Kathy Burke Movies

Let the Right One In director Tomas Alfredson takes the helm for this adaptation of John Le Carré's novel about an ex-British agent who emerges from retirement to expose a mole in MI6. England, 1973: British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) head Control (John Hurt) and his top-ranking lieutenant George Smiley (Gary Oldman) are both forced into retirement after a mission involving respected secret agent Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) turns unexpectedly deadly. As the Cold War continues to escalate, suspicions of a Soviet double agent begin to grow within SIS. Subsequently summoned by Undersecretary Oliver Lacon (Simon McBurney), Smiley is secretly reemployed by the SIS in order to root out the double agent suspected of sharing top-secret British intelligence with the Soviets. Meanwhile, as Smiley and his new partner Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch) begin systematically examining all of the official missions and records involving MI6, the veteran spy can't help but recall an encounter he once had with Karla, a dangerous Russian operative, years prior. At first, uncovering the identity of the infiltrator seems nearly impossible. Smiley and Guillam get a big break, however, when undercover agent Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy) reveals that he has fallen for a mysterious woman in Turkey named Irina (Svetlana Khodchenkova), who may have a crucial lead. Later, upon learning that Control had comprised a list of five possible suspects, code-named Tinker (Toby Jones), Tailor (Colin Firth), Soldier (Ciarán Hinds), Poor Man (David Dencik), and Beggar Man -- none other than Smiley himself -- the investigation begins to heat up again. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

A previously pampered society mouse must fight his way back to the comforts of Kensington after he is sent spiraling into an underground world filled with scavenger rats and villainous toads in a fun-filled family adventure produced by DreamWorks Animation and Aardman Features and featuring the voices of Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Ian McKellen, and Jean Reno. Roddy (Jackman) was living the high life when he first met Sid the sewer rat (Shane Richie), but that's all about to change when Sid decides to send the hapless mouse down the pipes and stealthily take his place in the lap of luxury. Though the bustling sewer city of Ratropolis isn't without its fair share of kind citizens, it is certainly no place for a pampered mouse with a taste for life's finer things. Upon making the acquaintance of scavenger rat Rita (Winslet), Roddy is certain that the pair can navigate their way back to the surface in Rita's trusty boat, the Jammy Dodger, but Rita's help doesn't come cheap, and the nefarious Toad (McKellen) is determined to rid Ratropolis of all things rodent. When Toad's hapless hench-rats Spike (Andy Serkis) and Whitey (Bill Nighy) fail to achieve acceptable results, the green meanie is forced to call in the cavalry in the form of legendary French mercenary Le Frog (Reno) to get the job done. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Directed by Metin Huseyin, Anita & Me follows the development of a cross-cultural friendship between 12-year-old Indian immigrant Meena (Chandeep Uppal) and her 14-year-old British neighbor, Anita (Anna Brewster). An aspiring writer, Meena (Uppal) writes down all the challenges of her new life in great detail, from her parents insistence that she focus solely on her studies, to the vast cultural differences between Britain and India. The most notable subject, however, is the comfort she finds from her unlikely friendship with Anita. Anita & Me is based on a novel by Meera Syal, who also penned the screenplay. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi

