Election with Special Guest Tony Moton
Director: Alexander Payne Run Time: 103 min. Release Year: 1999
Starring: Chris Klein, Jessica Campbell, Mark Harelik, Matthew Broderick, Reese Witherspoon
Join us after the film for a conversation with Tony Moton, a screenwriter and Iowa State professor who covered the production as an entertainment columnist for the Omaha World-Herald.
Chicago native Tony Moton is an award-winning journalist and screenwriter who presently serves as an assistant teaching professor of journalism, broadcasting and sports media at Iowa State University’s Greenlee School. He holds Master’s degrees in journalism (University of Nebraska-Lincoln) and Screenwriting (UCLA) and previously has been a sportswriter, investigative journalist and entertainment reporter in Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Louisville (Ky.), Las Vegas, Omaha, Des Moines and the Quad Cities. He also taught journalism for a year at Drake University as part of the school’s Minority Journalism Fellowship program. His feature-length screenplay “All Bets Are On” received a prestigious Samuel Goldwyn Writing Award – an honor he shares with the likes of Francis Ford Coppola – while Moton attended UCLA. Moton’s work includes prior development of a TV miniseries about Al Capone’s family with two-time Oscar-winning screenwriter and director Alexander Payne. He currently is in development of a feature-length screenplay about Iowa State legendary football player Jack Trice.
Film Details:
Tracy Flick is running unopposed for this year’s high school student election. But Jim McAllister has a different plan. Partly to establish a more democratic election, and partly to satisfy some deep personal anger toward Tracy, Jim talks football player Paul Metzler to run for president as well.