daniel-phillips's - Rented List

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Is there someone who lingers in your memory - someone who makes you wonder what might have been? Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy make magic again, reprising their 'Before Sunrise' roles of Jesse and Celine and reuniting with director Richard Linklater (School of Rock) in this engaging tale of love and

renewal. When Jesse and Celine first met in the mid 90's, their few hours together in Vienna were spontaneous and life-altering. Nine years later, lightning strikes twice. They unexpectedly meet in Paris...and have only one fading afternoon to decide if they should share their tomorrows. Smart, witty, real and unfolding largely in real time to heighten its immediacy, 'Before Sunset' glows with the moments that are every heart's greatest adventure.

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Federlco Fellini's epic 1980 fantasia introduced the start of the Maestro's delirious late period.

A surrealist tour-de-force filmed on soundstages and locations alike, and overflowing with the same sensory (and sensual) invention heretofore found only in the classic movie-musicals (and Fellini's own oeuvre), La citta delle donne (City of Women) taps into the era's restless youth-culture, coalescing into nothing less than Fellini's post-punk opus. Marcello Mastroianni appears as Fellini's alter ego in a semi-reprise of his character from 8 1/2, Snaporaz. As though passing into a dream, the charismatic avatar finds himself initiated into a phantasmagoric world where women - or an idea of women - have taken power, and which is structured like an array of psychosexual set-pieces - culminating in a bravura hot-air balloon that decisively sticks the "anti" up into "climax". A great adventure "through the looking-glass", as it were, of Fellini's own phallic lens and life-long libidinal ruminations, La citta delle donne sharply divided critics at the 1980 Festival de Cannes, some of whom had merely anticipated a nostalgic retread of the earlier Mastroianni works. What they were greeted with, and what remains today, is, in the words of Serge Daney, "a victory of cinema".

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Yesterday strangers, today inseparable soulmates. But separate they must in just a few hours. Jesse and Celine are making every moment count, pouring as much living as they can into the time 'Before Sunrise'. From Richard Linklater comes another smartly observed tale of young people at a crossroads.

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy play twenty-somethings who meet on a train in Europe, sense a connection and explore after-hours Vienna together. The people, places and allure of the city become their sudden itineraries. Love is their destination. On the way there's the mutual sharing of hopes, jokes, dreams, worry and wonder. It's a day to linger in their memories. And a valentine to young love forever.

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In Fellini's sly social and political allegory, made in 1978 for Italian television, an orchestra assembles for a rehearsal under the inquisitive lenses of a TV crew.

The musicians introduce themselves, expounding with wit, passion and rancour about their work before the rehearsal begins under the baton of an autocratic conductor. Soon the musicians' bawdy humour turns to anarchy as he tries to impose his will on this diverse group of players. Throughout the film, ominous rumblings from the outside world have haunted their music-making, and at the height of their savagery a wrecking ball literally brings the walls down around their ears. Looking to the conductor for leadership, the shell-shocked musicians begin to play again in perfect harmony.

On the evening of March 31, 1943, legendary lyricist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) confronts his shattered self-confidence in Sardi's bar as his former collaborator, Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott), celebrates the opening night of his groundbreaking hit musical 'Oklahoma!'.

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A truly literate and sophisticated film spectacle by perhaps the greatest of all film artists, this Oscar nominated masterpiece by Federico Fellini, the director of such world-renowned classics, as 'La Dolce Vita', 'La Strada' and '8 ½', is a fabulous trip into a totally decadent civilization

delivering a brilliant visual fantasy unlike anything you have seen. Step into the bawdy, erotic and titillating world of Rome during the days of Emperor Nero, Where two completing teachers play tricks on each other while vying for the same lover's charms, Paralleling the self-indulgence of modern society, these Roman citizens pursue their own gratification above all else, resulting in both intense pleasure and enormous despair, displayed in visually seductive scenes that are both shocking, unprecedented and brilliantly stunning.

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This lavish autobiography, full of lush fantasy sequences and monumental pageantry, begins with Fellini as a youngster living in the Italian countryside.

In school he studies the eclectic but parochial history of ancient Rome and then is introduced as a young man to the real thing - arriving in this strange new city on the outbreak of World War II. Here, through a series of visually stunning vignettes brimming with satire and sparkling with life, the filmmaker comes to grips with a sprawling, boisterous, bursting-at-the-seams portrait of Rome, reinterpreting with his inimitable style an Italian history full of rich sensual imagery and extravagant perception.

