Oscar, schmoscar

So I'm plugging away at my list, almost done seeing every film I aimed at seeing and so far I'm fairly disappointed. I think it was a bad year for film if these are floating to the top. Sideways, especially, surprised me in how much praise it garnered vs. how I felt after seeing the credits roll. I'm a huge fan of Paul Giamatti, but he's doing another Harvey from American Splendor character and maybe I found Thomas Haden Church's character's behavoir abhorrent, but the performances were good and it was a bit of a buddy roadtrip movie that made me want to watch, but in the end I wasn't blown away by any of it.

I'm kind of surprised by its place on every best of 2004 list. It was a fine picture and all, but I guess I didn't identify with either main character so it's probably just me.