The folks at the Criterion Collection have sent us a brand new video showing director Alexander Payne visiting their rather notorious DVD/Blu-ray closet and picking up some of his favorite films.
Next week, the boutique label will release on Blu-ray dierctor Payne's film
Election (1999), starring Matthew Broderick, Reese Witherspoon, Chris Klein, Jessica Campbell, and Mark Harelik.
Synopsis: Perky, overachieving Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon) gets on the nerves of history teacher Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) to begin with, but after she launches her campaign for high-school president and his personal life starts to fall apart, things spiral out of control. In Alexander Payne's satire Election, the teacher becomes unhealthily obsessed with cutting his student down to size, covertly backing a spoiler candidate to stop her from steamrolling to victory, and putting in motion a series of dirty tricks and reckless promises with uncanny real-world political parallels. Adapting a then-unpublished novel by Tom Perrotta, Payne grounds the absurdity of his central dynamic in the recognizable—the setting is his hometown of Omaha, and the accomplished cast is rounded out with nonprofessionals—and distills his closely observed take on deeply flawed humanity to its bitter but stealthily sympathetic essence.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 4K RESTORATION of the film supervised and approved by cowriter-director Alexander Payne, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
Audio commentary from 2008 featuring Payne
New interview with Payne
New interview with actor Reese Witherspoon
The Passion of Martin, Payne's 1991 UCLA senior thesis film
TruInside: "Election," a 2016 documentary featuring on-set footage and interviews with cast and crew