Earlier this year, "The Five Album Test" emerged briefly as a meme. It suggests that one way to determine a musical act's greatness is that they made five great albums in a row. This was then extended to "The Five Movie Test": which great directors had made five great films in a row? Personally, I don't think this test is a very good representation of an artist's greatness - a great director, like a great band, introduces a lot of risk in each new project, and risk is a key element of both success and failure. But now comes THE DESCENDANTS, director Alexander Payne's fifth movie, and he's five for five.
