pbn's - Rented List

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Meet a dewy-eyed ingenue, a gee-whiz tenor, stuck-up stars, hard-up producers, brassy blondes and "shady ladies from the 80s". They're all denizens of 42nd Street, belting out ageless Harry Warren/Al Dubin songs and tapping out Busby Berkeley's sensational Depression - lifting production numbers.

The put-on-a-show plot spins merrily, full of snappy banter and new faces Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell and Ginger Rogers. The show-stopping numbers (Shuffle off to Buffalo, You're Getting to Be a Habit with Me and the title tune) still dazzle. Looking and sounding its best in years via this new digital transfer from the restored original camera negative and optical audio tracks, 42nd Street shows good times never go out of style.

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Scarlett Johansson is terrific in the visually stunning 'Ghost in the Shell', an action-packed adventure set in a future world where people are enhanced with technology.

Believing she was rescued from near death, Major (Johansson) becomes the first of her kind: a human mind inside an artificial body designed to fight the war against cyber crime. While investigating a dangerous criminal, Major makes a shocking discovery -the corporation that created her lied about her past life in order to control her. Unsure what to believe, Major will stop at nothing to unravel the mystery of her true identity and exact revenge against the corporation she was built to serve.

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Toshio (Kanji Furutachi) lives above the small workshop that he owns with his wife, Akie (Mariko Tsutsui) and his daughter, Hotaru (Momone Shinokawa).

When Toshio invites Yasaka (an eerily intense Tadanobu Asano) to come and live with his family, it does not appear to be out of friendship or goodwill. Akie and Hotaru are wary of the new lodger, but with his persistent charm and goodwill, Yasaka befriends Akie and begins teaching Hotaru to play the harmonium, and thus the family's fragile domestic bliss is forever altered.

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Prolific Japanese director Sion Sono departs from his usual style for this movingly restrained drama of a rural family's struggle to survive in the aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake and the resulting nuclear crisis.

In the fictional Nagashima prefecture, Yoichi Ono (Jun Murakami) lives a peaceful life with his wife Izumi (Megumi Kagurazaka), and his parents Yasuhiko (Isao Natsuyagi) and Chieko (Naoko Otani), on the family's small farm. One day, an earthquake disrupts the calm, causing the reactor at a nearby nuclear power plant to explode. The Nagashima community is directly within the twenty-kilometer evacuation radius-except for the Ono farm. Haunted by memories of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, in which evacuees were forced out of their homes permanently, the Onos are faced with a terrible decision: stay and risk the possibility of radiation poisoning, or leave the home their family has spent generations building.

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On 11th March 2011, Japan's Tohoku coastal region was devastated by a 9.0 magnitude earthquakeand the cataclysmic tsunami that subsequently followed. 'Pray for Japan' focuses on the region of Ishinomaki, Miyagi - the largest coastal city in Tohoku with a population of over 160,000 people.

We see the tragedy from four key perspectives, meeting victims who faced significant obstacles and fought to overcome them. Through these multiple vantage points, the audience is able to understand the vast ramifications of this large-scale natural disaster.

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Based on a novel by Yutaka Maekawa, "Creepy" follows ex-police detective and criminal psychologist Takakura (Hidetoshi Nishijima), who moves to a quiet suburban town seeking peace and quiet.

When a former colleague asks for his assistance on a case involving a disappearing family his investigation leads him to cast suspicions on his peculiar new neighbour.

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Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi, two of the great Hollywood character actors, portray the couple whose house the bank has foreclosed upon, and who are forced subsequently to move into their children's homes in the city.

A near-musical restructuring of gratitude and debt ensues once the offspring deem the couple's lodging an imposition: the two are separated, then reunited weeks later... as they glide inexorably into an uncertain future.

This is the gritty, groundbreaking and truly legendary film that tells the story of Ivan Martin, an aspiring young singer-turned-outlaw, at war with Jamaica's music industry, police, and his rivals in the ganja trade. His dreams of stardom become reality as he rises to the top of the pop charts... and the most wanted list.

