griggs's - Rented List

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Shingen (Tatsuya Nakadai), a powerful warload, has become as legendary as the motto emblazoned on his war banners. "Swift as the wind, silent as the forest, fierce as the fire, immovable as the mountain". As he lies dying from his battle wounds.

Shingen orders his clan to find a double to replace him - to keep his death secret so that his enemies will not attack. The man chosen for this role is called Kagemusha (the shadow of the warrior). However this Kagemusha turns out to be a petty criminal who must somehow transfer himself into a great leader and command allegiance of 25,000 samurai warriors.

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Beijing, 1913. In a time of violent turmoil when local tyrants vie for supremacy, three women's lives converge in the local Peking Opera house. Together they hatch a revolutionary plan to stop president Yuan Shikai from reinstating the monarchy and proclaiming himself emperor.

With the help of a righteous freedom-fighter and a disillusioned palace guard, the rebels must use all their wits and brawn to protect their democratic principles and save the emerging Chinese republic.

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It's full steam ahead with Marlene Dietrich as the mesmerising Shanghai Lilly in this exotic high drama directed by Josef Von Sternberg. After being jilted by Captain Donal Harvey (Clive Brook), Lily gains a reputation as notorious adventuress.

Things heat up when the former lovers are reunited on a train en route to Shanghai. They share accommodation with a motley group of international passengers, including a dubious merchant who unsuccessfully propositions Lily. When the train is overtaken by Chinese rebels, Captain Harvey is held hostage and the merchant turns out to be the rebels' leader. So Lily strikes a tantalising bargain in order to save the man she never stopped loving.

A widowed fisherwoman (Emma Thompson), travelling alone through snowbound northern Minnesota, interrupts the kidnapping of a teenage girl (Laurel Marsden). Hours from the nearest town and with no phone service, she realises that she is the young girl's only hope.

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Wealthy mystery novelist Andrew Wyke (Laurence Olivier) invites lower-class hairdresser Milo Tindle (Michael Caine) to his elegant English mansion to discuss Milo's affair with Wyke's wife.

But when Andrew proposes that Milo participate in a robbery scheme to benefit them all, the two rivals find themselves locked in an increasingly devious duel of wits and deceptions. Who is the player? Who is the pawn? And in the shocking and wicked final twist, who will win the deadliest game of all?

While on a weekend getaway at a remote cabin, Liz (Tatiana Maslany) and Malcolm's (Rossif Sutherland)'s romantic retreat takes a dark turn when a sinister presence unveils the cabin's chilling past.

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On a lake set in a valley in the depths of the mountains sits an isolated dwelling. Here, a Buddhist monk and his young apprentice live in harmony with nature. As the seasons change and the years pass, the carefree child apprentice becomes a young man filled with desire.

Despite the continuing wisdom that his master imparts, the young man finds he is emotionally unprepared for the arrival of a young woman. Dealing with feelings of guilt and jealousy, he is forced to confront a darker side of his nature and, resolving to cleanse himself, he serves a penance in the form of a religious mantra. Later, as winter comes and death makes way for new life, the man prepares to take on the role of teacher...

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Off-screen pals James Cagney and Pat O'Brien teamed for the sixth time in this enduring gangster classic. Cagney's Rocky Sullivan is a charismatic ghetto tough whose underworld rise makes him a hero to a gang of slum punks.

O'Brien is Father Connolly, the boyhood chum-turned-priest who vows to end Rocky's influence. Other ace talents join them: Humphrey Bogart as a scheming lawyer, Ann Sheridan as Rocky's hard-edged girlfriend and the Dead End Kids as worshipful street urchins, all ably directed by Michael Curtiz.

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"Forbidden Planet" is the granddaddy of tomorrow, a pioneering work whose ideas and style would be reverse-engineered into many cinematic space voyages to come. Leslie Nielsen plays the commander who brings his space-cruiser crew to Planet Altair-4, home to Dr.

Morbius (Walter Pidgeon), his daughter (Anne Francis), a dutiful robot named Robby...and a mysterious terror. Featuring sets of extraordinary scale and the first allelectronic musical soundscape in film history, 'Forbidden Planet' is in a movie orbit all its own.

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"Plain arithmetic. Money splits better two ways instead of three," smooth-talking outlaw Ben Vandergroat reasons to his captors, three bounty hunters thrown together by chance. They're taking him to justice in Abilene, but Ben has other ideas.

If he can set the men against each other - play on their greed, their fears, their vanities - he may be able to make his break to freedom. In the third of his five landmark Anthony Mann-directed Westerns, James Stewart stars as the relentless leader of bounty hunters caught in the snare of the hunted (Robert Ryan). Tough, sweating with tension and towering as tall as its breathtaking Colorado Rockies setting, The Naked Spur is simply "one of the best Westerns ever made."

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In Aziz Ansari's directorial debut, 'Good Fortune', a well-meaning but rather inept angel named Gabriel (Keanu Reeves) observes a struggling gig worker, Arj (Aziz Ansari), who is barely making ends meet in Los Angeles, and intervenes to show him that money can't solve all his problems.

Gabriel swaps Arps life with a wealthy venture capitalist's, Jeff (Seth Rogen) - but the plan backfires when Arj is convinced his newfound wealth has, in fact, solved all his problems. As Arj refuses to switch back, Jeff is left without his fortune, Gabriel loses his wings, and all three are forced to confront what it truly means to be human.

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Written by Academy Award winners Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, 'Midnight' has been hailed as 'just about the best comedy ever caught by the camera from the Golden Age of Hollywood!' Academy Award winners Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche and John Barrymore simply light up the screen.

The fun begins when a penniless showgirl (Colbert) impersonates a Hungarian Countess and, with the help of an aristocrat (Barrymore), quickly adapts herself to her new lifestyle. But can she stop herself from falling in love with yet another poor man (Ameche)?

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Determined to make a life for herself and her daughter, Lucy Muir (Gene Tierney), a young widow, moves into a cottage overlooking the windswept English coast. She soon learns that it's haunted by the ghost of its former owner, a salty sea captain (Rex Harrison).

But the Captain's effort to scare off his new tenant soon develops into a most unlikely love affair. When Lucy runs out of money, the Captain "ghost writes" a book for her based on his life story. Their publishing success, however, brings her the amorous attentions of a man who's still very much alive (George Sanders). Soon Lucy must decide between the pleasures of the spirit and those of the flesh, and the Captain must choose a course that may haunt him forever.

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It's the legendary James Stewart at his leading-man finest in this timeless western that set the standard for all that followed.

Frontiersman Lin McAdam (Stewart) is attempting to track down both his father's murderer and his one-of-a-kind rifle, the 'Winchester '73', as it passes among a diverse group of desperate characters, including a crazed highwayman (Dan Duryea), an immoral gunrunner (John Mclntire), a savage young Indian chief (Rock Hudson) and McAdam's own murderous brother (Stephen McNally). Featuring Shelley Winters as the rifle's only rival for McAdam's interest and Tony Curtis in one of his first screen performances, the gripping tale of the men (and gun) who won the West is one of Stewart's most memorable films and one of the genre's most enduring classics.

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Featuring Marilyn Monroe's legendary rendition of "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend", this fun musical comedy is a knockout. Marilyn and Jane Russell star as two showgirls who set sail on a luxury liner bound for France.

Hijinks on the high seas ensue as Lorelei (Monroe) and Dorothy (Russell) discover they're being tailed by a private detective hired by the father of Lorelei's landlocked boyfriend. By the time the ship reaches Paris, a missing diamond tiara lands the girls in hot water, but by following their hearts, they'll get out of trouble and on to the altar.