Monty Python's Life Of Brian - The Immaculate Edition
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DVD details
Brand: SonyDVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Original Language); Latin (Original Language); English (Subtitled); Portuguese (Subtitled); Portuguese (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Collector's Edition, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 93 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-01-29
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: SONY PICTURES
DVD Reviews of Monty Python's Life Of Brian - The Immaculate Edition
DVD Review: a great movie just a little too short
Summary: 4 Stars
this is a great movie,my only complaint is its too short.it just seems they could have done a little more with it.otherwise it is a flawless satire on religion and fanaticsm.DVD Review: Python Classic...Irreverent and hilarious
Summary: 4 Stars
One of Monty Python's best films. Poor Brian doesn't want to be a savior but his followers won't leave him alone, and his own mother won't give him any respect. Lots of laughs throughout. I know some who don't like it because of their deep religious beliefs, but I don't see any conflict. In my opinion it's just a funny film that takes satirical jabs at blind worship of any kind; religious, celebrity, or whateverDVD Review: Lessons for today
Summary: 5 Stars
Even after several decades, the relevancy of this lesson guised as a comedy is still cogent. We seem to be collectively anxious, and seeking a messiah, albeit he be political rather than religious. In our haste, our judgements may not always be the best...DVD Review: Monty Python's life of Brian
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this DVD for my hsband because he loves Monty Python. It was a good buy.DVD Review: Just remember that the last laugh is on you
Summary: 5 Stars
If you've ever tried to compile a list of pure comedies that are also truly great examples of cinema, you'll know how hard it is. I get stuck at about three. I once flipped patiently through Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide to see how many four star comedies I could find (I know - I'm a sad sack, aren't I) and don't recall seeing one more recent than Betty Davis' All About Eve some time in the 1950s (though, it could cogently be argued, that says more about Leonard Maltin than it does about funny cinema).
There are outstandingly brilliant funny films, like Airplane! and This Is Spinal Tap, that never transcend the string of loosely-themed set pieces that was their genesis and, whilst compulsory viewing, don't pretend to operate as real motion pictures (in fairness some of Christopher Guest's later output, and in particular A Mighty Wind, does). There are wonderful films that happen to be funny, and maybe even wonderful comedies that aren't all that funny.
But Monty Python's Life of Brian, while it pulls you in with its homely premise and, true to Python form, plays out very much like a string of set pieces, effortlessly transcends its genre into timelessness and profundity. That it's still as challenging today as it was on release (for different, but not that different, reasons) is part of it, but that doesn't speak to the pure cinema of it. The closing scene, as classic a sketch as any Monty Python devised, isn't just a magical set piece, but is a bittersweet and timeless commentary on the absurdity of life and, to boot, a genuinely moving swansong for Monty Python itself (leaving aside the somewhat challenging existence, for this theory, of 1983's The Meaning of Life). There are some transcendent moments in the history of cinema, and the cheerily whistling, toe-tapping routine of condemned men on crosses, pulling out to a twilight wide shot, is as superb as any of them.
The sketches are of course brilliantly funny and all eminently, inevitably and annoyingly quotable by males of a certain age, but the underlying absurdities they point up, dearly held sacred cows all - the absurdity of stoning someone for saying Jehovah, the absurdity of political protesting for the principle of it, the wilful absurdity of "miraculous" explanations for innocent behaviour (says the hermit who has just accidentally broken a vow of silence, Brian having trod on his foot: "I hadn't said a word in eighteen years until he came along". The crowd: "a miracle!"), and the sum total of all of this mayhem: the absurdity of life itself - are decisively executed and keenly observed. This is by no means wacky private schoolboy humour of no consequence: this is cutting social satire, and it is to all of our discredit that, nearly thirty years on, the motivated prurience of religious groups has barely abated.
In the accompanying disk there is a terrific documentary charting the reception of this film on general release in 1979, which to us old dogs really doesn't seem that long ago, but on the strength of that documentary may as well have between before the Boer War.
Well, in one sense. But when Terry Gilliam wonders out loud whether that film could get made today, and doubts it, you have to suspect he's right: the absurd objections of the Mary Whitehouse brigade might not pass muster these days, but equally pernicious (and absurd) ones from other religions have taken their place. When we tolerate religion but don't tolerate free speech you do have to wonder. In any case, it is interesting to see footage in that documentary of the Pythons' famous BBC2 debate with Malcolm Muggeridge and the Bishop of Southwark, if for no other reason because it's rare chance to see the permanently-genial Michael Palin so worked up as to seem visibly to be restraining himself from lamping Malcolm Muggeridge.
