THE 42ND NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL IS SPONSORED BY DIET COKE, HSBC BANK USA, N.A., & THE NEW YORK TIMES
above: Look at Me
LOOK AT ME (Opening Night)
With their last film, the Oscar-nominated The Taste of Others,
filmmaker-actress Agnès Jaoui and her writing partner-lead actor
Jean-Pierre Bacri gave us a deliciously bittersweet ensemble comedy. Jaoui
becomes a world-class director with this witty, visually accomplished
comedy that was a triumph at this year's Cannes Film Festival. The masterful
script (Best Screenplay at Cannes) shows us a bunch of pushy, ruthless
Parisians who would be quite at home in Manhattan. The women are unhappy
with their looks while the men are looking for something on the side.
When not intent on seduction, these artistic careerists specialize in
elegantly humiliating and one-upping each other. Bacri plays a novelist-turned-publisher,
a tyrant of egotistical self-regard, who has little use for his homely
daughter with an angelic voice; Jaoui is the daughter's celebrity-smitten
singing coach. The surprise is how much tenderness Jaoui manages to elicit
for her neurotic, self-absorbed characters. She demonstrates beautifully,
as Jean Renoir put it, that "Everyone has his reasons." 110 min. France,
2004 A Sony Pictures Classics Release
1A Fri. Oct. 1, 8:15 pm ATH ; 1B Fri. Oct. 1, 9:00 pm AFH
THE BIG RED ONE (A NYFF Retrospective) Sam Fuller, the cinematic
poet laureate of hard-boiled America, made The Big Red One as a
labor of love, a deeply personal memoir of his time in the most renowned
U.S. infantry unit of WWII. When the film was released in 1980, it was
cut drastically, for reasons of length and, perhaps, for fear of offending
the sensibilities of general audiences. Over the years, the complete Big
Red One remained a cinematic legend. Now, thanks to the efforts of
Richard Schickel and Brian Jamieson, it has become a reality. To say that
it lives up to expectations is an understatement. What was once a stately,
old-fashioned epic following the progress of Lee Marvin's hard-bitten
sergeant and his four young charges (Robert Carradine's Griff is Fuller's
alter ego), as they work their way from Northern Africa to the death camps
of central Europe, is now a powerful, one-of-a-kind portrait of war. The
hell of it, the tedium of it, the craziness of it - few war movies have
ever achieved such eloquence. 158 min. USA, 1980 (restored 2004) A
Warner Bros. Release
2A Sat. Oct 2, 11 am
TRIPLE AGENT A major departure for Eric Rohmer - a stark psychological
melodrama based on a true story. It is 1936, the era of the Popular Front
and the Spanish Civil War. A White Russian general, Fyodor, has immigrated
to Paris with his lovely, devoted wife, Arsinoé. She sympathizes
with the Communist neighbors upstairs; he finds them naïve, but his
own political convictions are continually shifting. Weighing aloud whether
to keep serving the irrelevant White Russians, go over to the Soviet Union,
or throw in his lot with the Nazis, Fyodor invites speculation that he
is a spy - a double or triple agent or perhaps merely an opportunist trying
to reinvent himself. Alongside this espionage story is the subtle drama
of a marriage being tested. The husband's glib confidence makes us question
the nature of trust; the viewer is placed in the same position as Fyodor's
wife, forced continuously to parse sincerity from insincerity. Triple
Agent is a moving love story of two people trying to outrun the juggernaut
of history. 115 min. France, 2004
Preceded by
HIGHWAY 403, MILE 39 (USA, 2004, 8 minutes)
Mitch McCabe's fractured, highly personal account of an accident, in which
memory competes with fear in trying to establish what really happened.
