mpb's - Rented List
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Tsotsi (2005)Thug
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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The Goddess (1934)Shen nu
Ruan Lingyu, one of the most famous stars of early Chinese cinema, gives a devastating performance as an unnamed 'goddess' - an ironic euphemism for a prostitute - in this profoundly moving but rarely seen classic of world cinema. In a tragic tale of shame and maternal sacrifice, Ruan stars as a mother desperate to provide for her young son and forced to take brutal vengeance on her pimp. It is a profoundly moving drama made all the more poignant by the knowledge that its star took her own life at the age of 24, a year after the film's release. - Director:
- Yonggang Wu
- Cast:
- Lingyu Ruan, Tian Jian, Zhizhi Zhang
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Ugetsu Monogatari (1953)Ugetsu / Tales of Ugetsu
In 16th century Japan, amidst the pandemonium of civil war, potter Genjuro (Mori Masayuki) and samurai-aspirant Tobei (Ozawa Sakae) set out with their wives in search of wealth and military glory, respectively. Two parallel tales ensue when the men are lured from their wives: Genjuro by the ghostly charm of Lady Wakasa (Kyo Machiko); Tobei by the dream of military glory. - Director:
- Kenji Mizoguchi
- Cast:
- Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyô, Kinuyo Tanaka
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This incredible film takes a look at British boarding school and three unruly seniors who fail to conform. If.... is an amazing blend of fact and fantasy which features a young Malcolm McDowell in his first film. The students at College House are kept in line by tradition, strict discipline and prefects. Director Lindsay Anderson is careful to document the repressive conditions and the painfulness of rebellion as he builds to his surreal and violent ending when the students have their day. - Director:
- Lindsay Anderson
- Cast:
- Malcolm McDowell, David Wood, Richard Warwick
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My Darling Clementine (1946)La pasión de los fuertes
After Wyatt Earp's (Henry Fonda) brother James is murdered by cattle rustlers, the frontier legend becomes Tombstone's marshal and sets out to avenge the younger man's death. Torn between his badge and his fury, Earp confronts the likely killers, the notoriously lawless family of Old Man Clanton (Walter Brennan), setting the stage for the famed shoot-out at the O.K. Corral. Along the way, Earp falls in love with a schoolteacher named Clementine (Cathy Downs), which pits him against the cantankerous Doc Holliday. While 'My Darling Clementine' never loses its dynamism as a hard-hitting western, it is also a tender love story. - Director:
- John Ford
- Cast:
- Henry Fonda, Linda Darnell, Victor Mature
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The Battle of Algiers (1966)La Battaglia di Algeri
Gillo Pontecorvo's multi-award winning picture 'The Battle of Algiers' has perhaps never been as pertinent as it is now. Set from 1954 to 1962, the movie uses documentary-style black and white photography to recreate real events. Algerian liberation fighters use terrorist techniques against the French colonial occupiers; the French retaliate with brutal military force. Brilliantly directed set-pieces and remarkable crowd scenes make the film a masterpiece; the ominous familiarity of its subject makes it a must-see" - The Times How to win battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas. Children shoot soldiers at point blank range. Women plant bombs in Cafes. Sounds familiar? The French have a plan. It succeeds tactically, but fails strategically. To understand why, come to a rare showing of this film.'' - Pentagon tlyer for their in-house screening of Battle Of Algiers All the armies of the world - including the Pentagon - will never, but never, be able to conquer a country which wants to control its own destiny" - Saadi Yacef - Director:
- Gillo Pontecorvo
- Cast:
- Brahim Hadjadj, Jean Martin, Yacef Saadi
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Metropolis (1927)Metrópolis
Shortly after that 1927 release, an entire quarter of Lang's original version was cut by Paramount for the US release, and by Ufa in Germany, an act of butchery very much against the director's wishes. The excised footage was believed lost, irretrievably so - that is, until one of the most remarkable finds in all of cinema history, as several dusty reels were discovered in a small museum in Buenos Aires. Argentina in 2008. Since then, an expert team of film archivists has been working at the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung in Germany to painstakingly reconstruct and restore Lang's film. - Director:
- Fritz Lang
- Cast:
- Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel, Gustav Fröhlich
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Fantastic Planet (1973)La Planète sauvage
Fantastic Planet tells the story of "Oms", human-like creatures, kept as domesticated pets by an alien race of blue giants called "Draags". The story takes place on the Draags' planet Ygam, where we follow our narrator, an Om called Terr, from infancy to adulthood. He manages to escape enslavement from a Draag learning device used to educate the savage Oms - and begins to organise an Om revolt. - Director:
- René Laloux
- Cast:
- Jennifer Drake, Eric Baugin, Jean Topart
- Formats:
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Tokyo Story / Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (1953)Tôkyô monogatari / Todake no kyôdai
A constant fixture in critics' polls, Yasujiro Ozu's most enduring masterpiece, 'Tokyo Story', is a beautifully nuanced exploration of filial duty, expectation and regret. From the simple tale of an elderly husband and wife's visit to Tokyo to see their grown-up children, Ozu draws a compelling contrast between the measured dignity of age and the hurried insensitivity of a younger generation. - Director:
- Yasujirô Ozu
- Cast:
- Chishû Ryû, Chieko Higashiyama, Sô Yamamura
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Winchester '73 (1950)Montana Winchester
It's the legendary James Stewart at his leading-man finest in this timeless western that set the standard for all that followed. Frontiersman Lin McAdam (Stewart) is attempting to track down both his father's murderer and his one-of-a-kind rifle, the 'Winchester '73', as it passes among a diverse group of desperate characters, including a crazed highwayman (Dan Duryea), an immoral gunrunner (John Mclntire), a savage young Indian chief (Rock Hudson) and McAdam's own murderous brother (Stephen McNally). Featuring Shelley Winters as the rifle's only rival for McAdam's interest and Tony Curtis in one of his first screen performances, the gripping tale of the men (and gun) who won the West is one of Stewart's most memorable films and one of the genre's most enduring classics. - Director:
- Anthony Mann
- Cast:
- James Stewart, Forrest Taylor, Shelley Winters
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M (1931)M el Maldito
Like a brand, the letter M has made it's mark on film history; it's disturbing theme having lost none of its impact or relevance. Sinister, dark and foreboding, M tells the story of Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre) - child molester and murderer. Tension builds - a child late home - another child missing. Posters reveal the fate of earlier victims, and the Police seem to have few clues as to the perpetrator of the crimes. Gangsters, beggars and petty criminals, incensed by both the crimes and the Police crackdown, track the killer themselves. Cornered, caught and dragged off to face an equally barbaric form of justice, Beckert endures his own personal torment. - Director:
- Fritz Lang
- Cast:
- Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut
- Formats:
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Amadeus (1984)Peter Shaffer's Amadeus
"Amadeus" triumphs as gripping human drama, sumptuous period epic, glorious celebration of the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It's 1781 and Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) is the competent court composer to Emperor Joseph II. When Mozart (Tom Hulce) arrives at court, Salieri is horrified to discover that the godlike musical gifts he desires for himself have been bestowed on a bawdy, impish jokester. Mad with envy, he plots to destroy Mozart by any means. Perhaps, even murder. - Director:
- Milos Forman
- Cast:
- F. Murray Abraham, Michele Esposito, Tom Hulce
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Ikiru (1952)Living
Opening with a shot of an x-ray, showing the main character's stomach, 'Ikiru' tells the tale of a dedicated, downtrodden civil servant who, diagnosed with a fatal cancer, learns to change his dull, unfulfilled existence, and suddenly discovers a zest for life. Plunging first into self-pity, then a bout of hedonistic pleasure-seeking on the frenetic streets of post-war Tokyo, Watanable (Takashi Shimura) - the film's hero - finally finds satisfaction through building a children's playground. - Director:
- Akira Kurosawa
- Cast:
- Takashi Shimura, Nobuo Kaneko, Shin'ichi Himori
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Joan Crawford plays Vienna, a saloon owner with a sordid past. Persecuted by the townspeople, Vienna must protect her life and her property when a lynch mob led by her sexually repressed rival, Emma Small (Mercedes McCambridge), attempts to frame her for a string of robberies she did not commit. Enter Johnny Guitar (Sterling Hayden), a guitar-strumming ex-gunfighter who has a history with Vienna. - Director:
- Nicholas Ray
- Cast:
- Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge
- Formats:
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The Wages of Fear (1953)Le Salaire de la peur
Part road movie, part suspense thriller, the plot is high-tension simplicity itself. In the South American jungle, supplies of nitro-glycerine are urgently needed at a remote oil field. The unscrupulous American oil company pays four out-of-work men (Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Folco Lulli and Peter Van Eyck) to deliver the supplies in two sets of drivers: a tension magnified thousand fold by the unforgiving heat, the lure of filthy lucre and the rough and rocky roads where the slightest jolt can result in agonising death. Which of the disparate, desperate desperadoes will survive the white-knuckle journey and claim the loot and the glory? - Director:
- Henri-Georges Clouzot
- Cast:
- Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Peter Van Eyck
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