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Sideways: The Shooting Script
The newest screenplay from the Oscar®-nominated writers of Election and About Schmidt, Sideways is the tale of two men's adventure in California wine country.
Based on Rex Pickett's acclaimed first novel, Sideways tells the story of Miles (Paul Giamatti), a failed novelist, and his soon-to-be-married friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church), a washed-up actor.To salute the remains of their youth, the two men take one last road trip in the week before Jack's wedding.A serious wine enthusiast, Miles is determined to educate his friend on the region's beloved Pinot Noir wines before the week is out.
Jack indulges his best friend's passion for the grape but is mainly interested in living his last week of bachelorhood to the hilt.Trouble ensues with wine and women (Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh), and the duo comes to some profound realizations as they come to terms with maturity.
Based on Rex Pickett's acclaimed first novel, Sideways tells the story of Miles (Paul Giamatti), a failed novelist, and his soon-to-be-married friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church), a washed-up actor.To salute the remains of their youth, the two men take one last road trip in the week before Jack's wedding.A serious wine enthusiast, Miles is determined to educate his friend on the region's beloved Pinot Noir wines before the week is out.
Jack indulges his best friend's passion for the grape but is mainly interested in living his last week of bachelorhood to the hilt.Trouble ensues with wine and women (Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh), and the duo comes to some profound realizations as they come to terms with maturity.
192 pages, Paperback
First published December 8, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 11, 2022
Apologies for being preemptively defensive, but I thought about this for a while and I think it’s okay to log screenplays I read since it’s, like, released by a publisher and, while it doesn’t take up as much space on a page as fiction, it takes up about as much space as poetry and obviously we log poetry. Apologies, also, if everyone is like, “This is fine. Why are you defending this?”
Anyway, great screenplay. Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor do some creative things with action lines to keep things moving. Some lines were cut from the finished film. They were all good cuts.
They do a really good job of leading the reader when necessary, giving slight insights into Miles (Paul Giamatti)‘s thinking. It’s beautifully done. Also there are a number of scenes in the movie where the screenplay really describes exactly the sound design and editing. I always wonder when you see people talking and music is playing over it, “Was that scripted?” In Sideways, whenever something like that happens, the script describes the action and notes that the conversation is “improvised.”
Anyway, great screenplay. Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor do some creative things with action lines to keep things moving. Some lines were cut from the finished film. They were all good cuts.
They do a really good job of leading the reader when necessary, giving slight insights into Miles (Paul Giamatti)‘s thinking. It’s beautifully done. Also there are a number of scenes in the movie where the screenplay really describes exactly the sound design and editing. I always wonder when you see people talking and music is playing over it, “Was that scripted?” In Sideways, whenever something like that happens, the script describes the action and notes that the conversation is “improvised.”
November 8, 2023
Wonderful screenplay of a fantastic movie. Very subtle, thoughtful, moving, and funny. Watched the film relatively recently, but reading this made me want to go back and watch it again.
August 17, 2015
I have to watch this again, the two big speeches were good on page, but remember them killing on film
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews