elasticpiriformis's - Rented List
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Oldboy (2003)Oldeuboi
Based on the Japanese manga of the same name, the film tells the horrific tale of Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik), a businessman who is inexplicably kidnapped and imprisoned in a grim hotel room-like cell for 15 years, without knowing his captor or the reason for his incarceration. Eventually released, he learns of his wife's murder and embarks on a quest for revenge whilst also striking up a romance with a young, attractive sushi chef, Mi-do (Kang Hye-jung). He eventually finds his tormentor, but their final encounter will yield yet more unimaginable horrors... - Director:
- Chan-wook Park
- Cast:
- Min-sik Choi, Joe Cappelletti, Mari Devon
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This sparkling comedy was Oscar nominated for its script in which Polly Parrish (Ginger Rogers) a clerk at Merlin's Department Store, is mistakenly presumed to be the mother of a young child who is not looked after by the hardworking mother. Outraged at Polly's unmotherly conduct, David Merlin (David Niven) becomes determined to keep the single woman and 'her' baby together in this wonderful comedy of errors. Ginger Rogers, David Niven and Charles Coburn achieve intense comic chemistry under the direction of Garson Kanin with hardly a dull moment in this stylish and breezy 'department store' romance in which Ginger gives as good as she gets! - Director:
- Garson Kanin
- Cast:
- Ginger Rogers, David Niven, Charles Coburn
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Out 1 (1971)Out 1, noli me tangere
"Out 1" is a very precise picture of post May 1968 malaise - when Utopian dreams of a new society had crashed and burned, radical terrorism was starting to emerge in unlikely places and a great many other things. Two marginals who don't know one another stumble into the remnants of a "secret society": Colin, a seemingly deaf-mute who all of a sudden begins to talk and Frederique, a con artist working the "short con" (stealing drinks and tricking men who think she's a hooker out of their money). Meanwhile, there are two theater groups rehearsing classic Greek dramas: "Seven Against Thebes" and "Prometheus Bound". A member of the Moretti group passes a note to Leaud about "The 13" which sends Leaud on a search for "The 13". His search brings him eventually to Bulle Ogier's shop in Les Halles "L'Angle du Hasard". Berto follows much the same path when she steals a cachet of letters from Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and tries to get money from their owners for their return... - Director:
- Jacques Rivette
- Cast:
- Michèle Moretti, Hermine Karagheuz, Karen Puig
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The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)Les parapluies de Cherbourg
Guy Foucher (Nino Castelnuovo), a 20-year-old French auto mechanic, has fallen in love with 17-year-old Genevieve Emery (Catherine Deneuve), an employee in her widowed mother's chic but financially embattled umbrella shop. On the evening before Guy is to leave for a two-year tour of combat in Algeria, the pair share a passionate night. Genevieve becomes pregnant and then must choose between waiting for Guy's return or accepting an attractive offer of marriage from a wealthy diamond merchant (Marc Michel). - Director:
- Jacques Demy
- Cast:
- Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Licari, José Bartel
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Le Samouraï (1967)The Godson / The Samurai
In a career-defining performance, Alain Delon plays Jef Costello, a contract killer with samurai instincts. After carrying out a flawlessly planned hit, Jef finds himself caught between a persistent police investigator and a ruthless employer, and not even his armor of fedora and trench coat can protect him. An elegantly stylized masterpiece of cool by maverick director Jean-Pierre Melville, 'Le Samourai' is a razor-sharp cocktail of 1940's American gangster cinema and 1960's French pop culture - with a liberal dose of Japanese lone-warrior mythology. - Director:
- Jean-Pierre Melville
- Cast:
- Alain Delon, François Périer, Nathalie Delon
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As the world falls, young Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy) is snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers and ends up in the hands of a great Biker Horde led by the Warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth). Sweeping through the Wasteland, they come across the Citadel, presided over by Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme). While the two Tyrants war for dominance, Furiosa must survive many trials as she puts together the means to find her way home. - Director:
- George Miller
- Cast:
- Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Burke
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The Holdovers follows a curmudgeonly instructor (Paul Giamatti) at a New England prep school who is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually he forms an unlikely bond with one of them — a damaged, brainy troublemaker (Dominic Sessa) — and with the school's head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam (Da'Vine Joy Randolph). - Director:
- Alexander Payne
- Cast:
- Paul Giamatti, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Dominic Sessa
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Sansho Dayu (1954)Sansho the Bailiff
