of AMERICAN SPLENDOR) plays a depressed divorcé who takes his altar-bound friend on a wine-tasting week that results in bachelor-party debauchery. Extra treat: Sandra Oh and a brilliant Virginia Madsen co-star. The normally stade lead film critic of Variety, Todd McCarthy, wrote this in his rave review of SIDEWAYS: "A beautifully observed, small-scale study of personal foibles, romantic uncertainty and two sides of the sadly predictable male animal, this appealingly handcrafted film will appeal most directly to the more upscale and discerning end of the audience spectrum. But the picture features enough flat-out hilarity that, given the right push from Fox Searchlight and some luck in the bargain, it could catch on with a larger public . . . [it's] a wonderful film, so accomplished that it looks effortless. In his fourth feature, Payne has refined his simple but eloquent style to the point where it serves the material fully without an ounce of ostentation." Of Madsen he wrote this: "Then there's former B movie sexpot Virginia Madsen, who here emerges from perhaps a decade of obscurity to deliver one of the great monologues in modern cinema."



"Alexander Payne's heart-piercing new film about a writer on the verge of disappointment is a reason to maintain hope in the film industry." --Manohla Dargis, The New York Times



 "At the end of the movie we feel like seeing it again."
-- Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES




  "If film critics employed a 0 to 100 rating scale such as some wine critics do, then SIDEWAYS would rate about a 98." -- Kirk Honeycutt, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER