john-t's - Rented List

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Voted the greatest documentary of all time in the 2014 'Sight and Sound' poll, Vertov's groundbreaking 'Man with a Movie Camera' uses an array of dazzling cinematic techniques to record the people of the city at work and at play, and the machines that keep the city going.

Presented with Michael Nyman's celebrated score, this classic film is accompanied by an exciting selection of new extras, including Vertov's 'Three Songs of Lenin' and two of his radical mid-1920s documentary films, both of which feature equally radical new soundtracks by electronic experimentalists Mordant Music.

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When Walter Craig (Mervyn Johns) visits a country house, he finds himself trapped in his recurring nightmare that involves the manors guests sharing their experiences with the supernatural.

With each bizarre tale told, whether it be about a haunted mirror or a ventriloquist tormented by his dummy, Craig hurtles closer and closer to the nightmare's end, where he knows something awful will happen...

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Cameraman illuminates a unique figure in British and international cinema; Jack Cardiff, a man whose life and career are inextricably interwoven with the history of cinema.

Jack's life and work helped elevate cinematography to an art form and made history with his ground breaking vision and technical wizardry on A Matter Of Life And Death, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, The African Queen and many others. Amongst many fascinating revelations and anecdotes, Jack relates what it was like to work with Hollywood's greatest icons, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, Kirk Douglas and Sophia Loren. Packed with stunning clips from newly restored classic movies and over twenty original interviews with the world's greatest actors, directors and technicians, Cameraman explores Jack's life and work in compelling detail - a unique and invaluable testimony to an exceptional life.

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From the legendary filmmaking duo Powell and Pressburger, 'The Small Back Room' is the story of the troubled love affair between a tormented back room scientist and a beautiful secretary, told against a background of ministerial intrigue and empire building.

Sammy Rice (David Farrar) was the army's finest bomb disposal officer until he was injured in the war and left with a false foot. Now part of a specialist 'back room' team, he dismantles the booby-trapped devices being dropped by Nazi bombers. He falls in love with Susan (Kathleen Byron), a colleague, and the two begin a secret affair. However, embittered by life, he feels inferior; inferior as a lover, inferior as a man unable to wear uniform; inferior in his work for, although a brilliant scientist, he allows himself to be exploited by his power-hungry boss. Haunted by his past, he drowns his sorrows in whiskey. Sammy's life is descending into disarray when the news comes; a bomb has exploded with catastrophic consequences, and another has been found. Faced with the biggest challenge of his career, Sammy must confront his demons and take his own life in his hands to solve the mystery of the bomb's lethal mechanism.

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Based on Jacques Offenbach's opera of the stories of romantic poet E.T.A. Hoffmann. "The Tales of Hoffmann" gave close collaborators Michael Powell and Emeric Bressburger another opportunity to eschew realism and celebrate artifice and creativity.

In "Black Narcissus", Powell had worked closely with composer Brian Easdale to create an extended sequence in which sound and image were intimately intert wined. The ballet sequences of "The Red Shoes" offered an obvious arena into which to continue this experiment, culminating in "The Tales of Hoffmann", in which the entire film is shaped by Offenbach's score, given a rousing rendition by The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of the legendary Sir Thomas Beecham. The choreography, courtesy of Jane Ashton is equally inspired, resulting in a charming fantasy that's a triumph of design and a sumptuous feast for the senses.

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From legendary Studio Ghibli and director Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away) comes a Bafta and Academy Award-winning® new fantasy adventure. After losing his mother during the war, young Mahito moves to his family's estate in the countryside.

There, a series of mysterious events leads him to a secluded and ancient tower, home to a mischievous gray heron. When Mahito's new stepmother disappears, he follows the gray heron into the fantastic world shared by the living and the dead. As he embarks on an epic journey, Mahito must uncover the secrets of the world and the truth about himself.

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When two strangers stumble into international intrigue in the middle of a Los Angeles night, anything can happen... and does... Ed Orkin (Jeff Goldblum) is an insomniac with a cheating wife and a dull job.

His chances for excitement look hopeless until a mysterious blond named Diana (Michelle Pfeiffer) drops onto the hood of his car. Now it's Ed's turn for some adventure and romance as Diana leads him on a merry and murderous chase where the payoff could be dollars or death.

