beth's - Favourites List

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This stylish black-comedy thriller stars Ralph Fiennes as Harry, a vicious London crime-boss, who send his two hit-men to the picturesque Belgian City of Bruges - to lay low and wait for orders.

While Ken (Brendan Gleeson) is happy just to sight see (!), his fast-talking partner, Ray (Colin Farrell) sets out for an adventure. Before long, Ray is experiencing hilariously surreal encounters with tourists, skinheads, dwarves and prostitutes! When, at last, the call comes from Harry, the fun turns to a life-and-death struggle of darkly comic proportions.

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They can break any code and get inside any system. They are often still in their teens and already under surveillance by the authorities. They are the hackers. Zero Cool, real name Dade Murphy, is a legend among his peers.

In 1988 he single-handedly crashed 1,507 computers on Wall Street and was forbidden by law to touch another keyboard until his 18th birthday. It's been seven years without a byte, and he's hungry. Kate Libby, handle Acid Burns, has a souped up lap-top that can do 0 to 60 on the infobahn in a nanosecond. When the two collide, the battle of the sexes goes into hard drive. But all bets are off when master hacker The Plague frames Dade, Kate and their friends in a diabolical industrial conspiracy. Now they are the only ones who can prevent a catastrophe, unlike any the world has ever seen.

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Based on the true life best seller 'Wiseguy' by Nicolas Pileggi and backed by a dynamic pop/rock oldies soundtrack, critics and filmgoers alike declared 'GoodFellas' great.

It was named the best film of the '90s by the New York, Los Angeles and National Society of film critics, and it earned 6 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director.

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Jerry (William H. Macy), a small-town Minnesota car salesman is bursting at the seams with debt... but he's got a plan. He's going to hire two thugs (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife in a scheme to collect a hefty ransom from his wealthy father-in-law.

It's going to be a snap and nobody's going to get hurt... until people start dying. Enter Police Chief Marge (Frances McDormand), a coffee-drinking, parka-wearing - and extremely pregnant -investigator who'll stop at nothing to get her man. And if you think her small-time investigative skills will give the crooks a run for their ransom... you betcha!

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Hollywood's hottest director Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs) assembles an all-star cast for a skillfully woven tale of small-time gangster life in a most ambitious and provocative film, 'Pulp Fiction'.

Bruce Willis (Die Hard) and Oscar Nominees John Travolta (Best Actor) and Samuel L Jackson (Best Supporting Actor) deliver career performances as petty thugs in LA's criminal underworld - where gritty confrontations, fast talk and perverse humour are all part of the daily grind. Nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award 1995, this boldly inventive and expertly orchestrated crime sage is hailed by critics as a landmark achievement in modern filmmaking!

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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.

'Frank' is the hilarious, offbeat comedy about a young wannabe musician, Jon (Domhnall Gleeson), who finds himself out of his depth when he joins an avant-garde pop band led by Frank (Michael Fassbender), a mysterious musical genius who hides himself inside a large fake head, and the terrifying Clara (Maggie Gyllenhaal).

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After a minor incident in her village, nine-year-old Shula is exiled to a travelling witch camp where she is told that if she tries to escape she will be transformed into a goat.

As she navigates through her new life with her fellow witches and a government official who exploits her innocence for his own gain, she must decide whether to accept her fate or risk the consequences of seeking freedom.

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It's a rare person who would give up fame and fortune to toil in obscurity for someone else's creative vision. Yet, that's exactly what Leon Vitali did after his acclaimed performance as Lord Bullingdon in Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon.

The young actor surrendered his thriving career to become Kubrick's loyal right-hand man. For more than two decades, Leon played a crucial role behind-the-scenes helping Kubrick make and maintain his legendary body of work. The complex, interdependent relationship between Leon and Kubrick was founded on devotion, sacrifice and the grueling, joyful reality of the creative process. By entering their unique world we come to understand how the mundane gives rise to the magnificent as timeless cinema is brought to life at its most practical and profound level.

Samson and Delilah's world is small - an isolated community in the Central Australian desert. When tragedy strikes they turn their backs on home and embark on a journey of survival. Lost, unwanted and alone they discover that life isn't always fair, but love never judges.

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With a career spanning over thirty years, Louis Malle was one of the giants of French cinema.

After he burst onto the scene as one of the pioneers of the French New Wave with Lift To The Scaffold, Malle quickly achieved a reputation as a great director who was unafraid to embrace a wide array of subjects - many famously controversial. Working both in Hollywood and his native France, Malle imprinted his films with subtlety, intelligence and a sharp eye for the mores of human behaviour that set him apart from his contemporaries. This collection brings together classics from Malle's later career. Au Revoir Les Enfants, earning Malle a BAFTA for Best Director, and Lucien Lacombe are two very different tales about troubled youth set during the Second World War. Milou en Mai is a chamber comedy set against the backdrop of the 1968 Parisian uprisings and Le Souffle Au Coeur a taboo-breaking coming-of-age satire. Together with the dreamlike Black Moon, these films are proof that age did not dim Malle's humanism or commitment to experimentation.

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On a hot Brooklyn afternoon, two optimistic losers set out to rob a bank. Sonny (Al Pacino) is the mastermind, Sal (John Cazale) is the follower, and disaster is the result. Because the cops, crowds, TV cameras and even the pizza man have arrived. The "well-planned" heist is now a circus.

Based on a true incident, this thriller earned six Academy Award nominations.

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The acclaimed new film tells the startlingly original and brutally honest story of 15 year-old Mia, brilliantly played by winner Katie Jarvis.

A feisty and fiercely independent outsider, Mia is ostracised from her friends and lives uneasily with her volatile mother (Kierston Wareing) in a tough Essex estate from which she longs to escape. But the unexpected arrival of her mother's handsome and charismatic new boyfriend (Michael Fassbender) sparks a catalogue of events that threaten to turn Mia's world upside down.

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Even more compelling today than when it was first released, Sidney Lumet's 'Network' is a wickedly funny, spot - on indictment of the TV news media.

Winner of four Academy Awards including Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress and Best Screenplay (Paddy Chayefsky), this searing satire stars Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch and Robert Duvall. When longtime news anchor Howard Beale (Finch) is fired, he suffers a violent, on - air breakdown. Ironically, his angry rantings boost his sagging ratings - much to the surprise and delight of the UBS brass. Subsequently rehired and reinvented as the "mad prophet of the airwaves", he soon becomes a pawn of ruthless programming executives who milk his madness for every share point it's worth. Of course, when the "prophet" ceases to be profitable, something has to be done about Beale, preferably on camera, before a live studio audience...

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The incredible true story of legendary dancer Rudolf Nureyev (Oleg Ivenko) is brought vividly to life by Academy Awardy-nominee Ralph Fiennes and BAFTA-winning screenwriter David Hare.

From Nureyev's poverty-stricken childhood in the Soviet city of Ufa, to his blossoming as a student dancer in Leningrad, to his nail-biting escape from the KGB and defection to the West at the height of the Cold War, The White Crow is a gripping, revelatory look at a unique artist who transformed the world of ballet forever.