When an idealistic governor disobeys the reigning feudal lord, he is cast into exile, his wife and children left to fend for themselves and eventually wrenched apart by vicious slave traders. Under Kenji Mizoguchi's dazzling direction, this classic Japanese story became one of cinema's greatest masterpieces, a monumental, empathetic expression of human resilience in the face of evil. - Director:
- Kenji Mizoguchi
- Cast:
- Kinuyo Tanaka, Kisho Hanayagi, Kyôko Kagawa
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Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1966)2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle
Inspired by a real article on housewife prostitution, the film examines Godard's theory that if you lived in Paris, at that time, one had to prostitute oneself to survive. This 'sociological fable' is shot through the eyes of Juliette (Marina Vlady), a housewife who spends one day a week in central Paris selling her body on the street in the hope that she will be able to escape the high rise suburban drudgery, in which she lives with her family, and find happiness. - Director:
- Jean-Luc Godard
- Cast:
- Jean-Luc Godard, Joseph Gehrard, Marina Vlady
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Marilyn Monroe sizzles in this tense, masterful thriller. While the seductive Rose Loomis (Monroe) and her husband George (Joseph Cotten) vacation in a charming guest cabin at spectacular Niagara Falls, Rose and her lover plot to kill George. But things go terribly wrong, and soon, an innocent honeymooning couple find themselves swept up in the crime. - Director:
- Henry Hathaway
- Cast:
- Marilyn Monroe, Joseph Cotten, Jean Peters
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In 1958, 14-year old Robert James "Bobby" Fischer stunned the chess world by becoming the youngest Grand Master in history, launching a career that would make him a legend. Raised by his mother in Brooklyn, he taught himself to play chess at the age of six and started beating seasoned adult chess players at eight. Throughout the sixties, as his star rose, Bobby would appear regularly on TV and tour the world resoundingly beating all. His career highlight came in 1972 when he played the Russian Grand Master and reigning champion Boris Spassky - a series that was equally tied in with the Cold War as it was with chess. After his victory Bobby became the most famous person on the planet, and his already erratic behaviour began spiralling out of control, turning this genius into an unrecognisable recluse and pariah. - Director:
- Liz Garbus
- Cast:
- Bobby Fischer, David Edmonds, Anthony Saidy
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Spring in a Small Town (1948)Xiao cheng zhi chun
Regarded as the finest work from the first great era of Chinese filmmaking, Fei Mu's quiet, piercingly poignant study of adulterous desire and guilt-ridden despair is a remarkable rediscovery, often compared to David Lean's 'Brief Encounter'. After eight years of marriage to Liyan (Yu Shi) - once rich but now a shadow of his former self following a long, ruinous war - Yuwen (Wei Wei) does little except deliver his daily medication. A surprise visit from Liyan's friend Zhang (Wei Li) re-energises the household, but also stirs up dangerously suppressed longings and resentments. Director Fei Mu's deft use of locations, dissolves and camera movements makes for a fraught, febrile mood of hesitant passion, entrapment and ennui. - Director:
- Mu Fei
- Cast:
- Chaoming Cui, Wei Li, Yu Shi
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Following a prison term he served for manslaughter, Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) returns to find his family homestead overwhelmed by the weather and the greed of the banking industry. With little work potential on the horizon of Oklahoma dust bowls, the entire family packs up heads for the promised land - California. But the arduous trip and harsh living conditions they encounter offer little hope, and family unity proves as daunting a challenge as any other they face. - Director:
- John Ford
- Cast:
- Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine
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Dune: Part Two (2024)Dune 2 / Dune: Part 2
"Dune: Part Two" explores the mythic journey of Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) as he unites with Chani (Zendaya) and the Fremen while on a warpath of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. Facing a choice between the love of his life and the fate of the known universe, he endeavors to prevent a terrible future only he can foresee. - Director:
- Denis Villeneuve
- Cast:
- Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson
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Voted the best Czech film of all time, Marketa Lazarová is a powerful and passionate medieval epic set in the mid-13th Century. Based on avant-garde writer Vladislav Vancura’s novel, it follows the rivalry between two warring clans, the Kozlíks and the Lazars, and the doomed love affair of Mikolá Kozlík and Marketa Lazarová. Vlacil draws upon remote historical sources to recreate an authentic primitive world and fashion a film with surprising contemporary impact. Owing as much to the stylistic vigour of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai as it does to the rich tapestry of Czech fiction, this ambitious and poetically extraordinary film is the crowning achievement of Vlacil's career and an undiscovered cornerstone of world cinema. - Director:
- František Vlácil
- Cast:
- Josef Kemr, Antonie Hegerlíková, Magda Vásáryová
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