elasticpiriformis's - Rented List
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Show Boat (1936)Edna Ferber's Show Boat
Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein Il's immortal musical adaptation of Edna Ferber's sprawling novel receives its most faithful and enduring cinematic treatment under the elegant direction of James Whale. A rich portrait of changing American entertainment traditions and race relations, 'Show Boat' spans five decades and three generations as it follows the fortunes of the stage struck Magnolia (Irene Dunne), an aspiring actor whose journey takes her from her family's humble floating playhouse in the 1880's South to the bright footlights of the 1930's North. The cast of show-business legends includes Helen Morgan, Hattie McDaniel, Charles Winninger, and the great Paul Robeson, whose iconic, soul-shaking rendition of "Ol' Man River" is one of the crowning glories of the American stage and screen. - Director:
- James Whale
- Cast:
- Irene Dunne, Allan Jones, Charles Winninger
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In the largest engineering project since the Great Wall, China has set out to harness the power of the Yangtze, an endevour that provides the epic and unsettling backdrop for a dramatic and disquieting film on life inside the Chinese dream. Stunningly photographed and beautifully composed, Up the Yangtze juxtaposes the poignant and sharply observed details of Yu Shui's story against the monumental and ominous forces at work all around her. Western passengers take in the spectral views, consuming entertainment on the spacious upper decks, while Yu Shui Toils in the gallery down below, preparing with the other workers for an uncertain future as all around her the waterscontinue to rise. - Director:
- Yung Chang
- Cast:
- Jerry Bo Yu Chen, Campbell Ping He, Cindy Shui Yu
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Bigger Than Life (1956)One in a Million
One of the greatest American films of the 1950s and a high point in the careers of both the lead actor James Mason and director Nicholas Ray. Mason gives a towering performance as Ed Avery, a happily married schoolteacher who agrees to take a new 'miracle drug' when diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease. It is not long before the drug begins producing malevolent and murderous side-effects that bring to the fore all of Ed's long-repressed frustrations with his life. Mason's support is, exceptional: Barbara Rush as Ed's devoted wife, Christopher Olsen a s his cruelly punished son and Walter Matthau as his faithful colleague. One of cinema's most persuasive portraits of psychological turmoil, the film also succeeds magnificently as searing melodrama and subversive social critique, with Ray, his scriptwriters and cinematographer achieving a perfect balance between emotional realism and exprer;sionist allegory. - Director:
- Nicholas Ray
- Cast:
- James Mason, Barbara Rush, Walter Matthau
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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. - Director:
- Robert Bresson
- Cast:
- Martin LaSalle, Marika Green, Jean Pélégri
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Newspaperman Roger Adams (Cary Grant) falls for record store worker Julie Gardiner Adams (Irene Dunne) and the pair marry New Year's Eve, shortly before Roger leaves for a new job in Tokyo. His new wife joins him 3 months later and announces she is pregnant, but a major earthquake in Tokyo leads to her losing the baby and unable to bear any more. The pair eventually return to America where Roger buys a small country newspaper and Roger and Julie begin the process of adopting a child. When the newspaper folds it looks as though Roger and Julie will lose the child, being forced to make a heartfelt plea to the judge...The story is told in a series of flashbacks, each introduced by a piece of music from Julie's collection. Cary Grant's performance earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. - Director:
- George Stevens
- Cast:
- Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, Beulah Bondi
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In this Oscar-winning farce, Cary Grant (in the role that first defined the Cary Grant persona) and Irene Dunne exude charm, cunning, and artless affection as an urbane couple who, fed up with each others infidelities, resolve to file for divorce. But try as they might to move on, the mischievous Jerry can't help meddling in Lucy's ill-matched engagement to a corn-fed Oklahoma businessman (Ralph Bellamy), and a mortified Lucy begins to realize that she may be saying goodbye to the only dance partner capable of following her lead. Directed by the versatile Leo McCarey, a master of improvisation and slapstick as well as a keen and sympathetic observer of human folly, 'The Awful Truth' is a warm but unsparing comedy about two people whose flaws only make them more irresistible. - Director:
- Leo McCarey
- Cast:
- Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Ralph Bellamy
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Screen legends Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray star in this timeless, heart-warming Christmas classic that can be enjoyed any time of year! Lee Leander (Stanwyck) is a pretty shoplifter on trial for swiping an expensive bracelet from a local jewellery store. When her trial is postponed until after New Year, the sympathetic Assistant District Attorney John Sargent (MacMurray) bails her out of jail. When he invites her to his family's home for the holidays, she discovers the warmth and love she's never had but always wanted. Featuring a wonderful supporting cast of Beulah Bondi, Sterling Holloway and Elizabeth Patterson, plus a charming script by Preston Sturges and superb direction by Mitchell Leisen, 'Remember the Night' is a not to be missed classic. - Director:
- Mitchell Leisen
