There is life between the coasts

Last night, I went to see David Gordon Green's "Undertow". What a relief to see a movie not set in a) the coasts or b) a suburb that's aggressively anonymous (in an attempt to appeal to as many ticket buyers as possible). Green's gothic, kudzu-dripped South appears purely fictional. Or at least I hope it is. The place oozes menace. I wouldn't want to move there anytime...but I would rather see a movie set there than one set in, say, the bland upper-middle class New York City of Nicole Kidman's "Birth."

Speaking of settings, I was upset that Alexander Payne - who had filmed his earlier movies in contemporary, unromantic Nebraska - decided to make a movie in the wine country of California. I should have had more faith in the man; Sideway isn't set in a sun-dappled, grape-strewn Shangri-la. Instead, his characters hang out in coffee shops, seedy motels and cheesy theme restaurants. The wineries look like any crowded, slightly upscale suburban liquor store. The grape country tourist board can't be happy with him.