The Substance

A look at how comedy has influenced the social and political landscape throughout history.

The location is a small remote village, somewhere between North Africa and the Middle East. Since the dawn of time, the women of this village have been forced to go and fetch water from a spring high in the mountains, under a blazing sun. But now they have decided to take a stand. Leila, a young bride, gathers the women of the village together and persuades them they should go on a love strike. They will deny their husbands their conjugal rights unless they agree to fetch the water in their place…

Anne Welles, a bright, brash young New England college grad leaves her Peyton Place-ish small town and heads for Broadway, where she hopes to find an exciting job and sophisticated men. During her misadventures in Manhattan and, later, Hollywood, she shares experiences with two other young hopefuls: Jennifer North, a statuesque, Monroe-ish actress who wants to be accepted as a human being, but is regarded as a sex object by all the men she meets, and Neely O'Hara, a talented young actress who's accused of using devious means by a great older star (Helen Lawson) to reach the top, pulling an "All About Eve"-type deception in order to steal a good role away from her.

As a writer stymied by past success, writers block, substance abuse, relationship problems and a serious set of father issues, Elliott's cracked-out chronicle of a bizarre murder trial amounts to less than the sum of its parts. Not long into the 2007 trial of programmer Hans Reiser, accused of murdering his wife, the defendant's friend Sean Sturgeon obliquely confessed to several murders (though not the murder of Reiser's wife). Elliott, caught up in the film-ready twist and his tenuous connection to Sturgeon (they share a BDSM social circle), makes a gonzo record of the proceedings. The result is a scattered, self-indulgent romp through the mind of a depressive narcissist obsessed with his insecurities and childhood traumas.

As a hovering spacecraft departs a planet, a humanoid alien drinks a dark bubbling liquid, then starts to disintegrate. The alien's bodily remains cascade into a waterfall. His DNA triggers a biogenetic reaction. In 2089, archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway discover a star map in Scotland that matches…

Jakers! is a celebration of the joys good friendship can bring while the excitement of adventure and imagination inspires kids to learn from their own experiences. Through Jakers! children learn about life lessons and each episode conveys a moral that kids learn through daily experiences. Each episode of Jakers! is set in two distinct places and times: 1950 s Ireland and the present day.

A spree of grisly murders is perpetrated in Frankfurt by a group of Satan worshippers. A school teacher almost runs over an old man with a box and takes him in. It's no accident that the old man has come into her life, and it quickly becomes apparent that he has plans for her, plans that involve a permanent future with the Satanic cult.

FANTASTIC FOUR, a contemporary re-imagining of Marvel's original and longest-running superhero team, centers on four young outsiders who teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe, which alters their physical form in shocking ways. Their lives irrevocably upended, the team must learn to harness their daunting new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy.