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Description: The DVD:
DVD9 => DVD5
Audio: English [5.1] / Spanish [5.1]
Subs: English / Spanish
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Soft: DVDFab + DVDRemake + DVDRebuilder + HC
Log Rebuilder:
- Reduction Level for DVD-5: 75,0%
- Overall Bitrate : 3.880Kbs
- Space for Video : 3.660.402KB
- HIGH/LOW/TYPICAL Bitrates: 8.104/355/3.880 Kbs
The Movie:
Sideways is a 2004 Academy Award-winning and Golden Globe Award-winning comedy/drama film, co-written and directed by Alexander Payne. It is based on the 2004 novel of the same name by Rex Pickett.
Plot:
Paul Giamatti plays Miles, a divorced, unpublished writer, eighth-grade English teacher and oenophile, who takes his soon-to-be-married actor friend and old college roommate, Jack (played by Thomas Haden Church) on a week-long road trip through Santa Ynez Valley wine country. Miles wants to drink wine, eat great food, play golf, and send Jack off in style. However, Jack is more interested in "sowing his wild oats" and having one last sexually libertine week. Soon after their arrival in wine country, they meet Maya (Virginia Madsen), a waitress at Miles' favorite restaurant, and Stephanie (Sandra Oh), a winery employee who happens to be friends with Maya.
Neither tells the women about Jack's impending nuptials the next weekend. Jack soon finds himself in a sexual and romantic imbroglio with Stephanie, which inevitably puts an abrupt end to Miles' plan for taking Jack out for a good time. Although more than a little reluctant, Miles is willing to entertain Jack's antics, convinced of the temporary nature of his newfound relationship with Stephanie. Miles' decision to indulge Jack's philandering ways is also influenced by his decision, with Jack's strong encouragement, to begin to act on the crush he's developed on Maya. Soon, Jack's relationship with Stephanie accelerates, putting Miles in a precarious predicament as he continues to court Maya casually. Inevitably, Miles and Jack grow frustrated with one another. They carry on in spite of themselves.
Eventually, Miles consummates his relationship with Maya. The next day, he lets slip the upcoming rehearsal dinner, which leads to his revelation of the upcoming wedding. An infuriated Maya, in turn, breaks the news to Stephanie, who becomes apoplectic and mercilessly attacks Jack, smashing his nose with her motorcycle helmet, which requires him to get medical treatment at a hospital. Miles and Jack later have a tense conversation where Miles flatly denies that he ever said anything about Jack's engagement to Maya.
Miles hopes that this is the end of Jack's behavior as they settle down to a barbecue dinner. Undaunted, Jack spots Cammi, a heavy-set waitress, who recognizes Jack and whom he dubs 'two tons of fun'. He goes home with her, leaving an irritated Miles once again to his own devices. Back at the hotel, Miles is awakened in the middle of the night by a naked Jack, who confesses that a cuckolded husband arrived home from work and caught Jack in flagrante delicto with his wife, and he was forced to escape in the nude and run five kilometers back to the motel. Jack reveals that unfortunately, he has left his wallet behind, which contained custom-designed wedding bands. He desperately wants to retrieve his belongings, but needs Miles' help. Initially, Miles laughs at the situation and refuses to help Jack, as he believes the incorrigible skirt-chaser may finally have learned a lesson. However, Miles sees the desperation in his friend's breakdown, and agrees to help him by driving him back to Cammi's house. After Jack pleads he's in no fit state, Miles reluctantly agrees to personally reclaim the wallet by sneaking into the garbage-strewn dwelling to retrieve it, passing by the Rubenesque couple, who are now engaged in sex themselves. He retrieves the wallet, but is spotted and is chased down the street by the enraged, portly, naked husband.
To finish off the weekend, Jack runs Miles' red Saab 900 convertible into a tree and then into a ditch, in order to have corroborating evidence for his story that a car accident mangled his face. The ploy works, much to Miles' chagrin. Jack's fiancee sympathizes with his injuries.
Miles' ex-wife Victoria is still friendly with Jack, and is at the wedding. During the road trip, Jack had revealed that Victoria remarried, but his romantic feelings for her are still strong. At the ceremony, Victoria tells Miles she is pregnant. Miles congratulates her and is also introduced to her new husband, but abruptly decides to skip the wedding reception and instead return to his dingy apartment in San Diego, where he fetches his prized bottle of wine, a 1961 ChÔteau Cheval Blanc, and drinks it from a styrofoam cup at a fast-food restaurant.
It seems that this is the end for Miles, but Maya eventually returns his apologetic phone call. She has read his unpublished manuscript, and a letter of apology that he sent to her. Touched by his sentimental side, she leaves a message on his machine telling him that she cannot believe the book was turned down, as she admires it, but is also confounded by portions of it, which she asks him about. This reveals to us portions of his novel that, in turn, reveal events in Miles' life that may have shaped his bleak perspective on the world, particularly his father's suicide. The film ends with Miles again driving north, standing on Maya's doorstep, and knocking on the door.
Directed by Alexander Payne
Produced by Michael London
Screenplay: Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor
Starring
*Paul Giamatti as Miles
*Thomas Haden Church as Jack
*Virginia Madsen as Maya
*Sandra Oh as Stephanie
Music by Rolfe Kent
Distributed by Fox Searchlight
Release date(s) October 22, 2004
Running time 123 min
Country USA
Budget $16,000,000
Gross revenue $109,502,303
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