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What once was just imagination is now real; what was once the distant future is now around the corner. The "Science Fiction" of the past has now simply become "Science".

And the science of the future was strangely prophesied by a group of visionaries whose dreams once may have deemed them renegades and "mad scientists" have become reality! In a dynamic hyper-stylized way that has never been seen before. We will take a tour of what was, and what will be through the eyes of the visionary authors, illustrators, filmmakers, and scientists who have become the Prophets Of Science Fiction!
Some sci-fi storytellers are content to merely predict, but Sir Arthur C. Clarke creates. The writer is single-handedly responsible for the cornerstone of modern telecommunication technology: the satellite. Clarke's collaboration with director Stanley Kubrick on the iconic 2001 predicted videophones, iPads, and commercial spaceflight, while redefining science-fiction cinema for a new generation.

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At a lavish ceremony hosted by her sister (Charlotte Gainsbourg, Antichrist), the wedding of Justine (Dunst, in an award winning performance) and her fiance Michael (Alexander Skarsgard, True Blood) is marred by fractious familial exchanges and Justine's battle with her own inner demons.

Meanwhile, the mysterious planet Melancholia emerges from behind the sun and appears to be headed on an apocalyptic collision course with the Earth...

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In this hysterical satire of Reagan-era values, written and directed by Albert Brooks, a successful Los Angeles advertising executive (Brooks) and his wife (Julie Hagerty) decide to quit their jobs, buy a Winnebago, and follow their Easy Rider fantasies of freedom and the open road.

When a stop in Las Vegas nearly derails their plans, they're forced to come to terms with their own limitations and those of the American dream. Brooks's barbed wit and confident direction drive 'Lost in America', an iconic example of his restless comedies about insecure characters searching for satisfaction in the modern world that established his unique comic voice and transformed the art of observational humor.

Redford stars as Joe Turner, a junior analyst in the C.I.A., scrutinising published texts from around the world for coded messages. But once he discovers an unusual anomaly, his own existence comes crashing down, with every error carrying potentially fatal consequences.

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Derek (Alex Sharp) a brilliant college student, haunted by a childhood UFO sighting, believes that the mysterious sightings reported at multiple airports across the United States are UFO's. With the help of his girlfriend, Natalie (Ella Purnell), and his advanced mathematics professor, Dr.

Hendricks (Gillian Anderson), Derek races to unravel the mystery with FBI special agent Franklin Ahls (David Strathairn) on his heels.

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With her Oscar-winning turn in 'Klute', Jane Fonda reinvented herself as a new kind of movie star.

Bringing nervy audacity and counterculture style to the role of Bree Daniels - a call girl and aspiring actor who becomes the focal point of a missing-person investigation when detective John Klute (Donald Sutherland) turns up at her door - Fonda made the film her own, putting an independent woman and escort on-screen with a frankness that had not yet been attempted in Hollywood. Suffused with paranoia by the conspiracy-thriller specialist Alan J. Pakula, and lensed by master cinematographer Gordon Willis, 'Klute' is a character study thick with dread, capturing the mood of early-1970's New York and the predicament of a woman trying to find her own way on the fringes of society.

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In a future world that has been seemingly ravaged by war and poverty there exists a myth of hope among the people - a forbidden place known only as the Zone, the heart of which, if reached, grants one's innermost desires.

Two men, a writer and professor, hire someone known as a Stalker; a guide who can navigate the treacherous and confounding path that leads to the centre of the Zone. 'Stalker' was instantly considered one of the most definitive artistic contemplations of human aspiration and the ambition we employ to achieve it.

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From the makers of the cult classic 'Pet Sematary', these are tales that will test your nerves to the limit and twist your faith about what is real or unreal: Betty (Deborah Harry) prepares a dinner party with a very special main course; Peston (James Remar) breaks a 10 year old promise and a

seemingly happy marriage shatters; Mr Halston (David Johansen) is confident, some might say too confident; What young Timmy (Matthew Lawrence) is reading might just save his life and Andy (Christian Slater) is forced to decipher 3000 year old hieroglyphics to reveal details of his own fate.