Saturday, April 23, 2005
Sideways Vs. Kinsey: A film geeks Debate
Darrell's Review: Sideways is the better film.
Last Christmas, Wendy and I didn’t have the kids. It was our “off year,” as my son spent the Holiday with his mom and step-dad and Wendy’s two were with their dad and step-mom. So, we all celebrated Christmas on the weekend before the Holiday, and on the 25th, Wendy and I had a rare chance to see a “grown-up” movie.
We narrowed it down to three choices, Kinsey, Sideways, or Finding Neverland. Neither of us were particularly passionate about any of those choices, so we decided at random (by coin toss or rock-paper-scissors or something) to see Kinsey. Wendy really enjoyed the frank biopic about Alfred Kinsey, the pioneering sexuality researcher. I, however, thought that Kinsey was a huge, perverse, throbbing, naked train wreck of a movie, and it left me wanting to take a shower, go to sleep, and forget that I’d seen it.
Thanks to the DVD release of Sideways, we’ve now seen all three of the movies we considered last Christmas, and it’s my opinion that the one we settled for was the worst of the lot. Finding Neverland has its own halcyon charm, and we both enjoyed it. Kinsey repelled me. Sideways, on the other hand, is a warm, thoughtful, sweet and funny film, and it would have made for much better Christmas fare.
It’s not surprising that Sideways is so good. It’s screenwriter and director, Alexander Payne, was the filmmaker behind About Schmidt, one of the best films of 2002. What is surprising is how much Payne matured as a filmmaker in the span of only one movie.
I was a little disappointed by the fact that Sideways doesn’t have any of the broad comedy of About Schmidt. One of my favorite things about that previous film was how hard it made me laugh. Where Sideways doesn’t disappoint, however, is in Payne’s solid direction. True, he does showboat a little bit with a distracting split-scene travel sequence, but for the most part, Sideways is a masterful accomplishment in film direction. Observe how Payne makes the viewer a part of the film, putting us right in the middle of some intimate conversations and emphasizing the awkwardness of others by having us eavesdrop from another room. The scenes in California wine country are particularly beautiful. No Chamber of Commerce tourism promotion could do more to make the viewer want to visit that area than Sideways does. Even when Payne resorts to clichéd devices, he manages to make them seem fresh. For instance, there’s a montage scene, set to music, that encapsulates the time a new couple spends getting to know each other. Of course, we’ve seen those montages to death, but Payne’s shots make this montage inviting. One shot in particular, of the couple conversing beside a mountain of wine casks, is as textural and vivid as any shot in any film in recent years. You can almost smell the oak.
In the lead role, that of a struggling writer and bitterly divorced loner, Paul Giamatti is outstanding. He’s shown his acting chops before (see the outstanding American Splendor, but here he achieves remarkable seamlessness and subtlety. As Miles, Giamatti creates a man desperate to get on with his life, but unsure how. As his love interest, Maya, Virginia Madsen is equally winning. And Sandra Oh and Thomas Haden Church turn in strong supporting performances as a vulnerable single mother and a self-centered bastard on the prowl. There’s not a bum note in the script, and the actors deliver it all superbly.
In the end, the most surprising thing about Sideways is the movie’s honesty. None of the characters do 180 degree personal turns, there are no life-changing epiphanies. Those who are too self-absorbed to evolve simply refuse to do so. Those who do make progress make it in baby-steps, just like we do in real life. At the end of the film, the monumental courage sometimes needed to do something as simple as knock on a door receives the attention it deserves. In the end, you can’t help but quietly cheer for one character’s incremental growth, and a movie that tells it’s story honestly.
Unlike Kinsey, after all, this movie had a story worth telling.
Sideways:
Kinsey:
Wendy's Review: Kinsey is the better film.
Darrell is full of crap! We saw the right movie on Christmas. Kinsey was wonderful. Finding Neverland turned out to be a decent little movie. However, Sideways just didn’t do it for me. While Paul Giamatti was great, the rest of the movie just didn’t hold up to his performance. As for Kinsey, though, everything was great.
