[ExI] Monty Python and the Holy Grail

[John Grigg]

It's funny that you mention Monty Python because at my local discount
theater they just had a Python double feature.  It was the classic
team-up of "Holy Grail" and "Iife of Brian."  I love both films but as
I get older "Life of Brian" holds more chuckles for me.

It amazed me how many people in the audience could quote long passages
of dialogue from both films (this was encouraged) and sing along
during the musical bits!  My favorite part of "Holy Grail" must be the
foppish stereotyping of the French soldiers or the "bring forth ye
holy hand grenade" scene after the knights get mauled by the rabbit
from hell.  I'd love to see a "Rocky Horror Picture Show" style
shadowcasting of "Holy Grail."

In some ways I feel the baton of Monty Python caliber (but not style)
social satire has been passed on to Trey Parker and Matt Stone of
"Southpark" fame.

I sorely wish the surviving members of the Monty Python crew would
reunite and do at least one more film together.  They could spoof so
many different subjects, the war on terror, the war in the Middle
East, the coming of the Singularity, cryonics, political correctness,
religion, the list is endless.

John Grigg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A687945

>From the BBC web article:
Although Meaning of Life was the last genuine Python project, there
was talk all through the 1980s about a Python reunion, another stage
show, another film, another television series... The problem was that
all the individual Pythons were too busy with their own (and each
other's) projects to find the time to get all six of them together.
Then, in 1988, Graham Chapman was diagnosed with cancer and, despite
claiming to have beaten it, died on 4 October, 1989, one day short of
the 20th anniversary of the Flying Circus.

The Python team were reunited in 1998 for a stage appearance in Aspen,
Colorado, USA, with British comedian Eddie Izzard making a brief
appearance claiming to be one of the team. Graham also 'appeared', in
an urn, which was 'accidentally' kicked over and spilt by Terry G.
After the event, there was again talk of a new film or stage show, but
it failed to materialise. The team also got together for a 30th
anniversary celebration on the BBC in 1999. The sad fact is that,
although they remain friends, they are all too busy and successful to
ever co-ordinate their efforts into a joint production. Besides,
without Graham Chapman, it just wouldn't be Python anyway...
>>>>


On 5/5/08, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
> For those who aren't familiar with the movie (probably rather
> few here), these references from Anne and  Kevin aren't
> as obscure as they might seem at first:
>
> > >  For all I know, it would.  But you seem to be viewing
> > > reality from an extremely abstractified perspective, which
> > > is all well and good if you're trying to predict the air-speed
> > > velocity of an unladen swallow, but rather facile as far as
> > > dealing with actual people.
> >
> > Is that an African or a European swallow?
>
> I suspect that someone could easily write an English major's
> senior thesis on the clash between science on the one hand
> and "ancient ways" on the other in this movie. King Arthur
> was the embodiment of everything that was traditional, and
> he was over and over again confronted with the new-fangled
> stuff called "science" that he had no use for.
>
> Yet at a couple of key junctures, he gives into practicality,
> and fights fire with fire, as in when he uses last phrase above,
> which saves him from the Gorge of Eternal Peril.
>
> There are many truly hilarious scenes ridiculing the pre-
> scientific viewpoint, and yet, I guess, also a number of
> others commenting rather ironically on the occasional
> over-use of abstraction/jargon in science.
>
> Lee
>
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