cato's - Rented List

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Set during Ramadan in 1981, 'A Thousand Months' tells the story of Medhi, a seven-year-old boy (Fouad Labied) who lives in the Atlas Mountains. His job is to watch over the chair of the teacher at school - a privileged task (that also prevents it being pinched).

His mother Amina (Nezha Rahil) and grandfather make him believe that his father has gone to work in France, when in fact Medhi's father is in a local prison. The charming, beautifully shot film focuses on Medhi's relationship with the village, his friends and a world of stories that revolve around Medhi and the inanimate but evocative and symbolic chair.

Adapted from the novella by Joseph Roth, the film tells the story of Andreas Kartack (Rutger Hauer), a homeless man living under the bridges of Paris. Lent 200 francs by an anonymous stranger, he is determined to pay back his debt but circumstances - and his alcoholism - forever intervene.

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Bob Lawrence (Leslie Banks), is holidaying in Switzerland with his wife Jill (Edna Best) and daughter Betty (Nova Pilbeam). A Frenchman they have befriended is murdered in front of him, whispering about a planned assassination that will put the British government in jeopardy.

Betty is abducted to ensure Bob's silence until after the assassin (Peter Lorre) has carried out his grim task in the planned setting of the Albert Hall, how can Bob do his patriotic duty but at the same time keep his daughter out of danger? Hitchcock enjoyed this thriller so much he remade it in Hollywood twenty years later. With an excellent cast, superb chase sequences and the terrible drama of an innocent man caught up in circumstances he cannot control, this however remains the superior version.

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Woody Allen's critically-acclaimed comedy is a hilarious game of martial musical chairs, as two New York couples re-examine their marriages...and find themselves wanting more.

Allen stars with Mia Farrow as a long-married couple whose own relationship starts to crumble when their friends, played by Sydney Pollack and Judy David, announce they're separating. They immediately pair up with younger, sexier paramours and enjoy again the pleasures of fresh passion. But smoldering resentments and unexpected jealousies soon rise to the surface, erupting in savage humour and hilariously unpredictable reunions.

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Charles Masson, an advertising executive, is having an affair with Laura, the wife of his best friend, the architect Francois Tellier. When one of their S&M games goes too far, Laura is accidentally strangled.

Even though the police are struggling to solve the murder, Charles finds it difficult to cope with the situation and to live a normal life with his two children and loving wife Helene.

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Rohmer's delightful film explores the highs and lows of a trio of twenty-something love affairs in the French capital.

With a fine cast of exceptional young actors, each story uses as a backdrop a variety of stunningly photographed locations, among them Montpamasse, the Marais and the city's many parks and gardens. This triptych combines all those themes cherished by Rohmer aficionados: seduction, elegant language and love for a city called Paris.

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Set in the mid '50s, Ray's often humorous story of conflicting social values in India's lower-middle class stars Madhabi Mukherjee as housewife Arati Mazumdar.

Finding it difficult to make ends meet on her husband's salary alone, Arati takes up a job as a sales woman and finds that she revels in her new-found freedom. But Arati's independence and burgeoning confidence alarms her traditionalist family and threaten to throw her life into chaos.

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Two years before Jim Jarmusch obtained studio backing for the release of his cult hit Stranger than Paradise, he concocted this independent study of a young man named Allie (Chris Parker) who wanders around Manhattan.

He runs into a few friends and strangers on the street and discusses Charlie Parker. He visits his institutionalized mother. He drops in on his girlfriend. If this seems a little erratic, it is, but Jarmusch has a way of working miracles from such material.

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This dramatisation of John Le Carre's novel proved a landmark in British Television. It received supreme critical acclaim for the screenplay by Arthur Hopcraft, the star Alec Guiness and the camerawork of Tony Pierce-Roberts.

In Alec Guiness's first major TV role he plays George Smiley, a retired agent who is secretly brought into 'the Circus' (the code name for British Secret Intelligence Service) to root out a top-level mole. Gradually piecing together the story, the weary but determined Smiley trawls through the murky waters of Cold War espionage and his own past.

This Is Spinal Tap is Rob Reiner's directorial debut that is often named as one of the funniest films ever made. A fly-on-the-wall look at the comeback tour of the world's loudest heavy metal band.

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In 1887, an earthquake decimates the island of Goto. Cut off from the rest of the world, the governor of Goto rules his subjects with an iron fist. Glossia (Ligia Branice), his beautiful wife, plots to escape the island with a handsome young officer, Gono (Jean-Pierre Andréani).

But Grozo, a petty criminal, has other ideas. While feeding the governor's dogs, polishing the governess's boots and trapping flies which blight the island, Grozo dreams of possessing Glossia for himself...

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William Hundert, a retired 'old-school' classics teacher is passionate about his subject. Moreover, he strongly believes in moulding his students by using principles.

However, his methods are put to the test by a new student, Sedgewick Bell who shakes Hundert's controlled world and threatens to undermine all that he stands for. Hundert's challenge is to change this young man but it's not long before the teacher's noble efforts to mold the student's character are having a more profound effect on his own. Hundert never forgets Sedgewick Bell or their battle. Twenty five years later, Sedgewick Bell returns for a school reunion...

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This sparkling comedy was Oscar nominated for its script in which Polly Parrish (Ginger Rogers) a clerk at Merlin's Department Store, is mistakenly presumed to be the mother of a young child who is not looked after by the hardworking mother.

Outraged at Polly's unmotherly conduct, David Merlin (David Niven) becomes determined to keep the single woman and 'her' baby together in this wonderful comedy of errors. Ginger Rogers, David Niven and Charles Coburn achieve intense comic chemistry under the direction of Garson Kanin with hardly a dull moment in this stylish and breezy 'department store' romance in which Ginger gives as good as she gets!

A wine-tasting road trip through California's Central Coast takes an unexpected detour as Miles (Paul Giamatti) and Jack (Thomas Haden Church), two 30 somethings mature along the way. The comically mismatched pair soon find themselves drowning in wine, women... and laughter!

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Petty crook Nick Bianco (Victor Mature) is arrested at the scene of a robbery and takes the rap without squealing. When he learns that his accomplice has betrayed him, he decides to go against the criminal code and become an informant.

But when his testimony against psychopathic killer Tommy Udo (Richard Widmark) puts his family in danger, Nick is forced to take matters into his own hands.