Rental Movie Guide

Definitely, Maybe (Widescreen)

A romantic comedy that begins with a discussion about sex education and ends with a bit of an unexpected twist, Definitely, Maybe focuses on an engaging father and his 10-year-old daughter. She is curious about the women her dad loved prior to marrying (and separating from) her mother. Instead of telling her, “None of your business,” he decides to tell her about them… Sort of. Will is played by Ryan Reynolds and his precocious daughter Maya is adroitly portrayed by Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine). Will figures out a way to tell Maya about his most meaningful relationships in a PG manner that also is interactive for her (Or as she describes it, “a love story mystery!”). Changing a few of their characteristics and disguising their names, Will tells her about three exceptional women and Maya tries to deduce which one became her mom. Was it Emily (Elizabeth Banks), the wholesome Midwestern girl afraid of the big city; Summer (Rachel Weisz), the exotic journalist; or April (Isla Fisher), the rebel with a cause? Hearing about all these women, Maya asks, “What’s the boy word for slut?” Spanning 15 years, back to when Will was an idealistic young man with the hopes of one day becoming president of the United States, the film has a nice light touch and deals with father-daughter bonding issues in a unique, if not completely realistic manner. Reynolds is a genial but bland leading man, but the women–including young Breslin–more than hold their own in this fun film.

Popularity: 14% [?]

While trying to find his Beverly Hills hotel, a tycoon corporate raider, Edward Lewis, played by Richard Gere, accidently meets Vivian Ward, a Hollywood prostitute. Vivian Ward, played by Julia Roberts, is hired by Edward Lewis as a date for a whole week.

Julia Roberts portrays Vivian Ward brilliantly as a prostitute suddenly taken into the world of the ultra rich where anything you could desire is just a call away. Normally, she has been able to get just enough clients to survive with her drug-using roommate. Since Vivian does not even have a high school diploma, she chose prostitution as the only higher paying alternative to working in fast food restaurants.

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Now, Vivian is staying in a hotel suite that has a bathroom about as big as her whole apartment and an unlimited number of people to wait on her. As a date for Edward Lewis, she is swept up in the snobbish, Hollywood culture on Rodeo Drive. After being asked to leave an exclusive boutique, Vivian is desperate to learn how to dress and eat at a high class restaurant. She finds a sympathetic hotel manager at the Beverly Hills Hotel who has his own boutique manager work with Vivian personally from hair to shoes, giving her a stunning and elegant appearance.

Both Edward Lewis and Vivian Ward come from extreme ends of society and could not be more different. However, they do share one thing in common; they both use their clients in a cold, unemotional manner. But later on, what begins as a business contract quickly evolves into to much, much more.

Richard Gere is very convincing as Edward Lewis, showing a cool, calculating manner, totally involved in winning his business deals. He spends almost all day and night on the phone, planning his next move and meeting with his lawyer, never taking a day off. But that changes when Vivian enters the picture.

Over the week, the poor prostitute escorts the rich industrialist to a client dinner, a polo game, and is flown on his private jet to San Francisco to hear an opera for the first time. As can be expected, there are a few twists and turns when things do not go smoothly at each of these events, causing both Vivian and Edward to reconsider who they are and what they should be doing in their lives.

This movie is a delightful romance that will have you guessing what will happen next with this bizarre mix of these two fascinating people.

Pretty Woman is rated R. Parents need to know that this film contains adult themes, strong sexual references, and sexual imagery.

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About the Author:

Tom Straub is a successful author, and webmaster of the DVD Reviews web site, where you can read more on your favorite DVD releases.

Popularity: 15% [?]

“Forrest Gump” is an amusing tale of a mildly retarded man who ends up meeting three presidents as well as making a fortune and participating in and influencing several key historical events. Tom Hanks does a terrific acting job as Gump. The use of computer graphics imagery (CGI), by which Gump is shown meeting the presidents and Lt. Dan Taylor (Sinise) is made to appear as if his legs have been amputated, is also impressive.

Forrest Gump is born in a small town in Alabama, but he’s born mildly retarded and handicapped, for which his legs are put in braces. His mother has frequent guests at her house, including Elvis Presley, before he becomes famous.

