Film Review: The Front Runner

Reitman’s take on Hart/Rice scandal worth a look

Presidential candidate Gary Hart (Hugh Jackman) faces intense media scrutiny after rumors of an extramarital affair surface.

To watch The Front Runner is to be amazed at how much the political climate has changed in 30 years. Back then, the well-regarded, young, smart, Kennedy-esque Colorado senator Gary Hart, widely considered the front runner for the Democratic nomination, had his campaign derailed by just the whiff of an extramarital affair. Fast forward to today, and a candidate with multiple accusations of affairs harassment, and vulgar language has no problem staying in the race, and, ultimately, winning. How far we’ve come. But director Jason Reitman’s (Young Adult; Juno; Up in the Air) new film is less a treatise on changing public perception, and more a study of how journalism has changed, opening the door to what is now considered acceptable and expected scrutiny of candidates’ private lives. And for that, the film is worth seeing.
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Film Review: Labor Day

A little corniness forgivable in Reitman’s affecting new drama

James Brolin's Frank shows Kate Winslet's Adele and Gatlin Griffith's Henry how to make the world's best peach pie in Labor Day.
Josh Brolin’s Frank shows Kate Winslet’s Adele and Gattlin Griffith’s Henry how to make the world’s best peach pie in Labor Day.

Director Jason Reitman returns to the screen this weekend with Labor Day, the new film that he also co-wrote with Oakland writer Joyce Maynard, author of the book of the same name. The film has already received much advance buzz (and laughs) regarding its pie-baking scene (think not of the infamous American Pie apple pie sequence, but of the pottery scene in Ghost, and you’ll have an apt comparison), but the film deserves attention for more than just that brief snicker-inducing scene. Markedly different in tone from his previous breezy, often darkly comic pictures (Young Adult, Up in the Air, Juno), Labor Day is Reitman’s warmest, most straightforward, earnest film to date. The film is not perfect by any means – it is filled with plot points that strain credulity, and contains its fair share of corny dialogue – but if you can suspend some disbelief for two hours, you will be rewarded with an arresting, well-crafted story of almost unbearable tension. Continue reading “Film Review: Labor Day”