2B Sat. Oct. 2, 3:00 pm; 3C Sun. Oct. 3, 6:30 pm
TROPICAL MALADY There may be no more beguilingly mysterious film
this year than the Festival debut of the lavishly gifted Thai director
Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Leaving Bangkok for the seemingly peaceful
Thai countryside, the story begins as a conventional, if marvelously achieved,
love story between a young soldier and a young man from the country. But
just when we've gotten comfortable with Apichatpong's tender account of
two men falling for each other (including one startlingly erotic moment),
he launches us into the realm of myth and legend, in which human and animal
join together in a fantastic union. As formally audacious as it is visually
stunning, this strikingly original work reminds us that when we wander
the forests of love we encounter the most unexpected of creatures. 118
min. Thailand, 2004 A Strand Releasing Release
2C Sat. Oct. 2, 6:00 pm
UNDERTOW Undertow retains the dreamlike lyricism and empathy
with adolescents that were among the hallmarks of George Washington,
David Gordon Green's accomplished debut (NYFF 2000). With this
tense, atmospheric tale of a family in peril, he adds Southern gothic
to the mix. A widowed Georgia farmer (Dermot Mulroney) is visited by his
jailbird brother (Josh Lucas), who is looking to settle old scores. He
soon becomes the nemesis of the farmer's two, troubled young sons, who
embark on a fast-paced escape across forests, backwood villages, small
cities and shantytowns - a journey reminiscent both emotionally and visually
of The Night of the Hunter. Green's feeling for offbeat people
and out of the way places is wondrous to behold, and his star Jamie Bell
- last seen dancing the title role in Billy Elliot - is a revelation as
the older son who fights the lethal currents of family misery. 107
min. USA, 2004 A United Artists Release
2D Sat. Oct. 2, 9:00 pm; 3A Sun. Oct. 3, 1:30 pm
NOTRE MUSIQUE Jean-Luc Godard's new film is a work of great refinement
and serenity about the least refined or serene of human phenomena - war.
Godard works from Dante's template, and splits his vision into three panels.
"Hell" is a brilliantly colored and paced video montage of images of warfare,
some documentary and some fictional, in which the evidence of our collective
fascination with carnage and destruction becomes overwhelming. "Purgatory"
is set in the becalmed environment of post-war Sarajevo, during a cultural
conference in which Godard plays himself, grappling with the unbridgeable
divide between conqueror and conquered. "Paradise" is a pastoral vision
of the afterlife: a woman who has martyred herself in an effort to end
the Palestinian/Israeli conflict walks in the sunlight by a river, improbably
guarded by U.S. servicemen. Godard, now the very definition of an "old
master," has made some exquisite films in the past, but he may never have
made one as graceful, as lucid, or as moving as this. 80 min. Switzerland/France,
2004 A Wellspring Release
3B Sun. Oct. 3, 4:15 pm; 4B Mon. Oct. 4, 9:00 pm
IN THE BATTLEFIELDS Lebanon in the early Eighties. Bombs are going
off on the edges of Lina's middle-class Beirut neighborhood, but they're
nothing like the fireworks exploding behind the closed doors of the area's
well-appointed apartments. Danielle Arbid's impressive first feature follows
12-year-old Lina as she painfully discovers the contradictions and hypocrisies
of adult life. Largely ignored by her parents, her only solace is her
monstrous Aunt Yvonne's domestic, Siham, a poor girl with whom Lina forms
a warm, caring relationship - but that friendship, too, will be sorely
tested. Arbid is known for several highly acclaimed documentaries about
her native Lebanon. Here, the amorous and financial intrigues that so
consume the everyday lives of her characters form a counterpoint to the
political and military turmoil happening just offscreen. 88 min. Lebanon/France,
2004
Preceded by THE PATIO (EL PATIO) (Switzerland/Argentina, 2003, 15 minutes)
L'ennui on el patio. In Milagros Mumenthaler's languid vignette,
two sisters bide their time waiting for their mother to call from abroad.
3D Sun. Oct. 3, 9:30 pm; 4A Mon. Oct. 4, 6:00 pm
OR (MY TREASURE) Winner of this year's Camera d'or at Cannes for
best first feature, Keren Yedaya's riveting psychological study focuses
on an aging Tel Aviv prostitute and her eighteen-year-old daughter, Or,
who fights to keep her mother off the streets, even to the point of locking
her indoors. Immensely winning if perhaps overly confident, Or is convinced
that she has all the right answers and that she can redirect this helpless
woman into a new occupation. The girl is not without her own sexual desires,
which complicates her role as puritanical overseer. Grounded in a rich
specificity of detail about daily life in working-class Tel Aviv, favoring
moral doubt over pat judgments, Or avoids clichés, evades political
speechmaking, and unfolds with a simple, direct visual style unerringly
suited to its material. This remarkably self-assured debut offers us glimpses
of a substratum of Israeli society rarely seen onscreen. 100 min. Israel,
2004
Preceded by FROZEN RIVER (USA, 2004, 15 minutes) One Christmas
eve, the maternal instincts of two women who smuggle immigrants across
the Canadian border are tested. Directed by Courtney Hunt.
