Movie/Book Update

Election (film): 4/4 stars.
The wife got me a copy of this DVD for Christmas and I watched it again after not having seen it for a number of years. I watched the commentary with the director, Alexander Payne, also. An interesting thing about the commentary is how clearly it comes across that Payne detests movie cliches. A few he mentions are: a person being hung up on and there's an instant dial-tone, the fact that most people in movies live in houses that are much nicer and larger than they'd ever possibly live in in real life, and how cars in movies are always spotless, especially period cars, when in real life most cars are always a little bit dirty.

He doesn't make mention of this in his commentary, but I have a feeling he carried this idea too far in one regard, that makes the film less believable than it would have otherwise. The actresses who play Matthew Broderick's wife and her friend who he ends up having an affair with simply aren't attractive enough. I have a feeling he purposely didn't cast really good looking actresses for these parts because he probably feels people in movies are too good looking. Here's why it doesn't work fo me:

1) Matthew Broderick is a good looking guy. Even if someone wasn't famous and was just a suburban high school teacher, if he looked exactly like Matthew Broderick he'd still end up marrying someone who was more attractive than the woman who plays his wife in the film.

2) If we're to believe that he's willing to cheat on his wife with another woman, we have to find the woman attractive too. The woman who plays the role in the film isn't unattractive, but she's not nearly good looking enough to have us believe that he'd be willing to risk his marriage for the chance to sleep with her.

If this opinion sounds male-biased, I'll have you know that my wife agreed with me 100% on this one.

I'm also reading the novel that the movie was based on. It was published in 1998, I bought it in 2002, and I'm just reading it now. So far it's good. As is always the case, it differs from the movie somewhat. One unique thing about the book is that it's broken down into short 'chapters' each a couple of pages long, that are told from the point of view of one of the characters. So, for example, there are two pages written in the first person by Mr. McAllister, then two pages written from the perspective of Paul Metzler, etc. I'm about halfway done.