Okay, first things first, I love
Paul Giamatti.
He first gained notoriety as Kenny in
Private Parts, but I first really noticed him in an otherwise crappy film called
The Negotiator, in which he worked overtime to steal the movie away from everyone. And when you consider that the cast featured not only Kevin Spacey and Samuel L. Jackson, but a line up of character actors like JT Walsh, John Spencer, David Morse and Ron Rifkin, that takes some doing. That was in 1998, when he also appeared in
The Truman Show and
Saving Private Ryan, and became one of the distinguished "that guy"s in the pantheon of
character actors.
That year he also appeared in a very bad TV movie called
Tourist Trap, directed by Richard Benjamin and also starring Daniel Stern. It also featured yours truly in a small role. I sat next to Mr. Giamatti during lunch one day, and much to my eternal chagrin and regret, never spoke a word to
him.
Over the next few years, the parts got bigger and bigger, with co-starring roles in
Man on the Moon, Duets, Storytelling and
Planet of the Apes, among others. But it was the one-two punch of his performances in
American Splendor and
Sideways that made everyone sit up and take notice. Somehow he was totally screwed over by the Oscars and wasn't nominated for either one of those (and it's really egregious for
Sideways, since the film was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and won Best Adapted Screenplay, and the fucking movie is ABOUT Giamatti's character!). They tried to make the snub right by nominating him for Best Supporting Actor the following year for
Cinderella Man.
Still, now he became a name, a guy who can headline movies, in the indie world at least. I have loved him in pretty much everything, though it was hard in the case of
The Lady in the Water (he was great, movie was terrible). He was unbelievably great in the recent HBO miniseries
John Adams, which goes to show that while he may look like a character actor, he's got the magnetism of a leading man
.
Now comes along
Cold Souls, and judging by the trailer, we're going to see another great performance, possibly one that's better than the movie. Still I'm excited:
Hello geeks, Happy New Year! we're back online with a very cool news item I recently found while trying to find uplifting stories to ease my sorrow over David Tennant's recent Doctor Who departure (more on that later).