5A Tue. Oct. 5, 6:00 pm; 6B Wed. Oct 6, 9:30 pm
TARNATION To say that Jonathan Caouette has had a challenging life
is to put it mildly. His father abandoned the family when he was a child,
and his mother, a diagnosed schizophrenic, has been in and out of institutions
for much of her adult life. Jonathan was largely raised by his grandparents,
who had problems of their own. Now in his thirties, the director has been
documenting his life since he was eleven. With Tarnation he has
created a devastating, often shocking, but finally deeply moving portrait
of family life. Combining snapshots, home movies, video diaries, old answering
machine messages, and snippets of pop culture, Caouette has created a
bracingly direct meditation on coming to terms with oneself and one's
responsibilities. At Tarnation's emotional core is the story of Caouette's
relationship with his mother, a complex, tragic woman who is one of the
most remarkable real-life characters you'll see on screen. 88 min.
USA, 2004 A Wellspring Release
Preceded by BOY (New Zealand, 2004, 15 minutes) A hit-and-run
accident sets in motion Welby Ings's haunting, visually inventive tale
about coming of age and into sexuality.
5B Tue. Oct. 5, 9:00 pm
KINGS AND QUEEN Arnaud Desplechin's new film is not one but two
stories of the converging lives of Ismael (Mathieu Amalric) and Nora (Emmanuelle
Devos). Ismael's is a nightmarishly comic vaudeville turn, in which he
is whisked away to a mental hospital where he matches wits with the administrator
(a brilliantly cast Catherine Deneuve), raids the in-house pharmacy with
his bug-eyed lawyer, and pitches woo to a delicate young suicide survivor.
Nora's story is a more somber affair - she's survived her lover's suicide
and now has to contend alone with the prolonged dying of her father (magnificently
acted by Maurice Garrel). She eventually goes looking for Ismael, her
former husband, in an effort to convince him to adopt her son. As he did
with the wonderful My Sex Life (NYFF 1996), Desplechin explores
the uncharted territory between comedy and tragedy, exhilaration and despair,
belief and godlessness. Kings and Queen is one of the richest,
most rollicking movies you're likely to see this year. 150 min. France,
2004
6A Wed. Oct. 6, 6:00 pm; 7B Thu. Oct. 7, 8:45 pm
WOMAN IS THE FUTURE OF MAN The first snows have fallen on Seoul.
Heon-jun, a filmmaker recently returned from the U.S., looks up an old
college friend, Mun-ho, now a respected university professor. As they
sit in a Chinese restaurant the conversation moves from their work to
their personal lives and finally to their loves - or at least to their
memories of love, especially those concerning Seon-hwa, a painter and
former lover of both men. Hearing she now runs a bar, they decide to pay
her a visit - but could the woman they find ever really be the woman they
remember? Top French producer Marin Karmitz - acclaimed for his work with
Chabrol, Kieslowski, Kiarostami, and many others - was so impressed by
Hong Sang-soo's Turning Gate (NYFF 2002) that he offered to produce
this film. Aided by a trio of superb actors, Hong captures every nuance
in the shifting emotional and erotic relations among his characters. His
still young, still attractive protagonists are haunted by the fear that
the best of times may be behind them. 88 min. South Korea/France, 2004
8A Fri. Oct. 8, 6:00 pm; 9C Sat. Oct. 9, 6:00 pm
VERA DRAKE Mike Leigh's newest film is one of his very best, a
shattering drama about the unintended consequences of virtue. Vera Drake
(a superb performance by Imelda Staunton), hardworking cleaning woman,
fond mother of two, friendly neighbor, has a secret: she helps out women
who find themselves "in trouble" with unwanted pregnancies. As this illegal
activity comes to light, its ramifications tear apart her family and the
world around her. Leigh abjures satire for compassion and moral complexity,
employing a meticulously controlled realism in portraying a precise historical
moment - Great Britain in the early 1950s, still shell-shocked from World
War II, pulling itself up out of drabness and shortages. In the process,
the values of decency, stoical restraint, and class solidarity are put
to the test, the admirable disentangled from the hypocritical. 125
min. UK, 2004 A Fine Line Features Release
8B Fri. Oct. 8, 9:00 pm; 9A Sat. Oct 9, 12:00 noon
THE 10TH DISTRICT COURT: JUDICIAL HEARINGS Veteran photographer
and filmmaker Raymond Depardon's look at the inner workings of a Parisian
courtroom is a fascinating study of clashing egos and dueling rhetorical
styles - where the American legal system occasionally reaches the level
of scintillating prose, its French counterpart seems inherently poetic.
