"Director: Jason Reitman"

• The Front Runner | Blu Ray | (20/05/2019) from £14.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Oscar® nominee Hugh Jackman stars as the charismatic politician Gary Hart for Academy Award®nominated director Jason Reitman in the new thrilling drama The Front Runner. The film follows the rise and fall of Senator Hart, who captured the imagination of young voters and was considered the overwhelming front runner for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination, when his campaign was sidelined by the story of an extramarital relationship with Donna Rice. As tabloid journalism and political journalism merged for the first time, Senator Hart was forced to drop out of the race events that left a profound and lasting impact on American politics and the world stage.

• Juno/ Win Win Double Pack | DVD | (04/06/2012) from £4.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (160.32%)   |  RRP £12.99

  JunoSomewhere between the sharp satire of Election and the rich human comedy of You Can Count On Me lies Juno, a sardonic but ultimately compassionate story of a pregnant teenage girl who wants to give her baby up for adoption. Social misfit Juno (Ellen Page, Hard Candy, X-Men: The Last Stand) protects herself with a caustic wit, but when she gets pregnant by her friend Paulie (Michael Cera, Superbad), Juno finds herself unwilling to terminate the pregnancy. When she chooses a couple who place a classified ad looking to adopt, Juno gets drawn further into their lives than she anticipated. But Juno is much more than its plot; the stylised dialogue (by screenwriter Diablo Cody) seems forced at first, but soon creates a richly textured world, greatly aided by superb performances by Page, Cera, Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman as the prospective parents, and J.K. Simmons (Spider-Man) and Allison Janney as Juno's father and stepmother. Director Jason Reitman (Thank You For Smoking) deftly keeps the movie from slipping into easy, shallow sarcasm or foundering in sentimentality. The result is smarter and funnier than you might expect from the subject matter, and warmer and more touching than you might expect from the cocky attitude. Page's performance is deceptively simple; she never asks the audience to love her, yet she effortlessly carries a movie in which she's in almost every scene. That's star power. -- Bret FetzerWin WinWriter-director Tom McCarthy excels at tales about men who feel isolated from their surroundings. In Win Win, it's Kyle (Alex Shaffer, recalling the young Sean Penn), a teenager who enters the life of New Jersey attorney Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti). Flaherty's journey begins when he represents Kyle's grandfather, Leo (Burt Young), who suffers from dementia. When Flaherty finds out about the substantial fee, he signs up as Leo's guardian, because he's been having trouble paying his bills. He and his wife, Jackie (Amy Ryan), meet Kyle when the kid shows up on his grandfather's doorstep. Kyle's mother (Melanie Lynskey) is in rehab and her boyfriend is abusive, so Kyle wants to live with Leo. Because Mike placed him in a retirement home--against the man's wishes--he agrees to host Kyle for a few weeks, during which Mike learns about his wrestling skills and invites him to join the high-school team he coaches with Stephen (Jeffrey Tambor). His best friend, Terry (Bobby Cannavale), offers to assist the duo to get his mind off his ex (the one plot line that doesn't work). When Kyle's mother shows up to collect her son and cash in on her father's situation, Mike risks losing everything he has gained. Win Win doesn't surprise as much as The Station Agent, which featured Cannavale, or cut as deep as The Visitor, but Giamatti and Ryan make for a believable suburban couple, doing their best to make ends meet in the face of an unsympathetic economy. --Kathleen C. Fennessy