elasticpiriformis's - Rented List

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Jake Gyllenhaal plays Adam Bell, a college history professor who is somewhat dissatisfied with his life. One day when watching a movie he spots a bit-part actor who looks exactly like him and begins investigating who this doppelganger is.

Becoming increasingly obsessed, Adam decides he must meet with this mysterious person, but when he does he unearths more than he'd bargained for.

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A brilliant exploration of the power of movies, 'Close-Up' reconstructs the true story of a cinephile's attempt to become a filmmaker he admires.

Hossein Sabzian introduces himself as celebrated Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf and, under the pretext of working on a film project, enters the private life of a well-to-do Teheran family and eventually faces fraud charges.

Join fan favourites Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt for the adventure-of a-lifetime on Disney's 'Jungle Cruise', a rollicking thrill ride down the Amazon with wisecracking skipper Frank Wolff and intrepid researcher Dr. Lily Houghton.

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Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) - aka Black Widow - confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises.

Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.

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There is a philosophical theory that we should be born with a small amount of alcohol in our blood; that modest inebriation opens our minds to the world around us diminishing problems and increasing creativity.

Intrigued Martin (Mads Mikkelsen) and three of his friends all weary high school teachers, embark on a risky experiment to maintain a constant level of intoxication throughout the workday. Initial results are positive, but as the units are knocked back and stakes are raised, it becomes increasingly clear that some bold acts carry severe consequences.

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Yasujiro Ozu's elegiac final film, 'An Autumn Afternoon', charts the inevitable eclipse of older generations by irreverent youth. Revisiting the story of his earlier masterpiece Late Spring (1949), Ozu once again casts Chishu Ryu in the role of Hirayama, the concerned father to unmarried Michiko.

Harangued on all sides to marry off Michiko, Hirayama reluctantly prepares to bid his old life farewell. A cast of tragi-comic characters weaves seamlessly through this gently satirical portrayal of life's inevitable, endless cycle.

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Regarded by many as the world's finest director, and renowned for his exact, formalist style, Yasujiro Ozu made his first film in 1927 and went on to direct 55 films before his death in 1963.

It was only during his final years, however, that his genius as a film-maker was recognised in the West alongside such contemporaries as Bunuel, Bergman and fellow countryman Kurosawa. Early Summer (1951) further explores Noriko's relationship with her family, and examines her role as a modern woman in a traditional society.

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The young and spoiled Emperor Kuzco (voiced by David Spade) is transformed into a iiama as part of a plan by his advisor, Yzma, and her henchman, Kronk (Patrick Warburton), to overthrow Kuzco's reign on the kingdom.

Unwillingly paired with a peasant named Pacha (John Goodman), the ruler must set aside his difference in order to assume his place in the kingdom once again.

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Following the closure of a gypsum mine in the Nevada town she calls home, Fern (Frances McDormand) packs her van and sets off on the road in this "exquisite film" (Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal).

Exploring an unconventional life as a modern-day nomad, Fern discovers a resilience and resourcefulness unlike any she's known before long the way, she meets other nomads who become mentors in the vast landscape of the American West.

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Yasujiro Ozu's hugely influential award-winning masterpiece, 'Late Spring', is a tender meditation on family politics, sacrifice and the status quo.

Noriko (Setsuko Hara) and her father, Professor Somiya (Chishu Ryu), live together in perfect harmony but old certainties are put at risk when an interfering aunt raises the question of marriage. Introducing Ozu's popular Noriko character, 'Late Spring' poignantly examines the gradual compromise between modernity and tradition.

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Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Dekalog" is one of the greatest achievements of the late twentieth century - as much an intricate work of moral philosophy as it is a collection of psychologically riveting narratives.

Each standalone stop/ revolves around the consequences arising from a breach of one of the Ten Commandments, but this is no finger-wagging religious tract: Kieslowski was one of film history's keenest observers of human nature, and his troubled, vainglorious, self-deceiving, deeply flawed characters (many played by some of Poland's finest character actors) are all too universally recognisable. "Dekalog" is merely the highlight of a box set that compiles virtually all of Kieslowski's television work, starting with his first professional short fiction film and continuing with four feature-length pieces that are in every way as probing and incisive as his better-known cinema films.

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Trouble returns to Monterey, CA. As relationships unravel, loyalties erode, and the potential for emotional and bodily injury still looms large, the HBO smash-hit series is back.

In Season 2, the "Monterey Five" - Madeline, Celeste, Jane, Renata and Bonnie - look to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives - just as Perry's mother Mary-Louise (Meryl Streep) arrives looking for answers.

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From Paul Thomas Anderson and Thomas Pynchon, it's the tail end of the psychedelic '60s and paranoia is running the day from the desert to the sea of sunny Southern California.

With a cast of characters that includes surfers, hustlers, dopers and rockers, a murderous loan shark, the FBI, LAPD detectives, a tenor sax player working undercover, a group of Beverly Hills dentists and a mysterious entity called The Golden Fang, everything's gone from "groovy" to "where you at, man?" in what seems like a matter of moments. So when private eye Doc Sportello's ex-old lady Shasta Fay shows up at his door with a story about her current billionaire land-developer boyfriend and his wife and her boyfriend...well it all starts to get a little peculiar after that. Maybe you'll just want to see the movie?

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A compelling docudrama, '24 City' is set in the south-western city of Chengdu where a state-owned factory is being demolished to make way for a complex of luxury flats.

Jia Zhangke's film weaves together the stories of three generations of factory workers, audaciously blurring the boundaries between documentary and fiction by subtly combining heartrending real-life interviews with scripted accounts performed by actors (including Joan Chen, The Last Emperor). Epic in scope and beautifully realised, '24 City' is an elegiac look back across 50 years of factory life which pays tribute to the workers and invites reflection on the radical changes taking place in modern China.

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Noel Coward's sensitive portrayal of what happens when two happily married strangers, played by Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson, meet and their acquaintance deepens into affection and eventually into love.

It is the story of two people, thrown together by the chance meeting of the title, helpless in the face of their emotions but redeemed by their moral courage. Over the years few films have equalled the compassion and the realism of Brief Encounter.