This will sound shallow, but I feel oddly gratified that Paul Giamatti is wearing a wig in Barney’s Version, a Canadian comedy set to debut at the Venice Film Festival. I wanted his thinning hair to stop at Sideways levels, and of course it hasn’t. The film seems lively enough and Dustin Hoffman has some funny lines. I know that the 1997 Mordecai Richler novel that the film is based upon involves three wives and the arrival of one Al Z. Heimer.

Here’s another really shallow thought: I’m cool with whatever Giamatti has a mind to do because he’s a superb actor, but what I’d really, really like is to see him do is play Miles again in another Alexander Payne film. I’m serious. Sideways 2: The Continuing Adventures of Miles Raymond. Some new locale, new challenges, something. I just love Miles’ moroseness, that tortured look, his fundamental decency, etc.