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Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: not recommended for asthmatics
Review: I'm not exaggerating when I say that I had an asthma attack watching this because I was laughing so hard. This occured somewhere during the Mr. Creosote scene, which people with weaker stomachs may not be able to handle - but hey, I giggle just thinking about it! I had trouble breathing for days afterwards.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Probably the funniest and most political Python movie made.
Review: It's mockery of religeon to government to social classes, this is probably the funniest and most intelligent satire ever made.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not the best Python, but well worth viewing
Review: As a long-time Python fan, I've seen this movie many times. Although it moves a bit slowly toward the end, it covers such an epic breadth of topics, from birth thru the afterlife, that it just shouldn't be missed. If you're unfamiliar with Python, don't watch this first, see The Holy Grail.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: This is the finest work of satire in film history.
Review: If it were not for pioneers like Monty Python, then performers like Brian Gilmore and Esteban Rodriguez would never have been inspired to do their brilliant satirical work. This film is a must see event for anyone who knows how to think.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Answers all of your "meaning of life" questions ...
Review: Make sure you bring plenty of couch room to kick as you watch this truly hysterical satirical explanation of the Meaning Of Life. Not to be missed!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A brilliant and funny movie
Review: This is one of the classical movies in the history of comedy. This movie explains everything. From the miracle of birth to death, this movie will reveal all{in a Pythonesque way.} Don't miss the restaurant sketch or the death sketches. Also don't miss the Galaxy or Sperm songs. END

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The smartest film ever, can't ever be topped.
Review: This film is a film for smart people to laugh at the plot while stupid people laugh at the jokes. A five star must see. END

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: what?
Review: This movie is a terrable movie and when I say terrable I mean the best. It is all about every thing. It will teach things from war to death in that sick pythonish humor that scares little boys

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Irreverent , caustic , bitter , and magnificent.!
Review: Monty Phyton is a wizard team. They have always to show us. This work is one of the most outrageous movies I've ever seen of them.
Told in chapters , every one of them concerns about a meaning issue about the life.
Overwheliming script and fabulous characters depict the meaning of life.
Another triumph of this team , altough it's not their masterpiece there's a lot of laughable gags.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: More hilarious twenty years later...
Review: ...a Python fan since about twelve, I vividly remember this film coming out when I was thirteen or so. I loved it. It's great that it has not only held up but, like fine wine, it has gotten better with age. Maybe Terry Gilliam's right when he says, in one of the commentaries, that, today, comedy's standard is so low that "our crap seems good no." But it reveals their genius in so many ways. It reveals a confidence they clearly didn't feel--as tho' they'd gotten their sea legs--in the first two efforts. Though "Brian" is their supreme achievement, I have to say that this film must be placed ahead of "Holy Grail"--which given its budget looks distincly like badly shot TV. Hysterically funny, but the budget limits are are even more glaring in a high res medium like DVD.

In "Meaning of Life" the entire cast are masters of the medium (something Cleese proved independently in "A Fish Called Wanda") and they use their skills, rising even to lyrical heights (Eric Idle's paen to the universe in "Live Organ Transplants"). And the effects are more hysterical twenty years later.

This movie is also remarkable for the rather bitter satire of American pop culture. Heretofore, the Python's had stayed within the classic tradition of British comedy--filled with whimsy and just plain silliness and the class structure. American humor is generally either observational or political--and these days it almost entirely the latter. Even the masters of observation, Goldberg and Carlin, have abandoned it for bitter political diatribes attacking former fans like myself in the basest terms because out political beliefs differ.

And it follows, as it should, that the movie's best skits are the ones true to their tradition. George Harrison once called Python the continuation of the Beatles (to the point of chipping in $8M for distribution and advertising for "Brian"!). And, especially in the all too brief Gilliam animations, this is completely accurate. Without being at all derivative, they capture the whimisical sensibility the Beatles had updated and transformed and ran with it.

One draw back is the rather low-rent 5.1 remix. I've other films--e.g. the Godfather films--which are older than have far better jobs. So don't expect much. In fact, you might even consider using the 2CH option as the remixing engineer makes little use of the rear speakers.

That gentle bitch aside, the deleted scenes are mixed (why on Earth Jones thought anyone would want to see more of Mr. Creosote is beyond me?) and clearly wisely hit the cutting room floor (especially the horrendously unfunny Martin Luther skit), but some the commentary by Jones and Gilliam--clearly done at different times and mixed--is interesting most especially for the bitterness of Gilliam's attitude. It has been so on the two preceding films, but it's much more intense on this one.

The brief interview segments shows the group rivalry is still a hot issue in the guys' psyches, nearly twenty years after Graham Chapman's tragic death ended the group; they are still bickering. Gilliam's comments about Cleese are particularly acid; Cleese does he usual job of insulting nearly everyone. He is returned the favor by the rest of the group, tho' Jones slyly does it with the most class and thus does it the best. Cleese, after all, easily slips into insufferable. Hence his brilliance as Basil Fawlty.

A reluctant four star due only to the ****-poor 5.1 remix. The studio, surprise, surprise, didn't want to spend any extra money getting a good one.

The movie itself: 5 stars.


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