365+ Movies In 365 Days: Day 358 - Monty Python's Life of Brian

In 1977 they protested the mini-series Jesus of Nazareth by writing thousands of letters. In 1989 they lined up outside theatres to picket The Last Temptation of Christ and in 1994 they were scandalized by Mel Gibson's The Passion. In all this time what they should have been screaming bloody murder about was the blasphemous, but hysterically funny, Monty Python's Life of Brian.

Life of Brian is a spoof of all the Biblical films made about the life of Jesus. I want to make that clear, the movie is a spoof of movies, the same way Airplane spoofed disaster pictures. The film does not mock Jesus in any way. Maybe it mocks some of the events surrounding the Crucifixion, but in a very funny way! In fact Jesus is never seen or talked about in the entire movie. There is a brief reference to Jesus in the beginning of the movie, when the Three Wise-men show up at the wrong door, but that's just in passing.

The story follows Brian (Graham Chapman) a man, who as an infant was born just down the block from Jesus, who is mistaken for the Messiah and put to death by Pilate. On the way the film makes fun of pseudo intellectual revolutionary groups, Romans (Pontius Pilate in particular), Jews, religious zealots, people with speech impediments, public executions and anything else it can set it sights on.

The gags come a mile a minute members of the comedy troupe play multiple roles, including the female parts. The rest of the Python gang, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle,terry Jones and Michael Palin are all here contributing to the sheer mayhem of this exuberant movie.

Not quite as funny as The Holy Grail, but still great Monty Python.

At The Movie House ***1/2 stars

*note - actually there was much scandal surrounding the film. It was protested as being blasphemous. It was outright banned in many countries. It was condemned by many important religious figures and politicians (whom it turned out had never seen it but were basing their condemnation on what others were saying, who also had not seen the film.)