Movie Rental Review

BUY Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Two-Disc Deluxe Edition) DVD
BUY Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Widescreen Edition) DVD
BUY Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Full Screen Edition) DVD
BUY Charlie and the Chocolate Factory VHS
BUY GBA Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
BUY PS2 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
BUY NGC Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
BUY Charlie & The Chocolate Factory Soundtrack

United States/United Kingdom, 2005
U.S. Release Date: 7/15/05 (wide)
Running Length: 1:55
MPAA Classification: PG (Sinister actions)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Cast: Freddie Highmore, Johnny Depp, David Kelly, Helena Bonham Carter, Noah Taylor, Deep Roy, Christopher Lee, Annasophia Robb, Julia Winter, Jordon Fry, Philip Wiegratz
Director: Tim Burton
Producers: Brad Grey, Richard D. Zanuck
Screenplay: John August, based on the book by Roald Dahl
Cinematography: Philippe Rousselot
Music: Danny Elfman
U.S. Distributor: Warner Brothers

Movie Rental Review Rating: 9/10

Official Site

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory starts out with a famous candy-maker named Willy Wonka (Johnny Depp), who is opening his factory to 5 kids that possess one of five golden tickets hidden inside millions of Wonka bars. The Wonka Bar is sold world wide so these ticket will fetch children from very different backgrounds. The lucky five will get a tour of the famous Wonka candy factory which is the largest chocolate factory every built. As word, spreads of the golden tickets the world goes crazy buying Wonka Bars. The first to win a golden ticket was Augustus Gloop (Philip Wiegratz), a fat pig of a boy who thinks chocolate is a primary food group. The second was Veruca Salt (Julia Winter), a very very very spoiled girl in England, who her father (Edward Fox) gets her every whim she desires. He had his peanut shelling factory switch to shelling Wonka Bars to find her a winning ticket. The third was Violet Beauregarde (Annasophia Robb), a real overachiever that has to win at everything no matter how small the task. The fourth was Mike Teavee (Jordon Fry), a very intelligent video gamer (child after my own heart) who finds the ticket using the simple resources at his hands and arrives at the solution in a very logical manner. The fifth and final winner was Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore), an extremely poor boy that wins the ticket by fate. He finds the money on the street to buy the last winning Wonka Bar, which he shows his grandfather Joe (David Kelly). Grandfather Joe use to work at the factory before Willy Wonka had closed it to all it workers. He loved his job in the factory and considered it to be, one of the best jobs in the world. He would like to see his beloved factory one more time before he passes on.

The Movie Rental Review loved this remake and many times throughout the movie I was taken back to the original 1971 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie with Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. John’s portrayal of Willy reminded me of a cross between Michael Jackson and Mr. Rogers. This is a great story with great values being taught in a very entertaining manner.

© 2005 Dr. Byte - Movie Rental Review

Movie Rental Review: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Movie Rental Review

BUY Beyond Borders (Full Screen Edition)DVD
BUY Beyond Borders (Widescreen Edition) DVD
BUY Beyond Borders VHS
BUY Beyond Borders Soundtrack

United States, 2003
U.S. Release Date: 10/24/03 (wide)
Running Length: 2:07
MPAA Classification: R (Violence, profanity, sex)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Cast: Angelina Jolie, Clive Owen, Linus Roache, Teri Polo, Yorick van Wageningen, Noah Emmerich
Director: Martin Campbell
Producers: Dan Halsted, Lloyd Phillips
Screenplay: Caspian Tredwell-Owen
Cinematography: Phil Meheux
Music: James Horner
U.S. Distributor: Paramount Pictures

