Vote the Movies

Sideways (IMDB) (Netflix)
Paul Giamatti (American Splendor) is Miles, an Everyschlub wine snob still binding his wounds after a divorce and dying a slow creative death as he tries to get his novel published, and Thomas Haden Church (yes, Lowell Mather from Wings) is his bad-boy actor buddy about to get married for the first time. They head up to the Santa Barbara wine country for a last bachelor go-around of wine-tasting and golf. Comedic and transformational situations ensue.

And they're extremely enjoyable situations—I can't remember an audience having a better time at the movies. There's something about the bi-play between these two incompatible guys that's irresistable, with juicy, funny dialog ("if the girls want to drink Merlot, we're drinking Merlot") giving two natural comedic actors ample, high-quality material. Along the way, they meet Sandra Oh and Virginia Madsen, and Madsen in particular gives the movie some essential grounding, and a fine performance in the bargain.

"Sideways" will be on many, many top 10 lists this year.

Team America: World Police (IMDB) (Netflix)
Imagine a Jerry Bruckheimer movie (Pearl Harbor, Flashdance, Con Air, Bad Boys, Crimson Tide, Enemy of the State) where the characters are all puppets, like the old Thunderbirds TV show. Then throw the subversive creators of the South Park comedy ("They killed Kenny!"). I like the possibilities.

Most of which are realized. Besides over-produced mini-epics, targets include Islamic terrorists, Kim Jong Il and Hollywood peaceniks, giving everyone something to laugh at or be offended by. There's even a hilarious puppet love scene that originally got an NC-17 rating, which is pretty funny in itself. And for you foreign policy buffs, it offers a, um, biology-based model that could replace the Monroe Doctrine. A puppet show that's absolutely not for the kids.

I (heart) Huckabees (IMDB) (Netflix)
During the production of Three Kings, George Clooney punched out director David O. Russell, ostensibly for mis-treating the extras. Now that I've seen "Huckabees", I'm not sure Clooney needed that excuse—this guy is annoying in the extreme. On the other hand, Three Kings was a pretty good movie.

Here, Jason Schwartzman hires two "existential detectives" in the form of Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman to understand a series of coincidences. He's also befriended—then betrayed—by Jude Law, an ambitious executive with Huckabees, a department store whose ad campaigns feature an under-dressed Naomi Watts.

It's a manic, screwball-comedy-on-nitrous mess with redeeming qualities. There's enough fast-paced conflict-laden dialogue for three movies, and I think I pulled an ear muscle trying to keep up. There's a larger message inside this New Age ratatouille, but I was too exhausted to retain it.