The Films of Alexander Payne - C/D

yeah that movie kills imo but i think this little yupster is p dope even 'sideways' isnt that bad honestly

otm i like abt schmidt a lot more than most ppl do

so yeah he has that new george clooney movie coming out later this year

so yeah the trailer is like NPR Sense of Humor: The Movie

i know! i hope it's good anyway.

I saw that trailer the other day too and was disappointed to see Payne's name at the end. I like Election and Sideways a lot (About Schmidt, no).

I'm holding out hope, but I think at some point he's gonna need to address the super-whiteness of his oeuvre. I mean, he's the honkiest guy this side of Tim Burton.

what do you mean by "need to address the super-whiteness of his oeuvre"?

Ingmar Bergman had that problem too.

http://www2.alibris-static.com/cover/v44182t6433.jpg

the pilot for Hung is kind of my 2nd favorite Payne flick after Election

what do you mean by "need to address the super-whiteness of his oeuvre"

just that his films are really, really white-bread. i mean i get that he is chronicling some caucasian midwestern-ish shit, but his only prominent characters of color (that I can remember) are (1) an exotic asian love interest (2 ) a starving african boy. i'm not calling him out for racist or anything, just noting that there are, like, certain... omissions... in his work. like i said, he's no tim burton, but as adds more films to his résumé with almost exclusively white casts...

^^ but, most of his films are set in Omaha! Has diversity arrived there yet?

there is literally no way i can think of him addressing "the super-whiteness of his oeuvre" in a future film that would actually earn praise from remy so why bother

good one!

eh "write what you know," etc. It's one thing for me to implore Woody Allen to hang out with different kind of friends; it's another to recommend he cast Martin Lawrence.

ok fine I would recommend it

i think its kinda unfair to write sandra oh off as "exotic love interest"? but i dont disagree that it might be nice to see some ppl of color in these movies. also its one thing to have a white-ppl-only movie set in the midwest but if this movie about hawaii is as white as the trailers make it seem that wd be...... weird

ugh fuck sideways. i really love election + citizen ruth is a crazy film. i always think of this dude in terms of a "what happened?" narrative. maybe i should see about schmidt.

sandra oh was not an "exotic" love interest -- she was just a good-time gal as they say.

never watched the director's cut w/ "me love you long time" monologue eh

I guess my issue isn't with what he's doing/done in terms of career being abt. white people woes, it's that he's selected four books to adapt (Citizen Ruth is original, right?) and the six or seven lead parts in each of them – save his ex-wife's – are all pretty similar. Google tells me that Payne went to UCLA and lived in Spain, so I think it's a little disingenuous to claim he's just doing 'what he knows' b/c at some point in his European and Angeleno life he has to interact w/ a lot of different people.

Also I've enjoyed all five(?) of his films, to varying degrees.

Maybe his own knowledge of Spain is superficial...?

i dont care if his movies only have economically comfortable white people in them, i like lots of stories about economically comfortable white ppl

some of my best friends are economically comfortable white people

ah who am i kidding, all of them are

heard he's adapting the 'first world problems' meme into his next droll character study

when super-white whit stillman made a film about spain the results were not so great (at least compared to his other films)

white stillman, amirite

i think there is disagreement on that point, but barcelona is my least favorite stillman, too

spanish people are white btw

He got worse with each film.

o u last days of disco haters >:[

My grandfather's side of the family is Asturian, and they would be quite upset if you thought them non-white.

i like last days

i think "spain" represents something other than middle-america whitebread, i don't think anyone was claiming spaniards as people of color

oh i was just being annoying i love whit stillman! and movies about white people!

I would love to watch Alexander Payne's version of Othello

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~rigenweb/stones1/StillmanWhite.jpg

^ whit stillman's grand uncle iirc

Othello, Nebraska:

Nick Nolte as Othello
Peter Fonda as Iago
Swoowie Kurtz as Desdemona
Jared Hess as Cassio
Conor Oberst as Rodrigo

^^^ would actually be the worst film ever made

i do think what i find irritating about sideways is treating white middle-class men's interest in wine and women who are prettier than they are as so fucking fascinating, but the white middle-class part is probably a red herring. i don't know to articulate what i dislike about that movie i'd probably have to watch it again and that's not going to happen.

whit stillman is way better than this guy. last days of disco 4e.

if you didn't enjoy last days of disco you should have just danced through it, it is jiving

lol now why tf would this alexander payne thread be going off on a quiet sunday afternoon

its raining outside!!!

raining racism

a torrential downpour of white privilege

icey who do u think is more racist: alexander payne or paul simon?

i said he made white films for white people, people objected, we caviled, nobody had much heart or stake so the discussion crawled under the jungle gym where it's sullenly drawing in the dirt with a stick

blame it on the payne

lol - that is a great, underappeciated film though.

