ectonplasm's - Rented List

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Hailed as one of the best comedies ever made and nominated for 5 Academy Awards including Best Picture, the story focuses on army surgeons who develop a lunatic life-style in order to handle every day horrors encountered in Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean war.

Though highly skilled and deeply dedicated, this irreverent mob of madcaps is equally adept at making a shambles of army bureaucracy.

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In the vastness of the living world, we share our planet with billions of farm animals. However, in industrialized societies we are conditioned to ignore the sentience of these animals, often regarded as a passive resource.

In 'Gunda', master filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky offers a radically recalibrated moral universe, where encounters with a mother sow (the eponymous Gunda), two ingenious cows, and a scene-stealing, one-legged chicken, remind us of the inherent value of life for all beings. By returning a pig's gaze, listening to a cow's gentle lowing, or observing a chicken find its wings, Kossakovsky voids any pretension that we are unique in our capacity for emotion, consciousness or will. Immersed in these animals' lives, lived to the full in joy and pain, it becomes inescapable that humankind must swiftly undertake the major changes necessary to end mass exploitation of our fellow creatures. 'Gunda' is Kossakovsky's deeply personal attempt to renew our vision of life and meditate on the mystery of all animal consciousness, including our own.

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The Ambassador of the small South American country of Miranda is trafficking in drugs with some French bourgeois friends of his. But every time they want to have dinner together, their plans are put off due to unexpected events.

In their quest of a lavish feast, the dividing-line between reality and dreams becomes unclear for each guest, leading to complete and utter ridicule.

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Planned by the Soviet Central Committee to coincide with the celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the unsuccessful 1905 Russian Revolution, this film was developed by the 27 year-old Sergei Eisenstein from less than one page of script from a planned eight-part epic that was intended to

chronicle a large number of revolutionary actions. Starting with the Potemkin's crew's refusal to eat maggot-infested meat, the mutiny develops and their leader Vakulinchuk is shot by a senior officer. The officers are overthrown and when the Potemkin docks at Odessa, crowds appear from all directions to take up the cause of the dead sailor and open rebellion ensues. What became the most celebrated sequence in world cinema history follows as the Czarist soldiers fire on the crowds thronging down the Odessa steps; the broad newsreel-like sequences being inter-cut with close-ups of harrowing details. Returning to sea, the Potemkin's crew prepares the guns for action as the ship, flying the flag of freedom, steams to confront the squadron. When they finally meet their worst fears are allayed as, with relief coupled with joy, they are universally acclaimed. This film, which was destined to become such an influential landmark in cinematographic history, opened in Moscow in January 1926. It ran for only four weeks.

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Composer Peter Tchaikovsky (Richard Chamberlain) abandons his intimate friend, Count Chiluvsky (Christopher Gable), when Madame Von Meck (Izabella Telezynska) sponsors him after she hears him perform his First Piano Concerto.

A tortured man, unhappy except in his music, Tchaikovsky marries Nina Milukova (Glenda Jackson), a passionate, neurotic girl. When he is unable to fulfill the demands of matrimony, his tensions become so great that he attempts suicide and has a nervous breakdown. Nina's world also falls apart, and she deteriorates into madness and ends in an asylum. Tchaikovsky recuperates at a country estate of Madame Von Meck. The two correspond, but never meet. At a great party, which she gives in his honor Count Chiluvsky appears, and when Tchaikovsky rebuffs him, he tells Madame Von Meck the truth about her protege. Madame Von Meck immediately servers all connections with the composer. Tchaikovsky is hurt, but continues to compose and conduct throughout the world. World fame does not ameliorate his unhappy state. At the age of 53, after composing his "requiem," his Pathetique Symphony, he deliberately drinks water contaminated with cholera germs. A few days later he is dead. Decades later, his music still lives.

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These astonishing documentaries, by groundbreaking director Ken Russell (Valentino, The Devils), were originally broadcast in the BBC TV arts documentary strands Monitor and Omnibus.

