Rent It! (and you can rent these NOW!)...

After my last post where I recommended movies that were not yet on DVD, I thought, "That was lame -- recommending films they can't watch yet." So, by popular demand, here are 3 movies that were not big hits but deserved to be, available on DVD right now that you can rent TONIGHT.

Requiem For A Dream
A deeply probing drama about 3 lives -- a mother, her son, and the son's girlfriend -- in a tailspin. What is so great about this film is the way the lives careen so suddenly and sharply, as if this could happen to anyone...because it can. Heavy but fascinating stuff. The director, Darren Arononsky, who most recently did "The Fountain" with wife Rachel Weiss and Hugh Jackman, is such an innovator that simply watching the film is entertaining, regardless of what is actually happening. Jared Leto is very good as the son, and Jennifer Connelly is excellent as his co-dependent. But the one who knocks it out of the ballpark is Oscar-nominated Ellen Burstyn, as the mother whose inward life turns so far inward it becomes a black hole from which she cannot escape.

The Weatherman
So what if its a Nicolas Cage movie? Its great! Set and shot in Chicago, this is a dark comedy about familial relationships: a father, his outcast daughter, his uptight ex-wife (the wonderful Hope Davis), and his hilariously ambivalent yet observant father (Michael Caine). Cage does one of his manic characters, but Davis and Caine are superb. If you don't get dark humor or can't laugh at the humor in others' problems, this movie isn't for you. But if you're looking for an original, dead-on dark comedy that hits all the right painful notes of dysfunctional family relationships, then this is right up your alley.

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
Off-putting title, engrossing movie. Tommy Lee Jones stars in and directs this overlooked feature about friendship, loyalty, and making an honest life when it sometimes seems easier not to. Set in southern Texas and Mexico, Jones weaves a Western tale of a good friend lost and the journey the one left behind goes through in honor of his friend. The journey involves a third major character, play by the excellent Barry Pepper, who as the antagonist sets this story in motion. Absorbing, moving, and funny, The Three Burials... won Best Actor (Jones) and Best Screenplay at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.