m-balsara's - Rented List

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Taking the best elements of The Sopranos and giving them a very British twist Down Terrace focuses on the kind of issues faced by all families.

Such as who grassed up son Karl (Robin Hill) to the local police? How will dad Bill (Robert Hill) explain the recent profit drop to his bosses in London? Can Uncle Eric dispose of a body without making a mess of it again? And what should mum Maggie (Julia Deakin) make for tea? When Bill suspects there's a rat in his criminal operation, he decides it's time to clean house and recrimination, betrayal, murder and a spot of redecorating are quick to follow. But as Bill and his family soon discover, you're only as good as the people you know...

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The Hurt Locker is an intense portrayal of elite soldiers who have one of the most dangerous jobs in the world: disarming bombs in the heat of combat.

When renegade Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner) takes command of a highly trained bomb disposal unit, he frequently risks the lives of himself and those around him with his suicidal methods and a complete disregard for danger. Caught in the middle are his subordinates Sergeant J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), who can only watch as their leader descends further into addiction: an addiction to war.

When famous comedian George Simmons (Adam Sandler) is given a second chance at a new beginning, he and his assistant, a struggling comedian, Ira (Seth Rogen), return to the places and people that matter most - including the stand-up spots that gave him his start and the girl that got away (Leslie Mann).

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Four friends graduate from high school and find themselves looking at an uncertain future in small-town America. Dave's passion is cycling and his dream is to compete against the best in the sport, the Italians he idolizes.

Despite being disillusioned when he finally races against his heroes, his passion for cycling takes on new meaning when he and his friends face a team from the local college in the town's annual bike race, The Little 500. Looked down on by the students, Dave faces his greatest challenge yet, one that will test his endurance and spirit to the limit.

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Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron) knows little about family. Less about sports. What the homeless teen knows are the streets and projects of Memphis. Well-to-do Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock) knows little about his world. Yet when she and Michael meet, he's found a home.

And the Tuohys found something just as life-changing: a beloved new son and brother.

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Rebecca is a jewish American who has traveled to Israel to begin a new life.

Realizing she doesn’t fit and in a state of hysterics after arguing with Mrs Breitburg she gets into a taxi and asks it’s driver, Hanna (Hana Lazlo who won the best actress award in Cannes for this role) to take her anywhere she likes! Hanna takes Rebecca on a journey to the Free Zone, an international area bordering Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. There Hanna is to collect $30,000 from her husband Moshe’s Palestinian business partner. Will she get the money from the mythically named ‘American’?

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In this sparkling directorial debut from acclaimed screenwriter Gianni Di Gregorio he cast himself as a middle-aged son of an aging widow and encounters 24 hours of chaos in the company of her and a small group of senior citizens.

Gregorio's part-autobiographical tale delves into the richness, vitality and strengths of the elderly and presents us with a fascinating and comical look of the ever too familiar relationship between a mother and her son.

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Nicolas Cage plays rogue detective Terence McDonagh in what is being described as 'one of his finest performances' who is as devoted to his job as he is at scoring drugs - while playing fast and loose with the law. He wields his badge as often as he wields his gun in order to get his way.

Complicating his tumultuous life is the prostitute he loves - Frankie Donnenfield (Eva Mendes). Together they descend into their own world marked by desire, compulsion, and conscience. The result is a singular masterpiece of filmmaking: equally sad and manically humorous.

Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey Jr. lead an all-star cast in the outrageous comedy Tropic Thunder. When three of Hollywood's biggest stars head into the jungle of Vietnam to shoot a war movie, they have no idea how real things can get.

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"In the City of Sylvia" is one of the most acclaimed European films of recent years and marks the international breakthrough of Spanish director, Jose Luis Guerin.

In the tradition of Alfred Hitchcock, Eric Rohmer and Robert Bresson, Guerín presents the deceptively simple tale of a man seeking the woman he met six years before. With only a sketch to identify her, he searches the streets and cafes of Strasbourg, hoping to encounter the object of his desire.

Jeff Bridges stars as Bad Blake, a boozy, broken-down singer who reaches for salvation with the help of Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a journalist who discovers the real man behind the music. But will Bad's hard-livin' ways and crazy heart cost him his last chance at a comeback?

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When U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) arrives at the asylum for the criminally insane on Shutter Island, what starts as a routine investigation quickly takes a sinister turn.

As the investigation unfolds and Teddy uncovers more shocking and terrifying truths about the island, he learns there are some places that never let you go.

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Sixteen years after her daughter Maggie disappeared in Central Park, Julia (Sigourney Weaver) has never recovered from the loss, and pursues a solitary existence based on rigid routine.

Her son Chris (Alessandro Nivola) is trying to reconnect with his mother in anticipation of his marriage to Celeste (Keri Russell). One day, Julia encounters a troubled, alluring young woman, Louise (Kate Bosworth), who reminds her powerfully of her vanished child. The two begin a series of tense encounters, and eventually Julia takes Louise in. As their bond deepens, Julia begins to reawaken to the pleasures of life -- all the while seeing everywhere clues that Louise could actually be the long-lost Maggie.

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"Inglourious Basterds" begins in German-occupied France, Shoshanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent) witnesses the execution of her family at the hand the Nazi Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz).

Shoshanna narrowly escapes and flees to Paris, where she forges a new identity as the owner and operator of a cinema. Elsewhere in Europe, Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) organizes a group of Jewish soldiers to engage in targeted acts of retribution. Known to their enemy as "The Basterds", Raine's squad joins German actress and undercover agent Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) on a mission to take down the leaders of The Third Reich. Fates converge under a cinema marquee, where Shoshanna is poised to carry out a revenge plan of her own...

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Set against the backdrop of an iced-over contemporary Helsinki, and based on Leo Tolstoy's False Note, Frozen Land takes you on a journey through a strikingly bleak and occasionally blackly funny landscape where money's the goal and drink abounds, and where loneliness and desperation push people to

the edge of their lives and sanity. Divided into chapters 'Unemployment', 'Booze', 'The Axe', 'Family', 'Snowpile' and 'Police', Frozen Land is a brilliantly devised web of interconnecting Finnish fates Set in motion by the printing of a forged 500 Euro note, the film bounces between the lives of a pair of young computer hackers, a depressed policewoman, a mullet-haired car thief and a vacuum salesman and recovering alcoholic who falls off the wagon with a vengeance. At the forefront of a new generation of Finnish filmmakers, Aku Louhimes' gripping visuals form the compelling backdrop for an exceptionally powerful ensemble of performances in a compelling and thrillingly inventive work that suggests a harsh but beautiful world determined by fate.