agpw's - Rented List

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Every night while the city sleeps, Ahmad, a Pakistani immigrant, struggles to drag his heavy cart along the streets of New York to his corner in Midtown Manhattan. And every morning, from inside his cart he sells coffee and donuts to a city he cannot call his own.

He is a man who wonders if he will ever escape his fate.

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"On the Basis of Sex" is inspired by the powerful and timely true story of US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Felicity Jones) who led the fight against gender discrimination and blazed an unprecedented trail for equality.

From being one of only a few women accepted at Harvard Law to co-founding the Women's Rights Project at the ACLU, Bader Ginsburg overcame all odds to become one of the most influential figures in the battle for equal rights, passionately arguing ground-breaking landmark cases and giving a voice to those unable to be heard.

Having experienced the horror of the First World War, idealistic poet Jean Diaz (Victor Francen) turns to technology in a bid to prevent further barbarity. But a meddling and unscrupulous bureaucracy allows Jean's plans to be hijacked as Europe slides towards another great conflict.

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Marcel Ophuls' four-and-a-half hour portrait of the French town of Clermont-Ferrand under German occupation from 1940-44 is one of the greatest documentaries ever made, as important as Claude Lanzmann's 'Shoah' in its value not just as a film but as an essential historical record in its own right -

not least since its interviewees are all long dead. Describing the fall of France and the rise of the Resistance, with the aid of newly-shot interviews and eye-opening archive footage including newsreels and propaganda films, Ophuls painstakingly crafts a complex, nuanced picture of what really happened in France over this period. He also demolishes numerous self-serving national myths to such an extent that, although he made the film for French television, they wouldn't show it for over a decade. But, as he demonstrates again and again, the overwhelming majority of French citizens during this period weren't heroes, villains or cowards, but simply ordinary people trying to make the best of an impossible situation. And it's Ophuls' portrayal of these people, their hopes, their fears and their appalling moral quandaries, that remains unmatched in film history.

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Alfie is not really a bad sort. It's just that he has this overwhelming desire for the opposite sex. You might say that "birds" are irresistible to him, sort of second nature. With Michael Caine in the title role. Alfie is a ribald and wild comedy, filled with sex and sin.

For those who want to be entertained, Alfie is charming, delightful and quick-moving. For those who want more, there is, beneath the surface, a lingering tragedy, simply and poignantly told about the taker and the taken.

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You're about to get personal with one of music history's greatest - and loudest - heavy metal bands...Spinal Tap! Whether or not you're a die-hard fan of the group, you'll love this a detailed "rockumentary" of England's legendary Spinal Tap.

Acclaimed commercial director Marty DiBergi takes you behind-the-scenes for an intimate look at a band whose time has come...andgone...and come again...and...Through interviews, rare footage and lots of music - including classic Tap tunes like "Big Bottom" and "Hell Hole" - you'll get acquainted with David St. Hubbins (lead guitar), Nigel Tufnel (lead guitar), Derek Smalls (lead bass) and every drummer who ever lived - and died - for this renowned rock band. Be a part of the sights, sounds and smells of this celebrated heavy metal phenomenon. It's an experience you'll never forget.

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Adapted from three short stories by Guy de Maupassant, each tells a tale of pleasure.

The first tells the story of an old man who regains his youth with the aid of a magic mask, in the second a prostitute has a romantic encounter and the final story concerns two young lovers, an artist and his model. 'Le Plaisir' is a delicate portrait of love and desire.

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1940, Paulette (Brigitte Fossey), a young French girl, is orphaned in a Nazi air attack during the battle of France. She is befriended by Michel (Georges Poujouly), the son of a poor farmer whose family take her in to their home to care for her.

Together the two children forge a tight bond, attempting to come to terms with the realities of the death and destruction that surrounds them by creating their own reality, building their own small graveyard to bury dead animals they find. In this sealed universe they have created, Paulette and Michel experience their first and most wonderful love story.

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Kathy (Carey Mulligan), Ruth (Keira Knightley) and Tommy (Andrew Garfield) are best friends who grow up together at an English boarding school with a chilling secret.

When they learn the shocking truth - that they are genetically engineered clones raised to be organ donors - they embrace their fleeting chance to live and love.

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Melville's most personal film, rooted in his wartime experiences in the French Resistance, Army Of Shadows is a hard, tense drama, depicting man's capacity for both bravery and evil. In the winter of 1942-1943, as France exist s under German occupation, an underground cell operates in the shadows.

In the clandestine world of the Resistance, the freedom fighters work against their enemies under the constant risk of betrayal, ordinary men and women in an extraordinary situation. Suffused throughout with a mood of foreboding, the suspense, heightened with directorial mastery, reaches its peak as the Resistance attempt to free a prisoner from the Gestapo headquarters, in one of Melville's trademark set-pieces of iconic action.

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South Africa, 1976. The police ruled Gordan Ngubene's death a suicide. But when Afrikaans schoolteacher Ben du Toit (Donald Sutherland) saw the body he knew his friend of 15 years was the victim of police torture.

Seeking justice, Ben hires barrister Ian McKenzie (Marlon Brando) to represent the Ngubene family at the inquest, but the judge ignores the evidence and exonerates the police. Refusing to "give it up", Ben risks his family and career as he takes on a system run by racists, thugs and murderers. For if you're not with the Afrikaners, you're against them. And choosing the wrong side could get you killed.

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After his inevitable arrest (and almost immediate release), Michel (Martin LaSalle) reflects on the morality of crime, developing a vague theory that exceptional individuals are above the law.

Lost in another world, he rejects his friends in favour of a life of crime and is seemingly set on finding his place in the world by engineering a head-on collision with society.

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During the early days of post-colonial India, a company of nomadic actors travel across the country performing Shakespeare.

When a young troupe member, Lizzie (Felicity Kendal), falls in love with playboy Sanju (Shashi Kapoor), the pair must overcome cultural differences and the scheming of film actress and rival for Sanju's affections Manjula (Madhur Jaffrey).

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Described as 'a perfect film' by Susan Sontag, Jean-Luc Godard's compelling fourth feature presents 12 episodes in the life of Nana (wonderfully played by Godard's muse, Anna Karina), a young Parisian who turns to prostitution after becoming disillusioned by poverty and her failing marriage.

Stylistically innovative and boasting several of both the director's and star's most memorable moments, 'Vivre Sa Vie' is an undiminished classic of the French New Wave that is by turns both playful and sad, and which borrows the aesthetics of cinema verite to present a captivating vision of 1960's Parisian street life and pop culture.

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Starring Academy Award winner Rachel Weisz, alongside Timothy Spall, Tom Wilkinson and Andrew Scott - "Denial" is the gripping and inspirational story of a relentless fight for justice.

When writer Deborah Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz) speaks out against the lies of Holocaust denier David Irving (Timothy Spall) she is faced with a high-stakes battle to uncover one of the darkest deceptions in history. Passionate, fiery and independent she decides she must face him in court to fight the battle for the truth, even though the odds are solidly stacked against her.