alec-guimness-films's - Rented List

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Gregoire Canvel has everything a man could want: a wife he loves, three delightful children and a stimulating job as a film producer. Yet his prestigious production company seems to be on a downward spiral - too many projects, too many risks and too many debts.

As storm clouds begin to gather, Gregoire ploughs on at all costs until he is finally forced to confront the reality of the situation.

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Lucrecia Martel is now recognised as one of the leading new film-makers in the world. This mystery is her third feature, and was released to huge acclaim. Driving in the country Veronica is distracted and apparently hits something. Disturbed, she does not investigate but drives off.

After the accident she becomes disconnected from her daily life. She Eventually tells her husband - they return to the scene and only find a dead dog. But then news emerges that a child has disappeared. Her family joins to erase all traces of the accident ever having occurred.

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A darkly comic, discomfiting and deliberately provocative work that draws parallels with recent contemporary events. Dogtooth is shocking, compelling and perversely erotic. In a house on the edge of the city live a self-contained family. The only person allowed to leave is the father.

The mother remains enclosed, 'protecting' her son and two daughters from the evils of the outside world. However, when the son reaches an age where it is deemed that his sexual needs should be met, this insular and radical environment is threatened by the arrival of a female security guard. Capturing incidents that range from the weird to the repulsive, Dogtooth presents a sharp and frequently startling look at modern life. Particularly evocative of the work of Michael Haneke this is cinema at its most bold and brilliant.

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Emma (Tilda Swinton), a Russian emigre and the matriarch of a wealthy Milanese family, lives in a carefully ordered world where duty towards husband and children dominates her life.

But after a chance discovery reveals an unspoken love her world is thrown open to sensuality and she embarks on a journey of unbridled passion that will shake her family's foundations to the core. Hailed by critics and lauded by audiences across the world, 'I Am Love' is a breath-taking tour de force of cinematic beauty. As lush, sumptuous and visually arresting as it is moving, heartbreaking and overwhelmingly powerful, this stunning account of the pain and pleasure of desire will leave you gasping for air.

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Kate and Alex (Catherine Keener and Oliver Platt) own a successful Manhattan furniture store, reselling mid-century modern treasures purchased from the estates of the newly deceased.

Wanting to enlarge and remodel the apartment where they live with their acne-ridden teenage daughter Abby (Sarah Steele), they've bought the unit neighboring their own. But before they can expand their home, they must wait for the current tenant • miserable, 91-year-old Andra (Ann Guilbert), to die. As Kate's family gets to know Andra and the granddaughters who look after her (Rebecca Hall and Amanda Peet), animosity, infidelity, friendship, and empathy play out with sharp humour and pathos.

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Richard Samuels (Zac Efron) is a 17-year old kid from New Jersey- He's bored of school and dreams of making it big in the dazzling world of the New York theatre.

His dreams are realised when he meets a youthful Orson Welles (Christian McKay) and lucks a place in his legendary production of Julius Caesar. Over the course of a magical week, Richard makes his Broadway debut, finds romance, and experiences the dark side of genius after daring to cross the brilliant Welles. Richard has to grow up fast...

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Nicolas Cage plays rogue detective Terence McDonagh in what is being described as 'one of his finest performances' who is as devoted to his job as he is at scoring drugs - while playing fast and loose with the law. He wields his badge as often as he wields his gun in order to get his way.

Complicating his tumultuous life is the prostitute he loves - Frankie Donnenfield (Eva Mendes). Together they descend into their own world marked by desire, compulsion, and conscience. The result is a singular masterpiece of filmmaking: equally sad and manically humorous.

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When a brutal kidnap gang grabs powerful businessman Stanislas Graf and holds him to ransom, he is subjected to a terrifying ordeal of torture and humiliation.

But outside, the urgent police investigation exposes hidden details of Graf's personal life - secret affairs, huge gambling debts and shady deals - sparking a media scandal which leaves his wife and family stunned and his business empire questioning their loyalty to him. With the ransom unpaid and his captors' patience wearing thin, Graf realises with horror that his reckless post may finally be catching up with him...

Once the ugly duckling of the rural Dorset village of Ewedown, Tamara Drewe (Gemma Arterton) returns as a glamorous high flying journalist, ruffling feathers, rekindling old passions and shaking up the sleepy village with hilarious and heart-warming consequences.

When an Islamic fundamentalist group massacres a team of foreign workers, fear sweeps through the region and the brothers are faced with abandoning their monastery and the community who depend on them, or making the courageous decision to stay.

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Taking the best elements of The Sopranos and giving them a very British twist Down Terrace focuses on the kind of issues faced by all families.

Such as who grassed up son Karl (Robin Hill) to the local police? How will dad Bill (Robert Hill) explain the recent profit drop to his bosses in London? Can Uncle Eric dispose of a body without making a mess of it again? And what should mum Maggie (Julia Deakin) make for tea? When Bill suspects there's a rat in his criminal operation, he decides it's time to clean house and recrimination, betrayal, murder and a spot of redecorating are quick to follow. But as Bill and his family soon discover, you're only as good as the people you know...

The Illusionist is one of a dying breed of stage entertainer whose thunder is being stolen by emerging rock stars. Forced to accept increasingly obscure assignments in fringe theatre, garden parties and bars he meets a young fan who changes his life forever.

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Shot in the summer of 1975 as General Franco lay dying, Saura's masterpiece takes its title from a sinister Spanish proverb: 'Raise ravens and they'll pluck out your eyes'.

A subtle yet unmistakable indictment of the family as a repressive force in Spanish society, 'Cria cuervos' centres on an eight-year-old orphan (the spellbinding Ana Torrent) who believes herself to have poisoned her cold, authoritarian father (Hector Alterio), a high-ranking military man whom she blames for the death of her adored mother (Geraldine Chaplin).

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Maria and Hermann Braun marry in Germany close to the end of World War II but are shortly separated.

Just after being sent to the Russian Front, Hermann is reported missing and, although Maria believes he is still alive, her brother in law, just returned from a POW camp in Russia, confirms his death. Alone, Maria uses her beauty and ambition to prosper in Germany's "economic miracle" of the 1950s. 'The Marriage of Maria Braun' is heartbreaking study of a woman picking herself up from the ruins of her own life, as well as a pointed metaphorical attack on a society determined to forget its past.

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From the creators of 'Cars' and the Incredibles comes a breakthrough comedy with something for everyone. With delightful new characters, experience Paris from an all-new perspective.

In one of Paris' finest restaurants, Remy (voice of Patton Oswalt), a determined young rat, dreams of becoming a renowned French Chef. Torn between his family's wishes and his true calling, Remy and his pal Linguini (voice of Lou Romano) set in motion a hilarious chain of events that turns the City of Lights upside down.