paul-b's - Rented List

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Malle's a debut feature, made when he was only 25 is a tense thriller starring Jeanne Moreau as Florence and Julian Tavernier as Maurice, a pair of lovers who conspire to murder Florence's husband in the most ingenious manner. However, not everything goes quite as planned.

Lift to the Scaffold is arguably the first film of the French New Wave with its arresting camerawork by cinematographer Henri Decae, who also shot the debut film of Truffaut and Chabrol. With its sultry black and white palate, Paris locations and an improvised jazz score by the legendary Miles Davis, Lift to the Scaffold is an unforgettable slice of 50s French cool.

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Everyone in the Portokalos family worries about Toula. Still unmarried at 30-years old, she works at Dancing Zorba's, the Greek restaurant owned by her parents, and smells like garlic bread. Her days are drab and dull, just like her hair, her clothes, and her attitude.

Still, Toula wishes for something more. Just when she's wishing she were prettier, she locks eyes on a tall, handsome stranger, in the restaurant. The handsome stranger barely notices her. Toula (Nia Vardalos) is ready for a change. Unfortunately, the rest of the family is not. A few computer classes, some contact lenses and a new attitude are all the jump-start Toula's life needs. She takes a job at her aunt's travel agency, where this time, the handsome stranger locks eyes on the transformed Toula. He is Ian Miller (John Corbett), a high school teacher and definitely not Greek. In no time, he's asked her out on a date and soon they are falling in love and planning to marry. Toula knows that if Ian can pass muster with her crazy relatives and get baptised in the Greek Orthodox Church...their big fat Greek wedding, including one powder blue limousine, two ice sculptures and ten bridesmaids in turquoise dresses, will be a piece of cake, five layers high with a plastic staircase and a fountain of champagne.

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In 1887, an earthquake decimates the island of Goto. Cut off from the rest of the world, the governor of Goto rules his subjects with an iron fist. Glossia (Ligia Branice), his beautiful wife, plots to escape the island with a handsome young officer, Gono (Jean-Pierre Andréani).

But Grozo, a petty criminal, has other ideas. While feeding the governor's dogs, polishing the governess's boots and trapping flies which blight the island, Grozo dreams of possessing Glossia for himself...

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Expatriate Henry Miller a.k.a Joey (Paul Valjean) is a writer struggling to establish himself in Paris. His roommate Carl (Wayne Rodda) is a charmer with an eye for the girls.

Despite not having enough money to eat they manage to enjoy the decadent Paris lifestyle and find their way paved with wanton women, wild orgies and outrageous erotic adventures including a neighbour in need, an American newspaper seller who likes to break things before making love, a Swedish woman who mourns her late husband and a variety of prostitutes and all are just there for their pleasure. Based upon one of the most risque and long-banned novel by Henry Miller, 'Quiet Days in Clichy' is considered to be the most daring film adaptation ever of one of the most controversial authors in history. And while it was ultimately cleared in Federal Court, the film mysteriously disappeared shortly after its release. Now more than 30 years later, this landmark 'adults only' classic can again be seen completely uncut and uncensored and featuring the original hit soundtrack by rock legend Country Joe McDonald.

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After his inevitable arrest (and almost immediate release), Michel (Martin LaSalle) reflects on the morality of crime, developing a vague theory that exceptional individuals are above the law.

Lost in another world, he rejects his friends in favour of a life of crime and is seemingly set on finding his place in the world by engineering a head-on collision with society.

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Wendy Hiller stars in Powell and Pressburger's classic romantic comedy about a young woman who discovers the true meaning of wealth.

Joan Webster has her life mapped out, beginning with marriage to a rich industrialist. Her plans go wrong when she finds herself stranded on the way to a remote Scottish island and falls in love with a penniless young sailor.

Al Roberts (Tom Neal) decides to hitchhike to California to follow his girlfriend Sue (Claudia Drake). After discovering one of the drivers who has given him a lift dead, Al assumes his identity for fear of being charged with his murder. This leads him into trouble and blackmail along the way.

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A chance meeting in a coffee shop between Harry (Lars Ekborg), a young errand boy, and Monika (Harriet Andersson), a wild and reckless girl who works in a nearby grocery shop, soon develops into a love affair. After a row with her father, Monika goes on a motorboat holiday.

