Sideways - Blu-ray

The fourth film by screenwriter-director Alexander Payne begins with two old friends setting off on a wine-tasting tour… only to plunge headlong into an ironic exploration of the transience of love and friendship, enduring loneliness and dreams, and the never-ending war between Pinot and Cabernet. The story begins when Miles (Paul Giamatti), a hardened divorcee and would-be writer with an obsession with wine, decides to treat his old school friend and former actor Jack (Thomas Haden Church) to a celebratory trip to the vineyards of the Santa Ynez Valley – a week before Jack’s wedding. The two make a very unlikely pair. Jack is a charmer brimming with sex appeal; Miles is a worried pessimist. Jack is looking forward to his ‘last sip of freedom’; Miles just wants to taste perfection in a bottle. Jack is content with cheap Merlot; Miles craves a volatile, top-class Pinot. It seems the only thing they have in common is a sense of thwarted ambitions and fleeting youth. And yet, when they head for the coast, Miles and Jack soon find themselves drowning in wine and surrounded by women. Jack falls under the spell of a waitress (Sandra Oh) and threatens to call off the wedding. Miles begins a romantic encounter with a waitress who is also a wine connoisseur (Virginia Madsen). Both men are approaching a midlife crisis. The wedding is drawing near, and with it the certainty that Miles and Jack will not return to Los Angeles the same as they were – if they return at all...