When we saw Kinsey on Christmas, it was a matter of just trying to pick something. Our friends had seen Finding Neverland , and said it was really good, but their good word didn’t give us the push we needed to see it that day. And Sideways, well in all honestly I hadn’t wanted to see Sideways since I first saw the preview for it before Garden State. I thought it looked boring, but I was slightly interested to see what all the hype was about. So we settled on seeing Kinsey because if I remember correctly I think it was the shortest of the three films.
Kinsey tells the tale of Alfred Kinsey. Alfred Kinsey was a researcher broke new ground when it came to human sexuality with the release of his book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male in 1948. Kinsey goes from being a man who collects gall wasps, to a man who collects data on the sex lives of people. Kinsey is played by Liam Neeson, and Neeson does a very fine job of showing us how wrapped up in his collection of data this man becomes. However, that is all they are to Kinsey, collections. There is nothing more than just another collection. Kinsey is a downward spiral tale, and a very good one.
The reason to see Kinsey, though, is Laura Linney, who does an amazing job playing Alfred Kinsey’s wife, Clara McMillen. I have never been a big fan of Laura Linney, but Kinsey is the movie that has won me over. She does an acting job that is as good as Naomi Watts in 21 Grams. She is real, and she is hurting. She ages throughout the movie, and it not only shows in makeup and hair color, but in her face itself. She has a face that speaks a million words. She is truly amazing. She was robbed of an Academy Award for her role in this movie. Granted I have not seen The Aviator, but I seriously doubt that Cate Blanchett was half as good as Laura Linney is.
Kinsey is not an enjoyable movie. It is very unsettling to watch, but it is worth it. Part of the reason this movie rates so high with me is because it lingers with me. Alfred Kinsey did some very uncomfortable things in his life, he made decisions that I would not have made. However, I love his story, and not the man. Darrell and I live about an hour away from the movie theatre we saw Kinsey in, and we spent the whole ride home discussing the film. That is one of the indicators of a good film. Yes, Kinsey makes me feel dirty when I watch it, but every now and then you have to get dirty to enjoy good art. You can’t always have good, clean, wholesome fun.
Kinsey:
Sideways:
¶ 4:04 PM 
Darrell's Review: Sideways is the better film.
Last Christmas, Wendy and I didn’t have the kids. It was our “off year,” as my son spent the Holiday with his mom and step-dad and Wendy’s two were with their dad and step-mom. So, we all celebrated Christmas on the weekend before the Holiday, and on the 25th, Wendy and I had a rare chance to see a “grown-up” movie.
We narrowed it down to three choices, Kinsey, Sideways, or Finding Neverland. Neither of us were particularly passionate about any of those choices, so we decided at random (by coin toss or rock-paper-scissors or something) to see Kinsey. Wendy really enjoyed the frank biopic about Alfred Kinsey, the pioneering sexuality researcher. I, however, thought that Kinsey was a huge, perverse, throbbing, naked train wreck of a movie, and it left me wanting to take a shower, go to sleep, and forget that I’d seen it.
Thanks to the DVD release of Sideways, we’ve now seen all three of the movies we considered last Christmas, and it’s my opinion that the one we settled for was the worst of the lot. Finding Neverland has its own halcyon charm, and we both enjoyed it. Kinsey repelled me. Sideways, on the other hand, is a warm, thoughtful, sweet and funny film, and it would have made for much better Christmas fare.
It’s not surprising that Sideways is so good. It’s screenwriter and director, Alexander Payne, was the filmmaker behind About Schmidt, one of the best films of 2002. What is surprising is how much Payne matured as a filmmaker in the span of only one movie.
I was a little disappointed by the fact that Sideways doesn’t have any of the broad comedy of About Schmidt. One of my favorite things about that previous film was how hard it made me laugh. Where Sideways doesn’t disappoint, however, is in Payne’s solid direction. True, he does showboat a little bit with a distracting split-scene travel sequence, but for the most part, Sideways is a masterful accomplishment in film direction. Observe how Payne makes the viewer a part of the film, putting us right in the middle of some intimate conversations and emphasizing the awkwardness of others by having us eavesdrop from another room. The scenes in California wine country are particularly beautiful. No Chamber of Commerce tourism promotion could do more to make the viewer want to visit that area than Sideways does. Even when Payne resorts to clichéd devices, he manages to make them seem fresh. For instance, there’s a montage scene, set to music, that encapsulates the time a new couple spends getting to know each other. Of course, we’ve seen those montages to death, but Payne’s shots make this montage inviting. One shot in particular, of the couple conversing beside a mountain of wine casks, is as textural and vivid as any shot in any film in recent years. You can almost smell the oak.
