Available on
The Comic Strip Presents
The Comic Strip is a group of British comedians, who came to prominence in the 1980s. They are known for their television series The Comic Strip Presents... which was labelled as an example of alternative comedy. The core members are Adrian Edmondson, Dawn French, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Peter Richardson, Jennifer Saunders and Alexei Sayle with frequent appearances by Keith Allen, Robbie Coltrane and others.
Julien Temple
Bob Spiers
Peter Richardson
Pete Richens
Sandy Johnson
Adrian Edmondson
Dawn French
Rik Mayall
Jennifer Saunders
Stephen Frears
Keith Allen
Rowland Rivron
Daniel Peacock
Ian Emes
Alexei Sayle
David Stafford
Pauline Melville
Baz Taylor
Doug Lucie
Nigel Planer
Paul Bartel
Barry Dennen
Robbie Coltrane
Morag Fullarton
Brigit Grant
Also Directed by Julien Temple
Set in England during the early 19th century, Pandaemonium evokes late-1960s America in its depiction of the relationship between Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Linus Roach) and William Wordsworth (John Hannah). Instead of going to Vietnam, Wordsworth goes off to fight against the French while Coleridge stays at home and promotes utopianism. After the war, the poets live and work together with Coleridge's wife, Sara (Samantha Morton), and Wordsworth's sister, Dorothy (Emily Woof). At first this communal arrangement works to the advantage of Coleridge--who does some of his best writing while Wordsworth stagnates--until Coleridge becomes addicted to opium. Wordsworth, meanwhile, doesn't find his voice until he abandons his friend. In 20th-century vernacular, Wordsworth is the yuppie, Coleridge the hippie.
A brief history of the Cuban capital of Havana, backed by a vibrant soundtrack of son cubano, salsa, jazz, rumba, mambo and hip hop. Drawing on archive footage, animations, movie excerpts and interviews with Havana residents, eyewitnesses and experts, Habaneros runs through key moments in the city’s modern history, from the abolition of slavery at the end of the 19th century to the Spanish–American War, and from the dictatorship of General Batista to the revolution of Fidel Castro. The film concludes by wondering what the future holds. Many Havana locals are encouraged by President Obama’s relaxation of sanctions, but much uncertainty remains.
An adaptation of the opera 'The Eternity Man'
Director Julien Temple's film celebrates Canvey Island's Dr Feelgood, the Essex R 'n' B band that exploded out of the UK in the prog era of the early Seventies, delivering shows and albums that helped pave the way for pub rock and punk.
Julien Temple's second documentary profiling punk rock pioneers the Sex Pistols is an enlightening, entertaining trip back to a time when the punk movement was just discovering itself. Featuring archival footage, never-before-seen performances, rehearsals, and recording sessions as well as interviews with group members who lived to tell the tale--including the one and only John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten).
A Julien Temple-authored documentary essay film about Keith Richards's postwar childhood and adolescence in Dartford and London. Exploring the cultural undercurrents and transformative thinking which occurred in England between 1945 and 1962 and made possible the worldwide explosion of British rock music during the 60s, in which Keith played such a crucial role.
A tough, Jewish ex-con just released from prison crosses a powerful drug dealer and former prison rival in his return to a life of crime.
Recorded live at the Oakland Coliseum, Oakland, California on November 24th and at the Lawlor Events Center, Reno, Nevada on November 23rd 1991
A look at the last years of Marvin Gaye's life, from his parting ways with Motown and self-imposed exile to Europe, to his relationship with Freddy Cousaert, the promoter who guided the singer through the recording of his biggest-selling album, Midnight Love.
A rock singer goes to Brazil to shoot a video, but winds up getting kidnapped and enduring a number of seemingly bizarre and hilarious events.
Also Directed by Bob Spiers
A man must participate in the Iditarod dog race across Alaska to inherit property from his legendary grandfather, but ends up getting much more than he bargained for.
Richie Richard (socially awkward, sexually inexperienced) and Eddie Hitler (carefree alcoholic ) are two social outcasts living on the dole. Trapped together in a squalid flat in Hammersmith, London they are perpetually skint, bored and sexually frustrated. They spend their days scheming, bickering, and being nasty and sadistic to each other.
Eddy and Patsy prepare to go on a skiing holiday to hopefully indulge in the jet-setting lifestyle of the international celebrity elite when Saffy is proposed to by her stuffy, upper-class boyfriend, Paolo. Eddy hits the slopes and has a near death experience where God appears to her and tells her it's not yet her time. When Eddy comes to, she waits for a sign that she should get involved in Saffy's wedding. As she returns to the house, it appears all hell has broken loose- relatives piling up, practically squatting, and Saffy about to lose her mind. Eddy calms her by throwing money at her as they bond together, planning Saffy's dream wedding. What could go wrong?
