Monday, January 24, 2005
I don't get it
At this time of year, I always feel strangely compelled to see at least a couple of the movies that will likely be Academy Award nominees. This is a slight problem, as there are only two cinemas in town. The one at the mall run movies that make you feel stupid just by looking at the poster. The one downtown has a better mix and was showing Sideways, so off we went.
And I have to say I just don't get what the big deal is about this movie. I can see why the industry likes it. "It looks like it cost a dollar to make, and it features emotionally stunted creative types! Swoon!" I've admitted my bias against most entertainments with unsympathetic protagonists, and this one fell squarely into that category.
What I really couldn't get past was the notion that the characters played by Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh -- bright, charming, sexy women with a lot on the ball -- would be so hungry for companionship that they'd hitch themselves to such obvious losers. That's not to say that Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church weren't good in the movie. But they were good at playing totally self-involved, arrested adolescents. The resolution for Oh's character was particularly unsettling for me.
It's disappointing, as I've liked some of director Alexander Payne's other work. Election, while dealing with similarly unsavory characters, had a different kind of self-awareness that made it a lot more palatable. There was a level of distance that let viewers decide how they responded to the characters and their actions. In Sideways, I didn't feel like I was allowed to laugh at Giamatti, that his middle-aged malaise was in some way noble or tragic instead of just pathetic. And since I never found it anything but pathetic (and recognized it from too many other movies where hot women squander their charms on shlubs to give them a new lease on life), I could never get engaged.
And while I'm on the subject of movie-going, can I just say how much I hate the act of watching a movie with strangers? The level of rudeness has become so predictable that I don't know why I even try any more.
We were sitting near a couple who pulled off a trifecta of bad manners. They showed up late and made a big deal of picking where they sat, in spite of the fact that the theater was practically empty. They brought their own snacks and spent most of the early portion of the film crackling wrappers and offering each other bottled water. (You can do that bottled water thing silently, you know. You just wave it in the direction of your companion and look to see whether he or she takes it or non-verbally declines. It's not something that requires dialogue.) And the woman of the couple was a narrator. She would make obvious pronouncements like "She's pregnant," or "Oh, the 1961" that anyone with a functioning brain cell would keep to themselves because they're so damned obvious.
And I have to say I just don't get what the big deal is about this movie. I can see why the industry likes it. "It looks like it cost a dollar to make, and it features emotionally stunted creative types! Swoon!" I've admitted my bias against most entertainments with unsympathetic protagonists, and this one fell squarely into that category.
What I really couldn't get past was the notion that the characters played by Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh -- bright, charming, sexy women with a lot on the ball -- would be so hungry for companionship that they'd hitch themselves to such obvious losers. That's not to say that Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church weren't good in the movie. But they were good at playing totally self-involved, arrested adolescents. The resolution for Oh's character was particularly unsettling for me.
It's disappointing, as I've liked some of director Alexander Payne's other work. Election, while dealing with similarly unsavory characters, had a different kind of self-awareness that made it a lot more palatable. There was a level of distance that let viewers decide how they responded to the characters and their actions. In Sideways, I didn't feel like I was allowed to laugh at Giamatti, that his middle-aged malaise was in some way noble or tragic instead of just pathetic. And since I never found it anything but pathetic (and recognized it from too many other movies where hot women squander their charms on shlubs to give them a new lease on life), I could never get engaged.
And while I'm on the subject of movie-going, can I just say how much I hate the act of watching a movie with strangers? The level of rudeness has become so predictable that I don't know why I even try any more.
We were sitting near a couple who pulled off a trifecta of bad manners. They showed up late and made a big deal of picking where they sat, in spite of the fact that the theater was practically empty. They brought their own snacks and spent most of the early portion of the film crackling wrappers and offering each other bottled water. (You can do that bottled water thing silently, you know. You just wave it in the direction of your companion and look to see whether he or she takes it or non-verbally declines. It's not something that requires dialogue.) And the woman of the couple was a narrator. She would make obvious pronouncements like "She's pregnant," or "Oh, the 1961" that anyone with a functioning brain cell would keep to themselves because they're so damned obvious.
Comments:
<< Home
Oh good, I'm glad there's someone out there who isn't wildly enthusiastic about this film. Every time people ask me "Have you seen Sideways yet?" and I tell them that I have no interest in seeing yet another movie about unlikeable middle-aged heteroexual white men having angst they look at me as if I've gone mad.
The only thing I can possibly add to that is, if I never see another movie, book, television show, play, or comic that features the tragic injustice of the unpublished novel, it will be too damned soon. Particularly when said unpublished novels are thinly-veiled biographical explorations of the author's sucky relationship with his father. No wonder they're unpublished! Fictional book editors must see a hundred of them every year!
Er...I liked it. I thought it was a fantastic film about a subject that will never bore me: low self-esteem. Both Miles and Jack were characters that have self-esteem somewhere near the core of the earth. The different ways they deal with it and what we learn about these characters really impressed me.
And Paul Giamatti is one of my favorites.
And Paul Giamatti is one of my favorites.
Nothing wrong with that, Ian. And I certainly didn't think it was badly made. My problems with it were in terms of tone and central argument. Low self-esteem is one thing, but the movie seems to argue that it excuses just about anything: whining, narcicism, dishonesty, cruelty, infidelity, excess.
Or maybe I'm just obsessed with Sandra Oh and cannot forgive a film where her character is treated so shabbily.
Or maybe I'm just obsessed with Sandra Oh and cannot forgive a film where her character is treated so shabbily.
Worst movie-going experience ever was sitting in front of some dumb narrating bitch who wouldn't shut the hell up ("I'll talk if I want to!"). It's the closest I've gotten to a fist fight in twenty years; I was ready to pummel her and her boyfriend senseless. She literally said at one point, loud enough for the whole theater to hear her, "There's a fence," when a wooden fence appeared onscreen. Death would've been too good for her.
