I liked it, but not as much as I expected to. Though it gave me a wicked jones for wine, and a desperate need to get back out to wine country.

The jones for wine was so bad that I actually went out to eat lunch in an Italian restaurant next to the theater afterward and had a glass of Pinot Noir with my meal. Unfortunately, it fell rather short of "sublime".

I think the movie hit me so hard because I've been having a similar sort of "I've already lived half of my life, and all I have to show is this lousy T-shirt" type of brooding episodes (albeit without the near-suicidal depression.) And there were a couple of scenes in the movie that felt almost transcendental in quiet loveliness and heartbreak--the first being the conversation about wine and life Miles and Maya have on Stephanie's porch (for all his loser-y behaviors, you can see how someone could fall for Miles right there. And Oh, my God, Virginia Madsen's Maya was just incandescent in that scene), and the second was the scene at the wedding when Miles runs across his ex-wife and her new husband. Gah, the look on his face when he hears the news about the baby? Fucking broke my heart to pieces. Then I bawled like a baby through the entirety of Maya's phone message. Oh, man.

I also liked the soft jazz soundtrack. May have to get the CD.

Sideways is easily the best film I've seen this year. Like, by about a zillion points. Not quite at the level of Lost in Translation, but it hit me in almost all the same places.

(What cracks me up is how I can tell who's seen it and who hasn't by how they react when the wine list arrives in a restaurant. Especially if the house red is a merlot...)

Vonnie, the scene that broke my heart was immediately after the second one you described -- Miles at the diner, having skipped the reception (and I kept thinking "He can't skip the reception -- he's the best man! He has to give a toast!"), still in his tuxedo, eating a burger and onion rings, finally drinking his kickass 1961 vintage wine, but secretively.

Sideways is easily the best film I've seen this year. Like, by about a zillion points.

Hmmm. Somehow, Garden State hit me way harder in my Lost in Translation place.

But don't get me wrong; I really did like Sideways -- I just expected to like it more. (Though, to be fair, Lost in Translation didn't really hit me until a little while after I saw it for the first time. And by "a little while," I mean weeks. So Sideways may hit me all of a sudden some time in December.)

So I should see Sideways, huh? I loved Garden State, but Lost in Translation didn't do a lot for me. But I loved Election.

I love the Long Kiss Goodnight. It's one of those movies we quote a lot in my family.

"I suggest that whatever he's looking for was never there, or is already gone."

Not quite at the level of Lost in Translation, but it hit me in almost all the same places.

That's funny, because the movie did remind me a bit of Lost in Translation, as well as Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind. Not necessarily in plots or styles, but in the way these films made me feel afterward.

Steph, I didn't even realize that bottle was the precious vintage he was talking to Maya about! Aw, man.

So I should see Sideways, huh?

P-C, I think you'd like it.

(I have to admit that I'm a *total* wine geek, and so the uber-wine-geekiness of it had me laughing my ass off. I was the only one laughing at certain points.)

But don't get me wrong; I really did like Sideways -- I just expected to like it more. (Though, to be fair, Lost in Translation didn't really hit me until a little while after I saw it for the first time. And by "a little while," I mean weeks. So Sideways may hit me all of a sudden some time in December.)

I've been wondering what cool movie I was missing (saw the Incredibles). Thanks for the Sideways talk so I can get to it ASAP.

Vonnie -- oh, yeah. I figured he was digging in the closet for his wedding photo album, because he seems like the type of person to keep it even after the divorce. But then seeing him drinking wine, and then the totally understated way the reveal of the bottle's vintage was shot -- it made me gasp the same way I gasped in Lost in Translation when Bill Murray squeezed Charlotte Johannson's foot. Completely understated, and yet it said EVERYTHING.