There are rituals to an Alexander Payne movie. In post-production, he and his longtime editor, Kevin Tent, will gather collaborators for Tie Day Tuesday (women can wear a tie or pearls) and Friday night martinis, during which Payne pulls out his 16mm projector to play old reels he's collected on eBay.
“I kind of overbought,” Payne says, smiling. “If you don’t have the right storage facility, you start getting vinegar syndrome. I had a beautiful print of 'The Breaking Point' — it’s one of my favorite films — and within a year it got vinegar syndrome and I had to throw it out.”
