"The Shining" Meets "The Apartment" Meets "Dead Poets Society" -- But Its Own Great Movie, Too
(aka ecarle.)
After some "warm-ups" in cable TV episodes and such, Alexander Payne released his first movie in 1996: "Citizen Ruth."
In the near-20 years since then, Payne has directed only 8 films:
1996: Citizen Ruth
1999: Election
2002: About Schmidt
2004: Sideways
2011: The Descendants
2013: Nebraska
2017: Downsizing
2023: The Holdovers
But he made an "auteur's career" from early on.
It was his second film, "Election" that put him on the map much as "Boogie Nights" put Paul Thomas Anderson on the map and Pulp Fiction put Quentin Tarantino on the map. Critics took notice, Oscar took notice...Payne was launched.
But as it turns out, Election was a false start of sorts for Payne. It was a mean, pessimistic satire that didn't much like any of its characters and went more heavily for polemics than humanity.
That changed with the next one -- About Schmidt. About Schmidt also didn't much like MANY of its characters -- Payne started to get a reputiation of "looking down on his mid-American characters" (Election and About Schmidt were set in his home state of Nebraska) -- but About Schmidt ALSO had heart, and a sense of sadness about life. Thus began Payne's REAL canon -- a series of movies (less one) that could be called "hard edged tearjerkers."
Two of them share something in the protagonists -- Jack Nicholson plays a 66-year old husband who suddenly loses his wife in Abbout Schmidt. George Clooney plays a 40-something husband who suddenly loses HIS wife in The Descendants(to coma first and then death.) The pain hits harder in The Descendants as Clooney has young daughters -- the tears flow early in that movie.
But lined up in order, the movies aren't quite THAT connected in plot.
As PTA's Boogie Nights lured superstar Tom Cruise to Magnolia, Payne's Election lured superstar Nicholson to About Schmidt. But the Payne movie AFTER About Schmidt -- Sideways -- was his biggest critical, Oscar and poplular hit to date. No superstars here - Paul Giamatti and Thomas Hayden Church led the movie (George Clooney wanted Church's role, but Payne told him he was too handsome and successful to take it; he got The Descendants instead.)
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