Recent Movies Rented, Part I of V

So, in lieu of my usual musical play lists (which will return eventually), here is a list of the movies we have rented recently.
Due to our current lives revolving around child-care and such, and due to theater movie prices costing about 100% more money than I’m willing to spend, we are unable to go out to the movies. Also, due to our not having television reception (a purposeful choice, and one I recommend to everyone), we don’t find out about new movies until they hit the shelves in the local Blockbuster, so it’s a nice surprise for us to find out about several good movies at once. This list also includes a lot of movies we have seen in the past, but liked enough to rent again.
I have also given the movies an exclamation point rating system (one, ! being bad and four, ! being best).

Here is Part I:

-Unleashed: !!! 2005; Starring Jet Li, Morgan Freeman, and Rob Hoskins

If you like Jet Li movies you’ll like this one. Jet Li’s character is a trained street fighter who basically serves as a slave to this, sort-of mobster, guy who uses Jet Li’s talent for profit. The action is outstanding, and the fighting style is a unique, animalistic/street-fighter/kung-fu style that I’ve never seen used before.
-About a Boy: !!!! 2002; Starring Hugh Grant, Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, and Rachel Weisz

Faith and I both really enjoy this movie. It definitely wasn’t the first time we had seen it, but we were inspired due to my reading of the Nick Hornby novels, About A Boy and High Fidelity. We both highly recommend both of these books, as they are absolutely hilarious, dripping with Brit humor.
-High Fidelity: !!!! 2000; Starring John Cusack, Iben Hjejle, Todd Louiso, and Jack Black

Since we were in a Nick Hornby mood, we decided to rent this one as well. It’s one of my favorite movies. Not because I can relate to everything in it, but I can definitely relate to the obsessive music collector side of it. Plus, Jack Black is absolutely in his glory, in this movie.
-Walk the Line: !!!! 2005; Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Gennifer Goodwin, and Robert Patrick

We both really enjoyed this movie. Before viewing this feature I really didn’t know anything about the full Johnny Cash story. There has been a recent resurgence of Johnny Cash fans coming from my generation, but I still never really got into his music very much. It’s nice to at least know the story now. After renting this movie, Faith and Joy recorded themselves singing Johnny Cash’s “Singer of Songs”. They never completed it to perfection before Joy left, in April, but I think they did a very good rendition of it.
-The Legend and The Legend II: !! 1993, Starring Jet Li, Josephine Saio, and Adam Cheng

After renting this movie I remember now why I wasn’t really into martial arts movies until later in life. The movies of this era had stories with virtually no substance and ridiculous voice-overs probably done by a only two or three people, making what could have been a decent movie into a corny comedy. The martial arts choreography in Legend is very good, and Jet Li is of course awesome. If you’re just getting into martial arts movies and don’t want to get immediately turned off, try renting more recent ones like, Unleashed, House of Flying Daggers, Hero, or Ong Bak before renting an older one like the Legend series.