Carl Moss leaves jail,where he has taken the rap for his evil twin Sterling,and has been declared a model prisoner. Pauline Sneek,his probation officer - and girlfriend - gets him community work teaching youngsters how to lead law-abiding lives. This displeases Sterling,as he needs the young delinquents for his bicycle stealing ring.
Zany adventure that follows The Spice Girls and their entourage (mostly fictional characters) - manager Clifford, his assistant Deborah, and filmmaker Piers (who is trying to shoot a documentary on "the real Spice Girls").
The Adventures of Lano and Woodley is an Australian comedy television show starring the comedic duo of Lano and Woodley, consisting of two series which aired on ABC TV from 1997 to 1999. The first series was distributed on VHS and in 2004 The Complete Adventures of Lano and Woodley was released as a 2-disc DVD rather than each series being released separately.
Three alternative comedians get involved in a pyramid-selling organization, Pathway, in order to finance their act. They gain great success by deploying their skills as entertainers, only to eventually discover the sinister purpose behind the Pathway organization.
While making his nightly rounds in the neighborhood, Patti's pet cat D.C. finds himself the carrier of a call for help from a kidnap victim. Patti enlists skeptical law enforcement help to find the victim before it's too late.
Also Directed by Sandy Johnson
A Toronto police officer gets involved in a homicide investigation while visiting his father in Mumbai.
Roughnecks is a BBC comedy-drama series that ran over two series between 1994 and 1995 on BBC One. The show centred on the working and personal lives of those who worked on the fictional oil rig "The Osprey Explorer" in the North Sea.
A double offering of heavy metal madness from The Comic Strip and Bad News.
A documentary crew films heavy metal band Bad News as they have trouble starting their van, pick up a schoolgirl groupie, and meet up with rock journalist Sally at a motorway service station where they argue about the cost of sausage and chips.
Comedy drama about rivalry in the lucrative world of greyhound racing. Self-made millionaire Larry Patterson is powerful and charismatic, with the best dogs in the greyhound racing world. Jim Morley is one of life’s losers, always ‘just one business away’ from making his fortune; his only link to the world of greyhound racing is a three-legged dog called Highland Fling. On the financial scale, they’re as far removed as it’s possible to be. But they have one thing in common: they both love the same woman…
Otis Cooke is a DJ with a late-night American soul music programme in Liverpool. His favorite band, The Tallahassees, disbanded years ago, but their biggest hit, "Pickin' Up the Pieces," was never released in England. The film recounts Cooke's adventures and misadventures as he travels to the U.S., finds the band members, and convinces them to get back together for a reunion tour of the U.K and the release of their old songs on CD.
Receiving a tip from his dentist Jack Shorter, policeman Peter Pascoe takes a closer look at the Calliope Kinema Club, a film club notorious for showing adult entertainment movies. Shorter is convinced that one particular scene in a movie he recently saw was too realistic to have been staged with fake blood, but when Pascoe and his bluff superior Andy Dalziel starts investigating, they soon comes across the actress in question, Linda Abbott, who obviously didn't suffer from any harm and assures Pascoe that the concerns are unnecessary.
The Ruth Rendell mysteries is a British television series made by TVS and Meridian Television for ITV between 2 August 1987 and 11 October 2000.
Also Directed by Stephen Frears
Thirteen filmmakers talk about Henri Langlois and their relationship with him.
A program of short films from some of the cinema's greatest diectors. Curated by Emir Kusturica and Stephen Frears. - George Lucas "1.42.08 to Qualify" (1966) - Ridley Scott "A Boy and a Bicycle" (1965) - Robert Zemeckis "The Lift" (1972) - Tony Scott "One of the Missing" (1969) - Emir Kusturica "Guernica" (1978) - Luc Besson "L'avant dernier" (1981) - Lars von Trier "Nocturne" (1980) - Terry Gilliam "Storytime" (1968) - Paul Verhoeven "A Lizzard Too Much" (1960) - Roman Polanski "Le gros et le maigre" (1960) - Jane Campion "Peel" (1982) - Stephen Frears "The Burning" (1967)
A British-Pakistani man renovates a rundown laundrette with his male lover while dealing with drama within his family, the local Pakistani community, and a persistent mob of skinheads.
In 18th century France, Marquise de Merteuil asks her ex-lover Vicomte de Valmont to seduce the future wife of another ex-lover of hers in return for one last night with her. Yet things don’t go as planned.
Alan Bennett's debut play for television follows the members of a Halifax cycling club, on an outing from Halifax to the ruins of Fountains Abbey. Set in the summer of 1911 and projects an idyllic vision of Edwardian England .
