The history of the irreverent "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" and the content battles it fought with its television network.
Social & External
The people behind it
Tom Smothers
Self
Dick Smothers
Rob Reiner
Bill Maher
Joan Baez
Jack Benny
Self (archive footage)
George Burns
Bette Davis
Pete Seeger
Harry Belafonte
Self (uncredited)
A film on feminine legacy of rebellion, language and transgressions. Using the composition of Mahadevi Akka, a 13th century saint-poet, the film explores the multiplicity of contemporary women and their own points of transgressions.
Sam, an aspiring stand-up comedian and au pair struggling with PTSD, weighs whether to join the search for Brooke, a missing teenage girl she used to nanny. As she fights to recover from her trauma and return to the stage, memories of her deep bond with Brooke rush back—making it impossible to ignore her disappearance.
Wilma has many qualifications and talents, yet suffers just as many disappointments in life. After she catches her husband cheating, she runs away to Vienna in search of a new life. There she lives with bustling bohemians, tries her luck at a variety of jobs and perhaps... at love again.
Maya Deren's Sink, a 30 minute experimental film, is an evocative tribute to the mother of avantgarde American film. The film calls forth the spirit of one who was larger than life as recounted by those who knew her. Teiji Ito's family, Carolee Schneemann and Judith Malvina, float through the homes recalling in tiny bits and pieces words of Deren's architectural and personal interior space. Clips from Maya Deren's films are projected back into the spaces where they were originally filmed appearing on the floorboard, furniture, and in the bowl of her former sink. Fluid light projections of intimate space provide an elusive agency for a filmmaker most of us will never know as film with its imaginary nature evokes a former time and space.
In okay bye-bye, so named for what Cambodian children shouted to the U.S. ambassador in 1975 as he took the last helicopter out of Phnom Phenh in advance of the Khmer Rouge, Rebecca Baron explores the relationship of history to memory. She questions whether, "image and memory can occupy the same space." Building on excerpts from letters, found super-8 footage of an unidentified Cambodian man, iconographic photographs from the Vietnam War and other partial images, Baron combines epistolary narrative, memoir, journalism, and official histories to question whether something as monumental as the genocidal slaughter of Cambodians during the Pol Pot regime can be examined effectively with traditional methodologies.
In the male dominated society of Iran, Farahnaz Shiri, the first female bus driver in Tehran, has made her own little society in her bus. In Iran there are different sections for men and women on public buses. Women should enter buses from the back door, which is separated from men’s entrance, and should sit or stay in a limited zone at the end of the buses which is separated from men’s zone. But in Mrs. Shiri’s bus everything is vice-versa. She is the governor and the only law maker of her own little society. In her bus, men must enter from the backdoor entrance and must sit or stay in the limited zone at the end of the bus. Mrs. Shiri is struggling to prove herself in this society and resisting a series of injustices that she faces as a woman in the Iranian society.
Penthesilea, the first of six films made by Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen, traverses thousands of years to look at the image of the Amazonian woman in myth. It asks, among other questions, is the Amazonian woman a rare strong female image or is she a figure derived from male phantasy? The film explores the complexities of such questions, but does not seek any concrete answers.
STATE OF FEAR takes place in Peru, yet serves as a cautionary tale for a world engaged in a "global war on terror." It dramatizes the human and societal costs a democracy faces when it embarks on a "war" against terror, a "war" potentially without end, all too easily exploited by unscrupulous leaders seeking personal political gain.
A glimpse into the world of the women who create and consume romance novels.
In the Netherlands, the final year of elementary school means turmoil for the pupils and their parents. There is no escape from the pressure on children to score as high as possible on tests to get into the best secondary schools. Parents who can afford it pay for as many private lessons as possible; other parents put pressure on the teachers. This documentary shows pupils and parents from very different backgrounds going through this process. They struggle anxiously for the same goal: the best possible start in life.
When best friends and total opposites Debbie and Peter swap homes for a week, they get a peek into each other's lives that could open the door to love.
"The Wash is a portrait of the river wash that runs behind the older part of Newhall, California, where Lee and I used to live. We shot the wash on Super8 film and then finished it on video. It is a collaboration between us, describing the ways the wash is used, and the people who use it, ourselves included. It charts the way this land has changed since they began developing Newhall and the surrounding community of Valencia for housing, a development that is expected to bring over 250,000 more people into the area by the year 2015."
Passionate horse breeder Saskia lives a secluded life at her idyllic stud farm in the Rhineland. One day, however, the well-established everyday life of the shy woman is thrown into disarray: Her childhood friend Andrea dies in an accident and Saskia is asked to take care of her daughter Lucy, at least temporarily, as her godmother. Not an easy task, as the 16-year-old had lived with her mother in London and doesn't know what to do with the monotonous country life.
Three young people living in South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation are faced with difficult challenges.
An out-of-work actress moves back in with her parents and directs a production of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Mikado" to try and save the community theater.
