Sideways
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A Japanese Sideways, Virginia Woolf, Beth Gibbons Sings Black Sabbath and Denis Johnson’s Artful Sentences: Sunday Morning Links
For your Sunday morning, here’s some of what I’ve been reading this past week. At the Rumpus, filmmaker (and 25 New Face) Astra Taylor is interviewed about her book The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age, which I can’t wait to read. An excerpt: Also, after Examined Life was finished I found myself thinking about the way creative opportunities and distribution channels were shifting. Should I be showing my films in theaters or just think about getting them out online? There were other issues, too. For example, instead of being asked to write an article, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 27, 2014 -
“It Found Its Way to Me Exclusively Because of the Title”: Alexander Payne on Nebraska
If Bob Nelson’s screenplay had been called Iowa, Alexander Payne would have never made Nebraska. “It found its way exclusively to me, because of the title,” said the Omaha-born director before a recent sold-out audience at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto. Indeed, Nebraska could be mistaken for one of Payne’s scripts, since it shares common story elements with The Descendants, Sideways and About Schmidt: a man hits the road to find himself accompanied by a buddy, uncovers painful yet funny revelations about his past, and arrives at peace with his imperfect life. “Who am I really?” asks his heroes. In Nebraska, Bruce Dern […]
by Allan Tong on Nov 20, 2013 -
James Ponsoldt, Smashed
Kate Hannah (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is a devoted elementary school teacher who, early in James Ponsoldt’s new film Smashed, shows up for work with a wicked hangover and vomits in front of her students. Forced to explain her behavior, she tells her class and colleagues that she’s pregnant. The lie leaves her feeling awful, and it’s soon clear to Kate that she needs to back away from the bottle. After all, this isn’t a one-off incident. She and her husband Charlie (Aaron Paul) are almost constantly drunk, and it’s pretty clear to her that they live for booze as much […]
by Kevin Canfield on Oct 10, 2012 -
Sideways Author Rex Pickett on Success, Rejection and Sequels
In this episode of Brad Listi’s Other People Podcast, novelist Rex Pickett discusses the origins of his book Sideways, the basis for Alexander Payne’s hit movie. Pickett has written a sequel to Sideways called Vertical, and in the podcast he talks about why he’s self-published it. There’s a lot here about a writer’s take on the movie business, how success doesn’t protect you from rejection, and, uh, Pickett also has a few things to say about producer Michael London.
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 13, 2012 -
Industry Beat: Veteran Producers Rethink the Indie Model
by Anthony Kaufman on Oct 23, 2010 -
ALEXANDER PAYNE’S “THE DESCENDANTS” BEGINS SHOOTING
Six years after making the cross-over hit Sideways, Alexander Payne has begun production on his next film, The Descendants. Announced by Fox Searchlight, the film, based on Kaui Hart Hemmings‘s novel, started principal photography today in Hawaii. The film stars George Clooney as, according to the release, an indifferent husband and father of two girls, who is forced to re-examine his past and embrace his future when his wife suffers a boating accident off of Waikiki. Also starting are Judy Greer, Beau Bridges, Matthew Lillard, Robert Forster, Shailene Woodley, Mary Birdsong, Nick Krause and Amara Miller. Surprisingly, Taylor is not […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Mar 15, 2010 -
YOU ASHCROFT!
If the Argentinian newspaper The Post can be believed, creators of “airline versions” of R and PG-rated movies have a new word replacement for a common epithet. In what is, if true, an oddly hilarious example of subversive political commentary, the word “asshole” as uttered in Alexander Payne’s Sideways was replaced in actor Thomas Haden Church’s airline dubbing with “Ashcroft.” The paper’s Montel Reel says he heard the word twice in Church’s dialogue while on an Aerolineas Argentinas flight to Lima, Peru. The Arizona Central, which picked up the story, says calls to Fox Searchlight, which distributed the picture, and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 5, 2005 -
SPIRITS GO SIDEWAYS
The 2005 Independent Spirit Awards were announced this afternoon at the IFP Los Angeles’s annual ceremony on the beach in Santa Monica. For the major awards, it was a virtual sweep by Sideways — Alexander Payne’s smart comedy won six prizes. Other winners, listed below, include Garden State, The Motorcycle Diaries, Mean Creek, the filmmaker Jem Cohen, the producer Gina Kwon, and doc filmmakers Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman. Here are the winners: Best PictureSideways (Fox Searchlight Pictures) Producer: Michael London Best Director Alexander Payne Sideways (Fox Searchlight Pictures) Best Screenplay Alexander Payne & Jim TaylorSideways (Fox Searchlight Pictures) Best […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 26, 2005
