No particular need to hold over The Holdovers

I wanted to like The Holdovers, Alexander Payne's celebrated and Best Picture nominated film starring Paul Giamatti. I caught it on an Air Canada flight to London, a surprise since the film was still out in theatres (but not in Windsor-Detroit to my frustration). When it comes to films, Air Canada is no slouch, with a great selection of several genres including obviously current releases. Giamatti is one of my favourite actors, best known for Miles Raymond's 2004 Sideways, a buddy film about a frenzied tour of California wine country. Giamatti is great here as well, about the best thing in this film that otherwise is depleted in story, quite a disappointment from what I was expecting and the generally quite favourable reviews. It’s about a group of students at a New England college in the early 1970's. Why that time I don't know, unless the filmmakers like the era's music; it could be set at any time. Giamatti is perfect as the irascible curmudgeon teacher Paul Hunham (more like Humbug, as the move is set at Christmas). You know the type, a pedant and sticker for details, the kind of prof students just love to hate. He’s a stuffed shirt and tight ass as well, which is the unexpected character reveal in this film, which is as much about his character's deficiencies as the dynamics of his supervision over a group of students who are stranded at the college, for whatever reasons, and can’t get away for the holidays. Frankly, I was expecting a film more along the lines of My Dinner with Andre (Louis Malle, 1981), with teacher and students, stuck together with nothing else to do, engaging in free-flowing dialogue about philosophy and life, with spark and wit bouncing off each one. It wasn't to be. Instead Hunham, the tight ass, forces his students to study over the holidays - what an  idiot! - until such time as one student’s parent arrives and rescues most of them for a ski vacation. That leaves just Angus (Dominic Sessa) and the film turns into a kind of buddy picture with Hunham letting his hair down (what he has of it) and trooping into Boston for the day with his student. But it doesn't end well for out ultimately sad sack hero, another plot twist that didn't need to be.

I’m in Malaga Spain and the Malaga Film Festival is on all this week. It's the first time I’ve been here when the festival is on. But to my chagrin the overwhelming number of films are in Spanish (makes sense) and lack English subtitles. But I am going to see an exception tonight, Things I Never Told You, 1996's Spanish director Isabel Coixet's American-based film starring Lili Taylor. It's being screened in the beautiful Cine Albéniz (photo left), right beside the Roman amphitheater and sheltered under the hilltop Alcazaba (fortress) on the edge of the old town, perfect for a scene in a movie.