Movie Rental Review Rating: 9/10

Official Site

Beyond Borders is about woman named Sarah Jordan (Angelina Jolie) who lives in the upper crust of British society. She gets introduced to a relief worker named Nick Callahan (Clive Owen) that crashes a fancy dinner party she was attending. This meeting touches her so deeply that she collects $40,000 to purchase food and medicine, and then proceeds to deliver it to Ethiopia personally. On the trip to the refugee camp where the Nick is stationed, she sees first hand the plight of the Ethiopian people. She picks a mother and her young son who is dying of starvation, this scene was very moving because of how malnourished state of the boy. After she arrives, she sees how callus Nick is to the condition of the wounded mother and starving child. I believe she was able to give his emotions a bit of a “shot in the arm” to remember what he was there for. She leaves a little discouraged after finding out that the supplies she brought would only sustain the camp for four days. Five years pass, Sarah works for the U.N. and flies off to Cambodia to aid Nick because she knows her marriage to Henry Bauford (Linus Roache) is falling apart. She finds out Nick is funding his relief effort by smuggling arms for the CIA. Sarah is not impressed with these actions because it impedes future relief missions. Nick tells Sarah that he lovers here but because of Nick extremely dangerous work, he has to part ways again. Next is six years later, she heads to Chechnya because she senses that Nick is in real trouble and she is right.

The Movie Rental Review found this movie to be very hard to watch at times because of the human tragedies happening to the refugees the Nick was attempting to help. However, this movie gets a high rating because of the wake-up call to the needs of poor and displaced people around the earth it presents.

© 2005 Dr. Byte - Movie Rental Review

Movie Rental Review: Beyond Borders

Movie Rental Review

BUY Crash (Widescreen Edition) DVD
BUY Crash (Full Screen Edition) DVD
BUY Crash VHS
BUY Crash Soundtrack
BUY Crash: Music from and Inspired by Crash

United States/Germany, 2004
U.S. Release Date: 5/6/05 (wide)
Running Length: 1:40
MPAA Classification: R (Profanity, sexual situations, nudity, violence)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Cast: Matt Dillon, Don Cheadle, Sandra Bullock, Brendan Fraser, Thandie Newton, Ryan Phillippe, Larenz Tate, Jennifer Esposito, William Fichtner, Terrence Dashon Howard, Ludacris
Director: Paul Haggis
Producers: Don Cheadle, Paul Haggis, Mark R. Harris, Robert Moresco, Cathy Schulman, Bob Yari
Screenplay: Paul Haggis & Robert Moresco
Cinematography: James Muro
Music: Mark Isham
U.S. Distributor: Lions Gate Films

Movie Rental Review Rating: 8/10

Official Site

Crash is about a group of people in a city that the movie follows; we see how racism causes rifts between ethnic groups. Haggis puts together a large all-star cast for this movie to deal with its delicate subject matter, Matt Dillon, Don Cheadle, Sandra Bullock, Brendan Fraser, Thandie Newton and Ryan Phillippe are just a few off the top. He even pulled Tony Danza into this movie. This movie had many plot threads running through it, some threads crossed paths and some did not. On a personal level, this movie was really quite disturbing. To think that currently we still have this level of racism, quite sad because we have come so far and still have so far to go. One of the most powerful scenes in this movie for me was when Farhad (Shaun Toub) was confronting Daniel (Michael Pena) in front of his house about the money that Farhad believes Daniel owns him from the break in at Farhad’s store. Lara (Ashlyn Sanchez) was watching this confrontation from the front door. Lara sees that Farhad has a gun and she yells to her mother Elizabeth (Karina Arroyave), “He doesn’t have it” (she was referring to the impenetrable cloak). Lara jumps to her father’s defense to protect him just as Farhad fires a shot. The following moments of the great distress that Daniel and Elizabeth felt as they saw their young and innocent daughter get shot was very overwhelming. However, Dorri (Bahar Soomekh) being Farhad’s smart daughter purchased the gun with blanks. The reason why I found this to be a very powerful scene was how far racism can go; the death of innocence is usually the result. This whole movie was like this, it really made you feel for a lot of the characters but there were some characters that got what they deserved.

The Movie Rental Review was going to give this movie a low rating but as I thought about the movie more and more, I came to the realization the brilliance of the script, cinematography and how the actors portrayed their parts. Truly a great depiction of where racism can lead.

© 2005 Dr. Byte - Movie Rental Review

Movie Rental Review: Crash