Julian Barratt Movies
A man who has become an emotion basket case thinks back on the friend who made him that way in this offbeat comedy from Great Britain. Stephen (Edward Hogg) is a profoundly neurotic young man suffering from agoraphobia, though this is a relatively recent development, and as he ponders the dim prospect of going out for food, he recalls a vacation in Europe with his former best friend Bunny (Simon Farnaby). While Stephen is quiet and shy, Bunny is outgoing to a fault, and he chases women, guzzles booze and bets on anything as if there's no tomorrow. When Stephen gets dumped by his girlfriend, Bunny suggests a trip to Europe is just the thing to cure his blues, especially after he's enjoyed a windfall at the track. But things take a turn for the worst when Stephen develops a crush on Eloisa (Veronica Echegui), a cute but very eccentric young woman, and Bunny sweeps her off her feet before Stephen can make a move. Matters become all the more complicated when Eloisa takes the boys on a trip to her hometown. Bunny and the Bull was the first feature film from writer and director Paul King, part of the creative team behind the cult-favorite television comedy series The Mighty Boosh. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ed Hogg, Simon Farnaby, (more)
- 2003
A man must choose between a settled domestic life and wilder nights in The Principles of Lust from director Penny Woolcock. Paul (Alec Newman) is a struggling artist who starts a relationship with Juliette (Sienna Guillory). The same day they meet, Paul makes the acquaintance of Billy (Marc Warren) and Hole (Lara Clifton) whose lives are a long string of drugs, sex, and violence. Paul veers between life with Juliette and her son, and the debauched excesses of Billy and Hole. The Principles of Lust is adapted from a novel by Tim Cooke, and was screened at the Rotterdam Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi
- Starring:
- Alec Newman, Sienna Guillory, (more)
- 2002
Originally telecast in the United Kingdom, the two-part miniseries White Teeth was based on Zadie Smith's 2000 bestseller about the perils of cultural assimilation in modern day North London. Taking place in the years 1974 to 1992 and set in the melting-pot community of Willesden Green, the story focuses on three different families. The Jamaican-English Archie Jones (Phil Davis) is a professional envelope-folder, while his wife, Clara (Naomie Harris), is a lapsed Jehovah's Witness. Archie's old army buddy Samad Iqbal (Om Puri) is a Bengalese waiter who hails from Bangladesh, also the home country of his sharp-tongued spouse, Alsana (Archie Panjabi). And the Malfen family, headed by Joyce and Marcus (Geraldine James, Robert Bathurst), are fiercely dedicated charter members of the Keepers of the Eternal and Victorious Islamic Nation (or KEVIN for short). Deftly combining comedy, drama, melodrama, and pathos, the Dickensian interactions and interrelationships among the three families manage to accommodate a variety of dizzying plot convolutions involving disenchanted youngsters, racial prejudice, social pretensions, cult worship, misguided animal activists, a genetically modified mouse, a Nazi war criminal, and a bizarre but brilliant kidnapping scheme. In the United States, White Teeth first aired May 11, 2003, as part of the PBS Masterpiece Theatre anthology. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Om Puri, Philip Davis, (more)
The first feature by director Peter Cattaneo since his award-winning British smash hit The Full Monty, Lucky Break is another comedy in the same mold, this time taking place in prison. Small-time crooks Jimmy (James Nesbitt) and Rudy (Lennie James), after years of no success, decide to pull a bank job, where they are both captured and incarcerated. Jimmy is then transferred to Long Rudford, run by the steely security chief Perry (Ron Cook). Jimmy again runs into Rudy (whom he left to take the initial rap) and shares a cell with Cliff (Timothy Spall), a portly man prone to depression. The prison warden, Mortimer (Christopher Plummer), is heavily into Broadway musicals and offers Jimmy an opportunity to stage his long-unproduced work, "Nelson: The Musical," which Jimmy will use as a means to bust out of the prison. After working hard on the new tuner, the boys try to find a way both to do the show and to continue their arduously planned escape. The Sixth Sense's Olivia Williams co-stars as a guard Jimmy falls for, and British comic actors Bill Nighy and Frank Harper appear in supporting roles. ~ Jason Clark, Rovi
- Starring:
- James Nesbitt, Olivia Williams, (more)
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