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Goda (Shinya Tsukamoto) is a thirty-something documentary filmmaker.

While his work may seem intriguing to some, his life is absolutely average - long hours at the office, drinks after work, an equally busy girlfriend, Kiriko (Kyôka Suzuki), who he's been with for a decade, no surprises, no detours, no shocks. That is until he returns home one night to find police cars surrounding the entrance to his apartment building and he's told that Kiriko has committed suicide with a bullet to the head. With Japan having some of the strictest set of gun control laws Goda is left with not just the "why" of her suicide, but also the "how", "where" and "who", how did Kiriko get a gun? From where? and most importantly, from who? Goda goes on a quest into the gritty criminal underworld of Tokyo in order to answer these questions, and maybe inhabit the last days of Kiriko's life.

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Police detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) is drawn into Manhattan high society as he investigates the death of stunning ad exec Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney), apparently shotgunned in her own apartment.

The slithery suspects are numerous, led by effete, snobbish columnist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb), and Laura's philandering fiancee Shelby (Vincent Price), who's also been cavorting with Laura's wealthy aunt (Judith Anderson). McPherson begins to fall in love with Laura through a portrait in her home and the memories relayed by those who knew her...just as it becomes apparent that even the basic facts of the case might not be what they seemed.

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Miller is a middle-aged handyman on a small island off the Carolina coast. His neighbours are a 13-year-old girl, Evalyn (Key Meersman) and her grandfather.

After her grandfather dies, Miller looks after the young girl, and they are the only two on the island until the arrival of Traver, a black man fleeing a lynch mob that suspects him of rape. Miller wants to turn him in and remove him from the tryst, but Evalyn likes Traver and protects him. A preacher arrives from the mainland to rescue Evalyn from her situation, and Traver's presence is discovered. Miller is now forced to decide whether to turn him over to the mob and lose standing in the girl's eyes.

Director Bill Forsyth (That Sinking Feeling, Gregory's Girl, Local Hero, Comfort and Joy) made his American film debut with this moving and offbeat adaptation of Marilynne Robinson's acclaimed novel, about two young girls who are sent to live with their eccentric aunt (Christine Lahti) after the suicide of their mother.

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This utterly compelling psychological thriller from Michael Haneke - one of cinema's most daring original and controversial directors - stars Daniel Auteuil as Georges, a television presenter who begins to receive mysterious and alarming packages containing covertly filmed videos of himself and his

family. To the mounting consternation of Georges and his wife (Juliette Binoche) the footage on the tapes - which arrive wrapped in drawings of disturbingly violent images - becomes increasingly personal, and sinister anonymous phone calls are made. Convinced he knows the identity of the person responsible, Georges embarks on a rash and impulsive course of action that throws up some unpleasant facts about his past and leads to shockingly unexpected consequences.

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Recently released from prison, the nomadic Henry (Michael Rooker) finds temporary abode in the rundown Chicago lodgings of a former jail acquaintance and small-time drug dealer, Otis (Tom Towles).

Hiding behind his unremarkable employment as a pest exterminator, Henry leads a double life, prowling the streets by night on a brutal and apparently motiveless killing spree. As the bodies mount up, Otis finds himself inducted into Henry's dark secret world, but when Otis' sister Becky (Tracy Arnold) moves in, herself fleeing from an uncomfortable domestic situation, it quickly becomes apparent that two's company, but three's a crowd.

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Katsuhiko (Koji Yakusho) plays a 60 year-old lumberjack who lives in a small, tranquil village in the mountains.

When a film crew suddenly arrives to shoot a zombie movie, Katsuhiko finds himself unwittingly roped into assisting the production and becomes increasingly frustrated with the pushy crew, especially the young, seemingly spineless director Koichi (Shun Oguri). However, an improbable friendship soon develops between Katsuhiko and Koichi, as Katsuhiko comes to see joy in the filmmaking process, and gradually helps Koichi to recover his sense of self. Soon, their bond inspires an unusual collaboration between the villagers and the film crew.