为这部味道真他妈对味的陈酿复古的美国喜剧片干杯！影片绝对值得你痴心期待，今年没有比「杯酒人生」以外的影片能给你带来如此美好的感受了。它具备强大元素有：导演Alexander Payne （代表作有 《公民露丝）》 《校园风云》《关于施密特》）极富灵感的指导，能将机智和情感张力融合进趣味动人又重要的东西之中；Payne 和 Jim Taylor 共同创造了精妙剧本（故事源自 Rex Pickett的小说）改编水准是绝对称得上剧本改编之典范作品，将原本普通的对话塑造成经典喜剧形式；除此之外，还有四位足以称为电影梦之队的卡司团队。
这故事到底有什么东西能吸引到这些大牛人的注意力？影片猛一看非常像是一部低水平的哥们情谊片。失败的小说家 Miles (Paul Giamatti饰)是一个即将要担任朋友在洛杉矶婚礼的伴郎, 所以带着他的好哥们 Jack (Thomas Haden Church饰)一个沦落到只能广告的过气肥皂剧明星，去过婚前最后约炮之旅。他们要去的是加州的圣伊内斯山谷，懂点品酒的Miles来这里其实只是想喝本地酒来借酒消愁，完全不懂酒的Jack来这而是想和火辣的女服务员「大干一场」。好吧，好莱坞绝逼喜欢拍这种片子，如果Payne（导演）真是想只是拍这种低俗片片，那祝他去死。
Payne 精心构造了这部超越常规的喜剧电影。《杯酒人生》这部影片和主人公一样醉于酒的：诱惑，脆弱，美名。Miles和妻子离婚后已经颓废了两年，在中学教英语的工作也是半死不活，同时内心还焦虑着自己的小说非常可能会永远出版不了，更痛苦的是他的前妻已经再婚了，「欧耶」还他妈的很幸福。所以现在嗑药都不能阻止他对葡萄酒的狂热之情了。
故事通过两人走入两个女人的生活，展开了故事的发展。Maya（由Virginia Madsen扮演，常在80年代的影片中扮演性感尤物，例如电影《激情热点》）是一个对红酒痴迷的服务员，Miles没勇气向她搭讪。Jack为了帮他，通过和勾搭玛雅的迷人的朋友Stephanie（吴卓珊 饰），于是安排了一个四人约会。Stephanie是一个单身妈妈，工作是在酒庄为游客倒酒。她和Jack肉欲相惜，但Jack没有告诉她其实他马上就要结婚了。影片安排精彩儿有趣，仅通过一个滑稽的经典晚餐戏，就将四人一同拉进一个道德般困境。而笑声在「杯酒人生」中总伴随着一个感觉，这感觉悄悄袭来，但却寇设心扉。
众演员在本片都有惊人表现。女二号 Oh（吴珊卓）是冷面笑将。男二号 Church 最被人熟知的是出演电视剧 了《Wings and Ned》和《Stacey》，在本片里他扮演令人无法抗拒的迷人混蛋Jake。Church把握好了这个具有突破性的角色，抓住了Jack那特有的粗鲁魅力和内心绝望。男一号 Giamatti是美国的神级演员，他看起来既喜感又充满悲伤感。还有女一号 Madsen在片中完全是个大惊喜，岁月反而让她越加动人，她对角色的把握更为细腻和动人。奥斯卡的评委注意啦：今年的最佳女配角在这里！Payne（导演）把影片最抓人的一段戏给了Madsen 和 Giamatti，这段情节并没出现在原作小说中，Miles 把自己描述成喜怒无常的黑葡萄酒，而Maya正述说着酒是如何演变而成，经过发酵，提炼，混合，最后制成了「真他妈的好喝」的葡萄酒，Maya的语言完美地运用在了影片中。而就在此时，她打开了Miles珍藏多年的那瓶61年的白马庄葡萄酒（最棒的波尔多葡萄酒之一）接着说道「我想你打开61年白马庄的那天，一定是个特别的时刻。」
《杯酒人生》是无疑就是那个特别时刻。对此有怀疑的人可以先不急着它看成视为经典作品，也可以通过时间来考验这部影片。这很有道理，但是现在就称它为一部惊喜的极乐电影，可一点都不为过。
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Rolling Stone
Raise your glasses to a vintage American comedy that gets damn near everything right you can wait around and hope, but you won't have a better time at the movies this year than you will at Sideways. This baby has it all: inspired direction by Alexander Payne (Citizen Ruth, Election, About Schmidt), who fuses bracing wit and emotional gravity into something funny, touching and vital; a nuanced script by Payne and Jim Taylor, from Rex Pickett's novel, that serves as a model of screen adaptation by shaping dialogue into classic comic contours; and a quartet of actors who qualify as a cinematic dream team.
And to what end have these paragons turned their attention? A lowly buddy flick, from a quick glance. Miles (Paul Giamatti), a failed novelist, is taking his best pal, Jack (Thomas Haden Church), a former soap star reduced to doing commercials, on a last fling before Miles serves as best man at Jack's L.A. wedding. Their destination is California's Santa Ynez Valley, where wine-snob Miles hopes to drink himself sideways on the local vino and wine-idiot Jack hopes to get his "bone smooched" by hottie waitresses. Hollywood would love to make that movie. Payne, bless him, would rather die.
Payne crafts human comedies that transcend formula. Sideways is drunk on wine: its allure, its fragility, its vocabulary. Miles has been officially depressed for two years — that's when his wife left him. He is stagnant in his job teaching English, anxious that his novel will never be published and bitter that his wife has remarried and is — yikes! — happy. But not even Xanax and Lexapro can dull his passion for the grape.
Enter two women to stir up the plot. Maya, played by Virginia Madsen (the bombshell from Eighties movies such as The Hot Spot), is a wine-obsessed waitress that Miles can't find the courage to hit on. It's Jack who intercedes. He sets up a date by flirting with Maya's sassy friend Stephanie (the dazzling Sandra Oh), a single mom who pours wine for tourists. Stephanie is Jack's equal in carnal come-ons, but he neglects to tell her about his wedding plans, setting up a killingly funny revenge that is trumped only by a hilarious tour de force of a dinner scene that unites the foursome in moral chaos. The laughs in Sideways are laced with feelings that can sneak up and knock you flat.
The actors work miracles. Oh is a deadpan delight. Church, best known for TV's Wings and Ned and Stacey, is irresistibly appealing as rat-bastard Jack. Church takes his breakthrough movie role and runs with it, nailing Jack's rude charm and quiet desperation. Giamatti, a god among American character actors, has never been better, which is saying something. He's hilarious and heartbreaking. And Madsen is a revelation. The years have made her beauty richer, her grasp of character more subtle and affecting. Note to the Academy: The Oscar for Best Supporting Actress belongs right here. Payne gives Madsen and Giamatti the film's most transfixing moments — not in the novel — in which Miles sees himself as a temperamental pinot noir and Maya praises wine for how it evolves, gains complexity, peaks and "tastes so fucking good." Maya's words also apply nicely to the movie. She blasts Miles for hoarding a '61 Cheval Blanc (one of the greatest Bordeaux) for a special occasion: "I think the day you open a '61 Cheval Blanc, that's the special occasion."
Sideways is inarguably a special occasion. Doubters may hedge about calling it a classic and might insist on checking back in a few years to see how it has aged. Fair enough. But it's not too early to call it pure movie bliss.
