fragmentsofjo's - The City List

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"Roman Holiday" was nominated for ten Academy Awards, and Audrey Hepburn captured an Oscar for her portrayal of a modern-day princess, rebelling against the royal obligations, who explores Rome on her own.

She meets Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck), an American newspaperman who, seeking an exclusive story, pretends ignorance of her true identity. But his plan falters as they fall in love. Eddie Albert contributes to the fun as Peck's carefree cameraman pal.

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Jean Servais is Tony le Stephanois, a master thief with a battered face and a tubercular cough, souvenirs of a recent stint in the pen.

The ageing Tony is reluctant to return to a life of crime, but when he realizes his girlfriend has thrown him over for a rival gangster, he agrees to attempt one last job. Together with three collaborators – a young father, a boisterous Franco-Italian and a sentimental Milanese safecracker – Tony meticulously engineers his biggest heist yet: robbing the most heavily guarded jewelry store in Paris.

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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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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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Cary Grant plays John Robie, reformed jewel thief who was once known as 'The Cat' in this suspenseful Alfred Hitchcock classic thriller. Robie is suspected of a new rash of gem thefts in the luxury hotels of the French Riviera, and he must set out to clear himself.

Meeting pampered heiress Frances (Grace Kelly), he sees the chance to bait the mysterious thief with her mother's (Jessie Royce Landis) fabulous jewels. His plan backfires, however, but Frances, who believes him guilty, proves her love by helping him escape. In a spine-tingling climax, the real criminal is exposed.

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Two of the giants of film-acting come together as a married couple living in crisis: Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau. He is a renowned author and 'public intellectual'; she is 'the wife.

' Over the course of one day and the night into which it inevitably bleeds, the pair will come to re-examine their emotional bonds, and grapple with the question of whether love and communication are even possible in a world built out of profligate idylls and sexual hysteria.

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Professional photographer Thomas saw nothing. And he saw everything. Enlargements of pictures he secretly took of a romantic couple in the park reveal a murder in progress. Or do they? Blowup is an influential, stylish study of paranoid intrigue and disorientation.

It is also a time capsule of mod London, a mindscape of the era's fashions, free love, parties, music (Herbie Hancock wrote the score and The Yardbirds riff at a club) and hip langour. David Hemmings plays the jaded photog enlivened by the mystery in his photos. Vanessa Redgrave is the elusive woman pictured in them. And the enigma of what you see, what you don't see and what the camera sees is yours to solve.

Featurete is a surreal, comic vision of modern life in which the director's much-loved character, Monsieur Hulot - accompanied by a cast of tourists and well-heeled Parisians - turns unintentional anarchist when set loose in an unrecognisable Paris of steel skyscrapers, chrome-plated shopping malls and futuristic night spots.

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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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Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu), who works as a small-time courier for a big-time gangster, is in huge trouble. He has accidentally left the cash from a mob deal on the subway, and he has only twenty minutes to deliver the 100,000 marks to his unforgiving boss.

Desperate, he calls his girlfriend, Lola (Franka Potente), the only person who can rescue him from certain death. As the seconds tick away and the tiniest choices become life altering, Lola must try to reach Manni before the line between fate and fortune begins to blur. One story told from three different perspectives, 'Run Lola Run' is a veritable maze of intriguing plot twists and heart-stopping suspense in a high-octane thrill ride about one woman's desperate attempt to save her lover.

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England and Italy, 1912. Lucy Honeychurch, a beautiful suburban English girl, travels to Italy on a 'Grand Tour', accompanied by her anxious chaperone, Miss Bartlett.

On arrival in Florence she meets and falls in love with George Emerson, the most exciting man she has ever met, but from a lower class background. Under pressure from her chaperone, Lucy rejects George, heads for Rome, and there agrees to marry another suitor, the elegant and arrogant Cecil Vyse. Which man will win her heart? Both offer love, and when Lucy returns to England with Cecil, George follows her, despite her engagement. Lucy twists and turns as she faces the dilemma of choice between status and passion, duty and social ruin.

Based on the bestselling exposé of the Neapolitan mafia, by award-winning journalist Roberto Saviano, Gomorrah is an unforgettable and compelling story of power, money and blood. Five stories are woven together in modern day Naples, set in a brutal world from which there is no escape and no mercy.

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Paris,1941. A family of scientists is on the brink of discovering a powerful invincibility serum when all of a sudden, the parents are mysteriously abducted, leaving their young daughter, April, behind.

Ten years later, April is living alone with her precious cat, Darwin, continuing her family's research. But soon, she finds herself at the centre of a bizarre conspiracy. Along with Darwin and her trusted friend, Julius, April embarks on an adventure to find her parents and discover the truth behind their disappearance.

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In the sublime new film from Jim Jarmusch, Adam Driver gives a career-best performance as Paterson, a bus driver in the New Jersey city of the same name. He's also a poet, recording his daily observations and thoughts into a notebook.

Paterson thrives on routine: he drives his bus route, he goes home for dinner with his wife Laura (Golshifteh Farahani), he walks his dog, he visits his local bar for one beer. By contrast Laura's world is ever-changing, with new projects and ideas striking her daily. The film quietly observes the triumphs and defeats of daily life, along with the poetry evident in its smallest details.

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Steve Martin is Harris Telemacher, a wacky television weatherman, who thinks his life is perfect, except for an erratic relationship with a style-conscious girlfriend (Marilu Henner). Then, one bright and smoggy L.A.

day, an electronic freeway sign changes his life, when its advice leads him into a frivolous romance with a young and beautiful blonde (Sarah Jessica Parker) and, ultimately, to true love with the woman of his dreams (Victoria Tennant).