Beavis and Butthead, prepare to meet your English counterparts! Kevin (Harry Enfield) and Perry (Kathy Burke) are two 15-year-old boys whose desperation to lose their virginity is so great that it inspires a sort of awe. In the rare moments when they're not thinking about girls, Kevin dreams of being a singer, and Perry has ambitions toward becoming a dance music DJ. When Kevin and Perry manage to stop a bank robbery (please don't ask how), they're given a sizable cash reward, and they decide to go on a holiday in Ibiza, which is supposedly populated with thousands of beautiful women willing to sleep with anyone. However, after the boys pack plenty of sunscreen and condoms, Kevin's parents (James Fleet and Louisa Rix) announce that they're tagging along. Undeterred, Kevin and Perry make the trip and meet superstar DJ Eyeball Paul (Rhys Ifans), who may or may not listen to their demo tape. The boys also encounter Gemma (Tabitha Wady) and Candice (Laura Fraser), two scruffy teenage girls who are nearly as eager as Kevin and Perry to get horizontal. Kevin & Perry Go Large was based on characters that Harry Enfield and Kathy Burke created on Enfield's comedy series on British television. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This French & Saunders special from May 1999 features an extended parody of the BBC TV drama Silent Witness. Here the program becomes "Witless Silence," and Jennifer Saunders steps into the forensic-pathologist part played by Amanda Burton in the actual series. In another segment, "Acting Masterclass," another BBC actress actually guest stars. Helen Mirren, known to legions of British TV viewers as London police detective Jane Tennison, here plays an actress very much like herself who's come home to teach an actor's workshop with a pair of far less successful fellow drama school alumnae: Maggie Moffit (Dawn French), who's done more work for Actor's Equity than actual acting, and Tillie Dickerson (Saunders), a housewife who once guest-starred on Doctor Who. Three additional sketches feature parodies of musical performers: teen pop group Boyzone, Welsh rock band Catatonia, and Canadian singer/songwriter Alanis Morissette. The entire special is framed by "F&S TV," a mock shopping-channel program hosted by the titular comediennes. French & Saunders: F&S TV is included as a bonus on the DVD edition of French & Saunders: Gentlemen Prefer. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

This British-made historical drama depicts the rise of young Elizabeth Tudor to Queen of England, a reign of intrigue and betrayals. In 1554, Queen Mary I (Kathy Burke) tries to restore Catholicism as England's single faith. With no heir to the crown, she maneuvers to keep her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth (Cate Blanchett) from succeeding her, but her efforts fail. With Mary dead, Elizabeth is proclaimed Queen of England in November 1558. Elizabeth relishes the return from exile of her childhood sweetheart, Lord Robert Dudley (Joseph Fiennes). Chief adviser Sir William Cecil (Richard Attenborough) urges the young Queen to forget personal matters and instead address the country's pressing problems. England is bankrupt, has no army, and is under serious threat from abroad. Elizabeth even has enemies within her own court, the most dangerous being the Duke of Norfolk (Christopher Eccleston). Hoping for an heir, Cecil suggests marriage candidates -- King Philip II of Spain or the French Duc d'Anjou (Vincent Cassel) -- to secure the realm. Elizabeth agrees to meet their ambassadors, but her true feelings are revealed when she meets Dudley for a secret tryst. French "warrior queen" Mary of Guise (Fanny Ardent) amasses troops at the Scottish border. Elizabeth bows to the pro-War lobby led by Norfolk, despite protests from her Master of Spies, the enigmatic Sir Francis Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush), but the decision to fight leads to a humiliating defeat. As dark clouds of court conspiracies gather, and the possibility of assassination looms, Elizabeth strikes out at her enemies and puts her trust in Walsingham. Shown at 1998 film fests (Venice, Toronto), this is the first English-language film of Indian director Shekhar Kapur, who shot on locations at Northumberland, Derbyshire, North Yorkshire, and at Shepperton Studios. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

