Either Alexander Payne is a man charmed or he simply understands how to develop characters better than any director working in American cinema. I suspect it's the latter. Each of his films ("Citizen Ruth," "Election," "About Schmidtt" and "Sideways") have left the viewer feeling as though they've spent a slice of time with someone that they've come to know well and, in every case, learned to care about.

"Sideways" is a heartbreaking, life affirming tour de force that contains some of the finest acting I've seen in an American film in some time and one of the most profound, intensely personal scenes in recent memory. Ostensibly it's a film about two fairly pathetic middle-aged men making a last stand. Check it out, though, and I think you'll agree with me that it's about so much more.