spanglish and sideways

I watched two movies recently – spanglish and sideways. Spanglish for the second time - first time was in a marathon movie session in a flight. This movie has even Adam Sandler acting decently – I mean, the guy made too many bad choices (films like Waterboy, I couldn’t even watch the ads). But he gives a controlled performance, within limits and makes it bearable. I think Tim Robbins and Tom Hanks are of that variety – not overdoing it, but wins it by keeping it simple, the handicap of not being flamboyant is used as strength. Movies which are filled with lot of quirky stuff, strange characters and situations (which makes me think how they came up with it in the first place) are fun to watch. Supporting cast in this movie was very genuine and was given some meaningful lines – they were not invented to push the story forward or fill in time.

Sideways – I thought it was a real ride, stuff for which people should be going to movies for. Paul Giamatti is a real worker. Even in a part time job in Negotiator, he had made an impact. I am no movie critic, so I won’t attempt to do that. But there were couple of thoughts – even though it was kind of obvious that wine was being used as a metaphor for all sorts of things, it made some sense. Miles reminded me of people who are really good at some specific things or passionate and knowledgeable about some topic like sports or technology, but generally numb otherwise. Geeks can be fun if you can find something in common with them.

Also it sort of made me think about the friends we take along with us. Most of the times you know what is wrong and with very few of them you can get it out in the open. You can be friends with a person for really long time, probably life time, even without actually talking about certain issues. There are certain boundaries which are not crossed and still being a genuine friend in the marked enclosure. And there are other kinds who cannot understand you, but still you carry them along without even thinking about making an effort to make them understand your thoughts. They may really be in for a surprise. There are some about whom you don’t really think about consciously any more, they have become a part of the habit called life with all their good and bad. There are some whom you can fight with using tooth and nail and still it can make the relationship sane and not superficial. And then there are some who do not see you when they look at you, but still give you a feeling that you are the center of their universe.