Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

Director: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones

Cast: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: There’s a certain kind of person who insists that Monty Python could do no wrong. To them, this is probably a perfect film. These people don’t want to hear from me, or really anybody that isn’t prepared to talk exclusively in Monty Python quotes.

Anybody want to leave after that?

Okay, now that it’s just us. I like Monty Python, I do. There are moments where, even though I’ve seen the film, I was laughing louder than anybody else in the theater*.

At times, maybe not so much. Maybe it’s an American vs. English cultural thing, maybe it’s a the fundamental reality that—this being their second film over all and first attempt at a single narrative—that things aren’t quite as cohesive as they might otherwise be. Maybe, and I’m betting this is the more like explanation, Monty Python is imperfect. In their admirable efforts to throw everything—and I do mean every single thing—at the screen, some things hit and still others probably can’t be the least accounted for after fifty year, even if we had the Pythons here to answer for it**.

Told you that if the tonnage of topics you’re able to discuss were unladen swallows and the exclaimation “Ni!” you might not have been on board with this review. You can’t say you weren’t warned.

*Yes, I did get to see it on the big screen. Let’s just say that if I were prone to epileptic symptoms, the switch in the opening credits over to llamas, I might have been in real trouble.

**If we had Cleese, he’d probably write the whole endeavor off either way. It’d be difficult to be more measured in praise for the group’s work than him.

Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979)

Director: Terry Jones

Cast: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle

Have I Seen It Before: Ok, confession time: No. I know, I know. For some reason, my adolescence was not tied to any sort of Python obsession.

Did I Like It: Is it weird to say that there is a certain malevolence that exists at the core of the Pythons? This isn’t even remotely a complaint, but I honestly didn’t laugh any louder than I did when one of the wisemen (several days after the viewing I’m thinking it was Cleese, but gun to my head, I couldn’t be sure; he was tall, and that feels good enough for me) is so thoroughly annoyed that he wasted his time with Mandy (Terry Jones; definitely, unassailably Terry Jones) that he just shoves her to the ground on the way over to the correct manger. It’s just such a needless moment of cartoonish violence, how could one not laugh? You can have all of the absurdity, wordplay, and dead parrots you want, but when it comes right down to it, I want to see new mothers being pushed to the ground.

It had to be Cleese, right? It was such a Basil Fawlty thing to do. What else does one dwell on in a Python film? The filmmaking? It’s all cheeky fun, wrapped up in the sheep’s clothing of a biblical epic. Honestly, the moment the Wise Men leave Brian’s barn, and find out where they were supposed to go, might be one of the best shots ever produced in a comedy film. Throw in an imitation Shirley Bassey theme song so good I thought until I looked it up that it was the real thing, and that’s, *chef’s kiss*, pure cinema.

That nearly perfect moment of nihilism is completely obliterated by the ending musical number—“Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”—which may be one of the happiest songs ever to be created, and certainly to come out of the United Kingdom…

Then again, when one considers the context of the ending, it might be the final push to the floor of the barn.