Whatever Comes Next is a documentary about the curious and dynamic life of Annemarie Mahler-Ettinger. The film portrays the painter and scholar, Annemarie Mahler. Born in Vienna in 1926, Mahler fled by herself as a twelve-year child to the United States and has since 1955 has lived in Bloomington, IN, and in the summers in Woods Hole, MA. The documentary portrays the artist's outer and inner lives, which bridge two centuries and two continents.
Ghost Rockets centers on human desire to explore and explain the unknown. The film weaves together an ambitious UFO investigation with a personal story that gives a rare insight into the hearts and minds of a UFO-investigator. Every year, the organization UFO‐Sweden receives numerous reports about inexplicable occurrences ‐ usually dismissed as having to do with the moon, airplanes, satellites or mental instability on the part of the witness. Sometimes, though, they get a report that they are unable to explain, one of them being the story of the ghost rocket.
This documentary explores Bob Einstein’s unlikely discovery and enduring career, sharing the many evolving layers of his comedy from the people that knew him best.
Francois Cluzet and Karin Viard are the couple behind a French shopping channel whose business and marriage are both drifting towards the rocks, with Nathalie Baye as a smiling Rottweiller out to steal their business by conning them into offering a duff product, the 'Fear Eliminator,' and picking up the network for pennies in the ensuing financial fallout.
"Soul In The Hole" is a documentary depicting the lives and struggles of a team of street-basket players aspiring to win the prestigous tournament which the movie's named after while at the same time balancing their personal issues and problems.
Kevin Hart serves up laughs and brick oven pizza from the comfort of his home, and dishes on male group chats, sex after 40 and life with COVID-19.
Comedian Kevin Hart performs in front of a crowd of 50,000 people at Philadelphia's outdoor venue, Lincoln Financial Field.
Patton Oswalt delivers a fresh hour plus of stand-up, covering everything from misery to defeat to hopelessness. It's his most upbeat special to date.
Jim explores multiple aspects of life including religion, marriage and his own sanity. This stand-up special was taped at Theatre Passe Muraille, Toronto, Canada, in front of a live audience.
In his final comedy special, Norm Macdonald ponders casinos, cannibalism, living wills and why you have to be ready for whatever life throws your way.
Stand-up comedian Kevin Hart talks about his family, travel and a year full of reckless behavior in front of a live sold-out crowd in London.
An inspiring, triumphant and wickedly funny portrait of one of comedy’s most enigmatic and important figures, CALL ME LUCKY tells the story of Barry Crimmins, a beer-swilling, politically outspoken and whip-smart comic whose efforts in the 70s and 80s fostered the talents of the next generation of standup comedians. But beneath Crimmins’ gruff, hard-drinking, curmudgeonly persona lay an undercurrent of rage stemming from his long-suppressed and horrific abuse as a child – a rage that eventually found its way out of the comedy clubs and television shows and into the political arena.
One hundred superstar comedians tell the same very, VERY dirty, filthy joke--one shared privately by comics since Vaudeville.
Comedy Central's best roasters and stand up comedians take a whack at actor/model Pamela Anderson.
Jerry Seinfeld returns to the club that gave him his start in the 1970s, mixing iconic jokes with stories from his childhood and early days in comedy.
One of comedian Richard Pryor's later stand-up performances. As foul-mouthed as ever, Pryor touches on most of the same topics as in his previous live shows. Filmed at the Saenger Theatre in New Orleans.
Richard Pryor's stand-up act includes his frank discussion about his freebasing addiction, as well as the infamous night on June 9, 1980 that he caught on fire.
HBO presents one of the most gifted and revered performers of our time, Academy-Award winning Robin Williams, starring in his fifth exclusive HBO special, taped before a live audience at Washington's Constitution Hall.
A look at the work of two stand-up comics, Jerry Seinfeld and a lesser-known newcomer, detailing the effort and frustration behind putting together a successful act and career while living a life on the road.
Time to hassle the Hoff at the rudest, raunchiest television event of the year--The Comedy Central Roast of David Hasselhoff. From running in slo-mo on the beach to inspiring Germany with the power of cheesy pop--it's almost too easy.
Armed with boyish charm and a sharp wit, the former "SNL" writer offers sly takes on marriage, his beef with babies and the time he met Bill Clinton.
2002 HBO Stand-up Special starring Robin Williams. Recorded and broadcast live from New York City's Broadway Theater at the culmination of his historic 2002 sold-out tour, this special finds the Oscar-winning actor/writer/comedian returning after 16 years to his stand-up roots to deliver what the Washington Post calls "...in its madcap way, a seminal cultural event."
Patton Oswalt, despite a personal tragedy, produces his best standup yet. Focusing on the tribulations of the Trump era and life after the loss of a loved one, Oswalt continues his journey to contribute joy to the world.
The comedic stylings of four sort-of famous funnymen are brought to the big screen courtesy of this 2002 documentary.
The Comedians of Comedy is an occasional stand-up comedy tour featuring Patton Oswalt, Zach Galifianakis, Brian Posehn and Maria Bamford that was documented in a 2005 film and 2005 Comedy Central television series of the same name, both directed by Michael Blieden.