"Sideways": Eeeehhh?

"Let's just kill ourselves and save the world the oxygen we are wasting on our own survival."

Well, I finally saw the movie "Sideways" (thanks to HBO and the miracle that is Tivo), and I gotta say---what the hell was the big deal about? Watching a couple of self-centered alcoholics spend a week together is not my idea of classic movie material. I mean, I guess the performances were alright, but it was the kind of movie where I kept expecting something (ANYTHING!!!) to happen, and when things did I would think "Yeah, so?" Have movies in general been so bad lately that this stood out all that much?

Maybe this is an example of the LA movie industry looking at it's own navel, portraying people who are common to that area, but really have no connection to anything beyond its own geographic center. It certainly didn't have much of importance to say to me. That it won so many awards and got so many laudatory reviews is mystifying to me.