About Alexander by Kevin Canfield / THE JOURNAL NEWS / October 21, 2004 Remember Jim McAllister, the hapless history teacher played by Matthew Broderick in Alexander Payne's 1999 film "Election"? Approaching middle age with only his sensible footwear and his "Teacher of the Year" awards to comfort him, McAllister is not the man he thought he'd be. McAllister is the sort of person that has fascinated Payne throughout his filmmaking career. So it's no surprise to see a similar character — in the person of Paul Giamatti's Miles Raymond, a spiritual cousin of McAllister's — at the heart of the director's amazingly good new movie, "Sideways." "They both wear Dexter shoes; they're both frustrated teachers who pathetically aspire to more, but don't really know how to get there," says Payne, who spoke about his film in New York last week. The movie, based on a novel by a relative unknown named Rex Pickett, opens this week in Manhattan. "I think Schmidt is similar that way," adds Payne, speaking of the retired actuary (played by Jack Nicholson) whose story was told in the director's 2002 movie "About Schmidt." "He's a guy who's remained at a middle level, vaguely aware that he could have had potential for something else, but he let it all go by." Already generating Oscar talk, "Sideways," with a screenplay by Payne and Jim Taylor, confirms the director as the one of the movies' very best storytellers. An argument could be made that Payne, just 43, has emerged as one of the most insightful chroniclers of unfulfilled promise and male self-doubt currently working in any area of the arts. "It's probably personal on some level," says Payne of his affinity for characters dealing with disappointment. "I don't know how that's not universal; I don't think it's particular to me. I'm very aware of trying to live a life that will have as few regrets as possible." "Sideways" has a great cast; in addition to the always-strong Virginia Madsen, Thomas Haden Church (from the '90s NBC sitcom "Wings") and Sandra Oh both turn in bust-out performances. But it's primarily a story about a good man, a smart and at times charming man, who, for a variety of reasons, is an emotional mess teetering on the edge of failure. A bit like Michael Douglas's character in the film version of Michael Chabon's novel "Wonder Boys," Miles Raymond is the author of a very big novel. His manuscript fills several big boxes, and though it seems to have great promise, nobody wants to publish it. (A funny moment comes when Raymond tells Madsen's character that his novel is titled, "The Day After Yesterday." To which she replies, "You mean today?") And so the recently divorced Miles earns a living as a teacher. His real love is wine, a passion he intends to share with close Jack (Haden Church) as the two make their way by car through Northern California. The week-long trip is intended as a sort of send-off for Jack, who will marry the following weekend. The friends head for a winery and restaurant called The Hitching Post, which Miles favors for its pinot noir and its staff; he has what might be called a crush on Madsen's Maya. Jack, a low-rent ladies man and one-time soap opera star, takes the opportunity to sow some lusty oats — with Oh's Stephanie, among others — before entering into what he believes will be a less than perfect union. The trip is not uneventful, what with a wine-related meltdown, a deliberate car crash, a parking lot beating and a chase scene that involves a Saab and a very big, very naked man. "Sideways" feels like a road movie as the men motor from one ill-fated escapade to the next, but Payne says that was not his intention. "I don't really care about road movies — just those guys, and how pathetic they are, and how sad they are, and how funny they are and how funny some of the circumstances they find themselves in are," he says. It's no accident that Payne filled the role of Miles with Giamatti, the star of the well-received 2003 film "American Splendor" and son of the late baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti. Asked if he liked Giamatti because he doesn't look like, say, Tom Cruise, Payne said, "The fact that he's not Tom Cruise makes a big difference. I would not cast Tom Cruise in anything. I really don't like Tom Cruise because he's so unlike anyone I know. I like people who can at least capture something that I know. "It's like in the '70s when the nature of the leading man changed," says Payne, "where it wasn't anymore just Charlton Heston and Cary Grant but it's suddenly George Segal and Bruce Dern and Al Pacino and Elliott Gould, Gene Hackman. Guys who look more like real people and who can play roles which are much closer to earth. That's what interests me. I want to make films which are closer to real life, which are more mirrors of life rather than far-off movie star projections of things." Payne, according to those who've made movies with him, radiates a sense of serenity while behind the camera. He's "incredibly relaxed, or seemingly relaxed," says Giamatti. "He gives the illusion when he's on the set that nothing could possibly ever go wrong, and you feel that it won't. Things do all the time, but you never read it off of him. He's also intimately involved in what you're doing. ... He talks to you while things are being shot and you can hear him laughing. He's really connected with what you're doing. He's just a really human, decent guy, which sets him apart from most people in Hollywood." The Hollywood Reporter noted last week that Payne, who was nominated for an Oscar for the "Election" screenplay he wrote with Taylor, could be in the running for lofty honors sometime soon. "'Sideways,'" the publication reported, "has been generating an early awards buzz that makes it a likely contender for Oscars and Golden Globes." To look at the list of recent Academy Award winners is to be reminded that the best films often get passed over. But "Sideways" is surely one of the best movies of the year, and don't bet against Payne getting a call from the Oscar people in the not-too-distant future.