Easter flashback : Monty Python's Life of Brian

-



     Happy Easter to all !!! As I have done in the past, every holiday I like to take a look at a favorite of the current holidays films. This time around, the 1979 comedy "Life of Brian". 

    Monty Python started out as a sketch show in 1969 that ran for four seasons. The success of this show go them their first feature, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." It was a critical and financial hit. It was produced for 175 thousand pounds and made 7.7 million world wide. A follow up was all but guaranteed. In 1979 we got,  "The Life of Brian."

  The story revolves around  Brian, who happened to born one stable down and on  same night as Jesus.  Brian becomes intrigued by a young rebel, Judith. To try to impress her, Brian joins the  movement against the Roman Empire. While running from the Romans, he recites some of the teachings he heard from Jesus. This ends up getting the  crowd to believe he is the Messiah. 

The film was a commercial success earning 19.4 million on a 4 million budget. The reception of the film was a bit of an interesting one. On the critic side it was well received. In the religious side this movie was panned. They thought it was blasphemous. For those that don't know, blasphemy means essentially, saying offensive things about God or religion. Whether or not it is, I will leave that up to you. That is not the point of this article.

 When it comes to looking at satires, what makes them good? To me it really comes to how well it is written. This movie knows how to get a good joke out of Jesus/ Roman time situations. It does feel clunky sometimes, because more often then not it does feel like a series of run together sketches. Laugh out loud though.

I do love the fact that the members of the Monty Python group play forty different characters through the film. If you are not on board with the film it can be distracting. having them constantly on screen in some form it does help keep a consistent tone. There are many scenes you can see the different actors breaking characters, but it did not take me out of it. If anything, it made it funnier.

I may have a hot take in this, but this is the best Monty Python movie.

GRADE:A-

  


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Triple 9

-
Image
     When it comes to cop films, for the most part, I tend to be a huge fan. When this came out, I was not very sure what to expect from it because there was such little press for it.     A professional group of thieves lead by Michael Atwood (Chiwetel Ejiofor) does the biding of Irina Vlaslov ( Kate Winslet). The guys want out of her buiding, but her being a big player in the Russian mafia, she gets what she wants. She drags the crew into a final heist with a huge payoff, what could possibly go wrong?        The biggest thing that hurt this film was the scope was so huge for this film with how many characters it has. It is hard to care or, for that matter get to know any Of the characters when the time spent with them is so short. On top of that, this film does not go in any new directions for the crime thrillers. I feel like if they may have added twenty to thirty minutes to get to know all the characters it may have added an edge it do...
Read more

Warfare

-
Image
          Just to start off quickly, it has been two years since I have done one of these. They have always brought me joy doing them, so I thought why not give it another try.    Alex Garland started out in 2000 with "28 days later " and has gone 25 years. In that time, he has ventured into video games and directing. He has had a lot of films that I have loved through the years (Ex machina, Sunshine, and Dredd).   The film revolves around a platoon of SEALs that embarked on a dangerous mission in Ramadi, Iraq.  This film is all about the experience, it wants you to be there with these soldiers and make you feel what it's like to be on the front line. The editing is fast to try and cause discomfort. The cinematography has a lot of medium and close ups to show the emotion and destruction of it all. The co- director of the film really is the key to this. Ray Mendoza was part of the operation depicted in the film. If you want to get authent...
Read more

Transporter Refueled

-
Image
     Before going into this I had no thought on this being at all good with the role of Frank Martin now in the hands of Ed Skrein. I ended with most bad, some not so bad. In this new installment Frank takes a job with a mysterious lady thinking all will be fine till his father, Frank Sr.(Ray Stevenson) is kidnapped. Honestly, going any further then that would spoil what little plot there is.    In the end it really is a toss as to how you look at the movie. I will not deny it has a few interesting fight scenes but the story offers nothing new in terms of Transporter story line. Maybe they will do better next time.    GRADE: D+
Read more