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.

Case 39

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

Case 39 is about one of the cases of a social worker played by Renée Zell­weger. She’s a worka­holic but very car­ing and very effec­tive at her job. She basi­cally helps to iden­tify chil­dren in bad sit­u­a­tions with their par­ents and works to make them bet­ter. When she get’s this spe­cific case she find a lit­tle girl in seri­ous trou­ble but has no proof. The hor­ri­ble things her par­ents try to do her are strik­ingly bad. The social worker works to save her but then pecu­liar and some­times grue­some things begin to happen.

This movie, very nicely, moves from a mys­tery to a thriller to a hor­ror film. It almost fools you into think­ing it’s a dif­fer­ent type of movie than it actu­ally is, and this is a good thing. The sur­prises keep com­ing even up to the end. The role of the lit­tle girl Lilith was played very well by Jodelle Fer­land. There were times when I really felt con­cerned for her saftey and oth­ers where I feared for every­one elses.

Case 39 takes you on a trip and you can’t help but fol­low along as the story twists and turns. I watched it with some­one who doesn’t nor­mally watch hor­ror movies and they didn’t know it was one until they were caught up in watch­ing it. I really enjoyed this movie and give it a 4 out of 5 marks.

24.02.2011 Horror, Mystery, Thriller No Comments

Intacto

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011

Intacto is a movie about a group of peo­ple, gam­blers actu­ally, that are all con­nected. What makes this story unique is that they all seem to have the abil­ity to take luck from peo­ple, not unlike a super power. Each of them, at least once in their lives whether acci­den­tally or on pur­pose, has sur­vived an acci­dent by drain­ing the luck out of peo­ple nearby so that they might sur­vive. Some of the fac­tors included in the luck they obtain are the like­li­hood of sur­vival and the amount of peo­ple that die in the accident.

All the actors were pretty good but the only one I rec­og­nized was Max von Sydow. He played the part of a Jew­ish sur­vivor of the Holo­caust and was the only char­ac­ter that spoke Eng­lish in the entire movie. Intacto is a Span­ish film. When I rented it I was pre­pared to sit down and read sub­ti­tles but I found the DVD does have a 2.1 Eng­lish track you can choose instead of the 5.1 sur­round sound Span­ish one. I opted to lis­ten in English.

One of the great things about this movie is the dis­cov­ery of this world of under­ground gam­blers, the games they play to test their luck, and the cur­rency they put up as col­lat­eral in order to compete. I would have liked for there to be a visual rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the luck of the gam­blers as it changed bod­ies and was used. The con­cept of how luck could be absorbed and given out by cer­tain peo­ple was inter­est­ing. This was one of those films where you just go along for the ride and enjoy it’s twists and turns. I rented this movie based solely on its premise and was pleased to find it was much more. I give this film a 3 and a half out of 5 marks. Here’s the trailer:

11.01.2011 Drama, Thriller No Comments

King of the Avenue

Saturday, December 18th, 2010

King of the Avenue is a movie about a boy being brought up in the drug game by his ruth­less and suc­cess­ful step father. He inher­its the game after his step-father’s mur­der and plays it bet­ter than most. As a mea­sure of suc­cess he pur­sues the title of “King of the Ave” but a series of mis­for­tunes cause him to make a deal with the devil, played con­vinc­ingly by Esai Morales, who res­ur­rects his step­fa­ther with the soul of a ruth­less and unre­lent­ing demon.

This movie is for all intents and pur­poses a “B” movie. It’s low bud­get. It’s about the hood and the drug game, and it has only one or two rec­og­niz­able actors. That being said, I found it to be more enjoy­able than I expected. Ving Rhames was dis­gust­ingly evil and every evil act he did was as fun to watch as it was out of bounds. Another thing that made this movie inter­est­ing is how it por­trayed the drug game. Every­one who comes from the hood has their idea on how the drug game should be played and the way the main char­ac­ter played it is how any­one would expect a suc­cess­ful drug dealer would. The way that the devil explained his moti­va­tion and actions was sur­pris­ingly clear and almost fair. If not for the super­nat­ural ele­ment, I’d say this movie almost cel­e­brates the drug game. I enjoyed this film and give it a 3 and a half out of 5 marks. Check out the trailer:

18.12.2010 Thriller No Comments

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:

21.08.2010 Comedy, Crime, Romance, Thriller No Comments

Boondock Saints

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

The Boon­dock Saints is the story of two Irish fra­ter­nal twins that set out to kill evil men in Boston. It styl­ish, funny, and action packed. The twins are played by Sean Patrick Flan­ery and Nor­man Reedus. There’s also a flam­ing gay FBI agent hot on their trail played by Willem Dafoe. The twins are bad-ass, and while they may not be the most intel­li­gent of vig­i­lantes, they make up for it in atti­tude, dar­ing, and style. Though they are killers, they believe them­selves to be doing the lord’s work by destroy­ing evil. There is a prayer they say just before they kill their last vic­tim that is quite inter­est­ing and mem­o­rable. This movie is fun to watch all the way through and the music is pretty good too.

I was look­ing back try­ing to fig­ure out why I hadn’t seen this movie in the the­ater and found out the movie was released in the U.S. on only a few screens due to the actual columbine inci­dent. It was later re-released seven years later. There is already a sequel which I have seen and also rec­om­mend called The Boon­dock Saints II: All Saints Day. It’s nearly, if not just as good, as the orig­i­nal. I ended up screen­ing both movies back-to-back with friends and a good time was had by all. I con­sider them both clas­sics and eas­ily give the orig­i­nal 5 out of 5 marks. Check out the trailer for the orig­i­nal:

29.07.2010 Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller No Comments

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