"Memo to Hollywood: Not all popular movies need splashy special effects, car chases, bloody battles, space races or death lasers to succeed. In fact, none of these things happen in the widely praised, highly profitable human-scale films of Alexander Payne, the director of 'Election' and 'About Schmidt' who may be, as People Magazine recently put it, 'the single most talented director of his generation,'" Bob Tourtellotte profiles the film and speaks to Payne in Reuters.