fmj's - Rented List

Judy Garland is singer Esther Blodgett, an undeniable talent on the rise. She catches the eye of Norman Maine (James Mason), an alcoholic actor in career decline. Their intense love transforms them both. Only one will survive Hollywood's slings and arrows.

Plucky Penny Hale (Shirley Temple) is excited to return from boarding school to live with her widower dad (Charles Farrell), but when she learns that he's lost his real estate project, and they now live in a basement, she sets out to win over a crotchety real estate developer - whom she mistakenly believes is "Uncle Sam."

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Adventure and romance come to Tommy Tomkins (Tommy Steele), a young British seaman, when he is stranded in Spain during the Feria, a local festival. He runs into every conceivable misadventure on his travels - chased by the police, accused of smuggling...

and tricked into the bull ring by a fast talking impresario! Will our hero be able to evade capture from the police, avoid a beating from a bull and still find time to bag the girl of his dreams?

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One of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers' most career-defining movies for RKO Pictures, 'Flying Down To Rio' was released at the height of the Depression but was full of glitz and exotic locations.

Although they were not the main stars of this film it will always be remembered for the first ever pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, who would become the greatest dance team in movie history. Aviator and band leader Roger Bond (Gene Raymond) is forever getting his group fired for flirting with the lady guests. When he falls for Brazilian beauty Belinha de Rezende (Dolores Del Rio) it appears to be for real, even though she is already engaged. His Yankee Clippers band is hired to open the new Hotel Atlantico in Rio and when performing the airborne production number to mark the Hotel's opening, Julio gets some intriguing ideas...

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Wang Xiaoshuai's deeply moving and intimate drama traces the lives of two interconnected families over three decades of social and political upheaval in China.

The film charts the fortunes of factory workers Liyun (Yong Mei) and Yaojun (Wang Jingchun), a couple reeling from a devastating family tragedy during the tumultuous years between the 1980's and the 21st century. Constricted by the one-child national policy, their lives are gradually transformed under the impact of the country's changing identity, building to a heartbreaking revelation that exposes how political reality affects the fates of the family and the people around them. A cleverly poetic depiction of communist China, 'So Long, My Son' is a sprawling yet personal portrait of human resilience, featuring incredibly tender and award-winning performances from Mei and Jingchun.

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After a late-night cup of coffee, vaudevillians Jo Hayden and Harry Palmer sit at a piano and work a song. Moments later, Jo realizes she's found exactly what she wasn't looking for: a partner. And with Judy Garland as Jo and Gene Kelly as Harry, the partnership isn't just ideal.

It's a film fan's dream come true. Kelly debuts and Garland dazzles in this Busby Berkeley-directed tale of a song-and-dance pair who take on tank towns, tough times and World War I while struggling for show-biz success. A hit parade of era tunes paces the film, including the wowser "Ballin' the Jack" and the sweetly harmonized title tune. Bursting with vitality and old-fashioned charm, "For Me and My Gal" is for the ages.

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Winter 1968, and showbiz legend Judy Garland arrives in swinging London to perform in a sell-out run at The Talk of the Town. It is 30 years since she shot to global stardom in The Wizard of Oz, but if her voice has weakened, its dramatic intensity has only grown.

As she prepares for the show, battles with management, charms musicians, and reminisces with friends and adoring fans, her wit and warmth shine through. Even her dreams of romance seem undimmed as she embarks on a courtship with Mickey Deans (Finn Wittrock), her soon-to-be fifth husband. And yet Judy (Renée Zellweger) is fragile. After working for 45 of her 47 years, she is exhausted: haunted by memories of a childhood lost to Hollywood, and gripped by a desire to be back home with her kids. Will she have the strength to go on? Featuring some of her best-known songs, the film celebrates the voice, the capacity for love and the sheer pizzazz of "the world's greatest entertainer".

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Vittles, songs and dance are amply ladeled out when Judy Garland headlines The Harvey Girls, a joyous musical slice of Americana celebrating the restaurants that brought extra helpings of civilization to Old West rail passengers.

Highlights include Garland holding saloon patrons at jittery gunpoint to retrieve stolen beefsteaks, Ray Bolger's loose-limbed comic hoofing. Virginia O'Brien's sure-shot comic timing, Angela Landsbury stylish wickedness as a saloon singer and the On the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe romp that's deservedly famous, one of the most triumphant sequences in screen-musical history.

A treasure trove of fun awaits when a Caribbean beauty (Judy Garland) with a mad crush on a legendary pirate meets a vagabond actor (Gene Kelly) who poses as the scoundrel. Vincente Minnelli directs, bringing his uncanny skill with color and design to this joyous romp set to Cole Porter tunes.

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"In The Good Old Summertime" - a tale of squabbling music-shop clerks who don't know they're romantic pen pals - shares a celebrated movie lineage that includes James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan in 'The Shop Around the Corner' and Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in 'You've Got Mail'.

In between those two, Judy Garland and Van Johnson had mail plus Gold Old tunes evoking an era of straw-boaters and silver moons. Sparked by Garland's comedic zest and musical appeal, this confection is "one of the sweetest, most unpretentious entertainments of 1949". It's also a nostalgic farewell and a sunny hello. Buster Keaton appears in his final film for the studio he first joined in 1928. And Liza Minnelli, all of 18 months young, makes her debut in the finale.

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Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are irrepressible in this enjoyable musical that features a fantastic score from Irving Berlin.

Fred and Ginger's talent as dancers is on prominent display here, from their explosive romp in "Let Yourself Go" to Astaire's blazing nautical tap in "I'd Rather Lead a Band". The highlight for many fans will come with "Let's Face the Music and Dance".

Based on the best-selling novel, Lily James plays free-spirited writer Juliet Ashton, who forms a life-changing bond with the eccentric Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society when she decides to write about the book club they formed during the occupation of Guernsey during WWII.

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On a remote mountaintop, a rebel group of commandos perform military training exercises while watching over a prisoner (Julianne Nicholson) for a shadowy force known only as 'The Organization'.

After a series of unexpected events drives them deep into the jungle, fracturing their intricate bond, their mission slowly begins to collapse. Set against a stunningly beautiful but dangerous landscape, Alejandro Landes' awe-inspiring film is a breathtakingly epic vision that will leave you both mesmerised and utterly gripped.

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Academy Award nominee Agnieszka Holland brings to the screen the extraordinary and powerful story of the real-life Welsh journalist who uncovered Stalin's genocidal famine in Ukraine, which killed almost 10 million during The Holodomor of 1932 and 1933.

Gareth Jones (James Norton) is an ambitious Welsh journalist, who gained fame after his report on being the first foreign journalist to fly with Hitler. On leaving a government role, Jones decides to travel to Moscow in an attempt to get an interview with Stalin himself. Hearing murmurs of government-induced famine, Jones travels clandestinely to Ukraine, where he witnesses the atrocities of man-made starvation. Deported back to London, Jones publishes an article revealing the horrors he witnessed, but is accused of being a liar by those who have an interest in silencing him. As the death count mounts, Jones has to fight for the truth.

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John Mills, Richard Attenborough and Bernard Lee star in this gripping true story of one of the most crucial events of the Second World War: the historic evacuation of more than 350,000 men from the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940.

With the Germans pushing the British back to the edge of the sea and then strafing them on the beaches, the civilians of Britain came back to the rescue of their armed forces. In an act of remarkable heroism, every small boat available was mobilised to carry them back to safety, if the Germans had captured these men, the war would have been effectively lost. Their actions led to the coining of the phrase "The Dunkirk Spirit".