hpb's - Rented List

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Based on the true story of Caroline Mathilda, the English princess who married King Christian VII of Denmark in the early 1770s, "A Royal Affair" is a bold, sumptuous tale of illicit love and political pasion on a sweeping, epic scale.

Keen to be a dutiful wife and queen, Caroline's hopes are soon dashed when she discovers the King's true madness. Turning away from the King she finds herself in the arms of the King's physician, a radical libertarian, with whom she embarks upon a passionate affair that would bring the kingdom to the brink of revolution.

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With her Oscar-winning turn in 'Klute', Jane Fonda reinvented herself as a new kind of movie star.

Bringing nervy audacity and counterculture style to the role of Bree Daniels - a call girl and aspiring actor who becomes the focal point of a missing-person investigation when detective John Klute (Donald Sutherland) turns up at her door - Fonda made the film her own, putting an independent woman and escort on-screen with a frankness that had not yet been attempted in Hollywood. Suffused with paranoia by the conspiracy-thriller specialist Alan J. Pakula, and lensed by master cinematographer Gordon Willis, 'Klute' is a character study thick with dread, capturing the mood of early-1970's New York and the predicament of a woman trying to find her own way on the fringes of society.

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Lee Guem-ja (Lee Yeong-ae) has been released from jail having served 13 years for the kidnapping and murder of a child. A seemingly unassuming prisoner, Guem-ja has in fact been plotting her revenge on the man who was responsible for her incarceration.

With the help of some of her fellow inmates her plan will soon be complete. But, just as her trap is ready, Guem-ja finds herself re-united with her long lost daughter. Will her daughter be able to bring her the peace she so desires and will her long committed quest for revenge lead to salvation or damnation?

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1933. Hercule Poirot (John Malkovich), older and greyer, receives letters threatening murder. The sender signs themselves only as "A.B.C.". When he takes the letters to the police looking for help Hercule finds all his old friends have moved on.

The new guard led by hot headed Inspector Crome (Rupert Grint) are not interested in his story. But soon there is a murder, and in order to have any hope of catching the killer, the once great detective must take matters into his own hands.

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All 6 episodes of the classic British sitcom written by and starring John Cleese and Connie Booth.

The show follows hotel manager Basil Fawlty (Cleese) as he runs the Torquay hotel 'Fawlty Towers' with the help of his wife Sibyl (Prunella Scales), chambermaid Polly (Booth) and Spanish waiter Manuel (Andrew Sachs).

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Gloria (Julianne Moore) is a free-spirited divorcee who spends her days at a straight-laced office job and her nights on the dance floor.

One evening, she meets Arnold (John Turturro) and finds herself thrust into an unexpected new romance, filled with both the joys of budding love and the complications of harmonising this new life with an old past.

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"The Keeper" tells the incredible true story of Bert Trautmann (David Kross), a German soldier and prisoner of war who, against a backdrop of British post-war protest and prejudice, secures the position of Goalkeeper at Manchester City, and in doing so becomes a footballing icon.

Struggling for acceptance by those who dismiss him as the enemy, Bert's love for Margaret (Freya Mavor), an Englishwoman, carries him through and he wins over even his harshest opponents by winning the 1956 FA Cup Final, playing on with a broken neck to secure victory. But fate will soon twist the knife for Bert and Margaret, when their love and loyalty to each other is put to the ultimate test.

In a kingdom ruled by a young and unpredictable king, the military commander has a secret weapon: a "shadow", a look-alike who can fool both his enemies and the King himself. Now he must use this weapon in an intricate plan that will lead his people to victory in a war that the King does not want.

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The acclaimed new film tells the startlingly original and brutally honest story of 15 year-old Mia, brilliantly played by winner Katie Jarvis.

A feisty and fiercely independent outsider, Mia is ostracised from her friends and lives uneasily with her volatile mother (Kierston Wareing) in a tough Essex estate from which she longs to escape. But the unexpected arrival of her mother's handsome and charismatic new boyfriend (Michael Fassbender) sparks a catalogue of events that threaten to turn Mia's world upside down.

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Salvador Mallo (Antonio Banderas) is a veteran film director, afflicted by multiple ailments, the worst of which is his inability to continue filming. His physical condition doesn't allow it and, if he can't film, his life has no meaning.

His mixture of medications, along with the occasional flirtation with heroin, means that Salvador spends most of his days prostrate and forlorn. This drowsy state transports him back to reflect on his childhood in the 60's, when his family emigrated to Paterna, a village in Valencia, in search of prosperity, through to the appearance of his first desire and his first adult love in the Madrid of the 80's. In recovering his past, Salvador finds the urgent need to recount it, and in that need he may also find his salvation.

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Elena (Laia Costa) and Jake (Josh O'Connor) meet by chance on New Years Eve, fighting for the same taxi. But instead of going their separate ways after sharing a ride, a passionate relationship blossoms intoxicating every facet of their lives.

Within weeks they are living together, and not long after they talk about starting a family. But, as the seasons pass, reality catches up with them. Falling in love was the easy part. Can love remain when life doesn't give them everything they hoped for?

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A successful international conductor (Michael Nyqvist) suddenly interrupts his career and returns alone to his childhood village in Norrland, in the far north of Sweden.

It doesn't take long before he is asked to come and listen to the fragment of a church choir, which practises every Thursday in the parish hall. Just come along and give a little bit of good advice. He can't say no, and from that moment, nothing in the village is the same again. The choir develops and grows. He makes both friends and enemies. And he finds love.

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Joan Stanley (Judi Dench) lives in contented retirement until her tranquil life is suddenly disrupted. The dark secrets she's been hiding since her university days have been uncovered by M15. She finds herself in their custody, accused of providing intelligence to the KGB.

Cut to 1938 where Joan is a promising physics student at Cambridge University. There she falls for a young communist named Leo Galich (Tom Hughes) and through him, begins to see the world in a new light. After graduation, Joan secures a job in a weapons research facility where she comes to the realisation that the world is on the brink of nuclear disaster. Now Joan is forced to answer an impossible question: exactly what price would she pay for peace?

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Dreamy-eyed grade-schooler Mason (Ellar Coltrane) is facing upheaval: his struggling single mom Olivia (Patricia Arquette) has decided to move him and older sister Samantha (Lorelei Linklater) to Houston - just as their long-absent father Mason Sr. (Ethan Hawke) re-enters their world.

Thus begins a decade of constantly unfolding heartbreak and wonder as Mason swims against the tide of family moves and controversies, faltering marriages, new schools, first loves, lost loves, good times and scary times that shape the person he will be.

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A darkly comic, discomfiting and deliberately provocative work that draws parallels with recent contemporary events. Dogtooth is shocking, compelling and perversely erotic. In a house on the edge of the city live a self-contained family. The only person allowed to leave is the father.

The mother remains enclosed, 'protecting' her son and two daughters from the evils of the outside world. However, when the son reaches an age where it is deemed that his sexual needs should be met, this insular and radical environment is threatened by the arrival of a female security guard. Capturing incidents that range from the weird to the repulsive, Dogtooth presents a sharp and frequently startling look at modern life. Particularly evocative of the work of Michael Haneke this is cinema at its most bold and brilliant.