jwc's - Rented List
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An Academy Award-winning film about a gritty young gang leader named Tsotsi who lives on the dangerous and crime-ridden streets of Johannesburg, South Africa. This deeply affecting film traces six days in Tsotsi's life in which he ends up caring for a baby he accidentally kidnaps during a car jacking. With the baby's welfare at stake, Tsotsi is compelled to confront his own brutal nature and face the consequences of his actions, if he ever wishes to find redemption in his life. - Director:
- Gavin Hood
- Cast:
- Presley Chweneyagae, Mothusi Magano, Israel Makoe
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Hilarious and utterly unmissable, "The Lobster" is a darkly funny love story set in a near future where finding love is a matter of life or death... According to the rules of The City, single people are arrested and then transferred to The Hotel. There they are obliged to find a matching mate in 45 days. If they fail, they are transformed into an animal of their choosing and released into The Woods. A desperate man (Colin Farrell) escapes from The Hotel to The Woods where The Loners live and falls in love, although it is against their rules. - Director:
- Yorgos Lanthimos
- Cast:
- Jacqueline Abrahams, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Jessica Barden
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Venus Beauty (1998)Vénus beauté (institut)
Angele, "the saddest woman in the world", a 40 something beautician who prefers sex to love, works alongside Marie, the object of an older man's seduction, in a pastel coloured beauty parlour, a veritable eden where women repel the ugliness of the world and the onset of old age with the quest for eternal beauty. Angele's world is challenged when Antoine, a rough and ready sculptor, falls in love with her after witnessing her being dropped by a looser, another one of Angele's "flings" turned sour. "Venus Beauty" is a wonderfully crafted, true to life and poignant romance, magically directed by Tonie Marshall. - Director:
- Tonie Marshall
- Cast:
- Nathalie Baye, Bulle Ogier, Samuel Le Bihan
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Clouds of Sils Maria (2014)Sils Maria
"Clouds of Sils Maria" follows the story of Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche), an acclaimed actor who is asked to perform in a new production of the play that made her famous twenty years prior. But rather than reprise the role of the alluring young protagonist - now to be performed by an up-and-coming starlet (Chloe Grace Moretz) - Enders will be playing the role of the older, obsessive Helena. Departing to the Swiss Alps with her loyal personal assistant (Kristen Stewart), Maria begins to see life reflecting art and, like her character, cannot help but be drawn into an inexorable web of doubt and fear. - Director:
- Olivier Assayas
- Cast:
- Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, Chloë Grace Moretz
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East of Eden (1955)John Steinbeck's East of Eden
Based on John Steinbeck's novel and directed by Elia Kazan, 'East of Eden' is the first of three major films that make up James Dean's movie legacy. The 24-year-old idol-to-be plays Cal, a wayward Salinas Valley youth who vies for the affection of his hardened father (Raymond Massey) with his favoured brother Aron (Richard Davalos). - Director:
- Elia Kazan
- Cast:
- James Dean, Lou Marcelle, Raymond Massey
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Ocean's Eleven (2001)Ocean's 11
Eleven men, three casinos and one night. The plan is set and conman Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his eleven-man crew are about to score big in the most high-tech heist in history. Meet the handpicked specialists, Ocean's eleven elite including an ace card-sharp, a pickpocket, an explosives expert, a card dealer, a retired thief, a surveillance man, a chinese acrobat, two frontmen and a bitter casino mogul. The target is Bellagio, the Mirage and the MGM Grand, all owned by ruthless entrepreneur Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) who just happens to be dating Danny's ex-wife the beautiful and glamorous Tess. The score $150 million. - Director:
- Steven Soderbergh
- Cast:
- George Clooney, Cecelia Ann Birt, Paul L. Nolan
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La Belle Et La Bete (1946)Beauty and the Beast
"Beauty and the Beast " is a landmark feat of cinematic fantasy in which master filmmaker Jean Cocteau conjures spectacular visions of enchantment, desire and death that have never been equalled. Josette Day is luminous yet feisty as Beauty, and Jean Marais gives one of his best performances as the Beast, at once brutal and gentle, rapacious and vulnerable, shamed and repelled by his own bloodlust. Henri Alekan's subtle black and white cinematography combine with Christian Berard's masterly costumes and set designs to create a magical piece of cinema, a children's fairytale refashioned into a stylised and highly sophisticated dream. - Director:
- Jean Cocteau
- Cast:
- Jean Marais, Jean Cocteau, Josette Day
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Humankind's Greatest Journey. More than 12 billion miles away a tiny spaceship is leaving our Solar System and entering the void of deep space - the first human-made object ever to do so. Slowly dying within its heart is a nuclear generator that will beat for perhaps another decade before the lights on Voyager 1 finally go out. But this little craft will travel on for millions of years, carrying a Golden Record bearing recordings and images of life on Earth. The Voyager mission revolutionised our understanding of our Solar System's outer planets - two spacecraft visiting Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune on their incredible journeys and in all likelihood they will outlive humanity. 'The Farthest' celebrates these magnificent machines, the men and women who built them and the vision that propelled them farther than anyone could ever have hoped. - Director:
- Emer Reynolds
- Cast:
- Frank Drake, Carolyn Porco, John Casani
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Toto the Hero (1991)Toto le héros
Convinced that a nursery fire lead to them being mixed up as babies, Thomas has been consumed with jealous hatred for his wealthy and successful neighbour Alfred, the man he believes stole the life that should have been his. And now, an old man, he reflects on the past, the tragedies of his own life and his thoughts turn to vengeance. - Director:
- Jaco van Dormael
- Cast:
- Michel Bouquet, Mireille Perrier, Jo De Backer
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In 2010, 33 Chilean miners were buried alive following a catastrophic mine collapse. For 69 days, a team worked night and day to rescue the men as their families and the world waited for any sign of hope. Underground, in the suffocating heat 200 stories down, tensions ran high as provisions - and time - began to run out. Antonio Banderas stars in this gripping tale of resilience, faith and the triumph of the human spirit based on the amazing true race against time. - Director:
- Patricia Riggen
- Cast:
- Antonio Banderas, Rodrigo Santoro, Juliette Binoche
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Joseph (Peter Mullan) is an unemployed widower, drinker, arid a man stifled by his own volatile temperament and furious anger. Hannah (Olivia Colman) is a Christian worker at a charity shop, a respectable woman who appears wholesome and happy. When the pair arc brought together, Hannah appears to be Joseph's potential saviour, someone who can temper his fury and offer him warmth, kindness and acceptance. As their story develops Hannah's own secrets are revealed — her relationship with husband James (Eddie Marsan) is violent and abusive — and as events spiral out of control. Joseph becomes her source of comfort. - Director:
- Paddy Considine
- Cast:
- Peter Mullan, Archie Lal, Jag Sanghera
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Barbara Stanwyck sizzles, Henry Fonda bumbles, and Preston Sturges runs riot in one of the all-time great screwballs, a pitch-perfect blend of comic zing and swoonworthy romance. Aboard a cruise liner sailing up the coast of South America, Stanwyck's conniving card sharp sets her sights on Fonda's nerdy snake researcher, who happens to be the heir to a brewery fortune. But when the con artist falls for her mark, her grift becomes a game of hearts - and she is determined to win it all. One in a string of matchless comedic marvels that Sturges wrote and directed as part of a dazzling 1940s run, this gender-flipped battle-of-wits farce is perhaps his most emotionally satisfying work, tempering its sparkling humor with a streak of tender poignancy supplied by the sensational Stanwyck at her peak. - Director:
- Preston Sturges
- Cast:
- Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn
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"Toni Erdmann" is a touching and remarkably funny portrait of an offbeat father-daughter relationship. Sandra Huller plays Ines, a highly-strung career woman whose life in corporate Bucharest takes a turn for the bizarre with the arrival of her estranged father Winfried (Peter Simonischek). An incessant practical joker, Winfried attempts to reconnect with Ines by introducing the titular eccentric alter ego to catch her off guard, unaware of how capable she is of rising to the challenge... This breakout German comedy, which has been met with universal critical acclaim, is as humanist as it is absurdist - a film about the importance of celebrating the humour of the everyday. - Director:
- Maren Ade
- Cast:
- Sandra Hüller, Peter Simonischek, Michael Wittenborn
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Fatherland (1986)Singing the Blues in Red
Dark secrets are revealed and sinister alliances uncovered in acclaimed director Ken Loach's complex tale of betrayal and life on either side of the Berlin Wall. East Berlin-based protest singer Klaus Ditteman (Gerulf Pannach) is forced to abandon his wife and child and relocate to West Berlin where representatives from an American record label approach him to try to exploit his music for financial and political gain. Never one to comply with authority, Klaus leaves the contract unsigned and with the help of Emma (Fabienne Babe), a French journalist, he leaves for England to search for his father. Featuring an original soundtrack and the only screen appearance by highly influential German singer-songwriter and lyricist, Gerulf Pannach, 'Fatherland' is an accomplished depiction of 80's Berlin that lives up to Loach's reputation as a master of social politics. - Director:
- Ken Loach
- Cast:
- Gerulf Pannach, Fabienne Babe, Sigfrit Steiner
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Tennis star Guy Haines (Farley Granger) half-jokingly muses about killing his wife with a stranger he meets on a train, unhinged playboy Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker), who'd prefer his father be deceased. In theory, each could murder the other's victim. Crisscross. No motive. No clues. No problem... except: Bruno takes the idea seriously, with deadly consequences. - Director:
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Cast:
- Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman
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