I caught this in a small but surprisingly full theater over the weekend. Had to sit almost directly under the screen but it was fine. I thought it was thoroughly enjoyable and the people I was with, who ranged in age from 12 to 80, all enjoyed it as well. Maybe even better than Nebraska.

Seen The Holdovers and liked it quite a lot more than I expected, very good; seen Sideways today and it's fucking great, back when it came out I seen a bunch of boring old middle class people saying it was a boring old middle class white guy movie, so I avoided it, but it's a lot of fun. Shit on newsnight review, I can't believe I trusted you.

Never heard of Alexander Payne until this year but it turns out I've seen most of his films! I might seek out the other ones.

the bowling scene in the holdovers was filmed in my hometown! shoutout to the wakefield bowladrome.

nice movie, i enjoyed it a lot on the lead performances alone.

agreed, all 3 of the main performer's work felt effortless.

This seems pretty damning

https://variety.com/2024/film/news/the-holdovers-accused-plagiarism-luca-writer-1235935605/

Frisco script is here.

Read the first 40 pages and not seeing much, other than cynical, wise-cracking central character thrown together with 15 year old.

Some of the “line by line transpositions” in that document are a real stretch

Note that: 1. The scene begins with Paul/Wills in a library/quiet carriage 2. Paul/Wills is doing something relaxing, andhas a mug/cup. 3. The third action line sentence consists of Paul/Willis performing two body-based actions. 4. Paul/Wills' fist line is an exclamation that features a religious-based curse. 5. The surprise means he will be stuck alone with Angus/Amy. 6. The physical mechanism by which this occurs is a mode of transport train/helicopter).

yeah my kid read all of this to me out loud yesterday and it sounds bad until you actually read the details. 'line by line' is an utterly false statement.

I might seek out the other ones.

I still say it's all downhill after Election but yes, there's a lot worth seeing.

This seems pretty damning

https://variety.com/2024/film/news/the-holdovers-accused-plagiarism-luca-writer-1235935605/

― Piedie Gimbel, Sunday, 10 March 2024 4:52 AM (nine hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i’m guessing you didn’t read it

I liked Sideways better than Election.
I remember disliking parts of About Schmidt but at the time I was pretty sick of that whole indie film/comics aesthetic of glum guys staring at the screen. Kathy Bates had a decent part in it.

didnt realise he was about schmidt

maybe the most vapid message ive ever seen in a movie

Sense of place, sense of character, sense of humor, sense of tragedy of failed lives: he knows what he's doing, if these things matter to a viewer. Knows it on the level of Chekhov in Sideways, The Descendants, and The Holdovers.

Note how the two scenes unfold on a near line-by-line basis:
1. Paul/Wills is working in his room/on the ward.
2. A messenger interrupts him to tell him his boss wants him.
3. Paul/Wills self-importantly tells the messenger to tell his boss he is busy.
4. The messenger tells Paul/Willis he actually must go now.
5. Paul/Wills reluctantly acquiesce

These are all like unbelievably stock scenes that you can find “line by line transpositions” of in films from the 1920s. I almost feel worse for this guy than I would if his movie really had been plagiarized, the deeper you go into detailed examples the more sad/pathetic it seems. Payne-esque, even!

Yeah at first I was willing to give it credence because he's not just a random loon but an actual produced screenwriter, but the more you see it it's ridiculous.

Paul/Wills is called to adventure.
Paul/Wills refuses the call.
Paul/Wills embarks on a road of trials.

The but where he’s like “clearly they used software to do this” 🫣

Also is the character called fucking Wills or Willis, in the holdovers the guy has the same name all the way thru

The Plagiarism Today blog has a thoughtful backgrounder on this:
https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2024/03/11/why-the-holdovers-is-not-a-plagiarism/

Though it contains a qualifier of note:

My Analysis

Note: I have not seen The Holdovers nor have I read Frisco. This analysis is based solely on the allegations provided by Stephenson and the follow ups shared by other screenwriters.

Saw "The Holdovers." I thought it was really well directed and acted, but the story and writing ultimately didn't transcend its more familiar/predictable beats.

Yeah my take too. Also nice to see snow, albeit in a movie.

I keep thinking of him saying "your toes would curl!"