Alexander Payne

May 17, 2012 by Simon Kinnear in At Home with 0 Comments It takes a while for Payne and Clooney to enjoy hanging out, but the director’s softly-softly approach coaxes newfound vulnerability and warmth from his star. The Descendants (Alexander Payne, US, 2011) There’s an inevitability about George Clooney working with Alexander Payne. No movie star of the modern era, bar his buddy Brad Pitt, has been so assiduous in working his way through the leftfield: David O. Russell, the Coen Brothers...Read Full Story

May 11, 2012 by Simon Kinnear in Retro with 0 Comments Still a welcome tangent to modern cinema’s predilection for stylistic excess and emotional vacuity, this proves that classical filmmaking can age like fine wine. Sideways (Alexander Payne, US, 2004) Even the most stylistically ostentatious of cinematic movements have their quiet heroes. Think of Eric Rohmer during the Nouvelle Vague, or Hal Ashby in 70s Hollywood, proponents of a low-key, quirky naturalism who peacefully co-exist...Read Full Story

This may or may not be my last feature on Alexander Payne’s The Descendants, though I strongly suspect I will post something in the wake of the Feb. 26 Academy Awards, where the film has a legitimate chance to be a heavy winner.  In this story I flesh out more of the collaboration that went on between Payne and Kaui Hart Hemmings, whose critically praised novel is the basis for his highly acclaimed and popular film.  This blog contains several stories I’ve written about the Payne project over...Read Full Story

Here’s a capsule take on Alexander Payne and The Descendants, the latest in the filmmaker’s seriocomic forays into the existential angst, folly, fragility, and yearning of the human condition.  If you’re a fan of Payne, the film, or of cinema in general, then check out the batch of stories on this blog about about him, this picture, his other movies, and a slew of other films and filmmakers from cinema’s past and present. Jim Taylor, Jim Burks and Alexander Payne accepting Best...Read Full Story

Here’s a capsule take on Alexander Payne and The Descendants, the latest in the filmmaker’s seriocomic forays into the existential angst, folly, fragility, and yearning of the human condition.  If you’re a fan of Payne, the film, or of cinema in general, then check out the batch of stories on this blog about about him, this picture, his other movies, and a slew of other films and filmmakers from cinema’s past and present. Jim Taylor, Jim Burks and Alexander Payne accepting Best...Read Full Story