Giamatti

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freePaul Giamatti was reduced to tears by Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s acceptance speech at the 2024 Oscars.The actor, who appeared alongside Randolph in the boarding school-set drama The Holdovers, was seen growing visibly emotional as his co-star accepted the prize for Best Supporting Actress.Randolph won the award for her role in the film as a grieving mother, while Giamatti was nominated for…

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeSimon Stephenson, the Scottish screenwriter whose credits include Pixar’s critically acclaimed animated feature film Luca, has accused Oscar-nominated movie The Holdovers of plagiarism.The allegation lands on the eve of this year’s Academy Awards, where the 2023 comedy-drama is up for five trophies including Best Original Screenplay.In an exclusive report by Variety, emails sent by…

If the best picture Oscar was handed out to the film that elicited the warmest collective glow from cinemagoers, bookmakers would have long since stopped accepting bets on The Holdovers. Does anyone anywhere actively dislike Alexander Payne’s boarding school drama? If they do they’re keeping very quiet. It’s a film that, in its dopamine hit of warm nostalgia, seems pretty much backlash proof.Curiously though, it’s that same quality that, for some, will mean that The Holdovers wouldn’t be a deserving best picture winner.…

Paul Giamatti has enjoyed an illustrious career in Hollywood, starring in everything from family-friendly fluff (Big Fat Liar stans, rise) to bonafide Oscar favorites (like 12 Years A Slave). The beloved actor’s work in both films and television has earned him some 19 nominations from major awards bodies like the BAFTAs, the Emmys, and the Golden Globes, but he undoubtedly has his sights set on Oscar glory at the upcoming 96th Academy Awards.  Giamatti is nominated in the Best Actor category for his starring role in…

"I'm dying to know what she wants to talk to me about" Is Cher a huge fan of Paul Giamatti? During an appearance on The Howard Stern Show, Howard Stern asked The Holdovers actor about playing a bizarre game of phone tag with the singer. “There’s this thing around you that Cher is a huge fan of yours and she wants to speak to you and speak with you,” Stern said, promoting Giamatti to confirm the rumor is true. “Every now and then I get a message from somebody that says Cher — she really …

Oscar "snubs" have become the talk of the town this week following the announcement of the 2024 Academy Award nominations on Tuesday, January 23.  Movie fans—including, oddly, Stephen King—are irritated over those Barbie slights (including Greta Gerwig being oddly left out of the Best Director category), that total May December shutout (including Charles Melton's extraordinary supporting work), and the fact that presumed Best Actor frontrunner Leonardo DiCaprio completely missed in that category. Instead, this year's…

A cantankerous, unpopular teacher, Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti); a bright, abrasive student, Angus (Dominic Sessa); and Mary (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the school’s head cook and a recently bereaved mother, find themselves forced to spend the winter holiday together in an otherwise empty New England elite academy in Alexander Payne’s terrific, bittersweet throwback to the classic American cinema of the 1970s. It’s Payne’s finest film since Sideways (2004), and like it features a superb Giamatti performance as a stubbornly…

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeIt’s bad business to have released Alexander Payne’s mournful holiday comedy, The Holdovers, several weeks after Christmas has ended. It’s not only a film about the season, but about its vivid, fleeting emotions – a Hallmark card vision of snowy, Seventies New England gives way to the loneliness of feeling moored in your own familiar comforts.Payne’s return behind the camera follows…

The year’s best Christmas movie arrives in the UK a bit late for Christmas: it is a genial, gentle, redemptive dramedy from Alexander Payne which hits the happy/sad sweet spot with Payne’s sure aim. It is taken from TV writer David Hemingson’s impeccably crafted screenplay, a masterclass in incremental, indirect character revelations and plot transitions. The Holdovers is set in 1970, consciously (or maybe self-consciously) crafted to look like a film which its characters could have gone to see at the time, with the…

Paul Giamatti is one of those actors who always kills it on the big screen. Whether appearing in prestigious award-winning films, raunchy comedies, or even legendary kids movies, the award-winning actor is always firing on all cylinders, and more times than not is the most interesting person in any given scene. Over the years, I’ve been obsessed with the incredible character actor, and after spending the better part of the past few decades watching him go from having small yet scene-stealing roles in movies like Saving…