A director I didn’t think I cared anything about until rewatching/watching all of his movies. Ended up gaining a pretty big appreciation of his output
Alexander Payne – Letterboxd Director Filmography Ranking
8.
Citizen Ruth (1996)
Laura Dern was 29 in this which means she was 26 in Jurassic Park. One of those actors I just can’t see as young because I was a kid viewing them as “old”.
6.
The Descendants (2011)
Describe what happens in any scene in this and I wouldn’t want to watch, but somehow when I’m in it the movie gets to me.
5.
Downsizing (2017)
Maybe benefits from low expectations and being very much removed from whatever, I’m sure was very fun and cool, discourse that happened at release, but I liked it!
3.
Sideways (2004)
Follows some pieces of shit that you do end up caring about. Much more entertaining watching this time, now that I’m probably older than the characters, than when I was in high school.
1.
Election (1999)
I forgot how much this movie ended up changing my life.
I never thought about being in student council, but I liked doing bits.
Tammy’s campaign inspired me to run for ASB president in high school in 2005 because I thought it would be fun.
I ended up having friends hand draw posters that made no sense or were simply jokes. For my speech I printed out a huge picture of a puppy and midway through my speech I unraveled it and told everyone that unfortunately the puppy was sick and wouldn’t receive the medication it needed unless I was elected.
I’m sure I claimed I was being satirical, but I also remember not knowing what else to say because the position doesn’t really have any power to make real change or decisions, so why not just try to be funny with the speech.
I ended up winning and feeling slightly bad about it when one of the other people running asked me if I was going to actually take the position. But I ended up being ASB president the next year and running the leadership meetings and writing skits for school assemblies (The one thing I liked doing). I found out that if you were ASB president one of the Colleges in my state gave you a scholarship (not like my poor ass was going to an out of state anyway) so I decided to go there based partially off that benefit.
So, Election ended up pushing me in a direction in life more than I can claim most other movies have. Glad that it holds up, and actually improves, watching again all these years later.
