mpb's - Rented List

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"Citizenfour" is a real life thriller, unfolding by the minute, giving audiences unprecedented access to Laura Poitras, Ewen MacAskill and Glenn Greenwald's encounters with Edward Snowden in Hong Kong, as he hands over classified documents providing evidence of mass indiscriminate and illegal

invasions of privacy by the National Security Agency (NSA). Poitras had already been working on a film about surveillance for two years when Snowden contacted her, using the name "Citizenfour", in January 2013. He reached out to her because he knew she had long been a target of government surveillance, stopped at airports numerous times, and had refused to be intimidated. When Snowden revealed he was a high-level analyst driven to expose the massive surveillance of Americans by the NSA, Poitras persuaded him to let her film. "Citizenfour" places you in the room with Poitras, MacAskill, Greenwald, and Snowden as they attempt to manage the media storm raging outside, forced to make quick decisions that will impact their lives and all of those around them. "Citizenfour" not only shows you the dangers of governmental surveillance - it makes you feel them. After seeing the film, you will never think the same way about your phone, email, credit card, web browser, or profile, ever again.

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Julianne Moore gives an astonishing performance as Carol White, a typically bored, affluent Californian housewife whose carefully controlled domestic environment suddenly turns against her. Gradually she develops nosebleeds, vomiting and breathing problems before finally collapsing.

In desperation to remain 'safe' from her allergies she opts for the virtual isolation of a porcelain igloo in the Texan desert where the inhabitants drag around oxygen cylinders and therapists behave like preachers.

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Beetlejuice is back! After an unexpected family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River.

Still haunted by Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), Lydia (Winona Ryder) finds her life is turned upside down when her rebellious teenage daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega), discovers the mysterious model of the town in the attic and the portal to the Afterlife is accidentally opened.

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When career thief Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall) meets glamorous pickpocket Lily (Miriam Hopkins), their love soon takes on a professional dimension as they initiate a plot to rob beautiful perfume magnate Mariette Colet (Kay Francis).

But as Gaston gets ever closer to his intended prey, his romantic confusion, as well as the threat that his past will catch up with him, throws their plan into jeopardy.

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A tender and sweeping story about what roots us, 'Minari' follows a Korean-American family that moves to a tiny Arkansas farm in search of their own American Dream. The family home changes completely with the arrival of their sly, foul-mouthed, but incredibly loving grandmother.

Amidst the instability and challenges of this new life in the rugged Ozarks, 'Minari' shows the undeniable resilience of family and what really makes a home.

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The Holdovers follows a curmudgeonly instructor (Paul Giamatti) at a New England prep school who is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go.

Eventually he forms an unlikely bond with one of them — a damaged, brainy troublemaker (Dominic Sessa) — and with the school's head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam (Da'Vine Joy Randolph).

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Business blooms at Mushnik's Flower Shop when an exotic potted plant called Audrey II arrives. It turns out to be a carnivorous "mean, green mother from outer space," filling that little shop with lotsa horrors.

"Little Shop of Horrors" first flowered in a low-budget 1960 Roger Corman movie, resprouted as a smash 1980 off-Broadway musical and now comes full circle in this 1986 movie musical adaptation of the stage hit with a score by multiple Academy Award winners Alan Menken and Howard Ashman.

From filmmaker Alex Garland comes a journey across a dystopian future America, following a team of military-embedded journalists as they race against time to reach DC before rebel factions descend upon the White House.

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In 1988 Tehran, Shideh's attempts to rejoin medical school are thwarted as a consequence of her politically active history. Her husband is sent off to serve in the Iran-Iraq War while Iraqi air raids draw perilously close to their own apartment.

As neighbours and friends flee from a city in chaos she is left alone with her daughter Dorsa (Avin Manshadi) who becomes increasingly ill and seemingly disturbed. Shideh (Narges Rashidi) initially dismisses her tantrums over a missing doll but is soon terrified they've been targeted by a djinn - a malevolent spirit that steals from those it seeks to possess.

What's a Yuppie ghost couple (Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin) to do when their quaint New England home is overrun by trendy New Yorkers? Hire a freelance "bio-exorcist" to spook the intruders, of course.

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A glorious fantastical adventure, raves Daily Mirror's Mark Adams for 'Stardust', an epic fairy tale starring Claire Danes with Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert De Niro. In hopes of wooing a beautiful girl (Sienna Miller), Tristan (Charlie Cox) promises to bring her a falling star.

But he's in for the adventure of his life when he discovers the star is actually a celestial beauty names Yvaine (Danes). When an old witch Lamia (Pfeiffer) atttempts to steal Yvain's youth, Tristan must protect her at all costs.

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Ryusuke Hamaguchi's 'Drive My Car' is a masterful, moving and multi-award winning film based on a short story by Haruki Murakami. When the wife of Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a stage actor and director, suddenly passes away, she leaves behind a secret.

Two years later, Kafuku meets Misaki (Toko Miura), a reserved young woman assigned to be his chauffeur on a work trip to Hiroshima. As they spend time together, Kafuku confronts the mystery of his wife that quietly haunts him.

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Michael Mann's latest feature 'Ferrari' follows Adam Driver as Enzo Ferrari during the summer of 1957. Behind the spectacle and danger of Formula 1, ex-racer Enzo Ferrari is in crisis. Bankruptcy stalks the company he and his wife, Laura (Penélope Cruz), built from nothing ten years earlier.

Their volatile marriage is further fractured with grief for their only son. Ferrari struggles with the acknowledgement of another with Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley). His drivers' passion to win pushes them to the edge. All their fates converge in one race, the treacherous 1,000-mile race across Italy, the iconic Mille Miglia.

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Generally regarded to be the best of the classic gangster films, 'Scarface' tells the exciting story of organised crime's brutal control over Chicago during the Prohibition era.

Paul Muni gives an electrifying performance as Tony Carmonte, an ambitious criminal with a ruthless drive to be the city's top crime boss. Directed by the legendary Howard Hawks, 'Scarface' was a groundbreaking film which established both Paul Muni and George Raft as major Hollywood stars, while influencing all gangland films to follow.

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"One Life" tells the true story of Sir Nicholas 'Nicky' Winton (Anthony Hopkins), a young London broker who, in the months leading up to World War II, rescued 669 predominantly Jewish children from the Nazis.

Nicky visited Prague in December 1938 and found families who had fled the rise of the Nazis in Germany and Austria, living in desperate conditions with little or no shelter and food, and under threat of Nazi invasion. He immediately realised it was a race against time. How many children could he and the team rescue before the borders closed? Fifty years later, it's 1988 and Nicky lives haunted by the fate of the children he wasn't able to bring to safety in England; always blaming himself for not doing more. It's not until a live BBC television show, 'That's Life', surprises him by introducing him to some surviving children - now adults - that he finally begins to come to terms with the guilt and grief he had carried for five decades.