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Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Let's hope this ISN'T the meaning of life!
Review: I made the mistake of watching this movie with some friends a couple years ago. It was absolutely disgusting. It was full of nudity, cussing, violence, crude jokes, and much more! It was just pointless. After watching the movie, you are left thinking, "Why did I just watch this?" If you want to be grossed out, try this film. Let's hope the real meaning of life is not reflected in this movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Don't expect what you expect
Review: I am really in an odd disposition. I thought that some episodes of the show were brilliant, some sucked, and some are mediocre. I enjoyed the Arista albums (not the first 2 albums they ever made). I thought Life of Brian was pretty good, Holy Grail was better. However, I truly love Python after this. This movie, which was obviously made at a difficult time in their career, was one of the last projects undertaken by the Monty Python crew. This movie is filled with different sketches dealing with different stages of life. Little actual animation from Terry Gilliam. This movie can be somewhat happy, funny, and optimistic at times. However, it is mostly a melancoly look at how short and quasi-pointless life can be. Despite attempts to achieve belly laughs, this movie reaches more depth. It's hard to sum up this movie, because it is many things. If you enjoy both art films and Monty Python, watch it all. However, if you're only in it for Python.. this may not be for you (unless you use the fast forward button).

Enjoy

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Best of the worst
Review: Pythons at their best, may some say. But the truth is that they are at their worst. Worstly true bitter humour as only the Monty Python can provide. It is outrageously funny, deliciously awful, in one word, it is us. Laughing at ourselves is not an easy task, and only few may succeed. If you're not a Pythons fan, then maybe rent it and have a good laugh, and eventualy throw it by the window. The fans (or those who just like them) MUST buy it, as it is an unnecessary final dot to the Monty Pythons. And as you've learned, only unnecessary things make real beauty. That's for the movie. Talking about the DVD itself, it is a shame. No subtitle, poor image quality, poor sound, no sound option. Crappy 16:9 and unfair 4:3. You have to buy it for the movie, not the technique

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Well Worth It
Review: In order to discuss this movie, we must first make some distinctions about its place in the world of Monty Python. Holy Grail is a good and funny STORY. Likewise, Life of Brian is a story, but this time much better written and thoughtful. The Meaning Of Life, however, is not a story. It is a collection of scenes and skits not entirely relevant to each other. Yes, they all deal with some point or some part of life (and the meaning of it), but they are in no way linear. Therefore, no real comparisons as to best or better can be made with the other two movies. They are completely different in content and intent. The comparison that can be made is funnyness, a quality never lacking in Monty Python. This movie is very funny. And, what's more, it's funny the first time through (Grail only gets funnier with age). When you see the Catholics seeing and dancing about not wasting sperm, it is immediately funny (nee, on the other hand is not [neccessarily]). So, don't let anybody tell you it's not funny, though it may be different than the Grail in its approach. But, what really sells me on this movie is an ability to relate. Though this is a generalization and I may step on some toes, most of us have neither been mistaken for Jesus or attended King Richard on the Holy Crusades (yes, they say Arthur, but come one). In "Meaning," this is different. We have all been to school, and all wondered about death, and all been a tourist making an annoyance of ourselves, etc. That is what makes this movie. At many points in life you will stop and think, hey I remember this from the Meaning of Life! Buy it, it's worth it.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Existence is explained, Python Style.
Review: Last movie to star the Monty Python crew and here they explain everything you needed to know about the existence of humanity, in their own comedy way. Nothing serious here, just a film to entertain everyone, and it does a fine job of that.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Choking
Review: The last, and probably least seen of the feature films made by the Pythons, THE MEANING OF LIFE is also the most uneven. To be fair, that unevenness seems to result from a palpable dissatisfaction and impatience on the part of the ensemble to move on to something else. While neither as winningly silly as THE HOLY GRAIL nor as smooth as LIFE OF BRIAN, in its best parts, it goes way beyond anything else the group did.

If comedy rarely lives up to its oft-claimed potential for profundity, it is because making people laugh is simply too easy. While slobs may be content with the easy laugh, artists try to refine comedy until, in the best hands, the jokes frequently aren't all that funny any longer. In the most refined comedy of all, satire, human folly is criticized so acidulously and assiduously that it's almost impossible to laugh.

The most infamous sketch in MEANING OF LIFE, in which a gigantically overweight patron of a restaurant stuffs himself until he literally explodes, is a case in point. We can't really laugh as Mr. Creosote vomits buckets on a char woman because we know the scene merely takes to an extreme the logic of "consumer" society. John Cleese's obsequious waiter inspires as much nervous recognition of the truth of his fawning behavior as it does laughter at his vocal mannerisms. It doesn't matter how repulsive Mr. Creosote may be; he's rich, he'll tip, he's worth all the false charm the waiter can muster, and if he ends up splattered across the room, well, the help will clean up. In such moments, MEANING OF LIFE is no longer a simple comedy; it is a disgusted, disgusting look at Anglo-American society. (In a later sketch, Death harangues British and American audiences directly for their complacency.) And while it may have been made as a grotesque vision of the Reagan/Thatcher moment, it rings even more powerfully true today. (If it's ever remade, Bill Clinton would make a great Mr. Creosote.)

The film provides plenty of good, old-fashioned Python hijinks; there's lots of laughs to be gotten from it, especially the deliriously funny "Every Sperm is Sacred" number near the beginning. At its best, though, MEANING OF LIFE goes beyond entertainment, it shoves our faces in our own myopia, greed and stupidity. It's hardly surprising that few people talk about it.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Strange and weird, even for British humor
Review: I bought this video to see the fat guy explode because my cousin told me about it and said it was hilarious. This is one helluva strange film, even though it does have its funny moments. Crude in places, even for British humor. If you are looking for something different, this is it.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Fab moments worth the boring intervals
Review: One general fact of life with Monty Python is that, while their sketches are side-splitting, their full length features tend to drag. Some spots of this film are boring, others beyond the boundaries of even the bad taste of us Python fans. But the moments that are hilarious are first rate - I defy anyone not to fall on the floor laughing during the Every Sperm is Sacred sequence, as I do again and again.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Surprisingly funny
Review: Before I start, I did see this movie with a bunch of friends, so that might have helped.

As far as "movies" are concerned, I'm not sure this is a movie. It has no plot. The characters are there just to move the gags along. And it's disgusting.

However, when I rented the movie, I was prepared for all of this. In order to enjoy The Meaning Of Life, you have to know that this movie is not a movie. I see it simply as a handful of ingenious SNL skits, and how ingenious these skits are. You'll be laughing your head off.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Some side splitting moments
Review: This movie is a series of sketches with the theme being Life from birth to death. In the usual wacky Python manner, you never know what's coming around the next corner! Some sketches like the Protestant and Catholics had me on the floor howling. John Cleese as the school teacher will have you roaring too. Some sketches fall short of the mark, but I find this typical of the TV series too. Overall, it's rather funny because of their unique style of humor and there are moments of comic brilliance. As usual, if you are a Python fan, you should watch this one. Others who are offended easily or don't understand British comedy should steer clear. Again, like the TV series; wait patiently through the slow parts as the funny parts will hit you like a sledgehammer.


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