The Movie Micro Binge

2024-01-11 - WITH LEIGH PAATSCH

PAUL GIAMATTI

With this week’s The Holdovers putting Paul Giamatti on track for another Oscar nomination, here’s where you can swiftly stream more of this great character actor at his very best …

SIDEWAYS

DISNEY+ or RENT

A major work in a minor key. Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church play two buddies ploughing straight through a crossroads in their friendship while on a trip through Californian wine country. The tragicomic odyssey of these two lost souls is richly rewarding, as is the movie’s painfully accurate honesty about life, love and loneliness. Some erudite discussions of what makes or breaks a great wine vintage, too.

AMERICAN SPLENDOR

BINGE, FOXTEL

The brilliant biopic that elevated Giamatti to the top shelf sees him playing the late, great American misanthrope Harvey Pekar. Despite an unremarkable life, encompassing multiple marriages, a cancer scare, a 35year stint as a file clerk in a Cleveland hospital and a fatal attraction for “doom and gloom”, Pekar rose to fame as the hero of a longrunning series of cult comic books.

WIN WIN

DISNEY+ or RENT

Giamatti plays Mike, a struggling smalltime lawyer who has an ethical brainfade, taking advantage of an elderly client. As Mike’s fortunes improve – along with those of the junior wrestling team he coaches – the need to keep his secret under wraps becomes all the more pressing. Another fine work from respected American writer-director Thomas McCarthy (Spotlight).