agpw's - Rented List

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Wilhelm (Rüdiger Vogler) embarks on a journey across Germany in order to find his voice as a writer. Introspective and seemingly without personality, he encounters a series of eccentric characters, including a beautiful and enigmatic actress and a mute girl, who draw Wilhelm into their worlds.

Loosely based on Goethe's landmark novel, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, Wim Wenders once again shows his mastery over the road movie genre and creates a brilliant character study of one man's alienation from the world around him.

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Set in Berlin, 1945, this powerful and provocative war drama retells the final days of the Second World War as recorded in the diaries of Adolf Hitler's private secretary, Traudl Junge, while barricaded with Hitler and his closest confidants in the Fuhrer's secret bunker.

Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel with an astonishing performance by Bruno Ganz as history's most notorious figure, this unprecedented and controversial insider's perspective is a gripping insight into the madness and desperation of Hitler in the final hours of the war as the Russian Army closes a ring around Berlin.

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Deep within this remote landscape, facing the most hostile conditions on earth, 300 people inhabit the small village of Bakhtia. There are only two ways to reach this outpost, by helicopter and by boat. In this wilderness there are no phones, running water or medical aid.

The people live according to their own values and cultural traditions which have remained unchanged for centuries. With his wonderfully evocative narration accompanying the breath-taking imagery, Werner Herzog brings us another remarkable encounter.

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Three generations of women, linked by one book. In 1923, Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) works on her novel Mrs. Dalloway while battling depression.

In 1951, housewife Laura (Julianne Moore) reads Woolfs book as she reckons with the emptiness of her suburban life; fifty years later, New Yorker Clarissa (Meryl Streep) nurses a dying friend, one who's nicknamed her Mrs. Dalloway.

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A young boy is taken by his Mayan father on a magical fishing trip to the Banco Chinchorro - the largest coral reef in Mexico. The reef, with its clear waters, frigate birds, egrets, and even a lounging crocodile, is like a Paradise before the fall.

But father and son must part at the end of the summer... Pedro Gonzdlez-Rubio's documentary style film is, at its simplest, a study of pure happiness and has won huge praise and numerous festival awards.

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"The Dresser" is a compelling study of the intense relationship between the leader of the company and his dresser.

Sir (Albert Finney), a grandiloquent old man of the theatre, has given his soul to career, but his tyrannical rule over the company is now beginning to crack under the strain of age and illness as he prepares for his two-hundred-twenty-seventh performance of King Lear. Sir's fastidious and fiercely dedicated dresser, Norman (Tom Courtenay), submits to Sir's frequendy unreasonable demands, tends to his health, and reminds him of what role he is currendy playing. The two men are essential to each others life.

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A true story set in Sweden in the 1900s about one woman’s impressive capacity to survive during a time of great social change and unrest. When Maria Larsson wins a camera in a lottery, her decision to keep it alters her whole life.

It enables her to see the world through new eyes, offering her a path to freedom and independence from her abusive husband.

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1940, London, the Blitz. With the country's morale at stake, inexperienced screenwriter, Catrin (Gemma Arterton) and a makeshift cast and crew, work under fire to make a film to lift the country's flagging spirits and inspire America to join the war.

Alongside fellow screenwriter, Buckley (Sam Clafiin) and a gloriously egotistical actor, Ambrose (Bill Nighy) they set off to make a film that will warm the hearts of the nation.

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When Carol (Cate Blanchett) walks into a New York City department store and meets Therese (Rooney Mara) an unlikely friendship sparks. Carol is an elegant socialite going through a bitter divorce while Therese is just starting out in life; unsure of who she wants to be.

Mesmerized by each other, they face a choice: deny their hearts desires or defy society's conventions but in doing so, risk life as they know it.

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Living in a remote Aboriginal community in the northern part of Australia, Charlie (David Gulpilil) is a warrior past his prime. As the government increases its stranglehold over the community's traditional way of life, Charlie becomes lost between two cultures.

His new modern life offers him a way to survive but, ultimately, it is one he has no power over. Finally fed up when his gun, his newly crafted spear and his best friend's jeep are confiscated, Charlie heads into the wild on his own, to live the old way. However, Charlie hasn't reckoned on where he might end up, nor on how much life has changed since the old days...

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In the heart of The Ottoman Empire during the onset of The First World War, American war-correspondent Christopher (Christian Bale) and Armenian-born Michael (Oscar Isaac) notice things are not as they seem when tensions begin to mount and prominent Armenian citizens are suddenly arrested and

executed by the ruling government. Realising this to be the start of a ruthless genocide aimed at the Armenian people Chris, Michael and thousands of exiled Armenians manage to evade capture fleeing to a remote mountain refuge where they vow to fight back against the might of The Empire in order to protect their identity and freedom.

When private eye Philip Marlowe (Elliott Gould) is visited by an old friend, this sets in train a series of events in which he's hired to search for a missing novelist (Sterling Hayden) and finds himself on the wrong side of vicious gangsters.

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Jesmark, a struggling fisherman on the island of Malta, must make an agonising choice: repair his leaking luzzu - the traditional wooden fishing boat that has been in his family for generations - or decommission it and give in to the temptation of illicit dealing on the black market.

Featuring a Sundance Film Festival award-winning lead performance from Jesmark Scicluna - a non-professional actor and real life fisherman - Alex Camilleri's acclaimed debut feature takes inspiration from Italian Neorealist filmmakers and offers a glimpse into the beauty of an island rarely portrayed in cinema.

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Single, attractive Isabelle ("Izzy") Grossman has a rent-controlled uptown apartment and a blooming career in publishing. She also has Bubbie, a tradition-minded grandmother who's hired a matchmaker to find a husband for Izzy.

There's already a prospect: the corner pickle seller?!? Amy Irving as Izzy is the radiant center of this witty charmer, and her co-stars strike comic sparks galore as old-world ways rub against new-world woes: Peter Riegert as the pickle man, Jeroen Krabbe as his rival and Sylvia Miles as the matchmaker. A veteran stage performer, 74-year-old Reizl Bozyk is an ideal Bubbie, blithely snapping off one-liners and stealing scenes in "a joy of a comedy".

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At the height of the Mexican Revolution, a gang of bandits led by the charismatic El Chuncho (Gian Maria Volonte) are stealing weapons to sell them on to rebel "General" Elias. During a raid on a train, a mysterious gringo, Tate (Lou Castel), assists the bandits by killing the train driver.

Chuncho takes an instant liking to Tate who insinuates himself into the gang, which also includes the crazed, grenade-lobbing, priest, El Santo (Klaus Kinski) and the beautiful Adelita (Martine Beswick). But Tate is in fact a covert US assassin sent to kill the rebel "General" Elias with a gold bullet he keeps with him at all times.