Get your swerve on with 'Sideways'

Defying my critic brethren, I could not love Alexander Payne's "Sideways," a buddy road trip filtered through California's wine country for the midlife crisis crowd's palette. I liked it well enough; I wrote in this very newspaper a few months ago that it was "a good movie that wasn't THAT good." If you haven't seen it previously, don't take a chance and buy it. But it's still worth -- in this case -- the rental price. \nIf you haven't seen it, you should. Unfortunately, if you haven't, there's probably no way to escape the hype surrounding the film -- at one point this so-called art house film played in over 1,700 theaters and has cumulatively grossed a cold $70 million at the box office. It picked up a string of Oscar nods (winning Best Adapted Screenplay, which it deserved), landed on a majority of critics' top 10 lists and made such a splash that it actually affected the sales of wine. (Sorry, Merlot.) If these realities alter the way you see the movie, consider me not surprised.\nAs I said, plot-wise, "Sideways" is a grown-up road trip movie. Ambling writer Miles Raymond (Paul Giamatti in a strong performance) takes his best friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church), whose wedding is a week away, on a journey through California's wine country. There they meet Stephanie (Sandra Oh) and Maya (Virginia Madsen -- bestill my heart), who help the two men explore the delicacies of life, love and friendship. The film is essentially a four-fold character study infused with wine, and the audience is exposed to extremely potent metaphors along the way (for God's sake, I get it: Miles is a bottle of pinot noir). \nThe bonus features on the DVD aren't persuasive enough for me to insist you rush out and rent or buy. There's some commentary by Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church that sounds as if they had a few glasses of wine before showing up to record it. (You might as well enjoy a few glasses yourself while they're at it.) There's also a behind-the-scenes featurette with the director and his cast, as well as a couple deleted scenes. \nFor all the hype and praise that followed the film, don't expect a knockout DVD. At least in this venue, all you're really getting the movie -- a movie that was not among my top 10 films of last year, but certainly among the top 20.