This "immaculate" pressing of the film didn't seem to be up to much for me - I was disappointed in the surround sound quality on the feature disk (I once owned a long player of the soundtrack, and remember the musical numbers being far crisper) and the bonus disc has little on it apart from the hour long making-of documentary, interesting though that was.
Lastly, kudos to the late George Harrison, who apparently single-handedly financed the film when no-one else would (and, presumably, made a killing!) without whom we may still be living under the dark auspices of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association.
OK, not that likely, but still.
Olly Buxton
Description of Monty Python's Life Of Brian - The Immaculate Edition
On a Midnight Clear 2000 years ago, three wise men enter a manger where a babe is wrapped in swaddling clothes. It is an infant called Brian...and the three wise men are in the wrong manger. For the rest of his life, Brian (Graham Chapman) finds himself regarded as something of a Messiah, yet he's always in the shadow of this Other Guy from Galilee. Brian is witness to the Sermon of the Mount, but his seat is in such a bad location that he can't hear any of it ("Blessed are the cheesemakers?"). Ultimately he is brought before Pontius Pilate and sentenced to crucifixion, which takes place at that crowded, non-exclusive execution site a few blocks shy of Calvary. Rather than utter the Last Six Words, Brian leads his fellow crucifixees in a spirited rendition of a British music hall cheer-up song "Always Look On The Bright Side of Life." The whole Monty Python gang (Chapman, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, and Terry Gilliam) are on hand in multiple roles, playing such sacred characters as Stan Called Loretta, Deadly Dirk, Casts the First Stone, and Intensely Dull Youth; also showing up are Goon Show veteran Spike Milligan and a Liverpool musician named George Harrison."Blessed are the cheesemakers," a wise man once said. Or maybe not. But the point is Monty Python's Life of Brian is a religious satire that does not target specific religions or religious leaders (like, say, Jesus of Nazareth). Instead, it pokes fun at the mindless and fanatical among their followers--it's an attack on religious zealotry and hypocrisy--things that that fellow from Nazareth didn't particularly care for either. Nevertheless, at the time of its release in 1979, those who hadn't seen it considered it to be quite "controversial." Life of Brian, you see, is about a chap named Brian (Graham Chapman) born December 25 in a hovel not far from a soon-to-be-famous Bethlehem manger. Brian is mistaken for the messiah and therefore manipulated, abused, and exploited by various religious and political factions. And it's really, really funny. Particularly memorable bits include the brassy Shirley Bassey/James Bond-like title song; the bitter rivalry between the anti-Roman resistance groups, the Judean People's Front and the People's Front of Judea; Michael Palin's turn as a lisping, risible Pontius Pilate; Brian urging a throng of false-idol worshippers to think for themselves--to which they reply en masse "Yes, we must think for ourselves!"; the fact that everything Brian does, including losing his sandal in an attempt to flee these wackos, is interpreted as "a sign." Life of Brian is not only one of Monty Python's funniest achievements, it's also the group's sharpest and smartest sustained satire. Blessed are the Pythons. --Jim Emerson
"Blessed are the cheesemakers," a wise man once said. Or maybe not. But the point is Monty Python's Life of Brian is a religious satire that does not target specific religions or religious leaders (like, say, Jesus of Nazareth). Instead, it pokes fun at the mindless and fanatical among their followers--it's an attack on religious zealotry and hypocrisy--things that that fellow from Nazareth didn't particularly care for either. Nevertheless, at the time of its release in 1979, those who hadn't seen it considered it to be quite "controversial." Life of Brian, you see, is about a chap named Brian (Graham Chapman) born December 25 in a hovel not far from a soon-to-be-famous Bethlehem manger. Brian is mistaken for the messiah and therefore manipulated, abused, and exploited by various religious and political factions. And it's really, really funny. Particularly memorable bits include the brassy Shirley Bassey/James Bond-like title song; the bitter rivalry between the anti-Roman resistance groups, the Judean People's Front and the People's Front of Judea; Michael Palin's turn as a lisping, risible Pontius Pilate; Brian urging a throng of false-idol worshippers to think for themselves--to which they reply en masse "Yes, we must think for ourselves!"; the fact that everything Brian does, including losing his sandal in an attempt to flee these wackos, is interpreted as "a sign." Life of Brian is not only one of Monty Python's funniest achievements, it's also the group's sharpest and smartest sustained satire. Blessed are the Pythons. --Jim Emerso
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