gjs's - Rented List

John Cassavetes veteran Seymour Cassel stars as George Manning, a family man whose perfect life is turned into a nightmare of sex and torture when he allows himself to be seduced by two nubile young strangers (Sondra Locke and Colleen Camp) who show up at his door on a rainy night.

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From legendary director Steven Spielberg comes this acclaimed, exhilarating historical drama. Daniel Day-Lewis gives a memorable, Oscar-Winning performance as the profoundly influential American president, Abraham Lincoln.

During his final turbulent months in office, Lincoln strives to convince war-ravaged America's bitterly divided government to abolish slavery. With fierce, unstoppable courage, Lincoln inspires a decision that will change history forever.

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"The Perverts Guide to Cinema" is a film about cinema itself with close readings of some of the most intriguing and celebrated films in cinema history.

Serving as guide is the charismatic Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek, who delves into the hidden language of cinema uncovering what movies can tell us about ourselves. Structured in three parts. The Pervert's Guide To Cinema offers an introduction to Zižek's ideas on fantasy, reality, sexuality, subjectivity, form and desire. In a striking visual leap, director Sophie Fiennes immerses Žižek into the scenes he discusses. Whether he is unravelling the films of David Lynch, or overturning everything you thought you knew about Hitchcock, Žižek illuminates the screen with his passion, intellect and unfailing sense of humour.

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Peter Greenaway became a director of international status with this witty, stylised, erotic country house murder mystery.

In an apparently idyllic 17th century Wiltshire, an ambitious draughtsman is commissioned by the wife of an aristocrat to produce twelve drawings of her husband's estate, in return for which he will receive payment, board and bed - hers. Extravagant costumes, a twisting plot, elegantly barbed dialogue and a score by Michael Nyman make the film a treat for ear, eye and mind.

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A grisly homicide...a sensational trial...a forbidden affair. It's 'Jagged Edge', a razor-sharp suspense-thriller about crime, punishment and passion. When a San Francisco socialite is viciously murdered, her publisher husband, Jack Forrester (Jeff Bridges), is accused of committing the crime.

Teddy Barnes (Glenn Close) decides to defend the charming, manipulative Jack, only to disregard legal ethics by having an affair with him. With the help of private eye Sam Ransom (Robert Loggia), she takes on a ruthless D.A. (Peter Coyote) who's using the case as a political steppingstone. However, a startling revelation puts Teddy in jeopardy of becoming the next victim of the 'Jagged Edge'.

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Richard Kuklinski (Michael Shannon) and his wife, Deborah (Winona Ryder) appear to have a model American life, living with their children in an idyllic suburban house.

Unbeknownst to Deborah and the kids, when Kuklinski goes off to work in the morning - or, on occasion, in the middle of dinner or the middle of the night - he is carrying out executions at the behest of a local crime family.
"The Iceman" shows the development of Kuklinski's career from the 1950s through the 1980s, showing how he employed a wide variety of methods (guns, knives, poisonings etc.) that made it difficult to trace all the fatalities to a single killer.

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That TV advert actress is so seductive she could sell you anything. She's only a computer-generated illusion. What about the real beauty who was the computer's model? Sorry, you can't meet her; she and others like her have been murdered.

Writer/director Michael Crichton (ER, Coma) reaches into his brain-teasing bag of tricks for a mesmerising thriller full of unfriendly persuasion generated by high-tech trickery. Albert Finney stars as a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon whose supermodel clients start dying mysteriously. Susan Dey plays his latest patient, also now in peril. And James Coburn is the head of a research facility which has developed a subtly hypnotic way to sell things. Take a good look at sleek, chic, scary 'Looker'. There's a lot more than meets the eye.

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It is 1850 in the beautiful, perfectly kept town of Wismar. Jonathan Harker (Bruno Ganz) is about to leave on a long journey over the Carpathian Mountains to finalise real estate arrangements with a wealthy nobleman.

His wife Lucy (Isabel Adjani) begs him not to go and is troubled by a strong premonition of danger. Despite her warnings, Jonathan arrives four weeks later at a large, gloomy castle. Out of the mist appears a pale wraith-like figure with a shaven head and deep sunken eyes who identifies himself as Count Dracula (Klaus Kinski) The events that transpire slowly convince Harker that he is in the midst of a vampire. What he doesn't know, however, is the magnitude of danger he, his wife and his town are about to experience as victims of the Nosferatu.

Sixty-year-old Huw Morgan looks back on his life as a boy (Roddy McDowall) in a small Welsh mining town. His reminiscences reveal the disintegration of the closely knit Morgans, and his devoted parents (Donald Crisp, Sara Allgood), while capturing the sentiments and issues of their time.

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A young man Joseph (Jan Nowicki) visits his dying father Jakob (Tadeusz Kondrat) in a mysterious Polish sanatorium. Joseph realises time does not exist in its real form inside. He soon finds himself in a web which express the longings, and frustrations of his childhood.

The film contains crazed scenes of Jews dancing together and many of the residents are dressed as giant birds. Schulz the writer was seen as the Polish Kafka, he was killed by the SS in the War.

From stalwart Ealing director Basil Dearden comes this enjoyable yet creepy wartime tale of a group of strangers driven to take shelter at a remote Welsh inn during a storm. What they don't know is that the inn was bombed by a German plane a year ago and their hosts were killed in the blast.

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Officially, Apollo 17, launched December 17th, 1972 was the last manned mission to the moon. But a year later, in December of 1973, two American astronauts were sent on a secret mission to the moon funded by the US Department of Defense.

What you are about to see is the footage which the astronauts captured on that mission. While NASA denies its authenticity, others say it's the real reason we've never gone back to the moon.

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Combining a surreal and distinctive take on the classic vampire yarn with an allegory about US/Mexican relations, 'Cronos' concerns elderly antique dealer Jesus Gris (Federico Luppi) who, with his eight-year-old granddaughter Aurora (Tamara Shanath), discovers an ancient artifact that once belonged

to a 16th-century alchemist. Unbeknownst to Gris, the device - which resembles an ornate mechanical beetle - houses an immortal parasite that will grant eternal life to its host. The cost? An extreme aversion to daylight and an agonising thirst for human blood. Hot on the trail of the device is a dying millionaire (Claudio Brook) and his brutish nephew (Ron Perlman).

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Cumbria, 1348 - the year of the Black Death. Griffin (Hamish Gough), a young boy, is plagued by apocalyptic visions which he believes could save his village.

Encouraging a small band of men to tunnel into the earth, they surface in 1980's New Zealand and a future beyond their comprehension but must complete their quest.

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Two female patients one rebellious (Laurence Dubas), the other despondent (Christiane Coppe) flee the grounds of a mental hospital and drift across the French countryside.

After finding refuge among a band of gypsy-like exotic dancers, they cross paths with a petty criminal (Marianne Valiot), an aging fortune-teller (Louise Dhour) and a quartet of swingers with sinister intentions.