Tuesday night we went to see the movie Sideways the independent movie
touted as one of the Year's best. It is a buddy movie about two male
losers who go on a winery tour up the California coast. Actor Paul
Giocometti has been nominated for best actor for Screen Actors Guild,
and Virgina Madsen for best actress. But it is Canadian actor Sandra Oh who steals the show.
I first saw Sandra Oh in the CBC television production of Evelyn Lau's
first book “Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid,” for which she recieved her
first Genie nomination. Next I saw her in Mina Shum's “Double
Happiness,” for which she won her first Gemini award for Best acting.
Along the way, Sandra Oh caught the attention of Hollywood. She has
been featured in such movies as “Last Night,” “The Red Violin,” “Under
the Tuscan Sun,” and “The Princess Diaries.”
Born in the Ottawa suburb of Nepean, Ontario, to Korean Canadian
parents, Oh has the best lines in “Sideways.” When we meet her she is
working at a winery pouring wine for tasting for the two lead male
characters… well maybe a little bit too generously. Jack says she is
a very bad girl. She replies, “I'm very bad – spank me…”
Sandra goes on to develop a remarkably unconventional character who
is a single mother raising a mixed race child. When we meet the woman
that Oh calls “Mom,” she is White. Definitely some cultural and ethnic
puzzles to wrap the racial stereotypes and cultural expectations
around. Sandra's character also rides a motorcycle hog wearing a
skullcap helmet. Definitely not the “nice Asian girl” stereotype – but
most definitely the sexiest and exciting in comparison to Virgina
Madsen's character. While Jack's character goes on a lying promiscuous
field trip in the week before his wedding, the real crime here is that
Oh is not getting the best actor nomination.