A tedious, cruel, and complacent comedy, Alexander Payne’s Sideways follows two middle-aged men, best friends since being college roommates, from San Diego to Santa Barbara County—California wine country. The two men are Miles, a divorced middle-school English teacher and aspiring novelist, and Jack, an “actor” in television soap operas and (currently) commercials. The reason for […]
Daily Archives: February 3, 2010
“Jesus Christ, just tell me where the hell my soul is!” I do not like Paul Giamatti, whose acting ability normally hovers around the nil mark. “[S]low, selfconscious and way over the top” is how I described his performance in Cinderella Man (Ron Howard, 2005); I found him “leaden” in The Illusionist (Neil Burger, 2006), […]
Dennis Grunes 