saj's - Rented List
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Body and Soul (1947)Body & Soul
Charlie Davis (John Garfield), a boxer from New York's East Side, has fought his way out of the slums to become a world title holder, but has sold his soul along the way. Under the ownership of a corrupt promoter he is about to defend his crown and must face the biggest decision of his life if he is to redeem himself. When making 'Raging Bull', Martin Scorsese insisted Robert De Niro watch 'Body and Soul'. Robert Rossen's original boxing classic introduced a gritty, uncompromising realism to the fight sequences which would only be matched by Scorsese, some 33 years later. - Director:
- Robert Rossen
- Cast:
- John Garfield, Lilli Palmer, Hazel Brooks
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Lift to the Scaffold (1958)Ascenseur pour l'échafaud / Elevator to the Gallows
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. - Director:
- Louis Malle
- Cast:
- Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly
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Ruthless criminals, a dedicated honest cop, sultry women and a gripping plot - all the elements of a classic police action-drama are here in force. Police Sergeant Bannion (Glenn Ford) is investigating the apparent suicide of a corrupt cop, then is suddenly ordered to stop - and The Big Heat is on. Driven to unravel the mystery, Bannion continues probing until an explosion meant for him, kills his wife. He resigns from he force and soon learns that behind it all is the powerful underworld led by Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourby) and his cold-blooded henchman, Vince Stone (Lee Marvin). When Stone's girl Debby (Gloria Grahame) makes a play for Bannion, Stone disfigures her face and in revenge, she tells all she knows. A life-or-death confrontation between Bannion and Stone brings this classic film noir thriller to a climatic unmissable finale! - Director:
- Fritz Lang
- Cast:
- Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando
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Summer 1977, the week of the Queen's Silver Jubilee. Passion is in the air of the dark blue London sky. TJ, is out cruising the park for love, and is murdered. A beatbox lying in the bushes is the only clue... We follow the story of Chris (Valentine Nonyela) and Caz (Mo Sesay), two young black disc jockeys who run a pirate radio station, 'Soul Patrol'. Chris deflects from the pirate station to join a mainstream radio station, Caz gets jealous and as she turns her back on him - he gets arrested for the murder. Is it him…all finally becomes clear at a concert in the park… - Director:
- Isaac Julien
- Cast:
- Valentine Nonyela, Mo Sesay, Dorian Healy
- Formats:
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Ranked at No. 30 on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 all-time greatest American films, 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre' is a genuine masterpiece that went on to win 3 Academy Awards. Bogart gives a tremendous performance as a vicious down-and-out wage worker who stakes his meagre earnings on a gold-prospecting expedition. - Director:
- John Huston
- Cast:
- Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt
- Formats:
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The Hunt (2012)Jagten
"The Hunt" unfolds in a small provincial town in the days leading up to Christmas. Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen), a forty year old divorcee, is finally getting his life under control. He's got himself a new girlfriend, a new job and is in the process of re-building his relationship with his teenage son, Marcus. But things soon start to unravel. Nothing significant, just a slight comment here, a random lie there. And as the snow falls and the Christmas lights are lit, the lie spreads like an invisible virus. The shock and mistrust gets out of hand, and the small community suddenly finds itself in a collective state of hysteria, while Lucas fights a lonely fight for his life and dignity. "The Hunt" is a disturbing depiction of how a lie can quickly become truth - a modern tale of a witch-hunt, injustice, guilt and, ultimately, forgiveness. A fable on how fragile a community can become when gossip, doubt and malice are allowed to flourish. It is a stirring portrait of a man struggling to exonerate himself, and a father and a son reaching out for one another as their world crumbles. - Director:
- Thomas Vinterberg
- Cast:
- Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Annika Wedderkopp
- Formats:
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When homicide detective Mike Hoolihan (Patricia Clarkson) is called to investigate the murder of a leading astrophysicist (Mamie Gummer) in New Orleans, she is confronted by a mystery that begins to affect her in ways she had never expected. As the investigation deepens, a darker world is slowly revealed and she must use all of her skills and experience to piece together fragments of a wider conspiracy that lies behind the murder. - Director:
- Carol Morley
- Cast:
- Patricia Clarkson, Toby Jones, James Caan
- Formats:
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Queen and Slim (2019)Queen & Slim
While on a forgettable first date together in Ohio, a black man (Daniel Kaluuya) and a black woman (Jodie Turner-Smith), are pulled over for a minor traffic infraction. The situation escalates, with sudden and tragic results, when the man kills the police officer in self-defense. Terrified and in fear for their lives, the man, a retail employee, and the woman, a criminal defense lawyer, are forced to go on the run. But the incident is captured on video and goes viral, and the couple unwittingly become a symbol of trauma, terror, grief and pain for people across the country. As they drive, these two unlikely fugitives will discover themselves and each other in the most dire and desperate of circumstances and will forge a deep and powerful love that will reveal their shared humanity and shape the rest of their lives. - Director:
