Movies

Saturday night my wife and I watched a movie. It had gotten a lot of publicity and sounded like fun since it was set in a place where we had lived for almost twenty years and was focussed on a subject that interests both of us.
The movie was "Sideways" the place Santa Barbara and the subject was wine. She collects and I drink it. (sometimes our approaches clash.

He: "Let's have the '80 Mouton Rothchild with the lamb on Sunday."
She; "We only have one left. Do you have any idea how much it would cost to replace it?"
He: "Ah c'mon, life's for living and wine's for drinking"
She: "You're crazy."

Anyway, you get the idea. So we watch the movie and at the end I tell my wife that the movie was lousy and how come they don't make good movies any more. On Sunday, I tell some friends how much I was dissappointed in "Sideways" and this morning I look up to see what the critics said about it.
They said it was good/great.

I thought about that for a while and then I realized that I wasn't reacting to the screen play, the directing or the performance of the actors. I was reacting to two over the hill L.A. guys who were fighting the onslaught of middle age and trying to be hot shots. One was looking for a last fling before his immenent marriage.
The other, a wannabe novelist and the ultimate wine snob couldn't get over his divorce and the rejection of his novel. So totally engrossed in his own self-pity he didn't even realize that a woman he had just met was really eager to have a relationship him - self pitying slob not withstanding.

It was the characters and their actions that upset me. "Sideways" may very well be a good movie I just don't like the shallow, selfish world it portrays. I really like movies about heroes. Even "The Clearing" with Robert (Stoneface) Redford and especially the recent "Motorcycle Diaries" . We need heroes more than ever these days.
Real life isn't producing any at all