Monty Python film poll

[Rodders]

The Life of Brian was an easy pick.

The Holy Grail had a brilliant first half, but i always struggled with the second half.

 

[Guttersnipe]

I almost voted for The Meaning of Life, but I realized that The Holy Grail made me laugh a lot harder.

 

[Matteo]

"Old woman"
"Man"
"Man, sorry. What knight lives in that castle?:
"I'm thirty seven"
"What?"
"I'm thirty seven. I'm not old, am I?"
"I did say sorry about the man, it's just from behind you looked..."
And so on...

And...
"I mean if I went around claiming I was an emperor just because some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!"

 

[Matteo]

Edit.. "sorry about the woman"

 

[pogopossum]

Isn't it pleasant, for once, to be able to choose between things almost all of which are of superior quality?

 

[Alex The G and T]

Isn't it pleasant, for once, to be able to choose between things almost all of which are of superior quality?

Quite. And I still haven't made up my mind to actually cast a vote. It's just too difficult.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Meaning of Life was more like a sketch show, and not with their best sketches. Although Eric Idle's song about the universe is brilliant.

It's a shame Spamalot isn't on there, because it is the absolute best bits of Holy Grail made into a stage musical and is very, very good. Apparently it may (eventually) come out as a film.

For anyone interested in the debate around Life of Brian, there is a very interesting talk show 'Friday Night, Saturday Morning' (available on Youtube) featuring John Cleese and Michael Palin defending the film against Malcolm Muggeridge and the Bishop of Southwark who were very much opposed. It's a very watchable 60 minutes or so. There is also a 'Not the Nine O'Clock News' sketch satirising this discussion, and BBC comedy film called 'Holy Flying Circus'.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Reverse for me. I think the Latin graffiti sketch from Brian is the best MP sketch ever by a country milia passuum, but though Brian pips HG for clever comedy, HG's imagination, imagery and score mean it holds its own as a fantasy Arthurian epic, whereas Brian doesn't quite work as a Roman epic on its own terms.

What really did it for me was the horse galloping revealed to be coconut husks. When you're (literally) laughing out loud from the very first seconds of a movie, you know it's a good 'un. And apparently one of the reasons why they didn't have real horses in the first place was down to a tight budget for the movie. Funny how it works out sometimes.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Solo meaning of life voter here, I see. Dark humour r us here

 

[Steve Harrison]

I thought Life of Brian was their only complete 'proper' film and loved the way it perfectly lampooned (organised) religious belief. My favorite scene is in the stadium when Eric Idle tells the People's Front of Judea or the Judean People's Front or whatever that he wants to be a woman. It's an extremely clever piece of writing.

Also, I used to own the companion book to the film which included some hilarious scripted sequences understandably left out of the movie.

 

[Harpo]

Meaning of Life was more like a sketch show, and not with their best sketches. Although Eric Idle's song about the universe is brilliant.

The first and last films in the poll were the old sketches , and apart from a few films & animations, only five skits appear in both films

 

[paranoid marvin]

The first and last films in the poll were the old sketches , and apart from a few films & animations, only five skits appear in both films

True, but most of the MP movies feel like set piece sketches combined into a cohesive narrative. For example any of the individual scenes in Hoy Grail could have been used as one-off sketches, which would have been perfectly understandable. I think I remember hearing Cleese say that all the members would go away and write 'bits', then they would meet up and those that made them laugh would go into the movie. Which is exactly the way you make a sketch show rather than a movie. Meaning of Life just felt (to me at least) as though there was little to no relationship between the different parts.

But yes, the first and last items on the list are purely a compilation of sketches, and mostly not as good as they were when performed first time around.

 

[J Riff]

One: Holy Grail
Two: Life of Brian
Five: (Three sir!) Meaning of Life.

 

[Danny McG]

What really did it for me was the horse galloping revealed to be coconut husks

 

[Harpo]

What really did it for me was the horse galloping revealed to be coconut husks. When you're (literally) laughing out loud from the very first seconds of a movie, you know it's a good 'un. And apparently one of the reasons why they didn't have real horses in the first place was down to a tight budget for the movie. Funny how it works out sometimes.

Sixteen years ago I was in a crowd of five thousand people, and we broke the world coconut-clopping record.

What was the last movie you saw?

300 - Wasn't a huge fan, for everything I liked about the movie there was something that bugged me.

www.sffchronicles.com

Terry & Terry were nearby.

 

[BAYLOR]

View attachment 103677

The Swallow and the Coconut and , what kind of Swallow. This is perhaps, Monty Python's and Them Holy Grail's biggest single unanswered question. I supposes that if there had been a sequel , we'd have gotten the answer to that one.

 

[Harpo]

The Holy Hand Grenade is trending today.

Monty Python fans go wild as King Charles given 'holy hand grenade'

Monty Python fans know the 'holy hand grenade of Antioch' when they see it

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