ectonplasm's - Rented List

Jeff Bridges stars as Bad Blake, a boozy, broken-down singer who reaches for salvation with the help of Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a journalist who discovers the real man behind the music. But will Bad's hard-livin' ways and crazy heart cost him his last chance at a comeback?

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Noel Coward's sensitive portrayal of what happens when two happily married strangers, played by Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson, meet and their acquaintance deepens into affection and eventually into love.

It is the story of two people, thrown together by the chance meeting of the title, helpless in the face of their emotions but redeemed by their moral courage. Over the years few films have equalled the compassion and the realism of Brief Encounter.

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Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, an ageing silent film queen, and William Holden as the struggling writer who is held in thrall by her madness, created two of the screen's most memorable characters in Sunset Boulevard.

Winner of three Academy Awards, director Billy Wilder's orchestration of the bizarre tale is a true cinematic classic. From the unforgettable opening sequence through the inevitable unfolding of tragic destiny, the film is the definitive statement on the dark and desperate side of Hollywood. Erich von Stroheim as Desmond's discoverer, ex-husband and butler, and Nancy Olson as the bright spot in unrelenting ominousness, are equally celebrated for their masterful performances.

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In 1929, F. W.

Mufnau, one of the greatest of all film directors, invited leading documentarist Robert Flaherty to collaborate on a film to be shot on location in Tahiti, a Polynesian idyll in which Murnau imagined a cast of island actors would provide a new form of authentic drama and offer rare insight into their "primitive" culture. The result of their collaboration was Tabu, a film that depicts the details of indigenous island life to tell a mythical tale that is rich in the universal themes of desire and loss. Subtitled "A Story of the South Seas", Tabu concerns a Tahitian fisherman and his love for a young woman whose body has been consecrated to the gods, rendering her tabu as far as mortal men are concerned. The lovers flee their island and its restrictive traditions, but will their love prevail in the "civilised" world?

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Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman) gains notoriety when her father, a Nazi spy is convinced of treason against the US following World War II. At a party thrown soon after, Alice meets a handsome stranger named Devlin (Cary Grant) who reveals after a clash of wits and temperament that he is a U.S.

Intelligence Agent. Because she has fallen in love with the dashing FBI Agent, Alicia is persuaded into helping Devlin trap and catch Nazi mastermind Alex Sebastian. The more she gets involved in her work, the more at risk she becomes...

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When Uncle Charlie comes to visit his relatives in the sleepy town of Santa Rosa, the foundation is laid for one of his most engaging and suspenseful excursions.

Joseph Cotten stars as the charming Uncle Charlie, a beguiling killer who travels from Philadelphia to California just one step ahead of the law. But soon his unknowing niece and namesake, "Young Charlie" (Teresa Wright), begins to suspect her uncle of being the Merry Widow murderer, and a deadly game of cat-and-mouse begins. As his niece draws closer to the truth, the psychopathic killer has no choice but to plot the death of his favourite relative in one of Hitchcock's most riveting psychological thrillers.

The film is set against the impressive backdrop of Monument Valley in Utah and tells the story of a mixed group of travellers who are making their way across the country to Arizona. They are endangered by an Indian War Party and this, along with their personal histories, results in difficulties.

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Rex Harrison plays novelist Charles Condomine who is plagued by the ghost of his sexy first wife Elvira (Kay Hammond). Second wife Ruth (Constance Cummings) doesn't believe him and brings in eccentric medium madam Arcati (A hilarious performance by Margaret Rutherford) to get proof.

Lean and Coward's third screen collaboration (after 'In Which We Serve' and 'This Happy Breed' and Before 'Brief Encounter') is a sophisticated and witty delight.

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Set in Berlin, 1945, this powerful and provocative war drama retells the final days of the Second World War as recorded in the diaries of Adolf Hitler's private secretary, Traudl Junge, while barricaded with Hitler and his closest confidants in the Fuhrer's secret bunker.

Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel with an astonishing performance by Bruno Ganz as history's most notorious figure, this unprecedented and controversial insider's perspective is a gripping insight into the madness and desperation of Hitler in the final hours of the war as the Russian Army closes a ring around Berlin.

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The Birling family are rich, pampered and complacent. It is 1912, and the shadow of the impending war has yet to fall across their lives.

As they sit down to dinner one night, celebrating the engagement of the eldest child, Sheila (Eileen Moore), to prosperous business man Gerald (Brian Worth), a knock at the door announces the arrival of a visitor who will change their lives forever.

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Inspired by the extraordinary true story of a brilliant young master of deception and the FBI agent hot on his trail, 'Catch Me If You Can' stars Oscar nominee Leonardo DiCaprio and two-time Academy Award winner Tom Hanks in one of the year's most acclaimed hits! From Three-time Oscar winning

director Steven Spielberg, 'Catch Me If You Can' follows Frank W. Abagnale Jr, as he successfully passes himself off as a pilot, a lawyer and a doctor - all before his 21st birthday!

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Screwball sparks fly when Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn let loose in one of the fastest and funniest films ever made - a high-wire act of invention that took American screen comedy to new heights of absurdity.

Hoping to procure a million-dollar endowment from a wealthy society j matron for his museum, a hapless paleontologist (Grant) finds himself entangled with a dizzy heiress (Hepburn) as the manic misadventures pile up - a missing dinosaur bone, a leopard on the loose, and plenty of gender-bending mayhem among them. Bringing Up Baby's sophisticated dialogue, spontaneous performances, and giddy innuendo come together in a whirlwind of comic chaos captured with lightning-in-a-bottle brio by director Howard Hawks.

Armed with only one word - Tenet - and fighting for the survival of the entire world, the Protagonist journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time.

An ambitious and successful drama that takes on the life and beliefs of Japan's most celebrated author, Yukio Mishima. Mishima was passionate about merging life and art, which eventually resulted in his ritualistic suicide in 1970, a moment when he felt he could reconcile the two polarities.

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Philandering concert pianist Stefan arrives home to find a letter which begins 'by the time you read this I may be dead'. So unfolds the story of Lisa, one of many woman with whom he had shared a brief encounter over the years and swiftly forgotten.

Her life has been spent loving him unfalteringly and now he would learn the truth about his past.