I think the behavior of moviegoers is one of the reasons I'm drawn to independent movies over mainstream ones, because it seems that if there are 20 people in the room rather than 200, chances are better that they'll mostly behave. That and the fact that the money spent to get the two of us to a nighttime movie is enough to purchase the DVD is enough to make me want to give up altogether.
A.O. Scott of the New York Times wrote a piece, now I think only available if you're willing to pay, suggesting that Sideways (which I haven't seen) is a critical darling because so many critics can see themselves in the Giamatti character, a balding middle-aged failed novelist who doesn't have the life he thinks he deserves. Because it's a shout-out to their reality, they claim it holds universal appeal. I think that's part of the appeal, but even from the previews I was convinced I probably wouldn't like it. I'm sort of sick of movies about emotionally stunted men and the smart, sensitive, hurt women who care for them, even though I'm sure this will be a smarter and more insightful one than the norm. I even like a lot of unsympathetic protagonists, but I just remain unconvinced.
After watching I think Hollywood Ending, my dad said that the point Woody Allen movies got bad was when he went from showing how funny it would be if a schmuck like him could land a classy broad to just taking the idea that he could do just such a thing under any circumstances as a given and having that be the ground on which his movies were built.
The problem is that I read myself into these things too and end up saying, "What does she think when she goes home to that? What does she think her martyrdom will win her? When is she ever going to get to really speak?" And in movies I don't like, the answer to that last one is usually "never." I don't know if Sideways is an example of that, but I have my suspicions.
Rose
A.O. Scott of the New York Times wrote a piece, now I think only available if you're willing to pay, suggesting that Sideways (which I haven't seen) is a critical darling because so many critics can see themselves in the Giamatti character, a balding middle-aged failed novelist who doesn't have the life he thinks he deserves. Because it's a shout-out to their reality, they claim it holds universal appeal. I think that's part of the appeal, but even from the previews I was convinced I probably wouldn't like it. I'm sort of sick of movies about emotionally stunted men and the smart, sensitive, hurt women who care for them, even though I'm sure this will be a smarter and more insightful one than the norm. I even like a lot of unsympathetic protagonists, but I just remain unconvinced.
After watching I think Hollywood Ending, my dad said that the point Woody Allen movies got bad was when he went from showing how funny it would be if a schmuck like him could land a classy broad to just taking the idea that he could do just such a thing under any circumstances as a given and having that be the ground on which his movies were built.
The problem is that I read myself into these things too and end up saying, "What does she think when she goes home to that? What does she think her martyrdom will win her? When is she ever going to get to really speak?" And in movies I don't like, the answer to that last one is usually "never." I don't know if Sideways is an example of that, but I have my suspicions.
Rose
# posted by 
: 6:50 PM
: 6:50 PM
"...because it seems that if there are 20 people in the room rather than 200, chances are better that they'll mostly behave."
It's interesting, because I find the odds of rudeness about equal here in West Virginia, though the audience sizes reflect your experience. On the other hand, we've found that your equation is almost always true in cities.
We make a point of seeing movies when we're in DC for a couple of reasons. One, they get interesting independent movies that will probably never come to Morgantown. Two, the audiences are almost always there to actually watch the movie and not to amuse their companions, demonstrate their stupidity, make origami out of candy wrappers, or check their voice mail. It's really refreshing, and it makes me more charitably inclined towards the movies.
It's interesting, because I find the odds of rudeness about equal here in West Virginia, though the audience sizes reflect your experience. On the other hand, we've found that your equation is almost always true in cities.
We make a point of seeing movies when we're in DC for a couple of reasons. One, they get interesting independent movies that will probably never come to Morgantown. Two, the audiences are almost always there to actually watch the movie and not to amuse their companions, demonstrate their stupidity, make origami out of candy wrappers, or check their voice mail. It's really refreshing, and it makes me more charitably inclined towards the movies.
Ack, David, I refuse to follow your logic and admit that things are better in Ohio than in Kentucky, because that can't be the reason! Instead I'll amend my first comment to say that if there are only 20 people, it's less likely they'll be sitting right behind me and talking or something. I'm not sure it is less likely, really, but I get very nervous in packed theaters and that's part of it too.
I do think audience reactions shape how I see a movie, probably more than they should. I get annoyed if they laugh at the "wrong" parts or can't handle sex in something R-rated or are obnoxiously sexist, which got me off on the wrong foot when watching Kill Bill or grotesquenly bloodthirsty at The Lord of the Rings. I know it's not the movie's fault if it brings out stupidity in the audience, but I feel I have to either justify my reading of the movie against the dominant one if they didn't understand, or feel like an oppressed minority if the rest of the theater had been reacting positively and loudly to something I thought didn't deserve it.
I'll stop now, because this wasn't really supposed to be a post about what a bad movie-watcher I am, right?
Rose
Post a Comment
I do think audience reactions shape how I see a movie, probably more than they should. I get annoyed if they laugh at the "wrong" parts or can't handle sex in something R-rated or are obnoxiously sexist, which got me off on the wrong foot when watching Kill Bill or grotesquenly bloodthirsty at The Lord of the Rings. I know it's not the movie's fault if it brings out stupidity in the audience, but I feel I have to either justify my reading of the movie against the dominant one if they didn't understand, or feel like an oppressed minority if the rest of the theater had been reacting positively and loudly to something I thought didn't deserve it.
I'll stop now, because this wasn't really supposed to be a post about what a bad movie-watcher I am, right?
Rose
# posted by : 7:42 AM
: 7:42 AM << Home
