Alexander Payne makes ’em like they used to: Fall Movie Preview

By JAKE COYLE
AP Film Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — The great films of the 1970s have long loomed in the imagination of filmmakers raised during one of the most fertile periods of American movies. But Alexander Payne wanted to take it a step further. Payne’s latest film, “The Holdovers,” isn’t just set in 1970, it seeks to imbibe the humanistic spirit of films like “The Last Detail,” “Harold and Maude” and “Paper Moon.” Payne has long made “the kind of films they don’t make anymore”: smart, funny, melancholic dramas for adults. And he’s kept making them. After decades of making contemporary films that in some way evoke a ’70s sensibility of cinema, he’s finally made the genuine article. “The Holdovers” opens in theaters Oct. 27.