SoullessBy John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time," "Cinema Classics," and "On the Marquee"
"And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." St. Matthew
Paul Giamatti plays himself in the sci fi Cold Souls--he extracts his soul, storing it like a winter coat at a company with a tendency to lose a soul now and then.
The conceit is nifty, especially because Giammatti is an actor struggling with his role as Uncle Vanya electing this soul therapy to improve his performance. Eventually it all doesn't work because of less emphasis on how one functions without a soul and more on the race to recapture the little bugger. At the least I need to see it again to discover the soulless drama I may have missed.
Like Giamatti, the film moves at a leisurely pace, too slow for a Twilight Zone fan like me who wants to see serious conflict in a short time. Great idea; the execution lacks, well, soul.
John DeSando teaches film at Franklin University and co-hosts WCBE 90.5's It's Movie Time, Cinema Classics, and On the Marquee, which can be heard streaming at http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/ppr/index.shtml and on demand at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/arts.artsmain Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.RR.com