Within a deceptively simple framework, Depardon gives us an absorbing
and entertaining sketch of contemporary French society, as a parade of
African immigrants, pickpockets, threadbare artists, and self-righteous
academics come face to face with the formidable judge Michèle Bernard-Requin.
She's tough, more than a little bemused, and understandably tired of all
the shenanigans she has to witness, day in and day out, on both sides
of the law. Far more than a documentary on the frustrations of the legal
system, The 10th District Court is a film about the endless complexity
of human behavior. 105 min. France, 2004
9B, Sat. Oct. 9, 3:00 pm
BAD EDUCATION (Centerpiece) Only now, at the peak of his artistic
powers and with two Oscars to his name, has Pedro Almodóvar felt
ready to exorcise the demons of his troubled Catholic boyhood. The creator
of Talk to Her and All About My Mother has designed a ravishing,
labyrinthine narrative that centers on the reunion of two school friends,
one a film director, the other an aspiring screenwriter (Y Tu Mama
Tambien's fast-rising star Gael Garcia Bernal), who become intertwined
in memories of Catholic education, multiple identities, sexual dualities,
and, above all, a passion for film. Gorgeously photographed by Jose Luis
Alcaine, this complex and passionate film pays tribute to such familiar
archetypes as the femme fatale and the enfant terrible in surprising new
ways. Almodovar's most challenging, provocative and beautifully made film
to date. 110 min. Spain, 2004 A Sony Picture Classics Release
9D Sat. Oct. 9, 9:00 pm; 10A Sun. Oct. 10, 2:00 pm
HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS Even his legions of admirers will be amazed
at the sheer cinematic wizardry of Zhang Yimou's latest masterwork, a
touching ode to love and loyalty. The year is 859 AD and opposition to
the corrupt Tang Dynasty is growing. When a blind dancer named
Mei, an agent of the rebel group the Flying Daggers, is captured, the
regime sends a double agent to free her, hoping that she'll lead him to
the group's headquarters. Their path is strewn with dangers both expected
and unexpected-but none more perilous than those lurking in their hearts.
A dazzling collage of color, movement, dance, and acrobatics, House opens
a new chapter in the creative use of CGI technology, yet even its most
eye-popping displays of martial-arts prowess lay bare the deeply emotional
core of this epic tale. The brilliant cast, featuring Zhang Ziyi (China),
Andy Lau (Hong Kong), and Takeshi Kaneshiro (Japan), points to the emergence
of an exciting new pan-Asian cinema that incorporates the best of several
film traditions. 119 min. China, 2004 A Sony Pictures Classics Release
9E Sat. Oct. 9, 12 midnight; 10C Sun. Oct. 10, 8:00 pm
THE HOLY GIRL It's astonishing to see such a coolly knowing dramatization
of the thrumming sexuality of teenage girls drawn in equal parts to religious
fervor and erotic mischief. Amalia, a moody, moony, and only semi-holy
girl, is a droopy parochial-school student who comes alive when a stranger
rubs up against her in a crowd. The culprit happens to be a prestigious
doctor. It's his ironic bad luck that he is staying in the hotel run by
Amalia's divorcee mother while attending a medical convention. Inflamed
by a kind of warped love and the sheer adventure of it, the pious-perverse
girl begins to stalk her molester with a clammy ardor. Is she trying to
save him or seduce him? The promise of Martel's brilliant debut, La
Cienaga (NYFF 2001), is more than fulfilled with this provocative
second feature. 106 min. Argentina, 2004 An HBO Films Release
Preceded by FLOWERS FOR DIANA (France, 2003, 8 minutes) In Reynald
Bertrand's unsettling portrait of willful abjection, a documentary crew
trails a belligerent, freeloading dropout on her way to the bottom. But
who will get the last laugh?
10B Sun. Oct. 10, 5:00 pm; 11D Mon. Oct. 11, 9:15 pm
ROLLING FAMILY Four generations of an Argentinian family hit the
road in Pablo Trapero's enchanting and buoyantly funny new movie. An aging
matriarch, her frazzled middle-aged daughters, exasperated sons-in-law,
hormonal grandchildren, and newborn great-grandson pile into a temperamental
camper to travel to a clan wedding far from Buenos Aires. Along the way,
old passions and enmities are re-ignited, emotional and mechanical mishaps
abound, and the landscapes and folkways of Argentina are endowed with
a wonderfully fleeting beauty thanks to Trapero's keen camera eye and
gentle, patient rhythms. Just as he did in his debut, Crane World (NDNF
2000), Trapero works with non-actors, and carefully builds his narrative
around everyday events, giving us a road movie with a difference, in which
reality acquires a magical aura. 103 min. Argentina, 2004
Preceded by SUPERMARKET (USA, 2003, 12 minutes) In show biz you're
one flop away from minimum wage, so count your blessings and smile: you
still have your fan base. Directed by Illeanna Douglas.