A working class British family struggles with their demons -- sometimes violently -- in this intensely emotional drama that marked the directorial debut of actor Gary Oldman. Janet (Laila Morse) is a widowed factory worker who shares her home with her aged mother Kath (Edna Dore), her daughter Valerie (Kathy Burke), her son Billy (Charlie Creed-Miles), and Valerie's husband Ray (Ray Winstone). Ray is an unstable and out-of-work alcoholic who often uses his pregnant wife as a punching bag, while Billy is a drug addict whose habit has led Janet to throw him out of the house more then once, only to take him back later. Janet is uncertain about what to do when Ray's latest tirade sends Valerie to the emergency room, and Janet also has to come to terms with the financial and emotional costs of Billy's addiction. Kathy Burke, Ray Winstone, and Laila Morse all received prizes from the 1997 British Independent Film Awards for their work in Nil by Mouth; Burke also received Best Actress honors at that year's Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Life continues apace for Edina (Jennifer Saunders), Patsy (Joanna Lumley), and Saffron (Julia Sawalha). Eddy has adopted a dolphin as both house pet and PR client; Pats has moved out of Odd Bins to make room for a new liquor aisle; and Saffy has finally found a boyfriend -- the wealthy, condescending Paolo Carlo (Tom Hollander). Mother (June Whitfield), meanwhile, has taken up with a cadre of in-your-face, elderly "snowbirds," while Bubble (Jane Horrocks) is out of the picture, busy with her new job at French Vogue. Pats and Eddy decide to vacation in Val d'sere, which, as with their earlier vacations in Absolutely Fabulous: France and Absolutely Fabulous: Morocco, turns out to be less welcoming than they'd hoped. While Pats takes up with a hunky ski instructor, Eddy has a near-death experience out on the slopes in which God appears to her in the form of Marianne Faithfull. Convinced she has been spared for some larger purpose, Eddy returns home to find that her mother's new friends have taken up residence in their camper van in the front drive. A more pressing concern arrives in the form of Saffy's engagement to Paolo; a meeting between the Monsoon clan and the mega-rich Carlo family goes poorly at first, but when Patsy realizes that Paolo's mother, Kalishia (Carmen Du Sautoy), is actually a former B-movie bimbo, the fearful society matron finds herself de-fanged. Soon life is a blur of wedding preparations, from fittings at Christian Lacroix's designer boutique to involuntary depilatory sessions forced on the hapless bride-to-be. The action climaxes at the ceremony itself, where the guests include a who's who of previous "AbFab" guest stars. Absolutely Fabulous: The Last Shout was originally broadcast as a two-part TV movie on BBC 1 in 1996, a year after the end of the third "AbFab" series. It would be the last installment until series four began in 2001. Former Shakespear's Sister member Marcella Detroit appears as God's angelic sidekick; the singer also contributed several songs to the soundtrack, including a new rendition of the show's unmistakable theme music, "This Wheel's on Fire." Nickey Clarke, Suzy Menkes, Bruce Oldfield, Christopher Biggins, and Lacroix appear as themselves. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

This collection of skits from the fourth series of French & Saunders lives up to its title. Although the comedic duo takes aim at British culture, BBC TV, pop stars, and the Middle Ages, most of the material focuses on Hollywood parody. Dawn French takes on a pair of box-office villains as she pokes fun at Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs and Kathy Bates in Misery; partner Jennifer Saunders, meanwhile, essays the Jodie Foster and James Caan roles, respectively. French experiences the familiar progression from face-hugger to stomach-exploder in a send-up of Aliens that also features Kathy Burke standing in for Jenette Goldstein as Pvt. Vasquez. Thelma and Louise also gets the patented F&S treatment. Other sketches include faux music videos for the Mamas and the Papas, Guns N' Roses, and Shakespear's Sister; "Lucky Bitches," a parody of celebrity sisters Joan and Jackie Collins; and an elaborate re-creation of the historical soap House of Eliott, in which the show's original stars, Stella Gonet and Louise Lombard, appear. The DVD edition of French & Saunders: At the Movies also includes the duo's 1999 Christmas special French & Saunders: The Phantom Millennium, an elaborate parody of Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

The third series of French & Saunders, which originally aired on the BBC in 1990, produced the various clips assembled as French & Saunders: Gentlemen Prefer French & Saunders. Gone With the Wind, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, The Exorcist, and Dangerous Liaisons provide fodder for Hollywood parodies, but much of the material focuses on original characters. Chat show hosts and pundits, cleaning ladies with attitude, women in prison -- Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders embody them all. Elsewhere, the duo aim their satiric sights at both the publishing and PR industries. Ladies' magazines and late-in-life hangers-on of Andy Warhol also get their due. There's also an opera documentary in which dueling divas belt out Kylie Minogue's "I Should Be So Lucky" and a feminine twist on the dirty-old-men characters who have been one of the show's staples from the beginning. "Modern Mother and Daughter," the sketch that provided the basis for Absolutely Fabulous, is included, with French originating the role that would be played by Julia Sawalha in the actual series. Sharp-eared viewers will catch a snippet of Inner City's Detroit techno classic "Good Life" in "Modern Mother"; sharp-eyed audiences, meanwhile, will notice that Eleanor Bron, who would go on to play Patsy's poetess mother in Absolutely Fabulous: Birth, appears as an over-the-top academic commentator in the Warhol segment. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