A 1976 play concerning an unemployed school leaver becomes involved with professional car thieves. Part of the ITV Playhouse strand.
When television producer Paul Smith puts everything on the line to make ITV quiz show and overnight sensation `Who Wants to be a Millionaire?', one family's much-loved pub quiz hobby turns into outright obsession.
A housemaid falls in love with Dr. Jekyll and his darkly mysterious counterpart, Mr. Hyde.
Stephen Frears and a quartet of film industry notables - representing different cinematic periods - drink tea and discuss ups and downs of British cinema.
As a traveler searches for a place called Confidence, he keeps running into other versions of himself.
Also Directed by Ian Emes
An experimental animation for "One of These Days" by Pink Floyd.
A father and son enter a magic shop that may contain real magic.
Two women dress themselves carefully in lingerie and drive through the streets of London towards a rendezvous with each other in an abandoned multi-story car park. The instrumental end piece of the song was accompanied by a topless Perri Lister performing a sensuous dance - clearly an homage to Charlotte Rampling's topless "Dance of the Seven Veils" in Il portiere di notte.
Eleven sexy music videos you could never see on television complete and uncensored for the first time.
An infamous short film that accompanies the Linda McCartney song of the same name.
A white boy lives in a racially divided town. The only thing he cares about is playing his drums. A popular black band from school needs a drummer and he joins them, but being colorblind in this town makes life very difficult.
Within this intuitive interpretation of Pink Floyd's music, there are secrets, enigmas and metaphors. The narrative is open ended, therefore open to individual interpretation, along the lines of: In the parallel worlds of the past and the future, two tribes struggle to survive on a dying planet, while attempting to communicate with the life force of earth itself. As time runs out, a monolith approaches from outer space, carrying within it a puzzle which they fail to understand. Is it a warning, or does it contain the secret to the survival of mankind?
The made for television movie Munster's Scary Little Christmas, created three decades after the demise of the original series, concerns son Eddie missing his home in Transylvania. Soon the entire family bands together to teach the young boy everything great about the holiday season.
Matilda Stone is a perennially single female detective whose three aunts are well-known crime writers that help her solve whodunit style murders as well as set her up on blind dates.
Also Directed by Baz Taylor
Nick Faunt, a Manchester millionaire's son, leaves home at the height of the Depression to become an artist. When he meets Irish serving girl, a strange love story begins.
A play with music by Victoria Wood. Julie (Julie Walters) is a young woman seeking escape, with the help of her frumpish friend Maureen (Wood) she prepares for her singing debut at a seedy Manchester club's talent show
On August the 15th, 1945, after the official surrender of the Empire of Japan, Admiral Matome Ugaki led the last Special Attack Force pilots across the Pacific, to crash into American ships. Thirty-five years later, the men who serviced the aeroplanes are still meeting up for their annual dinner. Now settled into civilian jobs - dentist, baker, taxi-driver, insurance salesman - and with children and grandchildren, they bemoan the decay of traditional Japanese values. Hard liquor is imbibed, toasts raised to the memory of the heroic dead, and old rivalries resurface. The survivors' dissatisfaction with post-war life comes to a head when, in a moment of drunken inspiration, Tokkotai the airline pilot decides on a symbolic gesture to show that the kamikaze spirit lives on.
In the future (1999), the UK is subdivided into two regions by barbed wire and border patrols. Northern Britain is cold, bleak and impoverished, while sunny South Britain is a place of relative luxury. When Lord Tewkesbury, the owner of rich conglomerate, decides his son Giles needs more real-life experience, he arranged for Giles to work under an assumed name. Unfortunately, this results in Giles being sent to North Britain to do menial labor, while previously impoverished Gavin is transferred to sunny South Britain.
Drama series about an ex-policeman, who now uses his detective skills while working for insurance companies.
A philandering executive tries to juggle two wives and a mistress, and finds himself suddenly being shadowed by some angry Russian holdouts from the Cold War.
A play by Victoria Wood. Maureen has been faithfully attending the slimmers' club for months. Now the weeks of endless crispbreads have paid off - but is her optimism misplaced? Sequel to Wood's earlier play Talent, featuring the same characters of lifelong friends Maureen and Julie.
A play by Victoria Wood. Frances is 28, single and happy, despite ritual interrogation from her family as to why she's not married. Then she meets Jim, and finds she has decisions to make.
"They're nice affable gobblers and we're in the nice affable gobbling business." But Tom and Gwen soon find that their gastronomical retreat from the rat race is anything but an escape when the Porters come to dine.
A family of five orphaned children are going to be split up into different homes. What will happen if the eldest is officially made their foster parent?