jwc's - Rented List
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Days of Being Wild (1990)A Fei jingjyuhn
Hong Kong 1960: York is a vain, amoral sexual predator abandoned in his childhood. In his youth he drifts through a series of casual friendships and affairs with one purpose, to discover the identity of his natural mother. She has long since moved to the Philippines and his foster mother refuses refuses to tell him. As one of York's lovers courts a policeman and they instigate a passing romance, York travels to the Philippines in search of the truth. - Director:
- Kar-Wai Wong
- Cast:
- Leslie Cheung, Maggie Cheung, Andy Lau
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Kolya (1996)Kolja
Louka, a middle-aged Czech cellist, is a skirt-chasing bachelor who enjoys a lifestyle free of responsibilities. When he finds himself strapped for cash, he agrees to a marriage of convenience. But after his new bride skips town, Louka is left to father her five-year-old Russian son, Kolya. Neither could be more unhappy with their predicament, especially since they don't even speak the same language. It'll take time and patience for the cultural barrier between this unlikely father-son duo to fall, but when it does, an unbreakable bond forms in its place. - Director:
- Jan Sverák
- Cast:
- Zdenek Sverák, Andrei Chalimon, Libuse Safránková
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The Cote d'Azur, 1915. The great painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir is in his twilight years, tormented by the loss of his wife and the news that his son Jean has been wounded in WW1. When a young girl enters his idyllic Mediterranean world, Pierre-Auguste rejuvenates and becomes newly inspired by her beauty and spirit.
But when Jean returns home to convalesce - and in the face of his father's fierce opposition - he falls in love with the muse, and within the battle-shaken Jean, a filmmaker begins to grow.- Director:
- Gilles Bourdos
- Cast:
- Michel Bouquet, Christa Théret, Vincent Rottiers
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The Caretaker (1963)The Guest
Whilst renovating his dilapidated home, Aston (Robert Shaw) invites an irritable and devious vagrant (Donald Pleasence) to stay. But, when his ill-tempered brother Mick (Alan Bates) returns, an ominous yet darkly comic power struggle between the trio commences. A play that changed the face of modern theatre and made Harold Pinter's name, 'The Caretaker' remains one of Pinter's most famous works. - Director:
- Clive Donner
- Cast:
- Alan Bates, Donald Pleasence, Robert Shaw
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A small but perfectly-formed comedy-drama about Broadway legend Danny Rose (Woody Allen) - not a star but perhaps the most hapless agent ever to work in the profession, whose no-hope clients include piano-playing parrots, blind jugglers, one-legged tap dancers and stuttering ventriloquists. Things change dramatically when an unexpected lounge-music craze threatens to make cheesy crooner Lou Canova (Nick Apollo Forte) both famous and successful, a situation that natural loser Danny is helplessly ill-equipped to deal with. Fie proves similarly hapless when Lou turns out to have a mistress (an unrecognisable Mia Farrow) whose mobster ex-boyfriend is none too impressed with the company that she's currently keeping and decides to advertise this fact at the worst possible moment. Both laugh-out-loud funny and warmly nostalgic, 'Broadway Danny Rose' is Allen's heartfelt tribute to the days of New York vaudeville that he himself experienced first-hand when starting out as a comedian two decades earlier - underscored by the fact that the Greek chorus of Broadway veterans chuckling over Danny's various mishaps and misfortunes are the real thing. - Director:
- Woody Allen
- Cast:
- Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Nick Apollo Forte
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Secrets and Lies (1996)Secrets & Lies
Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) is a young, black optometrist whose adoptive parents have recently died. Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn) is a sad, unmarried mother who works in a factory and lives in a shabby terraced house with her confrontational daughter, Roxanne (Claire Rushbrook). Cynthia's brother Maurice (Timothy Spall) is a successful wedding photographer who lives comfortably in suburbia with his snooty wife Monica (Phyllis Logan). In a misplaced effort to re-unite the family, Maurice and Monica throw a small barbecue party for Roxanne's 21st birthday. When Cynthia brings along her new friend Hortense, chaos ensues as some painful truths are revealed. - Director:
- Mike Leigh
- Cast:
- Timothy Spall, Brenda Blethyn, Phyllis Logan
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