11B Mon. Oct. 11, 3:00 pm; 12A Tue. Oct. 12, 6:00 pm
THE WORLD The latest triumph from Jia Zhangke (Platform, Unknown
Pleasures) is about people who aren't sure where they belong in the
new, globalized world order. The story focuses on a young dancer and her
security-guard boyfriend who work at a Beijing theme park, a weird cross
between Las Vegas and the Epcot Center that offers scaled-down versions
of famous landmarks - the Pyramids, the Eiffel Tower, even the twin towers
of the World Trade Center. Rather than dwell on the kitsch, Jia casts
a compassionate eye on the daily loves, friendships, and desperate dreams
of the provincial workers at World Park. They've come to the capital to
get ahead in the big glamorous world but end up offering tourists surreal
simulacra of the real thing. Sly, poetic, and pulsing with life, this
funny, touching work confirms, yet again, that Jia is one of the new millennium's
most inventive cinematic talents. 143 min. China, 2004
Buy tickets online at
lincolncenter.org
11C Mon. Oct. 11, 6:00 pm; 12B Tue. Oct. 12, 9:00 pm
MOOLAADÉ It takes a master to transform a well-meaning story
about "social issues" into a buoyant work of art. The great Senegalese
filmmaker and novelist Ousmane Sembene does just that with one of his
finest works. Now 81, Sembene deals with the most daunting topic imaginable
- female genital mutilation. Yet in telling the story of one woman's resistance
to this traditional practice, he offers a novelistically rich portrait
of a modern African village torn between three religions: spirit worship,
Islam, and free-market globalization. This movie has everything - scheming
imams and heroic feminists, benevolent mercenaries and Paris-educated
tribal chiefs, bloody murder and explosions of song and dance. Too wise
to mistake the earnest for the serious, Sembene's powerful assault on
a cruel religious ritual leaves you feeling surprisingly elated. 124
min. Senegal, 2004 A New Yorker Films Release
Buy tickets online at
lincolncenter.org
13A Wed. Oct. 13, 6:00 pm; 14B Thu. Oct. 14, 9:00 pm
KEANE Lodge Kerrigan stays close, very close, to William Keane,
the eponymous hero of his new film. As this troubled young man, dynamically
incarnated by British actor Damian Lewis (Band of Brothers), stalks
his way through Port Authority and the strange industrial landscapes outside
the Lincoln Tunnel, endlessly searching for the daughter snatched away
from him months before, Kerrigan puts us squarely in Keane's profoundly
unsettled universe. We see reality as he sees it - every sight and sound
is potential evidence, and every moment might be the wrinkle in time from
which his lost child will magically re-appear. When Keane is entrusted
with the care of another little girl at his hotel, the film moves to a
whole new level of grief-stricken poignancy - not to mention hair-raising
tension. Kerrigan, whose Clean, Shaven was a highlight of New
Directors/New Films 1994, has made a stunningly vivid film about the
spiritual desperation brought on by loss. 90 min. USA, 2004
Preceded by NITS (UK, 2004, 11 minutes)
In Harry Wootliff's film, seven-year-old James wants to tell his mum something,
but when his parents come back from the hospital, he learns how hard it
is to say certain things.