'Elgar' (1962), Russell's tribute to the music he loved, is remarkable for its sensitive portrayal of the rise of a young musician from an underprivileged background to international fame. 'The Debussy Film' (1965), co-written by Melvyn Bragg, is a truly experimental work that culminates in a sublimely ethereal finale. Perhaps the finest of Russell's 1960s biographical BBC productions, 'Song of Summer' (1968) is an immensely moving story of sacrifice, idealism and musical genius which charts the final five years in the life of Frederick Delius.

Return to a world of two realities: everyday life...and what lies behind it. To truly know himself, Neo (Keanu Reeves) must follow the white rabbit once again into the Matrix. Of course, Neo already knows what he has to do. What he doesn't know is that the Matrix is more dangerous than ever. Deja vu.

From director-writer-producer Todd Field comes Tar, starring Cate Blanchett as the iconic musician, Lydia Tar. The film examines the changing nature of power, its impact and durability in our modern world.

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Adapted from the classic novel by Charles Dickens, 'The Personal History of David Copperfield' brings to life one of the author's most cherished characters.

From birth to infancy, from adolescence to adulthood, the good-hearted David Copperfield (Dev Patel) is surrounded by kindness, wickedness, poverty and wealth, as he meets an array of remarkable characters in Victorian England. As David sets out to be a writer, in his quest for family, friendship, romance and status, the story of his life is the most seductive tale of all.

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Rural England, 1865. Katherine (Florence Pugh) is stifled by her loveless marriage to a bitter man twice her age, and his cold unforgiving family.

When she embarks on a passionate affair with a young worker on her husband's estate, a force is unleashed inside her so powerful that she will stop at nothing to get what she wants.

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Inspired by Steven Spielberg's own childhood, rediscover the magic of movies in 'The Fabelmans', a coming-of-age story about a young man uncovering a shattering family secret and the power of film and imagination to help us see the truth about ourselves and each other.

With a star-studded cast featuring Michelle Williams, Paul Daho, Seth Rogen, Gabriel LaBelle and Judd Hirsch, 'The Fabelmans' tells a timeless tale of heartbreak, healing, and hope for the dreamer inside all of us.

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Crusading newspaper publisher Malt Drayton's (Spencer Tracy) liberal principles are put to the test when his daughter, Joey (Katharine Houghton), announces her engagement to John Prentice (Sidney Poitier), an internationally renowned African- American physician.

While Matt's wife Christina (Katharine Hepburn) readily accepts Joey's decision, Matt intends to withhold his consent, forgetting that when it comes to matters of the heart, true love is colorblind.

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Charlie Croker (Michael Caine) is out of jail and on the make with an ingenious plan for the heist of the century. Aided and abetted by top criminal mastermind Mr.

Bridger (Noël Coward), Charlie sets off with an ace team of villains and three very special minis to lift $4,000,000 from under the noses of the Turin Polizei. The trouble is, with the cops and the Mafia on his tail, Charlie finds that grabbing the money is kid's stuff compared to getting away with it...

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Rising up out of the swirling mists of Dartmoor, Baskerville Hall stands tall and gloomy. Its occupant, Charles Baskerville, has been found dead in mysterious circumstances.

Could Sir Charles have been the victim of the so-called "Baskerville Curse", which tells of a deadly beast that stalks the surrounding countryside? Unperturbed by the legend, next-in-line Sir Henry Baskerville (a rare leading man performance from Lee) sets out to Dartmoor to assume inheritance of the family estate, under the auspices of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes and right-hand man Dr. Watson (Andre Morell).

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It's the living end, a fancy-dress ball for blood fiends in Count Von Krolock's (Ferdy Mayne)'s Transylvanian castle. Surely no mortal would be foolish enough to infiltrate this hemogobbling horror of a soiree.

But partygoers notice something in the ballroom mirrors: the reflections of humans - vampire killers - dancing among them. Director Roman Polanski spoofs vampire movies with this droll balancing act of shocks and laughs. He also portrays Alfred, mousy apprentice to a doddering researcher of vampirism (Jack MacGowran)...and the lovestruck defender of gorgeous Sarah (Sharon Tate) when the Count (Ferdy Mayne) tries to make her the ghoul of his dreams. It's all fang-tastic fun!