Worth A Glance (a movie review)

Sideways
@@@@1/2

A beautiful character study, albeit at times laboriously paced, Sideways is one of those movies that's probably even better than my acute enjoyment of it. But although I may not have appreciated all that it was trying to say, and could've used a bit more action or a few more moments of outright hilarity, I still enjoyed it. Though I'm not sure if I would have liked it as much if I were trying to sit through it on TV. But of late, there's no one better at playing sad sacks than Paul Giamatti (who I just discovered is Bart Giamatti's son) and though he's been MIA since Ned & Stacey (and who else even knows what that is), Thomas Haden Church is still enjoyably off-beat, though at times, a tad off-putting. At least enough time has passed that I don't automatically think of him only as Lowell from the TV show Wings. Anyway, Paul & Thomas as Miles & Jack take a week-long trip to wine country in California, (not the one near Napa, but near Santa Barbara which I never really realized existed) shortly before Jack's upcoming wedding and while Miles continues to drown in a post-divorce malaise. They meet a couple of women and we follow the events of their week. But rather an outright comedy, it's more a psychological character study that works for the most part, if you have the patience.