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

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

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

Mirageman

MiragemanMirage­man is the story of a young man in Chile who decides to be a Super­hero. He has no pow­ers, just some mar­tial arts skills or as the byline says, “just his fists and guts”. The film starts with the hero prac­tic­ing his mar­tial arts while his his­tory is told from news­pa­per clip­pings and pho­tos on his wall. He’s a hum­ble guy and appar­ently liv­ing on just enough money to get by. Later he runs across a chance to use his skills to help some­one and dons a mask to do so. His story makes it to the news and his sick brother who imme­di­ately starts to improve. It is at this point that the main pro­tag­o­nist of the story decides to be a Superhero.

There’s a lot to like about this movie. It’s clearly low bud­get but some­how con­tains all the ele­ments of a great Super­hero movie. There’s plenty of com­edy as Mirage­man learns about the super­hero busi­ness through trial and error; from who he should trust, what cloth­ing he should wear, to how to get around trans­porta­tion issues. What really stands out here is the mar­tial arts. This was some of the best fight­ing chore­og­ra­phy I have ever seen out­side of a Chi­nese or Japan­ese film. There’s no slow motion, just awe­some, real-looking fight scenes.

As I said before, this film was made in Chile so it is Eng­lish dubbed but if you’ve ever watched old mar­tial arts movies of the past then get­ting through this will be easy. The Super­hero move­ment and action is some­what sim­i­lar to the old Spider-Man live action tele­vi­sion show. It’s a lit­tle cheesy but def­i­nitely enter­tain­ing and fun to watch. The music is good too. I give this movie a 4 out of 5 marks. Check out the trailer:

05.07.2010 Action, Adventure, Drama No Comments

Logorama

Logo­rama is an Oscar nom­i­nated short film in which every char­ac­ter and pretty much every piece of the land­scape is made from some pop­u­lar logo. It starts off inno­cently enough but then turns vio­lent with a heavy dose of pro­fan­ity and other PG-13 ele­ments. I loved it. You will too. You can find out more on the film’s offi­cial site and you can watch the entire short below.

30.06.2010 Action, Animation, Crime, Short Film No Comments

Exiled (Fong Juk)

Exiled is a Chi­nese action movie that while tak­ing place in rel­a­tively mod­ern times, plays out very much like a West­ern. In it, a group of old friends are brought together again under inter­est­ing cir­cum­stances. Two of them arrive to kill one of the oth­ers while another two arrive at the same time to pro­tect him. Their friend­ship endures while they shoot at each other and oth­ers shoot at them.

This movie is sub­ti­tled but the con­ver­sa­tions hap­pen slow enough for them to be eas­ily read with­out miss­ing any­thing impor­tant in the movie. Some parts of the film play out like  a Kung Fu movies with guns instead of hand to hand com­bat. The per­son­al­i­ties of each of the friends are rel­a­tively dis­tinct and each is like­able in his own way. There are plenty of action scenes and since there are lots of bul­lets fly­ing, there is plenty of blood but not to the point of it being gory. The endur­ing friend­ship of the main give guys is fun to watch as it plays out amidst the back­drop of bul­lets, crime, and gang bosses. The movie takes place in Macao, China and has its appro­pri­ate comedic and dra­matic moments woven into this action piece.

None of the actors were rec­og­nize­able to me but every­one seemed to play their part well. This was an enjoy­able film. It was directed by Johnny To who I never knew but now have an appre­ci­a­tion for. I eas­ily give this movie a 4 out of 5 marks. Enjoy the trailer below then go rent the movie.

19.06.2010 Action, Crime, Thriller No Comments

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