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Amazon.co.uk Review
On the DVD: Life of Brian returns to Region 2 DVD in a decent widescreen anamorphic print with Dolby 5.1 sound--neither are exactly revelatory, but at least it's an improvement on the previous release, which was, shockingly, pan & scan. The 50-minute BBC documentary, "The Pythons", was filmed mainly on location in 1979 and isn't especially remarkable or insightful (a new retrospective would have been appreciated). There are trailers for this movie, as well as Holy Grail plus three other non-Python movies. There's no commentary track, sadly. --Mark Walker
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Hugely controversial at the time, the subject matter of 'The Life of Brian' was considered strictly taboo in 1979, and even today it can still rattle a few cages, but ultimately the Python team all shared the same conviction that they were not poking fun at religion (or Jesus) per se, but at the people who blindly follow and misunderstand. In this way, 'The Life Of Brian' became not just a comedy classic, but a ground-breaking movie that pushed the barriers of what was previously considered 'off-limits'.
Graham Chapman revels in the lead role of 'Brian of Nazareth', and the rest of the team play multiple rolls, in a very Goon Show-esque type way, with the story always revolving around Brian. The turning point comes when, in an attempt to evade the notice of the Romans, Brian pretends to be a street preacher and gathers the attention of a small crowd. Once the Romans pass by, however, he stops preaching and tries to walk away, only to find that the small crowd want to hear the rest of what he was saying. As more and more people come along to find out what is happening, his followers multiply until they are convinced that he must be some sort of messiah. They follow Brian home only to be told by his mother that "There's a mess alright, but no messiah.." (I'm paraphrasing, by the way!)
Each member of the Python team contributes immensely to the film, with Eric Idle supplying a classic Python tune as Brian is being crucified ("Always Look On The Bright Side of Life"), Terry Gilliam with some great visual gags, Terry Jones as the director of the film, Cleese and Palin turning in multiple brilliant performances (like Cleese's Reg, the leader of the PFJ, and the classic "What have the Roman's ever done for us?" sketch), not to mention Chapman as the unsuspecting hero. There are also a couple of cameo appearances (notably Spike Milligan and George Harrison) which can be spotted by the eagle-eyed viewer, but are all too brief if you ask me.
If you haven't got this film in your collection, then now is your chance to correct the error of your ways!... and as the "Not the Nine O'Clock News" team once pointed out, Britain is still ostensibly a Python-worshipping country, so do your duty and buy a copy of this classic today!
The Python gan were famed for the series the Flying Circus and The Search for the Holy Grail is also superb but Life of Brian proved to be their masterpiece. Despite managing to offend a lot of people by parodying the life of Christ, they managed to make the rest of the world laugh with wonderful characters are one of the most quotable scripts ever written. Among the best and most memorable lines are:
Brian's mum: 'He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy'
Pontius Pilate: 'This man commands a cwack legion. He wanks as high as any in Wome'
Prisoner: 'I'm Brian and so's my wife'
Reg: 'So apart from the roads, the wine, law and order, medicine, education, irrigation and public health...what've the Romans ever done for us?'
How do you get your graffiti to be grammatically correct? What is Biggus Dickus's wife called? Why should you always haggle? And just how many pressure groups are their in ancient Rome?
The acting is OTT in the extreme and perfectly done with the greatest comic script ever. It'll probably be making people laugh long into this century.
That said the film itself is still probably the funniest film ever and it puts modern "comedies" to shame.
Buy the video instead and save yourself some money.
Mad, bad (in the very good sense) and something everyone should be forced to... Read more
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