john-t's - Rented List

Academy Award winner Robert Redford stars in 'All Is Lost', an open-water thriller about one man's battle for survival against the elements after his sailboat is destroyed at sea.

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In the 1920s Adriatic Sea, only one pilot rules the skies: Porco Rosso, a talented pilot who, due to a magic spell, has been transformed into a pig.

Porco leads a solitary life as a pilot for hire protecting airships from marauding pilots, resting on his private island and visiting his friend, the beautiful hotel-owner Gina. But when a hot-headed American pilot arrives looking to make a name for himself by shooting down The Crimson Pig, Porco enlists the help of a feisty teenage airplane engineer to get his beat up plane into shape for the big fight.

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This is the life story of one of the most influential and controversial film directors in the history of Hollywood, John Milius.

From his childhood aspirations to join the military to his formative years at the USC Film School, his legendary work on films such as 'Apocalypse Now', 'Jaws', 'Conan The Barbarian', 'Dirty Harry' and 'Red Dawn', to his ultimate dismissal from Hollywood due to his radical beliefs and controversial behaviour.

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Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper star in this comedic drama about a crime spree that leads to love. In the most elaborate jewel heist in European history, the beautiful and conniving "Countess" Madeline (Dietrich) embezzles a small fortune in pearls.

As she makes her getaway to Spain to deliver the hot goods, her escape is thwarted by car trouble, until a handsome and likeable young tourist (Cooper) helps her out. She shows her gratitude by leaving the unsuspecting good Samaritan in the dust - literally! But when he accidentally ends up with the pearls, she must feign romantic interest to get them back. The charade soon turns into the real thing however; and Madeline realises that her only hope of happiness is to clean up her act - no matter what the cost - or lose the man she loves.

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Casino Royale introduces James Bond before he holds his license to kill. But Bond (Daniel Craig) is no less dangerous, and with two professional assassinations in quick succession, he is elevated to "00" status.

"M" (Judi Dench), head of the British Secret Service, sends the newly promoted 007 on his first mission that takes him to Madagascar, the Bahamas and eventually leads him to Montenegro to face Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), a ruthless financier under threat from his terrorist clientele, who is attempting to restore his funds in a high stakes poker game at the Casino Royale. "M" places Bond under the watchful eye of the Treasury official Vesper Lynd (Eva Green). At first skeptical of what value Vesper can provide, Bond's interest in her deepens as they brave danger together. Le Chiffre's cunning and cruelty come to bear on them both in a way Bond could never imagine, and he learns his most important lesson: Trust no one.

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This documentary looks at the production and impact of '2001: A Space Odyssey', the landmark 1968 Stanley Kubrick epic that has inspired generations of science-fiction fans, film-makers, visual effects specialists and pretty much everyone ever involved with NASA's space effort, then or now.

'2001 And Beyond' compares Kubrick's and, co-screenwriter and science-fiction novelist, Arthur C. Clarke's '2001: A Space Odyssey' with the year that came and went. There is commentary on the future we are about to enter, and the one we have missed, from scientists Freeman Dyson and Richard Terrile, sci-fi authors Arthur C. Clarke, Larry Niven, Rob Sawyer and Harlan Ellison, lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin, just to name a few. Finally we will invite our guests to speculate on the next 33 years from the most basic such as "Will we ever achieve space flight using true suspended animation?" to the most profound, like "When and if will we achieve anything like the burst of human evolution seen at the climax of the film?"

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An alien entity inhabits the earthly form of a seductive young woman who combs the Scottish highways in search of the human prey it is here to plunder. It lures its isolated and forsaken male victims into an otherworldly dimension where they are stripped and consumed.

But life in all its complexity starts to change the alien. It begins to see itself as 'she', as human, with tragic and terrifying consequence. 'Under the Skin' is about seeing ourselves through alien eyes.

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The first-ever full-length theatrical 'Lego' movie follows Emmet (voice of Chris Pratt), a perfectly average 'Lego' mini-figure who is mistakenly identified as the most extraordinary person in the world.

He is drafted into an epic quest to stop an evil tyrant and save the world, a journey for which Emmet is hopelessly and hilariously under-prepared.

Academy Award Winners Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts star in the darkly hilarious and deeply touching story of the strong-willed women of the Weston family, whose lives converge when a family crisis brings them back to the Midwest house they grew up in, and to the dysfunctional mother who raised them.

'Locke' is the story of one man's life unravelling in a tension-fuelled race against time. Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy) has the perfect family, his dream job, and tomorrow should be the crowning moment of his career. But one phone call will force him to make a decision that will put it all on the line.

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Marlene Dietrich and James Stewart ride high in this superb comedic western, both a boisterous spoof and a shining example of its genre.

As the brawling, rough-and-tumble saloon singer Frenchy, Dietrich shed her exotic love-goddess image and launched a triumphant career comeback, while Stewart cemented his amiable every-man persona, in his first of many westerns, with a charming turn as a gun-abhorring deputy sheriff who uses his wits to bring law and order to the frontier town of Bottleneck. A sparkling script, a supporting cast of virtuoso character actors, and rollicking musical numbers - delivered with unmatched bravado by the magnetic Dietrich - come together to create an irresistible, oft-imitated marvel of studio-era craftsmanship.

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Trickery. Deceit. Magic. In 'F for Fake', a free-form sort-of documentary by Orson Welles, the legendary filmmaker (and self-described charlatan) gleefully reengages with the central preoccupation of his career: the tenuous lines between illusion and truth, art and lies.

Beginning with portraits of the world-renowned art forger Elmyr de Hory and his equally devious biographer, Clifford Irving, Welles embarks on a dizzying journey that simultaneously exposes and revels in fakery and fakers of all stripes - not the least of whom is Welles himself. Charming and inventive, 'F for Fake' is an inspired prank and a clever examination of the essential duplicity of cinema.

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In 2009, Academy Award-winning director Alex Gibney was hired to make a film about Lance Armstrong's comeback to cycling. The project was shelved when the doping scandal erupted, and re-opened after Armstrong's confession.

'The Armstrong Lie' picks up in 2013 after Armstrong was stripped of his 7 Tour de France titles, and presents a riveting insider's view of the unraveling of the greatest deception in sports history.

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Across two series and over 20 films, the directors of Wonderful London captured some of the most evocative images of the capital in the 1920s.

These simple films contrasted different aspects of city life - East End and West End, poor and rich, natives and immigrants - often looking beyond the stereotype to show suprising views of the city.
As well as the familiar landmarks of London town - the Thames, Big Ben, Tower Bridge and St Paul's - Wonderful London reveals its less well illustrated quarters; the over-populated districts of Clerkenwell, London's original Chinatown and the South Asian and African seamen who worked in the Port of London. We also visit the street markets on a Sunday, and wander down alleys, past pot-bellied pubs, inns of court and the buildings that Dickens knew. All the while we are greeted by generations of Londoners, all now gone but strangely still like the Londoners of today.
This fascinating collection includes six new restorations by the BFI National Archive:
- Barging Through London
- Cosmopolitan London
- London's Sundays
- Flowers of London
- London's Free Shows
- London Off the Track
all of which reintroduce the films' original tinting and toning.

Marlon Brando gives a stunning portrayal of the outlaw turned revolutionary leader. The film also boasts Anthony Quinn's performance as Zapata's brother. Viva Zapata! is one of the classic political movies and a fine example of Brando's genius as a film actor.