monsieurk's - Rented List

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Kurosawa's transposition of Shakespeare's Macbeth to sixteenth century Japan is immensely successful in capturing the spirit of the original. A truly remarkable film combining beauty and terror to produce a mood of haunting power.

'Throne of Blood' also shows Kurosawa's familiar mastery of atmosphere, action and the savagery of war.

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L.A. private eye Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) takes on a blackmail case...and follows a trail peopled with murderers, pornographers, nightclub rogues, the spoiled rich and more.

But Raymond Chandler's legendary gumshoe solves it in hard-boiled style - and style is what 'The Big Sleep' is all about.

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Norwegian director Nils Gaup used the landscape of Finland as his backdrop in 'Pathfinder'. The story is set in 10th-century Lapland. Teen-aged Aigin (Mikkel Gaup), after watching his family being slaughtered by the bloodthirsty Tchude tribe, takes refuge in a small, peaceful village.

He tries to warn the residents of the cruelties of the Tchudes; as a result, half the villagers take to the hills, while the other half elect to stay and stand their ground. The Tchudes make short work of the villagers, then take Gaup prisoner. He pretends to agree to lead the Tchudes towards the other villagers, but is able to turn the tables before it's too late. Inspired by an ancient legend, 'Pathfinder' is filmed in near-documentary fashion, bringing the past so vividly alive that the audience is tempted to look over its shoulder to see if Tchudes are poised to attack in the lobby of the theatre.

A troubled woman living in an isolated community finds herself pulled between the control of her oppressive family and the allure of a secretive outsider suspected of a series of brutal murders.

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One of the greatest American films of the 1950s and a high point in the careers of both the lead actor James Mason and director Nicholas Ray.

Mason gives a towering performance as Ed Avery, a happily married schoolteacher who agrees to take a new 'miracle drug' when diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease. It is not long before the drug begins producing malevolent and murderous side-effects that bring to the fore all of Ed's long-repressed frustrations with his life. Mason's support is, exceptional: Barbara Rush as Ed's devoted wife, Christopher Olsen a s his cruelly punished son and Walter Matthau as his faithful colleague. One of cinema's most persuasive portraits of psychological turmoil, the film also succeeds magnificently as searing melodrama and subversive social critique, with Ray, his scriptwriters and cinematographer achieving a perfect balance between emotional realism and exprer;sionist allegory.

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Based on Jacques Offenbach's opera of the stories of romantic poet E.T.A. Hoffmann. "The Tales of Hoffmann" gave close collaborators Michael Powell and Emeric Bressburger another opportunity to eschew realism and celebrate artifice and creativity.

In "Black Narcissus", Powell had worked closely with composer Brian Easdale to create an extended sequence in which sound and image were intimately intert wined. The ballet sequences of "The Red Shoes" offered an obvious arena into which to continue this experiment, culminating in "The Tales of Hoffmann", in which the entire film is shaped by Offenbach's score, given a rousing rendition by The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of the legendary Sir Thomas Beecham. The choreography, courtesy of Jane Ashton is equally inspired, resulting in a charming fantasy that's a triumph of design and a sumptuous feast for the senses.

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A tender and sweeping story about what roots us, 'Minari' follows a Korean-American family that moves to a tiny Arkansas farm in search of their own American Dream. The family home changes completely with the arrival of their sly, foul-mouthed, but incredibly loving grandmother.

Amidst the instability and challenges of this new life in the rugged Ozarks, 'Minari' shows the undeniable resilience of family and what really makes a home.

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A series of murders have been committed by ordinary people who claim to have had no control over their horrifying actions.

Following the only link - a mysterious stranger who had brief contact with each perpetrator and their victim - detective Kenichi Takabe (Koji Yakusho) places his own sanity on the line as he tries to end the wave of inexplicable terror.

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With her first and only feature film - a hard-luck drama she wrote, directed, and starred in - Barbara Loden turned in a groundbreaking work of American independent cinema, bringing to life a kind of character seldom seen on-screen.

Set amid a soot-choked Pennsylvania landscape, and shot in an intensely intimate verite style, the film takes up with distant and soft-spoken Wanda (Barbara Loden), who has left her husband, lost custody of her children, and now finds herself alone, drifting between dingy bars and motels, where she falls prey to a series of callous men - including a bank robber who ropes her into his next criminal scheme. An until now difficult-to-see masterpiece that has nonetheless exerted an outsize influence on generations of artists and filmmakers, Wanda is a compassionate and wrenching portrait of a woman stranded on society's margins.

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Two children, Voula and her young brother Alexander, run away from their Athens home to search for their father, whom their mother has told them lives in Germany. Boarding an express train, the children begin an epic journey into the chaos of the world and away from the innocence of childhood.

Beautifully photographed by Giorgios Arvanitis and referencing several of Angelopoulos' earlier works, this extraordinary coming of age tale paints a dark portrait of Greece in the eighties - a country caught between its past and present, struggling to find a place in the future.

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From James Wan, the producer of 'Annabelle', and Blumhouse, the producer of 'The Black Phone', comes a fresh new face in terror. 'M3gan' is a marvel of artificial intelligence, a lifelike doll that's programmed to be a child's greatest companion and a parent's greatest ally.

Designed by Gemma (Allison Williams), a brilliant roboticist, 'M3gan' can listen, watch, and learn as it plays the role of friend, teacher, playmate, and protector. When Gemma becomes the unexpected caretaker of her 8-year-old niece, she decides to pair the girl with a M3gan prototype, a decision that leads to unimaginable consequences.

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Mizoguchi’s film is based on the life of a prominent 18th Century artist and his complex relationships with the women who inspired him.

While jealousies and passions abound among the courtesans and geishas who act as his models, Utamaro (Minosuke Bandô) seems able only to truly connect with them through his paintings. Made during post-war American Occupation of Japan and the constant threat of censorship, the film is often regarded as one of Mizoguchi’s most autobiographical, reflecting the tensions of the time and exploring the theme of artistic confinement.

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Amour fou in Tokyo.

Adapted from Fumiko Hayashi's best-selling novel, Naruse's undisputed masterpiece contrasts two characters: a strong woman who relentlessly pursues her desire while hoping her lover and society will understand what she has to do to survive, and her lover who craves a conventionally validated social identity. To him, she represents a blind spot that he cannot face. They love each other, but the times are out of kilter and they are hopelessly out of synch, trying to live as individuals in a newly democratised Japan.

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Russ Meyer's racy, colourful tale about an uninhibited all-girl rock group is not a sequel to its predecessor, "Valley of the Dolls", despite its title.

Filled with some of the most bizarre characters and situations ever seen on film, it spans nearly every film genre - comedy, musical, horror, murder, sex and melodrama. When three female rock 'n' rollers travel to Hollywood to claim an inheritance, they meet up with a kinky music promoter who turns them on to a whole new scene. At first, all seems very exciting and the naive trio become submerged in his dangerous tinseltown underworld - before they discover his true motives.

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Paola (Lucia Bose) is a strikingly beautiful young woman married to a rich older industrialist who decides to have her past investigated. The detective's enquiry reaches Paola's former lover, Guido (Massimo Girotti), prompting him to seek her after seven years, and they reignite their passion.

Antonioni, who defined cool modernism on screen, chronicles the love affair, observing without judgement.