Welcome to the Movie Rental Finds blog. Don't know what to rent? Want to pick a good movie for your house guests? We watch, rate, and recommend them.

You Kill Me

Saturday, August 21st, 2010

You Kill MeYou Kill Me is billed as a killer com­edy and that’s exactly what it is. Ben Kings­ley plays the part of the fam­ily killer who is also an alco­holic. The drink­ing is inter­fer­ing with his job and when it causes him to miss a key hit, the fam­ily sends him to San Fran­cisco to dry out and get it together. He get’s set up with an apart­ment and a part-time job at a mor­tu­rary get­ting dead bod­ies ready for their funeral. While at work he meets Téa Leoni’s char­ac­ter who has her own issues and they embark upon a rela­tion­ship. At this point Ben Kingsley’s char­ac­ter has been an alco­holic so long, he doesn’t remem­ber being any other way. With the help of his new love inter­est (Leoni) and his AA spon­sor played by Luke Wil­son, he works to find his way which couldn’t hap­pen too soon because the last guy he missed killing is mak­ing life more than a lit­tle tough for the peo­ple he’s left behind.


There were a lot of rec­og­niz­able actors in this movie and I’d say the movie was well acted as a whole. Even Luke Wil­son wasn’t ter­ri­ble and while Téa Leoni’s char­ac­ter was a bitch, she was quite a like­able one. The film is def­i­nitely a com­edy but it’s not really laugh out loud funny though it does make you smile a lot. Ben Kings­ley is awe­some and the movie is really just plain fun … even when it tries to be seri­ous. I give it a 3 and a half out of 5 marks but I’m con­sid­er­ing giv­ing it 4. Here’s the trailer:

10 Items Or Less

Friday, April 16th, 2010

10 Items Or Less is the story of two peo­ple who meet by chance and spend a day together, shar­ing each other’s world. The two peo­ple in this story are Mor­gan Free­man, who pretty much plays him­self and Paz Vega who plays the part of a gro­cery clerk who works the 10 items or less counter. Mor­gan Freeman’s char­ac­ter is there to do research for a movie role. He is funny, friendly, and engag­ing. Paz Vega’s char­ac­ter is young, lov­able, and in a place in her life she doesn’t want to be anymore.

This movie is kind of out there. You don’t know where it’s going until it’s over then your remem­ber you had a pretty good time get­ting there. Here, it’s clearly more about the jour­ney than the des­ti­na­tion. If I had to describe it bet­ter I say that it was about two peo­ple being gen­uine and con­nect­ing. What comes of it? Well, you’ll just have to check out the movie to see for your­self. There’s no big action and no sex, just two peo­ple hang­ing out really. At first I won­dered where this all was going but once I let that notion go I enjoyed this film. I give it a 4 out of 5 marks. It’s worth a rental.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Saturday, March 27th, 2010

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is an Anime movie about a high school girl who sud­denly comes upon the abil­ity to leap through time. It’s funny, a bit silly, and also seri­ous at the same time. She has the usual high school girl prob­lems and this new­found abil­ity doesn’t make it any eas­ier. As the girl learns to make bet­ter use of this power she also learns more about her­self. One of the things that is really funny is that she actu­ally has to take a run­ning jump to make it work and her land­ings are awful.

All that sappy stuff aside, this was a sur­pris­ingly good movie and just when I thought I fig­ured out how it was all going to work out, a plot twist came out of nowhere and threw me for a pleas­ant loop. When I saw the movie I had to read sub­ti­tles so if that’s not your bag, make sure you get the Eng­lish dub. Appar­ently this is a clas­sic story that has already been made into a movie and a TV drama but prob­a­bly not here in the U.S. If you’re already an Anime Fan then you’ll love this. If Anime is new to you then this just might be a pleas­ant way to start get­ting to know the genre. I’ve included the trailer so you can have a look at it.

Turtles Forever

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

Tur­tles For­ever is a made-for-TV movie that bridges the gap between the dif­fer­ent ver­sions of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur­tles’ that have hit the big and small scren and it does it amaz­ingly well. If you’ve ever been a fan at any age of any TMNT show, movie, or comic then this ani­mated movie was made is for you. I started watch­ing this think­ing it would be just like any other Tur­tles car­toon. What I got was sci-fi, com­edy, satire, and plenty of Ninja Tur­tle action. This movie far sur­passed my expec­ta­tions and kept me riv­eted till the end.

I’ve been a fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur­tles since they were just comic book heroes so I may be a bit biased. The orig­i­nal TV ver­sion was fun but made for kids. The lat­est ver­sion got bet­ter and also darker but never held my atten­tion enough to keep up with the seem­ingly end­less episodes. Still I’d watch an episode now and then just to see what was hap­pen­ing in the series. This movie does not require you to be as knowl­edge­able of Tur­tle lore as I am. You don’t have to be fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur­tles to enjoy this movie but if you are, even just a lit­tle, rest assured that you will be appro­pri­ately enter­tained. All that and you can even sit and watch it with your kids.

Consent

Friday, February 5th, 2010

Con­sent is a cute short film that plays on the fact that two peo­ple should thor­oughly dis­cuss sex before actu­ally doing the deed. How thor­ough? Well you’ll see just as two young adults lean in for the kiss. The lan­guage is rather sug­gestible so don’t play this in front of the kid­dies. The film has writ­ten and directed by Jason Reit­man and won a cou­ple of awards. It’s eas­ily worth a few moments of your time.