Their idyllic summer is soon shattered by the news that Monika is pregnant. Faced with sudden responsibility, Harry agrees to marry Monika and they set up home together in a small flat. Monika rapidly becomes bored with married life and looking after the baby. Soon Harry returns from a business trip to discover that his wife has been unfaithful with a former lover. A frank and tender portrait of first love, Bergman's film is also a realistic and uncompromising account of a disintegrating marriage.

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Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer and Kirk Douglas star in this quintessential film noir which catapulted Mitchum into superstardom and set the standard for the genre for years to come.

When Kathie Moffett (Greer) shoots her admirer, Whit Sterling (Douglas), a big-time gambler, and absconds with $40,000 of his money, Starling hires private detective Jeff Bailey (Mitchum) to find her. Bailey leaves New York and catches up with Kathie in Mexico. Kathie denies taking the money and after falling for her charms, Bailey notifies Sterling that he could not find her.

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Spanning two decades at the start of the 20th century, "Jules and Jim" follows the lives of two inseparable friends - timid German, Jules (Oskar Werner), and gregarious Parisian, Jim (Henri Serre) - and their shared love of the beautiful, capricious Catherine, played in mesmerising, luminous style

by Jeanne Moreau. Overcoming the destructive rift of World War I the trio create a new life for themselves, away from the structures imposed by society. But as the idyllic menage a trois begins to succumb to jealousy and rivalry their idealised existence finds itself slowly buckling under pressure. Frequently hailed as one of the greatest films ever made, "Jules and Jim" is a dazzling, boldly original tale of love, friendship and the vagaries of history that combines romance, comedy and tragedy in breathtaking, near-perfect dramatic harmony.

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In rural Sweden around the turn of the century, three sisters reside in a vast manor house with their housekeeper. Agnes (Harriet Andersson) lives out the last days of her life in pain, hoping for companionship and affection.

Surrounded by her sisters, Karin (Ingrid Thulin) and Maria (Liv Ullmann), Agnes takes comfort in the fact that her remaining time can be spent with those close to her. However, dissatisfaction in their day-to-day-lives, and the estrangement that they feel from one another, causes the sisters to become increasingly self-absorbed.

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A restless wife, Giovanna (Clara Calamai), meets Gino (Massimo Girotti), a rough and handsome vagabond. Their passionate affair leads to the murder of Giovanna's boorish husband. Can a strong and sensual affair survive the guilt? Adapted from the James M.

Cain's classic novel 'The Postman Always Rings Twice', 'Ossessione' is a dark and provocative drama of sexual tension. It heralded a new era of Italian cinema, establishing Luchino Visconti as a leading and controversial exponent of 'neo-realism'.

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A tight-knit family moves from Italy's rural south to metropolitan Milan. The shock of the new is violent and immediate. A mother meddles. A whore beguiles. Brother faces brother. Blood-ties come undone.

We pity beatific Rocco (played by the immortal Alain Delon in a role specially written for him) and Nadia the harlot (Annie Girardot, capricious and scintillating) - the modern condition has shattered their lives.

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In Melville's self-confessed 'love letter to Paris', the world-weary hero weaves his way through a stylised Parisian underworld, a failed gambler wearing a trench coat and a gentleman's code of honor.

His pursuit of the ultimate heist takes him on a journey from the Sacre Coeur to Montmartre and Pigalle. Encountering betrayal, secrets and a dangerously seductive young girl, Bob Le Flambeur seeks to carry out his one final crime, despite warnings from L'inspecteur, his loyal friend yet adversary.

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The film takes its title from Hitler's decree that anyone who 'endangered Germany's security' was to Vanish with out trace (in the) night and fog' of the Third Reich.

A harrowing look at concentration camps and the Holocaust, it carefully juxtaposes documentary footage, shot in black and white by the Allied troops, who liberate the camps with contemporary colour footage of a tour of the ruins of Auschwitz in the 50s. The images that Resnais presents are so haunting that any attempt to describe them in words is almost futile. How does one comment on footage chronicling the German Army executing the logic' of the 'Final Solution'.