Philosophy: A Guide to Happiness

We tend to accept that people in authority must be right. It’s this assumption that Socrates wanted us to challenge by urging us to think logically about the nonsense they often come out with, rather than being struck dumb by their aura of importance and air of suave certainty.This six part series on philosophy is presented by popular British philosopher Alain de Botton, featuring six thinkers who have influenced history, and their ideas about the ...

Continue reading →

Taboo: Mating

How far would you go in the name of love? Would you drink your partner’s blood to secure your bond? Or carve their hand print into your flesh to show your devotion? Could you marry someone behind bars, knowing you may never be able to be together? Or risk your life to steal another man’s wife? Delve into rituals, ancient and modern, used to bond one human to another and uncover the extremes of human passion and devotion. The desire to find ...

Continue reading →

Wild Thing: The Smithsonian National Zoo

Wild Thing: The Smithsonian National Zoo showcases the role of the National Zoo in preserving endangered species on the edge of extinction. The stars of this show – Giant Pandas, Cheetahs, Orangutans, and other animals on display at the Zoo – are “ambassadors” for their dwindling species in the wild. As part of a worldwide conservation effort, scientists at the National Zoo breed endangered species for the purpose of re-introducing them to nature. ...

Continue reading →

The Tiger and the Snow

A love-struck poet travels into the heart of wartime Iraq in hopes of rescuing the woman he loves in Academy award-winning director Roberto Benigni's affecting tale of love and devotion. A kind poet and father to his daughters, a respected lecturer and literary figure to his students, and a complete nuisance in the eyes of his beloved Vittoria (Nicoletta Braschi), Attilio (Benigni) finds his life suddenly turned upside down when he learns that ...

Continue reading →

Harold and Maude

Self-destructive and needy but wealthy teenager Harold is obsessed with death and spends his leisure time attending funerals, watching the demolition of buildings, visiting junkyards, simulating suicides trying to get the attention of his indifferent, snobbish and egocentric mother, and having sessions with his psychologist. When Harold meets the anarchic seventy-nine-year-old Maude at a funeral, they become friends and the old lady discloses other ...

Continue reading →

The Genius of Charles Darwin

The Genius of Charles Darwin is a three-part television documentary, written and presented by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.Life, Darwin and Everything. In the first episode Richard Dawkins explains the basic mechanisms of natural selection, and tells the story of how Charles Darwin developed his theory. He teaches a year 11 science class about evolution, which many of the students are reluctant to accept. He then takes them to the ...

Continue reading →

Why Beauty Matters

Philosopher Roger Scruton presents a provocative essay on the importance of beauty in the arts and in our lives. In the 20th century, Scruton argues, art, architecture and music turned their backs on beauty, making a cult of ugliness and leading us into a spiritual desert. Using the thoughts of philosophers from Plato to Kant, and by talking to artists Michael Craig-Martin and Alexander Stoddart, Scruton analyses where art went wrong and presents ...

Continue reading →

Fetih 1453

In 1453, the Byzantine capital of Constantinople is surrounded by Ottoman Turks. The city is but a shadow of its former glory due to the empire's ever receding coffers, while the Ottoman Empire continues to grow rich. After years of tolerating the existence of Byzantium, the ambitious sultan, Mehmet II launches his campaign to end the Byzantine Empire and take Constantinople for the Ottomans, resulting in arguably the greatest siege of that age. ...

Continue reading →

The Art of Russia

Series in which art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon tells the incredible story of Russian art – its mystery and magnificence – and until now a story untold on British television.He explores the origins of the Russian icon from its roots in Byzantium and the first great Russian icon, Our Lady of Vladimir to the masterpieces of the country’s most famous icon painter, Andrei Rublev.Both epic and awe-inspiring, and producing brilliant art, nevertheless medieval ...

Continue reading →

First Earth

First Earth: Uncompromising Ecological Architecture First Earth is a documentary about the movement towards a massive paradigm shift for shelter – building healthy houses in the old ways, out of the very earth itself, and living together like in the old days, by recreating villages.It is a sprawling film, shot on location from the West Coast to West Africa. An audiovisual manifesto filmed over the course of 4 years and 4 continents, First ...

Continue reading →

Róza

Róza: A harrowing tale of survival centers on Rose, a Masurian woman, whose husband, a German soldier, was killed in the war leaving her alone on their farm. A single woman had no defense against Russian soldiers who raped as a form of revenge, nor against plundering Poles who found themselves in desperate straits. The law of the jungle had replaced the rule of law. Help arrives for Rose in the form of Tadeusz, a former officer in the Polish ...

Continue reading →

The Fast And The Furious

A prison escapee commandeers a young woman and her hotrod in a mad dash to Mexico! (The exclamation mark may seem gratuitous, but when you're dealing with jailbirds on the run, fast cars, and fast women, the punctuation may as well get some extra gas too.) The Fast and the Furious (1955) was directed by John Ireland (who also starred in the lead role of Frank Webster) and Edwards Sampson (who was also the film editor). Another young man helps out ...

Continue reading →

Garbage Warrior

Imagine a home that heats itself, that provides its own water, hat grows its own food. Imagine that it needs no expensive technology, that it recycles its own waste, that it has its own power source. And now imagine that it can be built anywhere, by anyone, out of the things society throws away. Thirty years ago, architect Michael Reynolds imagined just such a home – then set out to build it. A visionary in the classic American mode, Reynolds ...

Continue reading →

This Is Modern Art

This Is Modern Art was a series written and presented by the English art critic Matthew Collings.The series won several awards including a BAFTA. It became popular both because of its sometimes jokey and sometimes thoughtful explanations of the work and attitude of a new wave of artists that had recently been publicized in the British mass media, and because of its author’s witty and irreverent, though clearly highly informed, commentary style.Collings ...

