soniagee's - Rented List

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From Director Jean-Jacques Annaud comes a tale of raw passion across the cultural divide. On a ferry across the Mekong in the 1920's, a teenage French girl meets an important Chinese Diplomat. She's fascinated by his riches and elegance and is soon caught up in a whirlwind of physical pleasure.

As their relationship becomes even more intimate, an emotional bond begins to grow that threatens to destroy both their lives.

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Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) is a respected but less-than-perfect surveillance expert who is wracked with self-doubt and carrying a heavy conscience since his work led to the death of two of his subjects.

So when he comes to believe that his latest assignment - eavesdropping on a pair of young lovers - may end in murder, Harry can no longer avoid confronting the moral consequences of his chosen profession.

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An upbeat and offbeat comedy, 'Georgy Girl' is a whimsical look at love, featuring great performances by James Mason, Alan Bates and Lynn Redgrave.

Warm, winning and fun-loving Georgy (Redgrave) doesn't like to fit into the swinging London social scene, but yearns for a traditional life and traditional romance. She rooms with the sultry, moody Meredith (Charlotte Rampling), who lives for the moment and the next available man. Currently, that man is Joe (Bates). When Meredith and Joe have a baby, Meredith is indifferent, but Georgy is thrilled and winds up taking care of the baby. Now, radiant with motherly feelings, Georgy suddenly becomes the object of desire of a wealthy widower (Mason) and - Joe!

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For young, gifted art student Angelique, love has a name: 35-year-old cardiologist Loic. The only problem is that the object of her affections is not only a father-to-be but happily married... to someone else.

But when you are madly in love and desire something enough, nothing will stand in your way. A compelling and ingenuous feature debut from talented writer- director Laetitia Colombani, 'He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not' is a provocative and unsettling study of amour around you. A taut tale of passion and obsession recalling both Fatal Attraction and Play Misty For Me, the affair is expertly told from two visually and emotionally contrasting perspectives. 'He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not' will give you a whole new perspective on love and relationships.

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This landmark film by the virtuosic Mikhail Kalatozov was heralded as a revelation in the post-Stalin Soviet Union and the international cinema community alike.

It tells the story of Veronica (Tatiana Samoilova) and Boris (Alexei Batalov), a couple who are blissfully in love until World War II tears them apart. With Boris at the front, Veronica must try to ward off spiritual numbness and defend herself from the increasingly forceful advances of her beau's draft-dodging cousin.

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Academy Award-winner Paul Newman scorches the screen in this hilarious, sexy comedy from the creator of Bull Durham.

Newman stars as a fiery, eccentric governor who falls head over heels in love with the dazzling Blaze Starr (sensational Lolita Davidovich), an innocent New Orleans stripper with a heart of gold. Forced to choose between the office he holds and the woman he loves, he chooses both...igniting an outrageous scandal full of trouble, tenderness, and sexy high-spirited fun. Critically acclaimed, this sizzling tale delivers a most entertaining look at an offbeat love story!

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"The Magic Box" tells the fascinating and affecting story of the English motion picture pioneer William Freise-Greene (Robert Donat), a man who lived only for his work, often sacrificing himself, his family and his fortune to satisfy an obsession - to make pictures move.

That he succeeded is undeniable but his strength of purpose was outweighed by his personal failings. "The Magic Box" is not only the story of Willie Greene the inventor, but also of the two women who loved him, played by Margaret Johnston (The Rake's Progress) and Maria Schell (The Brothers Karamazov), who gave him the courage and inspiration to fulfill his ambitions.

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You have a lot of time to think when you're locked away seven years. So criminal mastermind Doc (Sam Jaffe) conceives what he believes is the perfect heist.

As in 'The Maltese Falcon' and 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre', director John Huston explores the feverish grab for the big score and how it unravels in 'The Asphalt Jungle', a renowned tale of dishonour among thieves whose cast includes Sam Jaffe as Doc and Sterling Hayden as Doc's unflappable gundel. Louis Calhern portrays Emmerich, the shady lawyer for whom "crime is only a left-handed form of human endeavour". And rising star Marilyn Monroe grabs everyone's attention as the doxie who briefly provides Emmerich with the most gorgeous alibi ever to reach the screen.

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'Immortal Story' was based on a short story by the Danish writer Karen Blixen. The Portuguese colony of Macao in the 19th century. Mr. Clay is a very rich merchant and the subject of town gossip. He has spent many years in China and is now quite old.

He likes his clerk Levinsky to read the company's accounts to him at night for relaxation. Tonight Mr. Clay recounts a true story he heard years before about a rich man who paid a poor sailor 5 guineas to father a child with his beautiful young wife. Levinsky says that's a popular old sailor's legend and not true. Mr. Clay has no heir for his fortune and no wife either. He resolves to make the story true... Levinsky approaches Virginie, another clerk's mistress, and strikes a bargain for 300 guineas. Now to find the sailor...

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Melville's most personal film, rooted in his wartime experiences in the French Resistance, Army Of Shadows is a hard, tense drama, depicting man's capacity for both bravery and evil. In the winter of 1942-1943, as France exist s under German occupation, an underground cell operates in the shadows.

In the clandestine world of the Resistance, the freedom fighters work against their enemies under the constant risk of betrayal, ordinary men and women in an extraordinary situation. Suffused throughout with a mood of foreboding, the suspense, heightened with directorial mastery, reaches its peak as the Resistance attempt to free a prisoner from the Gestapo headquarters, in one of Melville's trademark set-pieces of iconic action.

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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.

After the death of her life-long best friend, Claire (Anaïs Demoustier) vows to watch over her husband, David (Romain Duris), and their young daughter. But when she makes a surprising discovery her own subconscious desires are unleashed, taking her on a journey that will change her life irrevocably.

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One of the most notorious films ever made, 'Myra Breckinridge' caused an outcry on its release, prompting one reviewer to call it 'a pornographic remake of Charley's Aunt'. Since then this over-the-top comedy of excess has built a huge cult following.

Based on the novel by Gore Vidal, the story follows Myron, who has a sex change, becomes Myra and travels to Hollywood to claim an inheritance, though her real mission is "the destruction of the American male in all its particulars".

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Castella is a rich but lonely man. He has built up a successful business but has lost sight of himself, his wife and his family in the process. Clara is a middle-aged actress who lives for the theatre but craves for a family and some security in her life.

Clara teaches English in her spare time and this is how she meets Castella. There is no obvious attraction at first but when he just happens to see her perform in the theatre she triggers something inside him. Castella begins to pursue her aggressively, attempting to break into her social circle and even shaving off his moustache. But it into her social circle and even shaving c is only when he leaves his wife and becomes more considerate and sensitive to the people around him that Clara begins to have feelings for him.

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Georges Manda (Serge Reggiani), an honest woodworker, falls in love with Marie (Simone Signoret), the moll of minor crook Roland (William Sabatier). Gangster boss Felix Leca (Claude Dauphin) orders Georges and Roland to fight a duel to the death over the girl.

Felix then pins the blame for Roland's death on Georges' boyhood chum, Raymond (Raymond Bussieres), knowing that the woodworker will nobly accept the blame; this will leave Marie alone, which is what lustful Felix has wanted all along. When Georges learns he's been set up as a dupe, he plots his revenge. Based on the true-life Leca-Manda scandal, 'Casque D'Or' brilliantly mixes violence with tenderness to capture the brutality of the French underworld and the tragedy of doomed love.