- Cast:
- Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Beulah Bondi
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After Life (1998)Wandâfuru raifu
"After Life" revolves around an intriguing premise. At a half way station between heaven and earth, guides greet the newly dead. Over the next three days, they will help them sift through their memories to find the one defining moment of their lives - an old woman remembers dancing for her older brother's friends as a child; a man recollects the breeze felt on a tram ride the day before summer vacation; a young girl wants to ride the Splash Mountain at Disneyland. The chosen moment will be recreated on film and relieved for eternity. - Director:
- Hirokazu Koreeda
- Cast:
- Arata Iura, Erika Oda, Susumu Terajima
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L'Argent (1983)Money
Bresson's classic film, adapted from a story by Tolstoy, tells of the tragic chain of events which ensue when two schoolboys pass a forged banknote in a photography shop. The note is transferred to the unwitting Yvon (Christian Patey), a delivery driver, who is arrested for possessing it. Despite being cleared by the court, Yvon loses his job and becomes trapped in a disastrous spiral of theft, imprisonment and murder. Considered to be the last masterpiece of his - Director:
- Robert Bresson
- Cast:
- Christian Patey, Sylvie Van den Elsen, Michel Briguet
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Reversal of Fortune (1990)Preokret sudbine
Did European aristocrat Claus von Bulow (Jeremy Irons) try to murder his wife Sunny (Glenn Close) at their luxurious Newport mansion in 1980? Tabloids of the day had their opinions. "You have one thing in your favour," defense attorney Alan Dershowitz (Ron silver) told von Bulow, "Everybody hates you." - Director:
- Barbet Schroeder
- Cast:
- Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close, Ron Silver
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Combining intellectual ambition with a singular comic sensibility, the third feature film by writer-director Alex Ross Perry marked a defining moment for the American independent cinema of the 2010s. As with his previous features 'Impolex' and 'The Color Wheel', the blackly hilarious 'Listen Up Philip' is distinguished as much by its literary pedigree as by its fine attunement to atmosphere, sense of place, and, enabled by the camerawork of Scan Price Williams, the texture of the image. Jason Schwarfzman, in one of his most accomplished roles since such Wes Anderson collaborations as 'Rushmore' and 'The Darjeeling Limited', achieves the height of comic verbal violence as the novelist Philip Lewis Friedman who, having received his first taste of literary acclaim, embarks upon the publicity campaign for his soon-to-be-published second novel, 'Obidant'. The attention of his literary hero Ike Zimmerman (played by the first-rate Jonathan Pryce), a major novelist so decades his elder, leads to an open invitation to abscond from Brooklyn and work from Zimmermans small-town home upstate. And so the stage is set for all-out warfare between Philips seemingly irrepressible ego and the emotionality of his talented photographer girlfriend Ashley who, in a brilliant performance by Elisabeth Moss, exhibits the kind of dynamism that could dull Philip's edge for good. - Director:
- Alex Ross Perry
- Cast:
- Jason Schwartzman, Eric Bogosian, Elisabeth Moss
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Wendy Hiller stars in Powell and Pressburger's classic romantic comedy about a young woman who discovers the true meaning of wealth. Joan Webster has her life mapped out, beginning with marriage to a rich industrialist. Her plans go wrong when she finds herself stranded on the way to a remote Scottish island and falls in love with a penniless young sailor. - Director:
- Michael Powell
- Cast:
- Wendy Hiller, Norman Shelley, Roger Livesey
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The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much
James Stewart and Doris Day play Ben and Jo McKenna, innocent Americans vacationing in Morocco with their son, Hank. After a French spy dies in Ben's arms in the Marrakech market, the couple discovers their son has been kidnapped and taken to England. Not knowing who they can trust, the McKennas are caught up in a nightmare of international espionage, assassinations and terror. Soon, all of their lives hang in the balance as they draw closer to the truth and a chilling climatic moment in London's famous Royal Albert Hall. - Director:
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Cast:
- James Stewart, Doris Day, Brenda De Banzie
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La Strada (1954)La strada
Sold by her impoverished mother to Zampano (Anthony Quinn), a brutish fairground wrestler, waif-like Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina) lives a life of drudgery as his assistant. After taking to the road with a travelling circus, a budding relationship with II Matto/The Fool (Richard Basehart), a gentle-natured, tightrope walking clown, offers a potential refuge from her master's clutches. Trapped by her own servile nature, Gelsomina waivers, and Zampano's volcanic temper erupts with tragic consequences. Characteristically mingling elements of biography with metaphor and symbolism, 'La Strada' also combines an easygoing charm with a far harder edged realism in the form of domestic violence and decaying, desolate towns. Masina - Fellini's wife - is astonishing in the central role and what with the evocative Nino Rota score and Otello Martelli's ravishing photography, it's little wonder that 'La Strada' was the winner of the first official Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. - Director:
- Federico Fellini
- Cast:
- Anthony Quinn, Giulietta Masina, Richard Basehart
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