jwc's - Rented List
-
Orson Welles makes his feature-length directorial debut with this classic drama which often tops critics' polls of the best films of all time. In 1940, newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane (Welles) dies after uttering the word 'Rosebud'. An anonymous reporter (William Alland) is assigned the task of uncovering the meaning of Kane's dying word, and in the course of his enquiries he receives varying accounts of his life from former colleagues Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotten) and Bernstein (Everett Sloan), and ex-wife Susan Alexander (Dorothy Comingore). The film, which Welles also produced and co-wrote, was not-so-loosely based on the life of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. - Director:
- Orson Welles
- Cast:
- Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore
- Formats:
-
-
Who is the man who hides his scarred face behind a mask? Hero or madman? Liberator or oppressor? Who is V - and who will join him in his daring plot to destroy the totalitarian regime that dominated his nation? Natalie Portman stars as Evey, a working-class girl who must determine if her hero has become the very menace she's fighting against. Hugo Waving plays V - a bold, charismatic freedom fighter driven to exact revenge on those who disfigured him. And Stephen Rea portrays the detective leading a desperate quest to capture V before he ignites a revolution. The Stakes rise. The tension electrifies. The action explodes. - Director:
- James McTeigue
- Cast:
- Hugo Weaving, Natalie Portman, Rupert Graves
- Formats:
-
-
The Little Tramp punches in and wigs out inside a factory where gizmos like an employee feeding machine may someday make the lunch hour last just 15 minutes. Bounced into the ranks of the unemployed, he teams with a street waif (Paulette Goddard) to pursue bliss and a paycheck, finding misadventures as a roller-skating night watchman, a singing waiter whose hilarious song is gibberish, a jailbird and more. In the end, as tramp and waif walk arm in arm into an insecure future we know they've found neither bliss nor a paycheck but, more importantly, each other. The times and satire remain timeless in 'Modern Times'. - Director:
- Charles Chaplin
- Cast:
- Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman
- Formats:
-
-
An alien entity inhabits the earthly form of a seductive young woman who combs the Scottish highways in search of the human prey it is here to plunder. It lures its isolated and forsaken male victims into an otherworldly dimension where they are stripped and consumed. But life in all its complexity starts to change the alien. It begins to see itself as 'she', as human, with tragic and terrifying consequence. 'Under the Skin' is about seeing ourselves through alien eyes. - Director:
- Jonathan Glazer
- Cast:
- Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy McWilliams, Lynsey Taylor Mackay
- Formats:
-
-
In the 1920s, political activist Jimmy Gralton built a dance hall in rural Ireland. As the hall grew in popularity its free-spirited reputation brought it to the attention of the church and politicians who forced Jimmy to flee and the hall to close. A decade later, at the height of the Depression, Jimmy returns from the US. The hall stands abandoned but as Jimmy sees the poverty and growing oppression in the village, the leader and activist within him is stirred. He decides to reopen the hall, and so takes on the established authorities of the church and the government. - Director:
- Ken Loach
- Cast:
- Barry Ward, Simone Kirby, Andrew Scott
- Formats:
-
-
Force Majeure (2014)Turist
The sun is beaming and the ski slopes are spectacular for Tomas, his wife Ebba and their two children. However, during a lunch at a mountainside restaurant an avalanche suddenly bears down upon the happy diners. As the wall of snow gets ever closer, Tomas makes a split-second decision in a moment of panic that will engulf and shake his relationship with his wife and children and leave him struggling to reclaim his role as the family patriarch. - Director:
- Ruben Östlund
- Cast:
- Johannes Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Clara Wettergren
- Formats:
-
-
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963)Ieri, oggi, domani
Adelina (Sophia Loren) sells black-market cigarettes on the streets of Naples to support her unemployed husband Carmine (Marcello Mastroianni). Caught by the police, and with a jail sentence hanging over her head, desperation sets in. She learns that she can avoid prison as long as she's pregnant. Several years and seven children later, Carmine is exhausted, so jail looks inescapable as does Adelina's contempt for Carmine. In Milan, our second protagonist, Anna (Loren), is bored and wealthy, drives a Rolls Royce, and is having an affair with a writer (Mastroianni). She talks dreamily of running off with him, that is until one day he crashes her car... In the third and final vignette, Loren plays Mara, a call girl from Rome, who turns the head of a naive young man training to become a Priest, prompting a run-in with his self-righteous grandmother and a vow of abstinence. Features Loren's notorious striptease, which was recreated years later by Robert Altman in Prêt-à-Porter. - Director:
- Vittorio De Sica
- Cast:
- Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Aldo Giuffrè
- Formats:
-
-
On the occasion of his fifth wedding anniversary, Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) reports that his beautiful wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike), has gone missing. Under pressure from the police and a growing media frenzy, Nick's portrait of a blissful union begins to crumble. Soon his lies, deceits and strange behaviour have everyone asking the same dark question: Did Nick Dunne kill his wife? - Director:
- David Fincher
- Cast:
- Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris
- Formats:
-
-
It's only a state of mind. Jonathan Pryce stars as Sam Lowry in this surrealistic spectacle about a daydreaming bureaucrat trapped in a future dystopia where love is forbidden from interfering with efficiency. But with the help of an underground superhero (Robert De Niro) and a beautiful mystery woman (Kim Greist), Sam learns to soar to freedom on the wings of his untamed imagination, or so he thinks. - Director:
- Terry Gilliam
- Cast:
- Jonathan Pryce, Kim Greist, Robert De Niro
- Formats:
-
-
Leviathan (2014)Leviafan
The new film from Andrey Zvyagintsev, the visionary director of "The Return" and "The Banishment", tells the tragic tale of Kolya, who employs a lawyer friend to help fight his case for ownership of the land on which he and his family live when the nefarious town mayor attempts to seize it. But standing up against such men begins a whirlwind of dire consequences, infusing every area of Kolyas life and all he holds dear. A visually arresting epic which takes an unflinchingly direct look at modern day Russia and the corruption that seethes in even its quietest corners, "Leviathan" will not only open your eyes but also stay in your mind for years to come. - Director:
- Andrey Zvyagintsev
- Cast:
- Aleksey Serebryakov, Elena Lyadova, Roman Madyanov
- Formats:
-
-
Judi Dench mesmerizes as Barbara Covett, a teacher who rules over her classroom with an iron fist, yet leads a desperate, solitary life outside it. That is, until she meets radiant new art teacher Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett). Although at first overjoyed with her newfound kindred spirit, when Barbara discovers that Sheba is having an affair with a teenage student, her jealously and rage spiral out of control. - Director:
- Richard Eyre
- Cast:
- Cate Blanchett, Judi Dench, Andrew Simpson
- Formats:
-
-
The Physician (2013)Der Medicus
A sweeping epic about the quest for knowledge in a violent world full of superstition and prejudice, 'The Physician', follows Rob Cole (Tom Payne), from medieval England where he first discovers his terrifying gift, to the far flung corners of Persia. There he becomes apprenticed to the Barber (Stellan Skarsgard), and learns more how his unique ability to foresee impending death can be used to heal. Academy Award-winner Ben Kingsley stars as Ibn Sina, the "doctor of all doctors", who inspires Rob to accept his gift no matter what grave consequences he faces. - Director:
- Philipp Stölzl
- Cast:
- Tom Payne, Stellan Skarsgård, Olivier Martinez
- Formats:
-
-
Our Little Sister (2015)Umimachi Diary
Sachi, Yoshino and Chika are three sisters living happily together in a relaxed seaside town south of Tokyo. When their long-estranged father passes away they meet their shy teenage half-sister at his funeral. Bonding quickly, they invite the orphaned Suzu to live with them and she eagerly agrees, sparking a journey of self-discovery for all four sisters, looking back into painful pasts in order to reach forward to more hopeful futures. - Director:
- Hirokazu Koreeda
- Cast:
- Haruka Ayase, Masami Nagasawa, Kaho
- Formats:
-
-
Set in a military hospital during World War I, the film tells of a real life encounter between army psychologist Dr William Rivers and the poet Siegfried Sassoon, who has been institutionalised in an attempt to undermine his public disapproval of the war. It also concerns young poet Wilfred Owen who, with support from Sassoon, begins to write his great war poems. Rivers, whose duty it is to return shell-shocked officers to the trenches, is tormented by the morality of what is being done in the name of medicine, especially the treatment of working-class officer Billy Prior who has been struck dumb by the carnage he has witnessed. - Director:
- Gillies MacKinnon
- Cast:
- Jonathan Pryce, James Wilby, Jonny Lee Miller
- Formats:
-
-
A box-office sensation in France, comic star Jean Dujardin stars as secret agent Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, a.k.a. OSS 117 who in the tradition of Maxwell Smart and Inspector Clouseau somehow succeeds in spite of his ineptitude. After a fellow agent and close friend is murdered, Hubert is ordered to take his place at the head of a poultry firm in Cairo. This is to be his cover while he investigates Jack’s death, monitors the Suez Canal, checks up on the Brits and Soviets, burnishes France’s reputation, quells a fundamentalist rebellion and brokers peace in the Middle East. A blithe and witty send-up not only of spy films of that era and the suave secret agent figure but also neo-colonialism, ethnocentrism and the very idea of Western covert action in the Middle East - Director:
- Michel Hazanavicius
- Cast:
- Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, Aure Atika
- Formats:
-