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After ten years apart three people come together at a motel to play out the unresolved drama of their final days in high school.

Anxious, edgy and fuelled up on drugs and drink Vince, a volunteer firefighter and dealer from the West Coast paces around his motel room awaiting the arrival of his high school friend John and his ex girlfriend Amy. John is now a movie maker whose film is showing at a local film festival. Amy is a district attorney who was Vince's girlfriend before she was lured away by John. There is plenty to talk about… The nature of memory and truth, the bonds between old friends and lovers are examined with jagged intensity. Amy arrives at the motel expecting only to see Vince but is stunned to be also facing John, and her past.

From highly acclaimed director Richard Linklater this is the behind the scenes of the filming of Jean-Luc Godard's 'Breathless' (1960), a landmark of the French New Wave film movement. Told in the spirit and style of the original production.

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"I Clowns (The Clowns)" has been revered by Fellini enthusiasts since its release as among the Maestro's finest works - one in a register all its own.

The film plays out in dazzling colour and in episodic cascade: as the circus rolls into town, and the big-tent is erected, the clowns execute their acts with feverish bravado. It's all true - and yet not a "documentary" per se; rather, something inbetween a portrayal of gags-at-play and of all that makes the spark for childhood inspiration ignite into creative virtuosity.

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Linklater's breakout second film is an utterly unique series of loosely interweaved episodes shining a delightfully off-beat light on a parade of socially disconnected, overly educated, and barely motivated citizens in Austin Texas.

In coffeehouses, clubs, bars, apartments, stores, and streets of the college town, life's strange quirks, odd foibles and disruptive inanities come astonishingly to life. Linklater's film remains a cult sensation that launched a thousand imitators. But none of the effusive 20-somethings littering the casts of 1990s US independent cinema can hold a candle to those of this hilarious and vibrant true original.

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Three titans of European cinema team up for a stylish film based on the works of macabre author Edgar Allen Poe.

Roger Vadim, Louis Malle and Federico Fellini direct Jane and Peter Fonda, Brigitte Bardot, Alain Delon, and Terence Stamp in three separate stories of souls tormented by their own phantasmal visions of guilt, lust and greed. Vadim directs the first segment, 'Metzengerstein', with Jane Fonda portraying the spoiled, vicious Frederique. Malle takes the middle slot with 'William Wilson', featuring Alain Delon as the troubled hero, a man who has been haunted since childhood by a man with his exact name. Fellini's segment, 'Toby Dammit', features Terence Stamp as a disheveled drugged and drunk English movie star who nods acceptance in the Italian press and his producers fawn over him. 'Spirits of the Dead' is a real gem for those who enjoy the surreal and grotesque.

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Perhaps his most famous film, La Dolce Vita slices into the decadent amoral core of Roman society with Fellini's trademark attention to detail and spectacular photography.

Marcello Mastroianni plays a gossip columnist (the term 'paparazzi' derives from the in a film) who aspires to be a more serious writer but knows he never will be, because like society, he is fascinated by the decadent hedonist pursuits which are seemingly everywhere. The Vatican was appalled by the film, but the public adored it, relishing the images Fellini fed them, most notably the now infamous scene of Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg frolicking in the Trevi Fountain.

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What does a scanner see? Into the head? Into the heart? From the novel by Philip L.

Dick - the sci-fi legend whose works-to-film include 'Blade Runner', 'Total Recall' and 'Minority Report' - comes 'A Scanner Darkly', brought to the screen by filmmaker Richard Linklater with an edgy graphic-novel look. The time: just beyond now. The place: suburbia. The story: a twisted, funny tale of people hooked on Substance D. And of a government that cheerfully destroys its citizens - their rights, their relationships - in order to save them. Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder and Rory Cochrane play strung-out friends terrified of each other and of spies. Keanu Reeves plays a spy who's also one of the friends... until his two personalities begin to split. Enjoy the paranoia. Nobody's watching you. Really.

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Giulietta Masina gives a superb performance as the bored, timid, frumpy and ultimately unfilled housewife who suspects her husband is being unfaithful.

In an effort to escape the hurtful reality of her situation she enters a surreal fantasy world of her own by conjuring up spirits who lead her into a world a world of sensual pleasure. The images that Fellini creates become more and more dazzling and hypnotic in their effect. Much of the fantasy involves Juliet's fabulously outgoing and sexually liberated neighbour Suzy (Sandra Milo), but are they part of plot or is Fellini exploring his own desires?