jrp's - Rented List

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Mathias (Kevin Kline) is a New Yorker who has never had much in terms of wealth. However, when his father passes away he inherits a valuable Parisian apartment and immediately sets out for France in order to liquidate this asset and end his money troubles.

Yet when he gets there he finds the property to be inhabited by a peculiar old woman (Maggie Smith) who refuses to leave and has more than just a bit of bad news for Mathias' plans to get rich - under French law not only does he not own the property until she dies but he must pay a fee for her to live there. But unbeknownst to Mathias, this set of circumstances may just turn out to be a blessing in disguise and a true life lesson...

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Vienna, winter. Johann, a guard at the grand Kunsthistorisches Art Museum encounters Anne, a foreign visitor called to Austria because of the poor health of a friend. Never having been to Austria and with little money, she wanders the city in limbo, taking the museum as her refuge.

Johann, initially wary, offers help, and they're drawn into each other's worlds. Their meetings spark an unexpected series of explorations - of their own lives and the life of the city, and of the way artworks can reflect and shape daily experience.

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The charismatic Chester MacFarland (Viggo Mortensen) and his alluring younger wife Colette (Kirsten Dunst) are in Athens during a European vacation.

Whilst sightseeing at the Acropolis they encounter Rydal (Oscar Isaac), a young, Greek-speaking American who is working as a tour guide, scamming female tourists on the side. Drawn to Colette's beauty and impressed by Chester's wealth and sophistication, Rydal gladly accepts their invitation to dinner. But, all is not as it seems with the MacFarlands as Chester's affable exterior hides darker secrets. When Rydal visits the couple at their exclusive hotel, events take a more sinister turn and he finds himself compromised and unable to pull free...

During the darkest days of World War II, the British government enlist the help of mathematician Alan Turing to crack Enigma, the unbreakable German encryption device. Turing and his team of code breakers must unlock the Enigma Code before their operation is infiltrated and more lives are lost.

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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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Stretching a full 2000 kilometres in length and made up of 3000 individual reef systems and hundreds of islands, Australia's Great Barrier Reef is breathtakingly beautiful. Selected as a World Heritage Site in 1981, it is one of the wonders of the natural world.

These programmes offer a definitive guide to the secrets of the reef - how it was created, how it works, the intricate relationships between its inhabitants and how climate change and other factors might shape its future. Using the latest specialist filming and visual techniques, the series captures the magic of the reef as it has never been seen before.

Samson and Delilah's world is small - an isolated community in the Central Australian desert. When tragedy strikes they turn their backs on home and embark on a journey of survival. Lost, unwanted and alone they discover that life isn't always fair, but love never judges.

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Obsessive idealist Sebastian (Gael Garcia Bernal) has sworn to direct a film about one of the world's most iconic figures, Christopher Columbus. He is determined to overturn the myth of the arrival of Western Civilisation in the Americas as a force for good.

His film will show what Columbus set in motion: the obsession with gold, the taking of slaves, and the terrible violence visited on those Indians who fought back. The brilliant actor playing Columbus constantly challenges the director, accusing him of hypocrisy and cheap manipulation. Costa (Luis Tosar), Sebastian's friend and producer, doesn't give a damn. All that matters is that the film comes in on time and within budget. While the shoot progresses in and around the city of Cochabamba, civil and political unrest simmer, as the entire water supply of the city is privatised and sold to a British/American multinational. Violence increases daily until the entire city explodes in the now infamous Bolivian Water War. 500 years after Columbus, sticks and stones once again confront the high-tech weaponry of a modern army. Only this time the fight is not over gold, but the simplest of life-giving elements - water.

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I've Loved You So Long is the outstanding, critically celebrated breakthrough film of the year.

Kristin Scott Thomas (Four Weddings and a Funeral, The English Patient) offers a truly sensational performance in this utterly engrossing and deeply moving tale of two sisters who rebuild their relationship after fifteen years apart. The two women gradually rediscover common ground and learn how to relate to one another through the memories of their shared childhood, all the while the spectre of their time apart looming overhead... This intelligent and compassionate film is a testament to the power of family, love and forgiveness.

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Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks) is a slightly cynical veteran prison guard on Death row in the 1930's. His faith, and sanity, deteriorated by watching men live and die, Edgecomb is about to have a complete turn around in attitude. Enter John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan). He's eight feet tall.

He has hands the size of waffle irons. He's been accused of the murder of two children...and he is afraid to sleep in a cell without a night-light. And Edgecomb, as well as the other prison guards - Brutus (David Morse), a sympathetic guard, and Percy (Doug Hutchison), a stuck up, perverse, and violent person, are in for the a strange experience that involves intelligent mice, brutal executions, and the revelation about Coffey's innocence and his true identity.

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A good man intent on making the world a better place, Father James (Brendan Gleeson) is continually shocked and saddened by the spiteful and confrontational inhabitants of his small country town. One day his life is threatened during confession.

He shrugs off the altercation and continues to perform his pastoral duties, trying as best he can to help his parishioners. Soon, however, the sinister and troubling undercurrents he has tried to ignore start to make their presence felt more keenly, and as the forces of darkness close in around him he begins to wonder if he will have the courage to face his own personal Calvary.

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In what many have described as the French equivalent of 'Heat', two of France's heavyweights, Gerard Depardieu and Daniel Auteuil star as two detectives. Once close friends, but now bitter rivals, they strive to claim the coveted position of Chief of Police by whatever means necessary...

A gang of armed robbers have committed seven bloody robberies in Paris within the space of year. Klein (Depardieu) and Vrinks (Auteuil) are heading up different departments of the Police force and are told that whoever stops the gang will be awarded the title of Chief of Police. The competition between them becomes increasingly ruthless, blurring the lines of morality until there is no difference between the police and the criminals they chase.

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In the late '60s, a musician was discovered in a Detroit bar by two celebrated producers who were struck by his soulful melodies and prophetic lyrics. They recorded an album that they believed was going to secure his reputation as one of the greatest recording artists of his generation.

Despite overwhelming critical acclaim, the album bombed and the singer disappeared into obscurity amid rumours of a gruesome on-stage suicide. But a bootleg recording found its way into apartheid South Africa and, over the next two decades, it became a phenomenon. Feature follows two South African fans who set out to find out what really happened to their hero. Their investigation led them to a story more extraordinary than any of the existing myths about the artist known as Rodriguez. This is a film about hope, inspiration and the resonating power of music.

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Fed up with city life, Sandrine (Mathilde Seigner) decides to leave Paris and live out her dream of becoming a farmer. It's love at first sight when she comes across a farmstead on the Vercors plateau, which she takes over from cantankerous farming veteran Adrien (Michel Serrault).

Sandrine is confident she can run the farm by herself but Adrien is sceptical; the trials of the oncoming winter will prove them both wrong.

Greta Gerwig gives a glowing performance as Frances, a twenty-something woman living in New York, who dreams of being a dancer and, despite the obstacles that stand in her way, lives her life with unaccountable joy and lightness.