Once Forrest starts school, he falls for a blonde classmate named Jenny. Kids at his school pick on him because of his condition, but Jenny tells him to run from them, so he breaks his leg braces and runs as fast as he can, his adversaries unable to catch him.

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The same thing happens to him in high school. This time, however, Forrest ends up running through the football field of the University of Alabama while a game is being played. The coach is so impressed that he puts Forrest on the team and gives him a scholarship, so he gets to attend college. Forrest plays exceptionally well, even getting invited to the White House to meet President Kennedy.

A few years later, Forrest gets drafted and sent to fight in Vietnam. There he meets Bubba, a black man whose family is in the shrimp business. He promises Bubba that he’ll go into the shrimping business with him after the war. One day, the platoon is attacked by the Viet Kong and several soldiers become seriously wounded. Forrest carries several of them back, including Lt. Dan Taylor, head of the platoon, who’d had both his legs shot off. Dan is at first very upset with Forrest for saving his life since he now has no legs and he comes from a long line of soldiers who died in combat. Bubba becomes fatally injured.

During the war, Forrest learns to play ping pong and becomes an expert at it. As a result, he gets sent to China to compete and is given $25,000 to endorse a new set of ping pong paddles. President Nixon meets him and puts him up at the Watergate hotel, where Forrest witnesses the Watergate break-in and inadvertently reports it to the front desk, initiating the Watergate scandal.

Forrest uses most of the $25,000 he’d earned from ping pong to buy a shrimping boat and go shrimping with Dan, keeping a promise to Bubba. One day a huge storm hits, resulting in Forrest retrieving a boatful of shrimp. Furthermore, every other shrimping boat gets destroyed in the storm, giving Forrest a monopoly on the shrimp. As a result, Forrest makes a fortune. He gives most of the money to Bubba’s mother, though.

Forrest returns to Jenny, whose life has been hell. He becomes intimate with her and wants to marry her, but she refused. Forrest becomes heartbroken and decides to run away. He ends up running continuously for three years, crossing the country several times and attracting a large group of followers. He then gets tired and decides to return home.

Back home, Forrest gets a call from Jenny, who now has a son whom she tells him is his. Forrest and Jenny get married, but she has a fatal disease (presumably AIDS), which she dies from shortly thereafter.

Rated: PG-13

Runtime: 142 min

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Forrest Gump - Dave’s Top Movies

Popularity: 16% [?]

Tyler Perry’s Daddy’s Little Girls – the tale of two people from completely different worlds brought together by tragic circumstances.  This romantic comedy is the story of a father that is separated from his kids and given to their mother.  But in this case having the children with their mother is NOT a good idea.  You see, the mother is a drug dealer and shacked up with the drug kingpin of the neighborhood.  The mother doesn’t even want the children but because of spite she will keep them just so the father does not have them.  It is Monty’s job to do everything he can to get his children back and out of a household that is ingrained in crime.  As a result, Monty enlists the help of Julia.  A high class lawyer that has never lost a case, nor had a truly fulfilling relationship with a true man.  The beginning interaction between Monty and Julia are rocky and twisted with a image that all black men from the wrong side of the street are never good hard working individuals.  Julia mentality is that these men are lazy and out of touch with reality.  That is compounded by the friends that she has.

Monty on the other hand is not really looking for a relationship in the beginning.  He is more concerned with one buying the auto shop that he works in and getting custody of his three young children.  You will have to see this movie to feel the highs and lows of the emotion expressed from these actors.

Daddy’s little girls take you on a roller coaster from the beginning to the end of the picture.  You emotions start with glee as joy that Monty’s children are well taken care of.  Next, your emotions go to fear when the drug kingpin is introduced.  Then you get the anger when you see the pain the children are put through away from their father.  Then you feel the LOVE once Monty and Julia start their courtship.  Then you feel the peace once the preaching is done.  Finally, you get the explosion at the end, the anger, peace and joy of the outcome.  You would be hard pressed to miss this movie.  Daddy’s little girl, a must see for all ages.

