sjj's - Rented List

Internationally acclaimed film by Gustav Machaty, renowned for its unique sensual imagery. The movie stars a future Hollywood actress Hedy Kiesler whose performance embodies an ideal of female vitality.

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Legends collide as Godzilla and Kong, the two most powerful forces of nature, clash in a spectacular battle for the ages.

As Monarch embarks on a perilous mission into fantastic uncharted terrain, unearthing clues to the Titans' very origins, a human conspiracy threatens to wipe the creatures, both good and bad, from the face of the Earth forever.

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William O'Neal (LaKeith Stanfield), a thief turned FBI informant, infiltrates the Illinois Black Panthers to track their charismatic leader, Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), whose rising political prowess has captured the attention of J. Edgar Hoover's bureau.

As O'Neal manipulates both his comrades and handler, a battle wages in his soul. Will he align with the side of good - or follow commands to subdue Hampton by any means?

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Yasujiro Ozu (Tokyo Story) honed his craft in the early 1930s, a time when young Japanese directors were experimenting with cinematic conventions. This two-disc set features three gangster-genre films in which Ozu mixes a Hollywood-infused dynamism with elements of his later style.

Walk Cheerfully (aka 'Hogaraka Ni Ayume') 1930
Kenji 'the Knife' Koyama, leader of a gang of hooligans, falls for the virtuous Yasue. Will he go straight to win her heart or carry on his life of petty crime? Reminiscent of Sternberg's Underworld with its expressionist lighting, 'Walk Cheerfully' combines international cinematic influences with Ozu's own comic touches.
That Night's Wife (aka 'Sono Yo No Tsuma') 1930
Young father Shuji turns to crime to pay his daughter's medical bills. Enter Detective Kagawa for a tense night-time stand-off with Shuji's wife, Mayumi. 'That Night's Wife' demonstrates Ozu's dramatic mastery as the film reaches its emotional climax.
Dragnet Girl (aka 'Hijosen No Onna') 1933
Typist by day, gangster's moll at night, sweet-faced Tokiko (Kinuyo Tanaka) is forced to reassess her life when her boyfriend strays. Hugely popular when it was released, 'Dragnet Girl' remains one of Ozu's most enduring silent films.

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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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Ruben (Riz Ahmed) and Lou (Olivia Cooke) live together, two nomads traveling gig to gig on an endless American tour. Their music is loud, frenzied and passionate, until one day Ruben is overwhelmed by a severe ringing in his ears, which quickly gives way to deafness.

Ruben is suddenly overcome by anxiety, depression, and soon enough his past addictions begin to surface. Ruben checks himself into a home for deaf addicts run by an eccentric deaf veteran, Joe. In this world of silence and under Joe's tough, observant care, Ruben must confront himself more honestly than ever before. But the love and sound of his old life echoes in Ruben's mind, calling for him to return...

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"The United States vs. Billie Holiday" follows the legendary Holiday (Andra Day), one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time, who spent much of her career being adored by fans across the globe.

However, beginning in the 1940's in New York City, the federal government targeted Holiday in a growing effort to escalate and racialize the war on drugs, ultimately aiming to stop her from singing her controversial and heart-wrenching ballad, "Strange Fruit".

Working in secret for the Air Ministry at his remote country house laboratory, John Barrington (Leslie Banks) is key to the ongoing war effort against the Nazis. Barrington's household, however, has been infiltrated by enemy agents who plan to take him back to Berlin as prisoner.

Set in the exotic surroundings of Russia before the First World War, 'The Flame of Love' tells the tragic story of the doomed love between a young Chinese dancing girl (Anna May Wong) and the adjutant to a Russian Grand Duke.

In the performance which made him a cinematic icon, Jean Gabin plays Pepe le Moko, a notorious gangster hiding out from the police and his rivals in the Casbah of Algiers. In the labyrinth of the Casbah he is safe; until a Parisian playgirl tempts him out into the open...

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Inspired by the investigative-book by best-selling author Roberto Saviano, the series follows the journey of a cocaine shipment from the narcos in Mexico to a powerful Italian cartel via an American shipping company.

An epic power struggle begins, involving everyone from the corner dealer-sup to the heads of international organised crime, and as the dramatic conclusion approaches their lives and livelihoods all hang in the balance.

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In the 1840's, acclaimed self-taught palaeontologist Mary Anning (Kate Winslet) works alone on the wild and brutal Southern English coastline of Lyme Regis.

The days of her famed discoveries behind her, she now hunts for common fossils to sell to rich tourists to support herself and her ailing widowed mother. When one such tourist, Roderick Murchison (James McArdle), arrives in Lyme on the first leg of a European tour, he entrusts Mary with the care of his young wife Charlotte (Saoirse Ronan), who is recuperating from a personal tragedy. Mary, whose life is a daily struggle on the poverty line, cannot afford to turn him down but, proud and relentlessly passionate about her work, she clashes with her unwanted guest. They are two women from utterly different worlds. Yet despite the chasm between their social spheres and personalities, Mary and Charlotte discover they can each offer what the other has been searching for: the realisation that they are not alone. It is the beginning of a passionate and all-consuming love affair that will defy all social bounds and alter the course of both lives irrevocably.

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Best-selling crime novelist Charles (Dan Stevens) is struggling with catastrophic writer's block and a stressful deadline for his first screenplay. His picture-perfect second wife Ruth (Isla Fisher) is doing her best to keep him focused in the hope of fulfilling her dream of heading to Hollywood.

Charles' desperate search for inspiration leads him to invite Madame Arcati (Judi Dench), a medium recently exposed as a fraud, to perform a séance in their home. They all get more than they bargained for when Arcati accidentally summons the spirit of his deceased first wife: the fiery and jealous Elvira (Leslie Mann) who embarks on a mission to kill Charles so she can spend eternity with him which leads to an increasingly comical and deadly love triangle.

Cattleman Flint (Duke R. Lee) cuts off farmer Sims' water supply. When Sims' son Ted (Ted Brooks) goes for water, one of Flint's men kills him. Cheyenne (Harry Carey) is sent to finish off Sims, but finding the family at the newly dug grave, he changes sides.

Based on the story of The Man In The Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas, where the man in the mask is the twin brother of Louis XIV, this was Douglas Fairbanks last silent film, although subsequent reissues have featured narration by Douglas Fairbanks Jr.