ANALOG vs DIGITAL - Ultra High Fidelity Magazine

unconvincing in the second. And — to
adapt a phrase from the original Superman
promotion — if you don’t believe a
man can fly, you’re not going to believe
much else.
Sideways (Blu-ray)
Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church,
Virginia Madsen, Sandra Oh
20th Century Fox
Gerard Rejskind: Is it actually possible
for a movie to have a major effect on the
wine industry? It would appear so. Sideways
is set in wine country, specifically
California’s Napa valley. The fifth star
of the film is the pinot noir grape. One
of the two main characters, Miles (Paul
Giamatti) is a self-styled wine connoisseur
with a particular passion for pinot.
“If anybody orders merlot I’m leaving,”
he says vehemently, “I am not drinking
any f****** Merlot.” The result? Since
the film came out your favorite wine
store has been heavily stocked with pinot
noir, with the name of that grape written
large on the label. Such everyday wines
as Mouton-Cadet have changed from
Merlot to Pinot. And in October a dozen
French winemakers were sent to jail for
mislabelling a blend of Syrah and Merlot
as…you guessed it, Pinot.
Miles is a high school English teacher
whose first novel is supposedly on the
edge of being published. He knows the
language of wine well enough, but it’s
the alcohol that has him hooked. “Glass
or bottle?” asks a bartender. Miles, who
is alone, takes the bottle, and before he
finishes it he might as well be drinking
shoe polish. His deepening alcoholism,
possibly triggered by his divorce two
years back, is not making him any more
endearing. He lies to his friends, he steals
from his mother, he drives with more
alcohol than blood in his veins, and it is
clear that, as a human being, he is pretty
much a fixer-upper.
The other character is his friend Jack
(Thomas Haden Church), who is getting
married next weekend, but first he and
Miles are taking a road trip through
wine country. Jack is an actor who once
played a doctor on network TV, but now
does voiceovers for schlock commercials.
Miles has fine vintages and golf on his
mind, but Jack’s eye is on — to put none
too fine a point on it — getting laid. And
getting his friend laid too.
The latter task seems difficult,
though not, ultimately, impossible. Jack
finds romance, or at least sex, easily
enough with a young vineyard employee
named Stephanie (Sandra Oh). Miles,
whose recent sex life has centred around
a magazine titled Barely Legal, gets close
to Maya (Virginia Madsen), a waitress
he has known for a while, and who knows
possibly more about wine than he does.
She becomes curious about his passion
for Pinot. He explains that it’s a grape
that is thin-skinned and temperamental,
not a survivor that can thrive even when
neglected. It needs constant care and
attention, and only the most patient
and nurturing growers can do it. We
understand that Miles is really talking
about himself, and Maya gets it too.
But this is a week that cannot last.
Stephanie doesn’t know about Jack’s
wedding, and so takes his declaration
of love at face value. When the truth is
revealed, as we know it must be, both
relationships are turned upside down.
Another event, also involving sex, will
reveal to Jack that he must proceed with
his wedding. Which leaves the questions
of whether Miles’ novel will really be
published, and whether Maya will ever
speak to him again. The film does not
have a real “Hollywood ending,” and that
is to its honor.
There is a lot of irresponsible drinking
in this film, and by my count the four
characters put away five bottles during
a single meal. After which they repair
to Stephanie’s place for, among other
things, more drinking. That any of the
subsequent dialog is even coherent is a
tribute to the heroic performance of the
main characters’ livers. The California
Highway Patrol must have hated this
film.
Sideways is, however, full of clever
insights and fine performances. And lots
of information about Pinot Noir.
Inception (Blu-ray)
Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Marion
Cotillard
Warner Bros.
Gerard Rejskind: For millennia,
dreams have fascinated humans. Where
do we go when we dream? Do our
dreams have meaning? Are they portents
of things to come? In our own era science
has studied sleep, and particularly
dreams, what is known as REM (rapid
eye movement) sleep. This intricate film
proposes the next scientific advance in
the study of dreams.
Inception is about dreams. It builds on
what we pretty much know. In a dream
the usual rules of physics are suspended
and anything can happen. You can’t
remember how you got where you are,
because you never remember the beginning
of a dream. Time is accelerated, and
a dream that actually takes an hour will
seem to have run 10 or even 20 hours. It’s
not always easy to know for sure whether
you’re awake or dreaming. In a dream,
if you die you wake up. However the
film builds out from that, by positing an
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