- Melina Matsoukas
- Cast:
- Daniel Kaluuya, Jodie Turner-Smith, Bokeem Woodbine
- Formats:
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Happy as Lazzaro (2018)Lazzaro Felice
Lazzaro (talented newcomer Adriano Tardiolo) is a beautiful peasant whose sweet nature makes people mistake him for simple-minded. He happily does the bidding of anyone in his local village, which is ruled over by the evil Marchesa (Nicoletta Braschi). He finds an unlikely friend in the Marchesa's petulant son Tancredi (Tommaso Ragno / Luca Chikovani), who convinces his hapless ally to help him stage a dramatic incident to secure a ransom. 'Happy as Lazzaro' follows the adventures of this young man living on the margins of his society, who can seemingly travel through time, arriving in the big city and appearing as a fragment of the past lost in the modern world. - Director:
- Alice Rohrwacher
- Cast:
- Adriano Tardiolo, Agnese Graziani, Alba Rohrwacher
- Formats:
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Two brothers' loyalty is tested as their paths collide amidst a violent world of drugs and gangs. Mo is growing up in a traditional Egyptian household, but beyond the front door of the family's modest London flat is a completely different world - the streets of Hackney. The impressionable Mo idolizes his charismatic older brother and wants to follow in his footsteps. However, Rashid wants a different life for his brother and will do whatever it takes for him not to live the life he leads. Aching to be seen as a tough guy himself, Mo takes a job that unlocks a fateful turn of events that forces the brothers to confront their inner demons. - Director:
- Sally El Hosaini
- Cast:
- James Floyd, Elarica Johnson, Fady Elsayed
- Formats:
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An ambitious but unscrupulous lawyer (John Garfield) works for the mob, and scents the prospect of a personal fortune when he helps concoct a plan that will merge all of New York City's numbers rackets into a single powerful and unbreakable operation. But one of them is run by his own brother (Thomas Gomez), who is much happier as an independent, mainly because it allows him to apply his own ethical standards to prevent innocent people from being corrupted by his shady activities. And it's the Cain-and-Abel clash between them that gives the film its tragic dimension. - Director:
- Abraham Polonsky
- Cast:
- John Garfield, Thomas Gomez, Marie Windsor
- Formats:
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Pili (Bello Rashid) lives in rural Tanzania, working the fields for less than $2 a day to feed her two children and struggling to manage her HIV-positive status in secret. When she is offered the chance to rent a sought-after market-stall, Pili is desperate to have it. But with only two days to get the deposit together, Pili is forced to make increasingly difficult decisions with ever-deepening consequences. How much will she risk to change her life? - Director:
- Leanne Welham
- Cast:
- Bello Rashid, Nkwabi Elias Ng'angasamala, Sesilia Florian Kilimila
- Formats:
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My Uncle (1958)Mon Oncle
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... - Director:
- Jacques Tati
- Cast:
- Jacques Tati, Jean-Pierre Zola, Adrienne Servantie
- Formats:
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Jacques Tourneur's (Out of the Past, Cat People) first Western is a lost classic, regarded by some as an equal to the work of the great John Ford. Dana Andrews plays Logan Stuart a scout turned general store and freight company owner, based in the mining settlement of Jacksonville, Oregon. Logan's best friend is George Camrose (Brian Donlevy), a banker and express company owner with an addiction to poker. When a gambling debt turns sour leading to accusations of murder, George is sentenced to death by a kangaroo court but Logan helps him escape. Meanwhile, Indians go on the warpath when the town's brutish Bragg (Ward Bond) kills a young Indian woman. Also featuring Susan Hayward and Patricia Roc as women vying for Logan's attentions and the incomparable Hoagy Carmichael as a wandering minstrel, 'Canyon Passage' is a deft blend of action, romance and colourful location scenery. - Director:
- Jacques Tourneur
- Cast:
- Dana Andrews, Brian Donlevy, Susan Hayward
- Formats:
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With her Oscar-winning turn in 'Klute', Jane Fonda reinvented herself as a new kind of movie star. Bringing nervy audacity and counterculture style to the role of Bree Daniels - a call girl and aspiring actor who becomes the focal point of a missing-person investigation when detective John Klute (Donald Sutherland) turns up at her door - Fonda made the film her own, putting an independent woman and escort on-screen with a frankness that had not yet been attempted in Hollywood. Suffused with paranoia by the conspiracy-thriller specialist Alan J. Pakula, and lensed by master cinematographer Gordon Willis, 'Klute' is a character study thick with dread, capturing the mood of early-1970's New York and the predicament of a woman trying to find her own way on the fringes of society. - Director:
- Alan J. Pakula
- Cast:
- Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Charles Cioffi
- Formats:
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