jwc's - Rented List
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A small but perfectly-formed comedy-drama about Broadway legend Danny Rose (Woody Allen) - not a star but perhaps the most hapless agent ever to work in the profession, whose no-hope clients include piano-playing parrots, blind jugglers, one-legged tap dancers and stuttering ventriloquists. Things change dramatically when an unexpected lounge-music craze threatens to make cheesy crooner Lou Canova (Nick Apollo Forte) both famous and successful, a situation that natural loser Danny is helplessly ill-equipped to deal with. Fie proves similarly hapless when Lou turns out to have a mistress (an unrecognisable Mia Farrow) whose mobster ex-boyfriend is none too impressed with the company that she's currently keeping and decides to advertise this fact at the worst possible moment. Both laugh-out-loud funny and warmly nostalgic, 'Broadway Danny Rose' is Allen's heartfelt tribute to the days of New York vaudeville that he himself experienced first-hand when starting out as a comedian two decades earlier - underscored by the fact that the Greek chorus of Broadway veterans chuckling over Danny's various mishaps and misfortunes are the real thing. - Director:
- Woody Allen
- Cast:
- Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Nick Apollo Forte
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Secrets and Lies (1996)Secrets & Lies
Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) is a young, black optometrist whose adoptive parents have recently died. Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn) is a sad, unmarried mother who works in a factory and lives in a shabby terraced house with her confrontational daughter, Roxanne (Claire Rushbrook). Cynthia's brother Maurice (Timothy Spall) is a successful wedding photographer who lives comfortably in suburbia with his snooty wife Monica (Phyllis Logan). In a misplaced effort to re-unite the family, Maurice and Monica throw a small barbecue party for Roxanne's 21st birthday. When Cynthia brings along her new friend Hortense, chaos ensues as some painful truths are revealed. - Director:
- Mike Leigh
- Cast:
- Timothy Spall, Brenda Blethyn, Phyllis Logan
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