jnk's - Rented List
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Tropicalia, or Tropicalism, is one of Brazil's most significant cultural movements. Born in the late 1960s by a collective of like-minded souls, it used music and visual arts as a voice to confront the cultural and political establishment. This vibrant feature documentary explores this iconic and era-changing time in Brazil's history with material lovingly gleaned from the archives, stunning images, and the testimony of the group's protagonists including Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Tom Ze, Arnaldo and Sergio Dias, from the band Os Mutantes, whose controversial thoughts, music and behaviour resulted in prison and exile for its leaders. - Director:
- Marcelo Machado
- Cast:
- Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso
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The Ballroom (2008)Chega De Saudade
The Ballroom invites you to experience the lives, loves and dreams of the patrons of a traditional Brazilian dance hall. Set over the course of one evening, the film brings together a variety of characters who attend the ballroom each week and live for their moment on the dance floor. As they recall the past, imagine the future, have fun, flirt, fight and, of course, dance, their passions and desires unfold in front of our eyes. An enormous hit in its native Brazil, and set to an astounding soundtrack featuring songs performed by Elza Soares and Marku Ribu, The Ballroom is passionate drama of lives transformed and love invigorated by the magical power of the dance hall. - Director:
- Laís Bodanzky
- Cast:
- Leonardo Villar, Tônia Carrero, Cássia Kiss
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With his friends showing signs of growing up and settling down, Ted makes a desperate bid to keep his beloved cricket team together, leading his two best mates and their cowboy cricket club on one final tour to India. But Ted soon discovers that his dreams of winning an international cricket tour might be harder than he thought, as the team seems more interested in having a good time than picking up a bat. Stumps fly, friendships fray and adventures unfold as Ted's best laid plans are undone by the chaos of India and his mates. - Director:
- Boyd Hicklin
- Cast:
- Stephen Curry, Brendan Cowell, Damon Gameau
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The Pope's Toilet (2008)El Bano del Papa
It is 1988, and Melo, a Uruguayan town on the Brazilian border, awaits the visit of Pope John Paul II. Numbers begin circulating: hundreds of people will come, no thousands say the media. The well-informed speak of 50,000... The poor townspeople know what this means: 50,000 pilgrims in need of food and drink, paper flags, souvenirs, commemorative medals. Brimming with enthusiasm, the villagers not only hope for divine blessing, but above all for a small share of material happiness. And petty smuggler Beto is certain that he’s found the best business idea of all: "The Pope’s Toilet", where the thousands of pilgrims can find relief … Let others make mountains of chorizo sausages and bake towers of cakes – he will strike it rich with human waste! But before he can build the WC, Beto rushes headlong into trouble. He sorely tries the patience of his stoical but optimistic wife Carmen and disappoints his adolescent daughter Silvia, who dreams of a career in the media. He has to increase his risky and arduous journeys across the border. And he has to bury his long-cherished dream of buying a moped. He even loses his most precious possession – his bicycle – just as he secures the keystone for his temple to waste and wealth: the toilet bowl. But he is determined to make it back in time for the divine event. - Director:
- César Charlone
- Cast:
- César Troncoso, Virginia Méndez, Mario Silva
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Test cricket is the purest form of the second most popular sport on earth. It is steeped in tradition, history, heroes and legend. But challenged by its shorter, sexier and more commercial cousin, Twenty 20, it risks falling into obscurity. To unravel the complex reasons why the game's leaders seem unwilling to save Test cricket, two young journalists and cricket devotees, Sam Collins and Jarrod Kimber, embark on a journey across the cricketing empire. Along the way they befriend cricketer Eddie Cowan as he prepares to make his Test debut for Australia in front of 70,000 at The Melbourne Cricket Ground. As a story of deceit, incompetence and greed unfolds, it seems that whilst one man is preparing to live his dream, two others are trying to keep theirs from dying. Featuring Kevin Pietersen, Rahul Dravid, Michael Holding, Chris Gayle, Jonathan Agnew, David Warner, Ian Chappell, David Lloyd and many more iconic cricketing personalities, 'Death of a Gentleman' is the acclaimed modern morality tale about money corrupting sport, and new power tearing history apart. - Director:
- Johnny Blank
- Cast:
- Jonathan Agnew, David Becker, Ian Chappell
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Against a backdrop of war and poverty, Out of the Ashes traces the extraordinary journey of a team of young Afghan men as they chase a seemingly impossible dream - shedding new light on a nation beyond burqas, bombs, drugs and devastation. The film follows the Afghan cricket team in their quest against the odds to qualify for the World Cup. It follows the squad over two years as they go from playing in their shalwar-kameezes on rubble pitches to batting their way around the globe and up the international league tables. At a time when headlines from Afghanistan are dominated by news of death and corruption, the film reveals a more human side to this beleaguered country which has endured three decades of war and occupation. - Director:
- Tim Albone
- Cast:
- Taj Malik Alam, Hasti Gul Abid, Karim Saddiq
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"1864" is the dramatic and moving story of Denmark erupting into a futile war that would become one of the bloodiest in Danish history. Two brothers; Laust and Peter grow up poor but happy in the Danish countryside. Both boys fall in love with the adorable Inge, a local Proprietor's daughter, who in turns loves Peter for his sensitivity and intellect, and Laust for his strength and drive. Following victories in the First Schleswig-Holstein War of 1848-50 and in utter disregard of a treaty signed with the major powers of Europe, Denmark's political powers spark a second War. Peter and Laust, whose own father died from wounds caused by a German bullet in 1850, quickly volunteer for the army. 150 years later the maladjusted Claudia inhabits the same area. Forced to accept a job as an aide for the 100-year-old Baron at the manor, Claudia discovers Inge's forgotten diary, a tale of thousands of young men that sacrificed their lives in a pointless war. - Director:
- Ole Bornedal
- Cast:
- Pilou Asbæk, Sarah-Sofie Boussnina, Bent Mejding
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A carefully crafted, open-to-everything mixture of live-wire reality and controlled narrative, Medium Cool is the debut fiction feature of Haskell Wexler, who had already established himself as one of Hollywood's premiere cinematographers in the post-studio-system-era on such films as Elia Kazan's America, America and Mike Nichols' Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. In 1968, he hurled himself into the tear-gas of the cultural-political moment. The result was, alongside Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider, a seminal early work of what came to be known as "the New Hollywood". John plays a television cameraman who has become disenchanted as a creative subservient to the mainstream. Eileen depicts a newly relocated war-widow swept up in the maelstrom of the conflicts of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago - the actual events of which serve as the spontaneous backdrop for Wexler's picture. - Director:
- Haskell Wexler
- Cast:
- Robert Forster, Verna Bloom, Peter Bonerz
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Phoenix (2014)Feniks
June, -1945. Bay injured, her face destroyed, Auschwitz survivor Nelly (Nina Hoss) turns to Berlin.. Having barely recovered IMMA facial surgery, she sets out to find her husband Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld). Nelly's family has been murdered in the Holocaust - Johnny is convinced that his wife, too, is dead. When Nelly finally tracks him down he doesn't recognise her, but seeing a resemblance Johnny asks her to take on the identity of his 'late' wife in order to access her inherited fortune. Nelly agrees: she becomes her on imposter. - Director:
- Christian Petzold
- Cast:
- Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, Nina Kunzendorf
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Just when you thought Sion Sono's unique brand of subversive cinema couldn't get any more out there, he's back to explode expectations once again as he ventures even further into uncharted cinematic territory with an ingenious hybrid of Yakuza gang-action and hip-hop musical. In a futuristic, alternate-world Tokyo, the city is made up of ghetto slums and nightclub playgrounds where gangs of wayward youths rule the streets. The city is carved up into hoods, and the crossing of territorial lines quickly leads to riots and rumbles. On the turf ruled by the savage yakuza Big Buppa, the simmering tension is about to boil over into all-out war. Who will emerge victorious? Territory, friendship, pride, love... Everything is put on the line in a desperate struggle for supremacy! Based on a popular Manga series and told almost entirely in rap verse (by some of Japan's leading hip-hop talent), 'Tokyo Tribe' has to be seen to be believed. The aggressive assault of the beats and rhymes wreaks havoc as a massive ensemble cast shocks, excites, and incites an unparalleled sonic war! - Director:
- Sion Sono
- Cast:
- Akihiro Kitamura, Ryôhei Suzuki, Tomoko Karina
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Wild Tales (2014)Relatos Salvajes
From director Damian Szifron and producer Pedro Almodovar comes six stories, each exploring a different facet of revenge and the various brilliant, mad, toe-curling and hilarious flavours in which it can be dished out. Whether it's taking out a belligerent crime lord, getting even with officious parking enforcement, retribution for infidelity, or good old fashioned road rage, 'Wild Tales' takes acts of vengeance for infuriating, often all too familiar situations and blows them out to a bitter and hysterical end in this outrageous, tense and ferociously funny dark comedy. - Director:
- Damián Szifrón
- Cast:
- Darío Grandinetti, María Marull, Mónica Villa
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Like Someone in Love (2012)The End
Abbas Kiarostami is indubitably one of the most important film-makers in the world, and this, his second made outside Iran, is set in Japan. A student moonlighting as an escort goes to visit a client who is more interested in talking, and who the next day takes on the role of her grandfather when confronted by her jealous boyfriend.
It pays homage to the tradition of Ozu, but is very much a typical Kiarostami work with its oblique narrative, mistaken and assumed identies, and masterful sleights-of-hand upending the audience's assumptions.- Director:
- Abbas Kiarostami
- Cast:
- Rin Takanashi, Tadashi Okuno, Ryô Kase
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Love and Mercy presents an unconventional portrait of Brian Wilson, the mercurial singer, songwriter and leader of The Beach Boys. Set against the era-defining catalog of Wilson's music, the film intimately examines the personal voyage and ultimate salvation of the icon whose success came at extraordinary personal cost. - Director:
- Bill Pohlad
- Cast:
- John Cusack, Paul Dano, Elizabeth Banks
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A Simple Life (2011)Tao Jie
Since her teenage years, Ah Tao has worked as a servant for the Leung family. Now, after 60 years of service, she is looking after Roger, the only member of the family still resident in Hong Kong. One day Roger comes home from work to find that Ah Tao has suffered a stroke. He rushes her to hospital, where she announces that she wants to move permanently into a nursing home. Increasingly giving more and more time and attention to Ah Tao's needs, Roger comes to realise how much she means to him. - Director:
- Ann Hui
- Cast:
- Andy Lau, Deannie Yip, Hailu Qin
- Formats:
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Still Walking (2008)Aruitemo Aruitemo
In this gently probing family drama, 40-year-old Ryota (Hiroshi Abe) arrives with his wife and stepson at the home of his elderly parents to commemorate his older brother, who drowned some years earlier. Hirokazu Koreeda's most Ozu-influenced film is a subtle, moving account of family tensions that delves deep into the differing assumptions and value systems of its generations. This was the director's first film to feature veteran actress Kirin Kiki, who would become a regular collaborator. - Director:
- Hirokazu Koreeda
- Cast:
- Hiroshi Abe, Yui Natsukawa, You
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