13B Wed. Oct. 13, 9:00 pm; 14A Thu. Oct. 14, 6:00 pm
SARABAND In this sequel to 1973's Scenes From a Marriage,
using the same incomparable acting duo of Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson,
Ingmar Bergman has given us a glorious late masterpiece. Marianne decides
to look in on her ex-husband Johan, to see how the old goat is doing after
all these years. While the two revisit their wounds and rediscover an
irritable, mocking fondness for each other, they are suckered into a more
volatile power struggle between Johan's widowed middle-aged son Henrik
and his beautiful, talented daughter Karin. Both father and daughter are
cellists; and the dance and musical form to which the title alludes conveys
their elegant, risky movements of converging and parting. Bergman's ability
to push scenes beyond civility to explosive feelings of love and hate
remains unsurpassed. The acting of the four principals is peerless. This
is no old man's sentimental valentine, but a work of shocking vitality
and robustness, sublimely poised, directed by one of the grandmasters
of cinema. 107 min. Sweden, 2004 A Sony Pictures Classics Release
15A Fri. Oct. 15, 6:00 pm; 16D Sat. Oct. 16, 9:30 pm
PALINDROMES Dyspeptic bard of stunted suburbia Todd Solondz (Welcome
to the Dollhouse, ND/NF 1996, and Happiness, NYFF 1998) once
again claws at the fermented soil of his loved-hated New Jersey - and
what he unearths may surprise even those familiar with the filmmaker's
taste for the bracingly bilious. Palindromes represents a startling
creative leap in structural inventiveness (with forward-and-back flexibility
applied to plot, as well as to the casting of the movie's yearning heroine,
Aviva). It also marks a breakthrough in Solondz's handling of moral complexity
as he steps, with characteristic nerve, into the fray of such hot-button
issues as "family values" and evangelical fervor. At the emotional heart
of this challenging film is a lonely, underloved girl's desire to become
a mother. The fired-up cast includes Ellen Barkin, Debra Monk, and Jennifer
Jason Leigh. 100 min. USA, 2004
15B Fri. Oct. 15, 9:00 pm; 16C Sat. Oct. 16, 6:45 pm
THE GATE OF THE SUN A couple makes love in the early hours of
the morning. The woman rises from bed, gets dressed, goes into the street,
and calls out to a neighbor - whom she then assassinates. Thus begins
Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallah's (El Medina, ND/NF 2000) powerful
adaptation of Lebanese writer Elias Khoury's epic novel of fifty years
of Palestinian dispossession, exile, and resistance. The film follows
the flight of Younes, his wife Nahila, and those around them from their
village in northern Palestine to a refugee camp in Lebanon. Some vow to
continue the struggle, most simply struggle to survive. Nasrallah, who
co-wrote the screenplay with Khoury and Mohamed Soueid, unsparingly details
the impact of the nakhba (disaster) on Palestinian life and society, while
showing the refugees' often-contentious relationship with their reluctant
Lebanese hosts. Spanning generations, mixing personal stories with historical
events, The Gate of the Sun will surely provoke intense discussion
and controversy. 278 min. France/Egypt, 2004. There will be a 20-minute
intermission between Parts 1 & 2.
16A Sat. Oct. 16, 10:00 am
CAFE LUMIERE One of the world's greatest filmmakers, Hou Hsiao-Hsien
has created an elegantly fractured riff on another indisputable master,
Yasujiro Ozu, the centenary of whose birth has been celebrated during
the past year. Where Ozu's Tokyo stories gave us an orderly Japanese society
being eroded by modernity, Hou conjures a present-day Japan in which family
life is a mere shell and romantic passion has given way to hooking up.
Left to their own devices, the young can follow only their own private
paths, like the trains that Hou uses as a recurring motif. Dazzling to
behold, Café Lumiere captures the pathos of contemporary
urban solitude. 104 min. Japan/Taiwan, 2004
16B Sat. Oct. 16, 4:00 pm
SIDEWAYS (Closing Night) From the glittering high school satire
of Election to the poignant tale of a retired insurance executive
in About Schmidt (NYFF Opening Night, 2002), director Alexander
Payne (aided by co-writer Jim Taylor) has established himself as a great
comic chronicler of ordinary American lives. Here, Payne takes the oldest
of Hollywood formulas - the buddy picture - and elevates it to an hilarious
and insightful portrait of the seemingly clueless male psyche. Superb
as ever, Paul Giamatti plays the tormented Miles, a failed novelist and
wine snob - he'll kill you if you order merlot - who takes his vain, hedonistic
actor friend (Thomas Haden Church in a breakthrough performance) on a
tour of California's wine country. Soon they're awash in wine, whining,
and amorous exploits with the exquisite Sandra Oh and a revelatory Virginia
Madsen - a grand misadventure shot through with an awareness of their
own futility. Laugh-out-loud funny, yet peculiarly heartbreaking, Sideways
is as intoxicating as your first sip of champagne. 124 min. USA, 2004
A Fox Searchlight Release
Preceded by NEVER EVEN (NIE SOLO SEIN) (Germany, 2003, 10 minutes)
Done than said easier is drink to something getting, backwards going world
a in up wake you when: end the was beginning the in. Schomburg Jan by
directed.
17A Sun. Oct. 17, 8:30 pm Avery Fisher Hall
NYFF ARCHIVE
