ectonplasm's - Rented List

Show moreShow less

Rick (Christian Bale) is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles, while successful in his career, his life feels empty. Haunted and confused, he finds temporary solace in the decadent Hollywood excess that defines his existence.

Women provide a distraction to his daily pain, and every encounter brings him closer to finding his place in the world.

Show moreShow less

From the mind of the legendary cult filmmaker, Alejandro Jodorowsky, comes an epic imaginary autobiography depicting both the wonders and the hardships of existing in the substance we all call reality.

True to form, Jodorowsky takes us on a strange, mystic, fantastic and deeply surreal journey that no one else could, except this time the subject is his own early life, being raised by his strict, Stalin-adoring father who has plans to assassinate the right-wing Chilean president.

Show moreShow less

The film is centred on Neil (Ben Affleck), a man who is torn between two loves: Marina (Olga Kurylenko), the European woman who comes to the United States to be with him, and Jane (Rachel McAdams), the old flame he reconnects with from his hometown.

Neil's doubts about his life and loves are reflected in the crisis of faith experienced by Father Quintana (Javier Bardem).

Show moreShow less

In the high-stakes game of big-wall climbing, the Shark's Fin on Mount Meru may be the ultimate prize. It's a deadly route that has seen more failed attempts by elite climbing teams over the past 30 Years than any other ascent in the Himalayas.

When Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk attempted the 21,000ft climb they suffered set back after set back including dwindling supplies, 10 feet snow storms and sub-zero temperatures. Beaten back even when the summit is in sight, heartbroken and totally defeated, Anker, Chin and Ozturk face up to some extraordinary challenges that makes Meru a unique story of friendship, sacrifice, hope and obsession.

Show moreShow less

James Stewart and Doris Day play Ben and Jo McKenna, innocent Americans vacationing in Morocco with their son, Hank. After a French spy dies in Ben's arms in the Marrakech market, the couple discovers their son has been kidnapped and taken to England.

Not knowing who they can trust, the McKennas are caught up in a nightmare of international espionage, assassinations and terror. Soon, all of their lives hang in the balance as they draw closer to the truth and a chilling climatic moment in London's famous Royal Albert Hall.

Show moreShow less

In this true-life cold war spy thriller, unossuming British businessman Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch) becomes entangled in one of the greatest international conflicts in history.

Recruited by MI6 and a CIA operative (Rachel Brosnahan), Wynne forms a covert partnership with Soviet officer Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze), and both men risk everything in a danger-fraught race against time to provide the intelligence needed to prevent nuclear confrontation and end the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Show moreShow less

Montag (Oskar Werner), a regimented fireman in charge of burning the forbidden books, meets a revolutionary school teacher (Julie Christie) who dares to read.

Suddenly, he finds himself a hunted fugitive, forced to choose not only between his rebellious mistress and his pleasure-seeking conformist wife (also played by Julie Christie), but between personal safety and intellectual freedom.

Show moreShow less

Anthony Hopkins plays the eponymous role of a mischievious and highly independent man who, as he ages, refuses all assistance from his daughter Anne (Olivia Colman). Yet, such help has become essential following Anne's decision to move to Paris with her partner.

As Anne's father tries to make sense of his changing circumstances, he begins to doubt his loved ones, his own mind and even the fabric of his reality.

Show moreShow less

James Mason delivers a strong performance in the title role of this sympathetic study of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. In the early 40s, Rommel's juggernaut Afrika Korps dominated North Africa.

But as the tide turned and he came to the painful realisation that his Fuhrer, to whom he had sworn allegiance, was destroying Germany, his ingrained sense of duty pushed him into a conspiracy against Hitler. Co-starring Jessica Tandy as Rommel's wife and Cedric Hardwickle as another anti-Hitler conspirator, The Desert Fox is an intimate look at one of the most respected military tacticians of modern times, openly admired by both those who followed him into combat and those who faced him on the field of battle.

Show moreShow less

"Tina" is the ultimate celebration of a global superstar and an intimate portrait of a woman who overcame extreme adversity to define her career, her identity and her legacy on her own terms.

From her early career as the queen of R and B to her record-breaking sell-out arena tours of the 1980's, Tina Turner draws back the curtain to invite us into her private world in a way she has never done before. Revealing her inner-most struggles, and sharing some of her most personal moments, 'Tina' is the defining and inspirational record of one of the greatest survivors in modern music.

Show moreShow less

On the Greek isle of Crete, Basil (Alan Bates), a shy, inhibited writer from England is befriended by Zorba (Anthony Quinn), a boisterous, gregarious peasant with an astonishing love for life.

When Zorba agrees to work at Basil's abandoned mine, it is the beginning of a lesson for the young man as he gradually moves from an observer of the world to a participant.

Show moreShow less

Following the closure of a gypsum mine in the Nevada town she calls home, Fern (Frances McDormand) packs her van and sets off on the road in this "exquisite film" (Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal).

Exploring an unconventional life as a modern-day nomad, Fern discovers a resilience and resourcefulness unlike any she's known before long the way, she meets other nomads who become mentors in the vast landscape of the American West.

In modern-day London, a sex criminal known as 'The Necktie Murderer' has the police on alert, and in typical Hitchcok fashion, the trail is leading to an innocent man, who must know now elude the law and prove his innocence by finding the real murderer.

Show moreShow less

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.

Show moreShow less

Is there love after death? Acerbic everyman Albert Brooks finds a perfect balance between satirical bite and romantic comedy charm as the writer, director, and star of this wonderfully warm and imaginative existential fantasy.

After he dies suddenly, the hapless advertising executive Daniel Miller (Brooks) finds himself in Judgment City, a gleaming way station where the newly deceased must prove they lived a life of sufficient courage to advance in their journey through the universe. As the self-doubting Daniel struggles to make his case, a budding relationship with the uninhibited Julia (Meryl Streep) offers him a chance to finally feel alive. Buoyed by a pitch-perfect supporting cast that includes Rip Torn, Lee Grant, and Buck Henry, 'Defending Your Life' is a rare feat of personal, philosophical filmmaking that happens to also be divinely entertaining.