dmb's - Rented List
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'The Yards' is a tense thriller set in the vast New York City subway yards. After serving time in prison for taking the fall for a group of friends, Leo Handler just wants to get his life back on track. So he goes to the one place he thinks he'll be safe: home. But in the yards, where his uncle now pulls the strings, safe is not how they do business. Unwittingly he's drawn into a world of sabotage, high stakes payoffs and murder. And the secret he discovers will make him the target of the most ruthless family in the city: his own. - Director:
- James Gray
- Cast:
- Mark Wahlberg, Joaquin Phoenix, Charlize Theron
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Together (2000)Tillsammans
1975, Sweden. Tired of her abusive husband, Elisabeth (Lisa Lindgren) packs her bags and moves with her children to her brother's commune, 'Together'. As a fairly ordinary housewife from the suburbs, the commune's freewheeling attitudes towards sex and politics will open Elisabeth's eyes and change her family's life forever. 'Together' is a film about people trying to live together. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. It's about love and divorce and happiness and unhappiness and children and adults and ABBA and sex and football. - Director:
- Lukas Moodysson
- Cast:
- Lisa Lindgren, Michael Nyqvist, Emma Samuelsson
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A Heart in Winter (1992)Un Coeur En Hiver
Stephane and Maxime run a renowned violin making and repair business. One day Maxime introduces his partner to Camille, the beautiful violinist he has being seeing. Camille is attracted to the enigmatic, introverted Stephane who it seems may share her feelings but is incapable of expressing emotion. Convinced that she can find love beyond his cold exterior, her attraction turns to obsession and culminates in a shattering climax - Director:
- Claude Sautet
- Cast:
- Daniel Auteuil, Emmanuelle Béart, André Dussollier
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Sammy Prescott (Laura Linney / Whitney Vance) is a single mother who has lived all her life in Scottsville, New York. Now she's raising her 8-year-old son there, enjoying the peace of the family home and security of her job at the bank, blotting out any memories of Rudy's father. But the illusion of perfection is shattered when her charmingly self-destructive brother Terry (Mark Ruffalo) comes home for a visit. - Director:
- Kenneth Lonergan
- Cast:
- Laura Linney, Matthew Broderick, Mark Ruffalo
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The Son (2002)Le Fils
In their first film since the Palme d'Or winning 'Rosetta', brothers Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne present a subtle and disquieting study of a man whose life has been devastated by tragedy. Olivier Gourmet won the Best Actor Award at Cannes for his masterfully understated portrayal of a carpenter who teaches teenagers at a rehabilitation school. He is disturbed by the arrival of a new student, Francis (Morgan Marinne), and he struggles to maintain a professional distance in the boy's presence. An ambiguous relationship develops between the two until the eventual revelation of a terrible secret from the past that binds them together. Utilising their trademark pared-down visual aesthetic to great effect, the Dardennes have crafted a riveting, strikingly powerful film of profound emotional and moral complexity. - Director:
- Jean-Pierre Dardenne
- Cast:
- Olivier Gourmet, Morgan Marinne, Isabella Soupart
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Chungking Express (1994)Chung Hing sam lam
'Chungking Express', cult filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai's hugely influential international breakthrough, is a supremely stylish combination of love story and thriller, set in and around Hong Kong's infamous Chungking Mansions, a vast complex of shabby hostels, bars and clubs. The film tells the stories of two lovelorn cops and the women with whom they become involved: a mysterious drug dealer dressed in a blonde wig and sunglasses, and an impulsive young dreamer. - Director:
- Kar-Wai Wong
- Cast:
- Brigitte Lin, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Tony Leung Chiu Wai
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Fireworks (1997)Hana-Bi
Former Police officer Nishi (Takeshi Kitano) feels responsible for the shattered lives of his loved ones. His partner Horibe (Ren Ôsugi) has been crippled in a disastrous stakeout, a colleague is shot dead by the same villain, and his own wife has a terminal illness. In debt to a yakuza loanshark, Nishi conceives a bank robbery to provide for his partner, help the dead cop's widow, and take one last holiday throughout Japan with his wife and share a final taste of happiness... - Director:
- Takeshi Kitano
- Cast:
- Takeshi Kitano, Kayoko Kishimoto, Ren Ôsugi
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The Man on the Train (2002)L'homme du train
A mysterious stranger, Milan steps off a train in a place he has never been to before. Looking for a pharmacy to buy some aspirin for a raging headache, he comes across a retired school teacher, Manesquier. The two men are complete opposites. Or at least they seem to be. But each man realises that what he really always wanted is the life of the other man. This 'emotional relationship between two heterosexual men is such a difficult and unusual thing to dramatise - but Leconte brings it off with delicacy and persuasive charm,' write The Guardian. - Director:
- Patrice Leconte
- Cast:
- Jean Rochefort, Johnny Hallyday, Jean-François Stévenin
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The Man Without a Past (2002)Mies vailla menneisyyttä
Markku Peltola plays 'M', who arrives in Helsinki only to be viciously set upon by thugs and pronounced dead by medics. By some miracle he revives but with no memory of his past or his identity. Rebuilding his life from scratch, 'M' acquires a melancholy dog (a recurring Kaurismaki motif) named Hannibal and falls in love with a Salvation Army soup kitchen volunteer (Kati Outinen). But the past inevitably cataches up with him, forcing him to confront his future. - Director:
- Aki Kaurismäki
- Cast:
- Kati Outinen, Annikki Tähti, Markku Peltola
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One of the most controversial issues in America today - drugs - forms the centre of Drugstore Cowboy, a powerful story of a Junkie's life of crime and redemption in the 1970s. Despite today's outcry against the dangers of drugs, the world of the dope addict remains shrouded in mystery. A painstakingly authentic depiction of the life of drug addicts, Drugstore Cowboy tells the shattering tale of the destructive force of narcotics and reveals an inspiring example of human resilience, hope and survival against the odds. - Director:
- Gus Van Sant
- Cast:
- Matt Dillon, Kelly Lynch, James Le Gros
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Lilya 4-Ever (2002)Lilja 4-ever
The film is a touching and tender insight into the life of Lilya (Oksana Akinshin) who lives in a poor suburb somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Lilya's mother has emigrated to the States and she is waiting to be sent for. After a while it becomes clear that she has been abandoned. Left alone and broke Lilya strikes up a friendship with local 11 year old boy, Colodya (Artion Bogucharskij), himself an outcast. Through their similar circumstances they fantasise of a life elsewhere. Moodysson's award winning script is observant of the hopes and dreams of Lilya and Volodya but is realistic about the world they live in. It is this realist approach that has drawn comparisons between Moodysson and some of the classic realist directors including Truffaut, Bresson and Ken Loach. - Director:
- Lukas Moodysson
- Cast:
- Oksana Akinshina, Artyom Bogucharskiy, Pavel Ponomaryov
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In a sleepy little mill town in North Carolina, Paul is the town Romeo. But when his best friend's sister returns home from boarding school, he finds himself falling for her innocent charm. In spite of her lack of experience and the violent protests of her brother, the two find themselves in a sweet, dreamy and all-consuming love... - Director:
- David Gordon Green
- Cast:
- Zooey Deschanel, Paul Schneider, Patricia Clarkson
- Formats:
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Dan Mahowny (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an unassuming bank manager in Toronto lives modestly, dives a used car, and is dating one of the bank's clerks, a sweet but mousy girl named Belinda (Minnie Driver). Unbeknown to all around him, Mahowny leads a secret life as a compulsive gambler, and is embezzling millions of dollars from his employers to feed his ever-increasing gambling obsession. But how long can Mahowny continue living for the thrill of the bet before getting caught? - Director:
- Richard Kwietniowski
- Cast:
- Philip Seymour Hoffman, Minnie Driver, John Hurt
- Formats:
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Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) and his wife, Etheline (Angelica Huston), had three children - Chas, Margot, and Richie - and then they separated. Chas (Ben Stiller) started buying real estate in his early teens and seemed to have an almost preternatural understanding of international finance. Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow) was a playwright and received a Braverman Grant of $50,000 in the ninth grade. Richie (Luke Wilson) was a junior champion tennis player and won the U.S. Nationals three years in a row. Virtually all memory of the brilliance of the young Tenenbaums was subsequently erased by two decades of betrayal., failure, and disaster. - Director:
- Wes Anderson
- Cast:
- Gene Hackman, Wes Anderson, Gwyneth Paltrow
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Harry, He's Here to Help (1999)Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien
When Michel (Laurent Lucas) bumps into old school acquaintance Harry (Sergi Lopez) en route to his summer holiday with his young family, he thinks nothing of it. But when Harry buys Michel a brand new jeep to replace his broken down car and invites himself to the family's remote holiday home, Michel begins to suspect that all is not as it should be. Before long, he realises that Harry is determined to solve all of Michel's problems, without letting anything get in the way... - Director:
- Dominik Moll
- Cast:
- Laurent Lucas, Sergi López, Mathilde Seigner
- Formats:
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