mervyn-verstellung's - Rented List

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Bragging to everyone who will listen that he is the world's second greatest jazz player, Emmet Ray (Sean Penn) is cocky, abrasive and brutally honest - standing only in the shadow of his hero - the profoundly passionate musician Django Reinhardt.

Things change when Emmet falls in love with the enchanting mute laundress Hattie (Samantha Morton), who manages to capture his heart through her eyes and expressions alone.

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Set in the 1930s, Woody Allen's bittersweet romance 'Café Society' follows Bronx-born Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg) to Hollywood, where he falls in love, and back to New York, where he is swept up in the vibrant world of high society nightclub life.

With 'Café Society' Woody Allen conjures up a 1930s world that has passed to tell a deeply romantic tale of dreams that never die.

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Acclaimed magician Stanley Crawford (Colin Firth) dazzles his audiences with feats of supernatural amazement. But when it comes to the inexplicable, Stanley is a dedicated sceptic. Enter Sophie Baker (Emma Stone), psychic, soothsayer and stunning seductress.

As Stanley and Sophie embark on misadventures up and down the French Riviera, will they discover proof of a world beyond the laws of physics or have they fallen under the sway of a more earthly chemistry? Woody Allen pulls the strings with precision in this enchanting romantic comedy that explores the realm between what's understood in our minds and what's known in our hearts.

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Our story begins in the picturesque surroundings of Barcelona where two American girls are about to find out that they have a lot more in common than they first anticipated. Vicky is a practical, studious and engaged.

Cristina on the other hand is reckless, adventurous and recovering from a failed relationship. Both of them are about to have their worlds turned upside down by an infamous, bohemian artist called Juan and his psychotic ex-wife.

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Middle-aged philosophy professor Marion Post (Gena Rowlands) would appear to have every advantage. After all, she has a rock-solid professional reputation, an equally secure marriage and enough spare cash to be able to rent a separate flat in which to write her latest book without interruption.

But she is interrupted, thanks to an accident of ventilation, by the therapy sessions going on in the psychiatrist's office next door. Voyeuristically fascinated, Marion is particularly struck by the way that the unhappy experiences of his patient Hope (Mia Farrow) mirror her own, and realises that her life is nowhere near as materially and emotionally secure as she's been pretending. And when she decides to rely less on her beloved logic and reason and open herself up to dreams, imagination and passion, the scene is set for a life-changing transformation.

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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.

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When Eve (Geraldine Page), an interior designer, is deserted by her husband of many years, Arthur (E.G. Marshall), the emotionally glacial relationships of the three grown-up daughters are laid bare.

Twisted by jealousy, insecurity and resentment, Renata (Diane Keaton), a successful writer; Flyn (Kristin Griffith), a woman crippled by indecision; and Joey (Marybeth Hurt), a budding actress; struggle to communicate for the sake of their shattered mother. But when their father unexpectedly falls for another woman (Maureen Stapleton), his decision to remarry sets in motion a terrible twist of fate...

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From acclaimed writer-director Gerard Johnson comes a psychological thriller that's dripping in sweat, tears, and testosterone.

'Muscle' is the story of Simon (Cavan Clerkin), an unhappy, unambitious office worker whose life is gradually taken over by Terry (Craig Fairbrass), his new, very hands-on personal trainer who reveals himself to be more committed - and more dangerous - than Simon could have imagined.

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Leonard Zelig (Woody Allen) is a man so introverted and insecure that he has developed the ability to blend perfectly into the background of any given situation, regardless of the personality or even ethnicity of the people around him.

But when he inadvertently becomes famous as "the human chameleon" after the media takes too keen an interest in his therapy sessions with Dr. Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow), Zelig is faced with an unprecedented challenge: how do you fade into the background when the spotlight is firmly upon you?

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My unforgettable spring. The best time of her life. A high school boy stumbles across a secret journal in a hospital one day.

He soon finds out the diary belongs to his classmate, a girl named Sakura Yamauchi (voice of Lynn), who is revealed to be suffering from a terminal illness in her pancreas and only has a few months left to live. A secret they share that brings their hearts closer together.

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"In This Corner of the World" follows a young lady named Suzu Urano, who in 1944 moves to the small town of Kure in Hiroshima to live with her husband's family. Suzu's life is thrown into chaos when her town is bombed during World War II.

Her perseverance and courage underpin this heart-warming and inspirational tale of the everyday challenges faced by the Japanese in the midst of a violent, war-torn country. This beautiful yet poignant tale shows that even in the face of adversity and loss, people can come together and rebuild their lives.

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"23 Walks" is a heart-warming comedy-drama about finding love later in life. Dave (Dave Johns) and Fern (Alison Steadman), two older strangers, have been bruised by their individual circumstance.

They meet walking their dogs in a North London park, and over the course of twenty-three walks together romance begins to blossom. But Dave and Fern haven't been completely honest with one another and their future together may be threatened by the secrets they have withheld.

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Sandy Bates (Woody Allen) is not only tired of being funny, he may even be teetering on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

At a retrospective of his films, in between toecurlingly stupid questions from his audiences, he's forced to confront not only the meaning of his work but also past and present relationships with Dorrie (Charlotte Rampling), Daisy (Jessica Harper) and Isobel (Marie-Christine Barrault). Plagued by hallucinations, alien visitations and philistine studio executives trying to change his bleak new film into something more conventionally crowd-pleasing, Sandy struggles to find a reason to go on living.

When elderly mother Edna (Robyn Nevin), inexplicably vanishes, her daughter Kay (Emily Mortimer) and granddaughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) rush to their family's decaying country home. When Edna returns her behaviour is strangely volatile.

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Based on a true story, 'Vita and Virginia' details the passionate relationship between literary trailblazer Virginia Woolf (Elizabeth Debicki), and enigmatic aristocrat Vita Sackville-West (Gemma Arterton).

When their paths cross, the magnetic Vita decides the beguiling, stubborn and gifted Virginia will be her next conquest, no matter the cost. The ensuing relationship leads to the birth of Woolf's bold, experimental novel 'Orlando'. A daring celebration of an unconventional bond, and a vivid exploration of gender, sexuality, creativity and passion, 'Vita and Virginia' details the love story of two women - two writers - who smashed through social barriers to find solace in their forbidden connection.