Sideways (8/10)

This film is as fine as the wine that its characters obsess over -- smooth, effortless, and with a haunting after taste that keeps you up at night.

Of course, I don't know anything about wine, but what a movie! The fourth film from American directory Alexander Payne, who also made Election and About Schmidt, is more restrained, more subtle and more mature than his previous outings. It definitely borrows more in tone from About Schmidt (slow, dreamy countryside) than Election (bitter, vicious suburbanite) and doesn't quite reach the sheer joy of Election, still my favorite Payne film. But this is not a film that is eager to show off its cleverness as Election was. There are no crazy camera movements or fancy cinematic tricks screaming for attention. The characters just talk on and on, and the things that they say aren't even particularly clever or witty.

But boy, do you fall in love with the characters! In a kind of chamberplay-on-the-road, all four actors and actresses turn in wonderful performances, and there is a beautiful, dreamy conversation late at night between the main character and his love interest on the subject of wine and life that may knock you out cold and break your heart.

Of course, Payne hasn't completely gone soft. There is a scene here that is as surprising and vulgar as the famous bathtub scene in About Schmidt and most of Election. You'll know it when you see it, and you'll think twice about entering strangers' houses after watching this.

In any case, this is not a film that aggressively tries to impress you. But its characters stay with you, and scenes from the film age slowly. Plus, I vote the main character as the most me-character I've seen on film all year. This is a great movie, but its greatness won't come till you've let it sit and ripen for a few days.

Ray (5/10)

Very disappointing. I came out of Collateral eager to see what Jamie Foxx would do with a weightier role. And while Foxx was fine, the movie was not.

Ray makes the most fatal mistake of all biopics -- instead of telling stories about the man and the legend, it merely lays out a chronology. The film starts off promisingly with effective flashback scenes hinting at a haunting past. However, after the half-way point, everything that's on screen only serves to bring about another newspaper headline. The characters don't stay on screen for more than three minutes anymore; instead, we are presented with flash presentations of different events in Ray Charles' life. Very quickly, I lost all identification with any of the characters, and was begging for the history lessons to stop. The movie culminates with a final, imaginary scene that resolves Ray's ghosts from the past. This scene is unnecessarily uplifting, offensively cheesy and only emphasizes how phony the whole movie rings.

Jamie Foxx was fine and believable as Ray Charles. But he was never given many scenes of much emotional weight that holds for more than five minutes, and therefore, never evolves from mere caricature to character. I much prefer him in Collateral.

In any case, god I hope this film doesn't make it into the Oscars. Jamie Foxx can get his Best Actor nod, but do not waste a slot in Best Picture.