Miles Faymond (Giamatti), is a divorced middle school teacher and failed novelist, and his altar-bound friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church) who was once a fairly prominent actor and now has been reduced to a commercial actor to just make a living take a wine-tasting trip in California, pondering questions about their directions in life. The wine tasting road trip is to salute Jack's final days as a bachelor careens woefully sideways as he and Miles hit the gas en route to mid-life crises. The comically mismatched pair, who share little more than their history and a heady blend of failed potential and fading youth, soon find themselves drowning in wine and women (Sandra Oh and Virginia Madsen). Emerging from a haze of pinot noir, wistful yearnings and trepidation about the future, the two inevitably collide with reality.

Very few movies live up to all the hype around them, but Sideways comes fairly close, as the movie is clever, funny and highly entertaining. I laughed throughout the movie; sometimes almost falling on the ground with laughter and when I was not laughing I was highly amused by all the little quirks of the characters and what was happening on the screen. The movie has a very smart script and a biting wit on life and all the little things that make life up. It uses its two characters to show quirks in all of us and how amusing our habits and obsessions can be. If anyone has ever been obsessed with anything, like I am with movies and like Miles was with wine, its hard to not only find the humor on the screen but as well as in our own lives. While Jack on the other hand is the dark side in all of us, he lets go and is free like many people might wish to be despite the consequences and without Miles would probably be an absolute wreck. The movie does all this while it makes you laugh; the gold scene was one of the funniest I have ever seen in a movie.

Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church both do a superb job at their parts. You see them as Miles and Jack not two actors asked to do parts, and they add depth to already deep characters probably giving the characters life from their own personal experience. Thomas Haden Church who plays a TV actor who was once popular and now has been reduced to commercials is probably quite close to what has happened to Church since he left his popular TV show wings. You cannot help being drawn into these characters and caring for them all the while laughing at the crazy things they do. The movie is definitely worth an Oscar nomination and is one of those movies that you will remember for a long time, as the movie was ingenious, smart and funny.
5 stars out of 5