Originally appeared as Wine Grapes as Life, on Correct My Spelling.

I like this Alexander Payne guy. Three very funny, moving, true movies. Election, About Schmidt, and now, Sideways. He's done some other movies as well, Citizen Ruth with Laura Dern, The Passion of Martin, which I can find no information about, and two soft-core loveathons for Playboy--real passion, simulated penetration. The breadth of his work as a filmmaker is already considerable.

I went into Sideways with the personal expectation bar probably set too high after seeing Election, About Schmidt and American Splendor (for star Paul Giamatti). I hoped it was better than all of these, a stupid desire that always ends with me sucking my thumb, in tears. I'd more or less decided I wouldn't see the film at all, the odds were just stacked against me. Then, something unexpected happened. Driven by Kismet--fate as only the Turkish can manage--the bar was inexplicably nudged higher by various reviewers.

It seemed then, that this movie was going to be so damned good I couldn't help but be devastated by its inability to live up to the brain-monument I would create to it. The monument destined to become a sepulcher. I needed a fall guy, something to drag my perception of the movie down enough that I'd feel okay watching it. To find that, I looked to the supporting actor.

The x-factor I found, the only potential flaw in the Carrara-marbled monolith--the only thing that could soften the blow of dissappointment--was Thomas Hayden Church, you know, Lowell Mathers. I hadn't seen him since Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight, which I think was at Ben Kromer's birthday party in 8th grade. He was good then, but not great. To stifle hope, I imagined him being neither good nor great.

It was a bust of Thomas Hayden Church, then, with which I crowned my expectations, and that sullied the whole thing enough that I felt okay about actually watching it. You can imagine, then, my surprise at his gleeful performance. In Sideways he's both good and great, often simultaneously. In such instances, like Voltron, good and great form to become real great.

Jack is an actor. Jack is guided by "nothing but [his] instincts". Jack's instincts are fantastically horny, and grateful for every piece of ass he gets. Especially the pieces of ass he gets days before that final, symbolic piece of ass, the honeymoon. Church plays Jack in some inexplicable way, a way that makes us like him. He's so selfish, so emotional, so starving for something resembling love, that he detaches his soon to be married self from his remaining bachelor self. All he wants is to be accepted, by his fiancee, by Miles (Paul Giamatti), by single mother Stephanie, by the chubby waitress who recognizes him as his decade-old One Life to Live doppelganger. He loves no one so much as himself, but somehow, Church makes us feel like there might be enough left over that he really loves all of these other people quite a bit too. Except the chubby waitress, that was probably a rebound thing. Probably also an ego thing. So we like him. He's our asshole friend. We all have one.