Paul Giamatti

Film Review: The Holdovers is a lived-in comedy that crackles in its quieter moments of reflection

After the misstep that was 2017’s ambitious Downsizing, writer/director Alexander Payne returns to more familiar territory in The Holdovers.  Familiar in the sense that the high-school setting brings to mind his biting 1999 black comedy Election, his lead, Paul Giamatti, is a pitch-perfect educator, like his 2004 standout Sideways, and the dialogue peppered throughout is…

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Interview: Paul Giamatti on his Golden Globe Award-winning role in The Holdovers, character quirks and inspiration, and if he thinks he’s become a better actor

The Holdovers reunites Sideways’ director Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti in a holiday story of three lonely, shipwrecked people at a New England boarding school over winter break in 1970.  Giamatti, in his Golden Globe Award-winning role, stars as Paul Hunham, a curmudgeonly instructor who is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to…

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Film Review: Jungle Cruise is charming, old-fashioned fun bolstered by the chemistry of Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt

As much as Jungle Cruise owes its filmic inception to the success of fellow Disney-theme-park-attraction-turned-blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean, this light-hearted, gloriously old-fashioned adventure is just as much in debt to such titles as The Mummy and The African Queen. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with honouring the spirit of those films in such a…

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Film Review: Gunpowder Milkshake overcomes genre familiarity with a sense of violent humour

Given how well she’s utilised her heart and her humour when leaning into the action heroine outfit – see the Guardians of the Galaxy and Jumanji franchises for reference – it makes sense that both additives be applied to Karen Gillan‘s latest genre effort, the delightfully named Gunpowder Milkshake. Initially she’s a little too cold-hearted…

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San Andreas sequel in the works with Dwayne Johnson returning

Sequel to last year’s hit disaster film San Andreas has now been confirmed with majority of cast and crew expected to return. Dwayne Johnson will be returning along with producer Beau Flynn and director Brad Peyton. Neil Widener and Gavin James have been brought on board to write the script for the sequel. We can…

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Film Review: San Andreas (M, USA, 2015)

San Andreas is a fault line that extends through a large majority of California and is overdue for a BIG earthquake. “It’s not a matter of if but when” is the premonition that Lawrence (Paul Giamatti) a professor of seismology gives his class at Caltech, and after years of research into the prediction of earthquakes,…

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