In this satirical British sitcom, which became a cult hit on American cable, a grotesquely self-centered fashion victim chain-smokes, swills champagne, abuses drugs, munches caviar, terrorizes her daughter, and tries in vain to mingle with the beautiful people -- all in the company of her sleek, slutty, boozed-up best friend. Edina Monsoon (Jennifer Saunders) and Patsy Stone (Joanna Lumley) (aka Pats and Eddy) are '60s survivors and fashion-world wannabes; Pats works for magazines, while Eddy owns a PR firm whose biggest client is '60s has-been Lulu, of "To Sir With Love" fame. These women live in a cloud of self-delusion about the supposed glamour of their London lifestyle, forever attempting to claw their way past the velvet rope. Pats inhabits the attic of a liquor-store franchise, while Eddy lives in a well-to-do flat thanks to the double alimony from her two ex-husbands, a gay antiques dealer and a recovering alcoholic. When she's not being horrible to her dowdy, unflappable teenaged daughter, Saffron (Julia Sawalha), and her oblivious, tongue-in-cheek mother (June Whitfield), Eddy stages fashion shows, jets off to photo shoots, pays charlatans to put her in touch with her inner child, and tries every weight-loss cure known to man -- except curbing her decadent lifestyle. Thanks to its shrill satire, over-the-top costumes, outrageous excess, and all-around camp appeal, Absolutely Fabulous became a pop-culture phenomenon that spawned two Sesame Street characters, a slew of slang expressions ("Sweetie darling, I'm chanting as we speak"), and even a Pet Shop Boys charity single. The actual theme song, sung by Julie Driscoll and Adrian Edmondson, is a cover of "This Wheel's on Fire," a '60s obscurity written by Bob Dylan and the Band's Rick Danko.

"AbFab," as it's known, began its life as a sketch called "Modern Mother and Daughter" on the BBC comedy show French & Saunders. Although frequent Saunders collaborator Dawn French played the daughter part in the original sketch, she bowed out in favor of half-Jordanian, half-British actress Sawalha, a Press Gang vet who was closer to the character's age. Patsy -- played like a coked-up Dynasty caricature by former Bond girl and New Avengers star Lumley -- wasn't a part of the original sketch but quickly became a favorite of drag queens everywhere. In addition to cameos from celebrities such as Helena Bonham Carter and Naomi Campbell, AbFab includes frequent appearances by Little Voice star Jane Horrocks (as Eddy's airhead assistant, Bubble) and Nil by Mouth star Kathy Burke (as straight-talking magazine editor Magda). Although one BBC development executive's reaction to the pilot was, "I don't think women being drunk is funny," a beeb secretary handed out tapes in secret to her friends, and soon the buzz about the show became deafening. The first series premiered on BBC1 on November 12, 1992, but didn't make its American bow until July 1994, when Comedy Central began airing perpetual reruns of the show. Three six-episode series were broadcast in the U.K. in 1992, 1994, and 1995, followed by a two-part TV movie, Absolutely Fabulous: The Last Shout, in November 1996. In 2000, as Saunders was working on a new program called Mirrorball that reunited much of the AbFab cast, she decided to switch gears and revisit her best-known characters in a fourth AbFab series, which began airing on August 31, 2001. Co-funded by Comedy Central, the new series began its U.S. run a few months later, on November 12, 2001. Although Roseanne purchased the rights to develop an American version of the show in 1994, the first international adaptation of the program to see the light of day was the 2001 French film Absolument Fabuleux. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

A restaurant worker (Lanah Pellay) is fired from a posh London eatery, so the man returns with a band of terrorists, who have their own ideas about how to run a restaurant, and they begin feeding new customers with old customers. Motorhead provides the music. ~ John Bush, Rovi

This British made-for-television film was deemed somewhat controversial in its premiere year due its delicate subject matter. The film tells the story of two male classmates who decide to run away together to avoid torment. Jason Rush stars as Matthew, a gay teen who's only friend Phil (Lee Whitlock) remains loyal, despite the reaction of their fellow students. When their families and friends turn on them over time, the two decide to run away together to avoid the torment. ~ Bernadette McCallion, Rovi