An upstart politician is seen with a woman who is not his wife. A scandal ensues. Would-be presidential candidate resigns amidst the controversy. Just because a story happens doesn’t mean you must make a movie about it. At best, Jason Reitman’s (Up in the Air, Young Adult) Gary Hart biopic should have been a straight-to-cable drop. But really, a 60-minute documentary on The History Channel or something would have sufficed. That’s not to say The Front Runner was a bad movie. Because it wasn’t, but it wasn’t a movie we needed. Reitman, a fantastic yet underrated director fresh off the incredibly impressive Tully with also such films as Juno and Thank You For Smoking among his credits, had no business involving himself with a movie that, no matter what he did, wasn’t going to register with the critics or with the audiences because:
- Even though it is a 30-year story at the time of its release, it is one everyone knows.
- It’s a story that we, as a society, tried to make into some huge deal, whereas 30 years later, we realize that a politician cheating on his wife is something that hardly bats an eye.
- It’s a story that raises some issues related to morality and tries to be a little preachy in a day and age when none of us are interested in hearing and seeing preachy, especially from a story that is trying to be relevant in today’s society but does feel 30 years old.
If you aren’t in the mood for a heavy-hitting movie, stay away from Mark Herman’s 2008 World War II-based drama The Boy In the Striped Pajamas. It stars newcomer Asa Butterfield (The Wolfman, Nanny McPhee Returns) as eight-year-old Bruno, the son of a predominant Nazi official. Despite his protests, he is forced to move from the comforts of his Berlin home to the outskirts of the country so that his father can be closer to the concentration camps that he has been a part of organizing and running.
The trailers for Jason Retitman’s (Juno, Thank You For Smoking) 2009 heavy-hitting dramedy Up In The Air make it seem like any corny romance, comedy, drama movie blend we’ve seen 100 times before. The trailer made me wonder what George Clooney (Michael Clayton, Oceans 11) was thinking about agreeing to make what I perceived as One Fine Day Part II. This movie had all the makings for a character so disconnected from the world, only to realize three-quarters of the way through that what they thought they never needed was what they felt they needed the most.