In the seven years between Sideways and The Descendants, Alexander Payne hit the directorial equivalent of writers block.
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The Descendants (2011)
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Sideways (2004)
Sideways offers a middle ground between Election and About Schmidt
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About Schmidt (2002)
Alexander Payne’s previous films, Election and Citizen Ruth, are biting satires that ruthlessly mocked their problematic characters.
After Apostle – an offbeat, ambitious stab at a folk horror movie from a writer-director working in his own country and language for the first time in over a decade – released on Netflix in 2018 to solid-but-not-stellar reception, it wasn’t at all clear what Gareth Evans would do next.
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Election (1999)
Election often appears on lists of the greatest teen movies ever made, but I wonder whether Alexander Payne’s 1999 film can even be called a teen film.
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Maestro (2023)
Maestro is an excellent piece of biopic pageantry, which I very much mean as a backhanded compliment.
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It’s a Wonderful Knife (2023)
As someone who loves both It’s a Wonderful Life and high-concept slashers, there was no way I was not going to watch It’s a Wonderful Knife.
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Anyone But You (2023)
Anyone But You is a bit phoned in, which is simultaneously disappointing and also beside the point.
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Apostle (2018)
(FULL SPOILERS FOLLOW)
The Nightmare Before Christmas is the ultimate melancholy holiday vibes movie, and frankly one of cinema’s great vibes movies, period.