pbn's - Rented List

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In the story of Gilda, Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) goes to work for Ballin Mundson (George MacReady), the proprietor of an illegal gambling casino in a South American city, and quickly rises to become Mundson's "main man".

All is well until Mundson returns from a trip with his new bride, Gilda - a woman from Johnny's past. Mundson, unaware of the previous love affair, assigns Farrell the job of ensuring that Gilda is a faithful wife. Fraught with hatred, Gilda does her best to antagonize, intimidate, and instill jealousy in Farrell - until circumstances allow him to get even.

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"Amadeus" triumphs as gripping human drama, sumptuous period epic, glorious celebration of the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It's 1781 and Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) is the competent court composer to Emperor Joseph II.

When Mozart (Tom Hulce) arrives at court, Salieri is horrified to discover that the godlike musical gifts he desires for himself have been bestowed on a bawdy, impish jokester. Mad with envy, he plots to destroy Mozart by any means. Perhaps, even murder.

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This visually dazzling romantic drama is based on a fable about the minstrel Ashik Kerib by the great Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov.

Refused the hand of the woman he loves because of his poverty, Ashik Kerib vows to wander the world for 1,001 nights in search of his fortune - unless he returns a rich man, she will marry another.

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Syd March is an employee of The Lucas Clinic - a company that sells injections of live viruses harvested from sick celebrities to fans who wish to fulfill their obsessive desire for real intimacy with their idols.

As well as working for them Syd also supplements his income by smuggling viruses out of the clinic in his own body in order to sell them on the black market. Constantly ill and losing his edge, Syd becomes careless and infects himself with an unusual virus carried by superstar Hannah Geist. When the news breaks that Hannah has died, Syd realises that the virus running rampant in his system will soon kill him too. Hallucinating and struggling to remain in control, Syd must race to solve the mystery surrounding Hannah's death if he hopes to avoid suffering the same fate.

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From the visionary director of the modern cinema classics Nikita, The Big Blue, Subway and Leon comes a compelling romantic fable set in Paris, the world's most beautiful city. Angel-a begins when two strangers meet on a bridge one morning.

Looking to escape his past Andre accepts the help of the mysterious Angela and sets in motion a chain of events that will change his life forever. Beautiful in its simplicity, Angel-a is a striking, supernatural love-story and the first film Besson has directed for over seven years.

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The tale of an eccentric band of culinary ronin who guide the widow of a noodle-shop owner on her quest for the perfect recipe, this rapturous "ramen western" by Japanese director Juzo Itami is an entertaining, genre bending adventure underpinned by a deft satire of the way social conventions

distort the most natural of human urges - our appetites. Interspersing the efforts of Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto) and friends to make her cafe a success with the erotic exploits of a gastronome gangster and glimpses of food culture both high and low, the sweet, sexy, and surreal 'Tampopo' is a lavishly inclusive paean to the sensual joys of nourishment, and one of the most mouthwatering examples of food on film ever made.

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Two of the giants of film-acting come together as a married couple living in crisis: Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau. He is a renowned author and 'public intellectual'; she is 'the wife.

' Over the course of one day and the night into which it inevitably bleeds, the pair will come to re-examine their emotional bonds, and grapple with the question of whether love and communication are even possible in a world built out of profligate idylls and sexual hysteria.

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Anouk Aimee gives her defining performance as Cecile, a cabaret performer and single mother. Taking the stage name Lola, she entrances Roland (Marc Michel), a young drifter. A friend of Lola since childhood, he yearnsfor herto return his affections but she pines for her husband's return.

In the present, she disports with an American sailor named Frankie (Alan Scott), who in turn is the object of a young girl's affections. The girl's name, like Lola's, is Cecile (Annie Dupeyroux). Set in Nantes overthe span of a few days, this story of love stories crossing paths, of life teeming with co-incidences and missed chances conveys the spirit of the early French New Wave and the cinema of Max Ophuls, to whom Demy also dedicates the film.

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Perhaps the crowning achievement of Bunuel's career, the film centres on an idealistic young nun named Viridiana (Silvia Pinal).

Before she is allowed to take her final vows, the Mother Superior requests that she visit her uncle Don Jaime (Fernando Rey), who has "selflessly" provided for the girl over the years. Having always considered him an unspeakable beast, she is surprised when he graciously welcomes her into his home. Just as graciously, he sets about to corrupt Viridiana beyond redemption - all because the girl resembles the wife that died on their wedding day.

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Mr and Mrs Arpel live in a remarkably modern house in a bland, clean neighbourhood. In this excessively controlled universe there is no room for play, chance or humour, and their son Gerard is bored.

However the calm is broken with the sudden eruption of his eccentric misfit uncle, Monsieur Hulot, Madame Arpel's brother. His family and entourage resent his whimsicality, especially as he becomes a role model for Gerard...

Hired to work on a yacht belonging to the disabled husband of femme fatale Rita Hayworth, Welles plays an innocent man drawn into a dangerous web of intrigue and murder.

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Ernest Hemingway s spare, laconic short story about two professional killers and their encounter with a mysteriously unresisting victim was significantly expanded into this all-time film noir classic, which Hemingway said was the first adaptation of his work that he really admired.

As washed-up boxer turned hitman victim Ole 'Swede' Andreson, Burt Lancaster made his screen debut, and was catapulted to instant stardom, not least for the screen chemistry that he showed opposite sultry Ava Gardner, whose Kitty Collins is the very personification of the femme fatale. German émigré Robert Siodmak was one of the filmmakers who helped create film noir, and Elwood Bredell s high-contrast cinematography, all harsh lighting and long shadows, elevates the film far above a conventional crime drama. But even on that level it s a first-rate demonstration of how to maintain narrative tension, with the flashback structure withholding crucial details until almost the very end.

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Witty and provocative look at the battle of the sexes. Four men gather at a country retreat to prepare a gourmet supper, while in the city their female companions are working out at a health club.

Both groups discuss their sex lives, affairs and seduction techniques and when they finally meet for dinner, the knives are out, revelations are made and an uncomfortable night is in store for all.

Lon Chaney, the man of a thousand faces, stars in this, the original adaptation of Gaston Leroux's celebrated novel. When the Phantom falls in love with the voice of a young opera singer (Mary Philbin) he drags her to the catacombs beneath the Paris Opera House and forces her to sing only for him.

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Eighteen-year-old Nelly (Inga Landgré) lives a quiet life in a small town with her foster mother. There, she makes a living giving piano lessons and letting a room to Ulf (Allan Bohlin), who is in love with her.

Despite her financial problems, Nelly's foster mother manages to save enough money to buy Nelly a new dress to wear at a charity ball. However, when Nelly's real mother, Jenny (Marianne Löfgren), also buys a dress, Nelly wears this instead. Attracted by the glamorous garment and the promise of a more exciting life, Nelly leaves the small town to join her mother in Stockholm. Once there, she soon discovers that there is a darker side to human nature that she never knew existed when she lived in a small town.