monsieurk's - Rented List

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Independent cinema darling and Cannes Palme d'Or-winning filmmaker Lola Cuevas (Penelope Cruz) is approached by ageing business mogul Humberto Suarez (Jose Luis Gomez) to make a film that he hopes will be his legacy for the world.

Intended as an adaptation of a much-loved literary work, Cuevas has more experimental intentions than some turgid piece of heritage cinema. Given carte blanche over the casting she pits acclaimed but stiflingly snobbish 'Actor' Ivan Torres (Oscar Martinez) against handsome but superficial screen icon Felix Rivero (Antonio Banderas), believing that the inevitable tension between the two can only help the film's dynamic. She couldn't be more right, as the three gather lora nine-day rehearsal that sees each pushed to their wits' end and underpins Cuevas' belief that art is suffering.

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A small gem of a film from the director of Millennium Mambo and Flowers of Shanghai, Hou Hsiao-hsien's delightful Cafe Lumiere was made as a centenary tribute to one of the giants of cinema, Japanese auteur Yasujiro Ozu.

The film echoes many of Ozu's recurring themes - the breakdown of communication between parents and children, the rhythmic patterning of everyday life. The film paints a compelling and insightful portrait of contemporary Japan, focusing on the travails of Yoko Inoue (Yo Hitoto), an independent young woman researching a project on Taiwanese composer Jian Wenye. Three months pregnant but with no intention of marrying the child's father, Yoko must deal with both the concerns of her parents and the pressures and contradictions of the pressures of her hectic modern life. Deftly drawing on the recurring Ozu theme of the relationship between aging parents and their growing, increasingly independent child, Hsiao-hsien reveals so much of the human heart through his quiet, unhurried style and his acute attention to the minutiae of life.

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From David Cronenberg, the master of body horror, comes a beguiling new tale. As the human species adapts to a synthetic environment, the body undergoes new transformations and mutations.

With his partner Caprice (Léa Seydoux), Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen), celebrity performance artist, publicly showcases the metamorphosis of his organs in avant-garde performances. Timlin (Kristen Stewart), an investigator from the National Organ Registry, obsessively tracks their movements, which is when a mysterious group is revealed...Their mission - to use Saul's notoriety to shed light on the next phase of human evolution.

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In 1947, a freak typhoon sends a passenger ferry running between Hokkaido and mainland Japan plunging to the ocean depths, with hundreds of lives lost. During the chaos, three men are witnessed fleeing a burning pawnshop in the Hokkaido port town of Iwanai.

The police suspect theft and arson, and when Detective Yumisaka (Junzaburo Ban) discovers the burned remains of a boat and the corpses of two men, he sets about tracking the shadowy third figure. Meanwhile, the mysterious Takichi Inukai (Rentaro Mikuni) takes shelter with a prostitute, Yae (Sachiko Hidari), a brief encounter that will come to define both of their lives. A decade later, long after the trail has gone cold, Yumisaka is called back by his successor Detective Ajimura (Ken Takakura) as two new dead bodies are found.

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9th century China.? 10-year-old general's daughter Nie Yinniang is abducted by a nun who initiates her into the martial arts, transforming her into an exceptional assassin charged with eliminating cruel and corrupt local governors.

One day, having failed in a task, she is sent back by her mistress to the land of her birth, with orders to kill the man to whom she was promised - a cousin who now leads the largest military region in North China.

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Aspiring filmmaker Adolpho has written a script but in order to pay the rent has to sell to the highest bidder. In walks Joe, a warm-hearted mobster who doesn't just want the script he wants to produce the film.

Nave and desperate to see his work finally on the screen, Adolpho is taken under his producers wing as they embark on a hilarious mission to raise finance as only Joe knows how!

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What happens when an object of suspicion becomes a case of obsession? When detective Hae-joon (Park Hae-il) arrives on the murder scene, he begins to suspect the dead man's wife Seo-rae (Tang Wei) may know more than she initially lets on.