Rated: PG-13
Playing Time: 95 Minutes
2006

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Popularity: 13% [?]

by: Sharif Khan

I recently had the pleasure of watching Marc Forster’s film, Stranger Than Fiction, which I found to be a delightfully charming, intelligent comedy written by first-time screenwriter Zach Helm. I give it two guitars up. Way up. (Platonically speaking of course).

It’s about an uptight IRS agent, Harold Crick (Will Ferrell), who realizes that his mundane life is being narrated by the voice of a chain-smoking novelist played by Emma Thompson. The novelist is suffering from a bad case of writer’s block and is on the verge of a nervous breakdown because she can’t decide the ending to her story.

Going mad with the constant narration in his head that accurately predicts his every move, Crick solicits the help of a literature professor (Dustin Hoffman) to help find his voice. To his utter shock and dismay, Crick learns that the voice of his narrator belongs to this eccentric author that writes tragedies in which her heroes are killed off.

But Crick does not want to die! For the first time in his life he is discovering who he really is and what his true passions are. He sets out to meet the author with the determination to alter his fate. And upon meeting, the two worlds collide. The author is petrified to see that her main character has come to life and that he is very real indeed.

I can certainly relate to this movie as a writer working on my first inspirational novel. The movie raises some intriguing questions: What does it mean to be real? To find one’s voice? To express one’s voice? Who is narrating our story? Can fate be altered? Where do the boundaries of fiction and non-fiction collide?

I certainly don’t pretend to know the answers. I can only share my perspective as a writer. One of the challenges writers face is to know their characters inside and out and to have a complete understanding of the world they have created so that everything magically comes to life. As the story-writing guru, Robert McKee, likes to say, “Not a sparrow should fall in the world of a writer that he wouldn’t know.”

I believe in a sense that we are all writers. We are writers of our own play. In The Hero Soul (http://www.herosoul.com/), I close the last chapter of my book with a quote from Shakespeare:

“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.”

The world is a stage upon which we perform. Each age consisting of the acts and scenes of the play. But it’s our play. We choose how we act in each scene moment by moment. What type of play do you want to write? What type of a life do you want to live?

Realizing that he is going to be killed off, Harold Crick asks the literary professor for advice. The professor gives him a deceptively simple answer, “Go live your life! Do what you love to do!”

At first, Crick is offended by the professor’s triteness; but he realizes later that he has no control over his mortality and decides to do just that: live his life. He’s always wanted to play the guitar but never really had the time. For the first time in his life he walks into a guitar shop and sees this wicked turquoise guitar starring back at him. He picks up the guitar and begins strumming. In that moment his life is transformed from a tragedy into a divine comedy.

What have we been denying ourselves? What type of play do we want to have a starring role in? Sometimes we act in an “If Only” play with a bit part in shoulding all over ourselves until we are mired deep in our own pile of dung. I should write a novel. I should exercise. I should be a painter. I should start my own business. I should go on a dream vacation. If only I was younger. If only I was older. If only I had the money. If only I had the time.

In the professional world of writing there is a clause known as the “kill fee.” The kill fee is a fee paid by the editor to the writer for an assigned piece of writing that is killed off and never published. It’s usually a percentage of the total amount that was originally agreed upon between the editor and writer. Although there can be many reasons for rejecting a piece, the kill fee is often executed because the writing simply isn’t up to par.

When we’re not being our best selves, when we’re not expressing our unique voice, when we’re not being true to ourselves and not doing what we love to do, something inside of us dies. Life then pays us a kill fee: something less than what we truly deserve.

Are we living a life that’s worthy of being published, or will we live a life of mediocrity and accept the kill fee that’s assigned to us?

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About the Author:

Sharif Khan (http://www.herosoul.com; sharif@herosoul.com) is a freelance writer, inspirational keynote speaker, and author of the leadership bestseller, “Psychology of the Hero Soul.” He publishes his monthly Hero Soul ezine for cutting-edge advice on success, leadership and personal growth. To contact Sharif Khan about his writing and motivational speaking services, call: 416-417-1259.

Popularity: 13% [?]