Continue reading →

D.O.A.

"I want to report a murder...mine." So begins D.O.A. Told in flashback, the story tells of how vacationing CPA Frank Bigelow (Edmond O'Brien) becomes the recipient of a deadly poison known as iridium. Told by a doctor that he hasn't long to live, Bigelow desperately retraces his movements of the previous 24 hours, trying to locate his murderer. Through the aid of his secretary Paula Gibson (Pamela Britton) (who doesn't know of her employer's imminent ...

Continue reading →

Baltimore: Anatomy of an American City

The election of the first black US president offered hope to millions of African Americans across the country. But have four years of an Obama presidency seen positive change for black communities in the US’ inner cities?“It’s not a war on drugs, it’s a war on the blacks. It started as war on the blacks and it’s now spread to Hispanics and poor whites. It was designed to take that energy that was coming out of the civil rights movement and destroy ...

Continue reading →

Gone with the Wind

Scarlett is a woman who can deal with a nation at war, Atlanta burning, the Union Army carrying off everything from her beloved Tara, the carpetbaggers who arrive after the war. Scarlett is beautiful. She has vitality. But Ashley, the man she has wanted for so long, is going to marry his placid cousin, Melanie. Mammy warns Scarlett to behave herself at the party at Twelve Oaks. There is a new man there that day, the day the Civil War begins. Rhett ...

Continue reading →

Impressionism: Revenge of the Nice

Matthew Collings has a wonderfully simple and funny way of making you understand the when, where, why and how of important is art so this programme will get your head around impressionism in a couple of hours. Matthew Collings will reappraise the Impressionists. The four stars are Courbet, Manet, Monet and Cezanne. In two hours their stories and their art will intertwine. Matt will unpack the principles of Impressionism – the strength of color, ...

Continue reading →

The Fabric of the Cosmos

The Fabric of the Cosmos, a four-hour series based on the book by renowned physicist and author Brian Greene, takes us to the frontiers of physics to see how scientists are piecing together the most complete picture yet of space, time, and the universe.With each step, audiences will discover that just beneath the surface of our everyday experience lies a world we’d hardly recognize – a startling world far stranger and more wondrous than anyone expected.Brian ...

Continue reading →

His Girl Friday

Hilarious romantic comedy starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. Russell is rough and tumble reporter looking to get out of the news racket by marrying and becoming a house wife after her divorce from newspaper publisher Grant. Just when she is about to leave town with her husband-to-be the still lovesick Grant drafts her to cover one final breaking news sensation. Along with plenty of laughs and fast paced dialog this film provides a witty ...

Continue reading →

The Elegant Universe

Adapted from a provocative book by Brian Greene, this deeply engrossing documentary — which originally aired on PBS’s NOVA in three parts — attempts to explain the controversial string theory, a complicated scientific proposal that, in short, posits a single explanation for many of the universe’s mysteries. As affable an egghead as you’re likely to find, Greene engages an array of physicists in his examination of string theory, which in part blends ...

Continue reading →

Mrs Peppercorn's Magical Reading Room

Mrs Peppercorn's Magical Reading Room Eloise moves to Black Lake, a remote Cornish fishing village. Whilst there she discovers her life isn't quite what she thought it was... A magical/fantasy short film set in a remote cornish fishing village. Eloise a nine year old adopted girl takes solace in her books when she moves to the creepy village of Black Lake, until she meets Mrs Peppercorn the bookshop owner who was said to have been dead for over ...

Continue reading →

Cosmos: A Personal Voyage

With Cosmos, Carl Sagan and his wife and co-writer, Ann Druyan, brilliantly illustrated the underlying science of his same-titled book, placing the human species within a space-and-time context that brought the infinite into stunningly clear view. The series, which originally aired in 1980 on PBS, has been seen by more than 700 million people worldwide and remains a high-water mark in miniseries history.Sagan lucidly explains such topics as ...

Continue reading →

Killer Cloud

In 1783, thousands in Britain died as a result of an environmental disaster, choking on poisonous gases from a huge volcanic eruption in Iceland. The ensuing winter was one of the harshest ever recorded and claimed even more lives. This forgotten disaster has remained a mystery for the past 200 years. ‘Timewatch’ reveals the evidence and reviews the likelihood of a repetition ...

Continue reading →

The Story of Science: Power, Proof and Passion

For thousands of years we have wrestled with the great questions of existence. Who are we? What is the world made of? How did we get here? The quest to answer these is the story of science. Each week, medical journalist Michael Mosley traces the often unpredictable path we have taken. From recreating a famous alchemist’s experiment, to following in Galileo’s footsteps, and putting himself in the hands of a hypnotist, Michael unpicks how science ...

Continue reading →

The Bride

In this update of James Whale's classic The Bride of Frankenstein, pop star Sting furthers his burgeoning film career by portraying cinema's signature mad scientist. Disgusted by his dim-witted and ugly original creation (Clancy Brown), Dr. Frankenstein sets out to animate an improved version. Though lovely on the outside, Eva (Jennifer Beals) begins her new life as little more than an animal. With the help of his trusty housekeeper (Geraldine Page), ...

Continue reading →

Through the Wormhole

Hosted by Morgan Freeman, Through the Wormhole will explore the deepest mysteries of existence – the questions that have puzzled mankind for eternity. What are we made of? What was there before the beginning? Are we really alone? Is there a creator? These questions have been pondered by the most exquisite minds of the human race.Now, science has evolved to the point where hard facts and evidence may be able to provide us with answers instead ...

Continue reading →