In the lead role, that of a struggling writer and bitterly divorced loner, Paul Giamatti is outstanding. He’s shown his acting chops before (see the outstanding American Splendor, but here he achieves remarkable seamlessness and subtlety. As Miles, Giamatti creates a man desperate to get on with his life, but unsure how. As his love interest, Maya, Virginia Madsen is equally winning. And Sandra Oh and Thomas Haden Church turn in strong supporting performances as a vulnerable single mother and a self-centered bastard on the prowl. There’s not a bum note in the script, and the actors deliver it all superbly.
In the end, the most surprising thing about Sideways is the movie’s honesty. None of the characters do 180 degree personal turns, there are no life-changing epiphanies. Those who are too self-absorbed to evolve simply refuse to do so. Those who do make progress make it in baby-steps, just like we do in real life. At the end of the film, the monumental courage sometimes needed to do something as simple as knock on a door receives the attention it deserves. In the end, you can’t help but quietly cheer for one character’s incremental growth, and a movie that tells it’s story honestly.
Unlike Kinsey, after all, this movie had a story worth telling.
Sideways:
Kinsey:
Wendy's Review: Kinsey is the better film.
Darrell is full of crap! We saw the right movie on Christmas. Kinsey was wonderful. Finding Neverland turned out to be a decent little movie. However, Sideways just didn’t do it for me. While Paul Giamatti was great, the rest of the movie just didn’t hold up to his performance. As for Kinsey, though, everything was great.
When we saw Kinsey on Christmas, it was a matter of just trying to pick something. Our friends had seen Finding Neverland , and said it was really good, but their good word didn’t give us the push we needed to see it that day. And Sideways, well in all honestly I hadn’t wanted to see Sideways since I first saw the preview for it before Garden State. I thought it looked boring, but I was slightly interested to see what all the hype was about. So we settled on seeing Kinsey because if I remember correctly I think it was the shortest of the three films.
Kinsey tells the tale of Alfred Kinsey. Alfred Kinsey was a researcher broke new ground when it came to human sexuality with the release of his book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male in 1948. Kinsey goes from being a man who collects gall wasps, to a man who collects data on the sex lives of people. Kinsey is played by Liam Neeson, and Neeson does a very fine job of showing us how wrapped up in his collection of data this man becomes. However, that is all they are to Kinsey, collections. There is nothing more than just another collection. Kinsey is a downward spiral tale, and a very good one.
The reason to see Kinsey, though, is Laura Linney, who does an amazing job playing Alfred Kinsey’s wife, Clara McMillen. I have never been a big fan of Laura Linney, but Kinsey is the movie that has won me over. She does an acting job that is as good as Naomi Watts in 21 Grams. She is real, and she is hurting. She ages throughout the movie, and it not only shows in makeup and hair color, but in her face itself. She has a face that speaks a million words. She is truly amazing. She was robbed of an Academy Award for her role in this movie. Granted I have not seen The Aviator, but I seriously doubt that Cate Blanchett was half as good as Laura Linney is.
Kinsey is not an enjoyable movie. It is very unsettling to watch, but it is worth it. Part of the reason this movie rates so high with me is because it lingers with me. Alfred Kinsey did some very uncomfortable things in his life, he made decisions that I would not have made. However, I love his story, and not the man. Darrell and I live about an hour away from the movie theatre we saw Kinsey in, and we spent the whole ride home discussing the film. That is one of the indicators of a good film. Yes, Kinsey makes me feel dirty when I watch it, but every now and then you have to get dirty to enjoy good art. You can’t always have good, clean, wholesome fun.
Kinsey:
Sideways:
¶ 4:04 PM