But as he digs deeper into the investigation, Hae-joon finds himself trapped in a web of deception and desire, proving that the darkest mysteries lurk inside the human heart.

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Three different time periods, 1966, 1911 & 2005. Three different Stories. Two amazing performances as Asia's brightest new stars, Shu Qi & Chang Chen, play out three enrapturing tales of unfinished love...

1966, a time for love.

A young man enlisted for military service falls for a beautiful girl in a 1960's pool hall. But will she wait for him?

1911, a time for freedom.
A courtesan in a brothel falls in love with one of her clients, a political activist on the brink of joining the Chinese revolution.

2005, a time for youth.
Hidden passions arise when a beautiful bisexual singer becomes involved in a tangled affair with a photographer.

Newly employed at a run-down London swimming baths, Mike (John Moulder-Brown) obsesses after his sassy and self-assured co-worker (Jane Asher) whilst collecting tips for the 'special services' he is expected to perform for clients (including Diana Dors).

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Emerging from the primordial soup of glamour, gutter sleaze, and feverish creativity that was New York's 1960s underground culture, the Velvet Underground redefined music with its at once raw and exalted blend of experimentation and art-damaged rock and roll.

In his kaleidoscopic documentary 'The Velvet Underground', Todd Haynes vividly evokes the band's incandescent world: the creative origins of the twin visionaries Lou Reed and John Cale, Andy Warhol's fabled Factory, and the explosive tension between pop and the avant-garde that propelled the group and ultimately consumed it. Never-before-seen performances, interviews, rare recordings, and mind-blowing transmissions from the era's experimental cinema scene come together in an ecstatic swirl of sound and image that is to the traditional music documentary what the Velvets were to rock: utterly revolutionary.

An army officer (Anton Walbrook) has become obsessed with playing cards. Convinced that an elderly countess (Dame Edith Evans) possesses the secret of winning every game, the young officer's obsession leads him into a satanic world of madness, mayhem and murder where death is only the beginning.

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Wes Anderson's 'The French Dispatch' brings to life a collection of stories from the final issue of an American magazine published in the fictional 20th-century French city of Ennui-sur-Blase.

With an all-star cast that includes Benicio Del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Lea Seydoux, Frances McDormand, Timothee Chalamet, Lyna Khoudri, Jeffrey Wright, Mathieu Amalric, Stephen Park, Bill Murray and Owen Wilson this vibrant film is a funny, moving celebration of journalism.

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Paolo Sorrentino's effortlessly stylish film centres on Geremia di Geremei, a sleazy and misanthropic small-time loan shark who lives in a dingy apartment with his invalid mother.

When a cash-strapped couple approach him for a loan to pay for the wedding of their daughter Rosalba, Geremia finds himself helplessly obsessed by the bride-to-be's stunning beauty and takes full advantage of his self-proclaimed position as 'a friend of the family' to get as close to her as possible. But in the icily disdainful Rosalba, he may finally have met his match...

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This outrageous comedy finds a rogues' gallery of wealthy guests (from business tycoons to heiresses) aboard a hyper-luxury yacht, whose downtrodden staff - under the command of their captain and avowed Marxist (Woody Harrelson) - must respond to their every belittling whim in the hope of winning

tips. Among the super-rich patrons are the oh-sobeautiful couple Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean), two models and social-media influencers who have been invited on a free trip to show off the kind of lavish lifestyle many could only dream of.

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One of France's greatest screen stars, Michel Piccoli, plays Gilbert Valence, a grand old theatre actor, who is given the shocking news that his wife, daughter and son-in-law have been tragically killed in a car accident.

Some time later, and over the worst of his grief, Valence busies himself with his daily life in Paris, turning down unsuitable roles in low brow television productions and caring for his nine-year old grandson. But when an American filmmaker (John Malkovich) absurdly miscasts him in an unlikely adaptation of Joyce's 'Ulysses', Valence finds himself suddenly compelled to make a decision about his life. Piccoli's performaance is the warm and engaging heart of veteran director Manoel de Oliveir's dryly witty and touching observations on art and ageing.