Race Out and Rent | Buzz Blog
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Race Out and Rent

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The early 2009 burn-offs continue to appear (12 Rounds, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li, Jonas Brothers 3-D Concert Experience), but all is not lost. You can get a look at Joaquin Phoenix's last screen performance before he turned into an Andy Kaufmann-esque living piece of performance art in the drama Two Lovers. It casts the actor as Leonard Kraditor, as a troubled New Yorker torn between the nice girl his parents approve of (Vinessa Shaw) and the even-crazier-than-him neighbor (Gwyneth Paltrow) who captures his imagination. Though a bit gloomy (in keeping with director James Gray's preferred style), it's a great little character study.

If you want to take a little trip down memory lane to the summer of '89, catch the 20th anniversary re-release of Spike Lee's groundbreaking Do the Right Thing. Both the standard DVD and Blu-Ray editions include new documentaries chronicling the creation of -- and reaction to -- one of the best films ever made about racial turmoil in America. And it's still Spike's masterpiece.