Life of Brian (1979)
Brian Cohen is an average young Jewish man, but through a series of ridiculous events, he gains a reputation as the Messiah. When he's not dodging his followers or being scolded by his shrill mother, the hapless Brian has to contend with the pompous Pontius Pilate and acronym-obsessed members of a separatist movement. Rife with Monty Python's signature absurdity, the tale finds Brian's life paralleling Biblical lore, albeit with many more laughs.
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Great Film overall
Did you people see the same film I saw?
As Good As It Gets
Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.
Coming from the Monty Python group, Life of Brian is classic British comedy at its best - perhaps one of the most intellectual comedies made. Downright sardonic and profane in its making, Life of Brian is all about Brian who is born on Christmas day in a stable next to Jesus and spends his life being mistaken for a messiah. Brian's life is sketched parallel to that of Jesus, cleverly letting the filmmakers lampoon everything from religious zealotry, mob hysteria, sword/sandal epic movies and some hard hitting political travesty. All the gags and sequences could appear a bit juvenile to those not familiar with the Monty python style of comedy , but the movie is indeed a laugh riot and the makers live up to their earlier hit Monty Python and the Holy Grail with downright clever satirical wit and commentary on totalitarianism, history, politics and most importantly religion. Some scenes to watch out for would be of Brian dropping a gourd and a shoe, his followers absurdly split into two groups, each worshipping a different relic - a hilarious take on the multi sectarian worshipping practices existing today or Brian uttering some gibberish to a crowd out of fear wrapped in some enigma that makes a blind mob follow him as the next prophet. That said and done my favorite part of the movie would be the blatantly original caricature of left-wing resistance groups with their endless subgroups, internal politics, conflicting agendas and vain ideology / speech without any results (ala Sankaradi in Sandesam!). Quite understandably, this flick was banned in many a European country until recent times for the supposedly sacrilegious take on religion (unsurprising with so with many parts parodying nativity, crucifixion et al). However on close watch, it never makes fun of Jesus - but it does thwart the blind, fanatic followers of any political movement or religion in a quite comical fashion. A controversial piece of comedy - a remainder to the critics that banning movies or cutting movie scenes based on religious pretexts exists in Hollywood / British movies as well as early as 1979, and is not limited to the Asian market of Viswaroopam, Padmavat etc.
Greetings from Lithuania.As much as "Life of Brian" (1979) is a good movie / comedy - its an intelligent movie to begin with. Yes, the absurd it shows us is kinda absurd, but on the other hand, there are even more absurdity in life and religion. I liked the performances in this movie. Directing and script were great. The ending was great. Its not a perfect movie, but i kinda was surprised of how intelligent actually it was if you think about it. Also everyone gets their "share" in this movie - Jewish, Romans and everyone else. This is a good movie overall.
Nothing better than shaking up the establishment a bit, I say. "Nail em up" as Ben would respond. This is classic Python, funny from first to last, and often hysterically so. It's probably the most seamless of their films, and displays an intelligence quite rare in comedy.This tale of a man mistaken for the messiah had a message that seems even more appropriate today in some ways than when it was made. Don't follow anyone. Make your own mind up!Great performance from Graham Chapman as Brian, Cleeses hilarious Ceturion; but surely pride of place should go to Palin and Idle. Palin's Pilate is one of the greatest ever comedy showings. Idle's Mr. Cheeky is utterly brilliant. The Python team are all great. Terry Jones' Mandy is brilliant, too. Salute the Python team, not the messiahs but very funny boys.
For the sake of this review I watched the entire movie, but I've got to say, it was a chore keeping my attention on the story. Criterion really dropped the ball on this one, they should have provided captioning for those of us who only speak English. I hardly understood a word spoken in the film, but I held out hope that the basic premise would reveal itself the way it has in other movies that I've had trouble following. No such luck. This thing started out way over the top and wound up just utterly stupid. I generally enjoy good parody but this seemed more like goofy slapstick. Could be I'm missing something because this gets a lot of credit by IMDb fans who's voting keep it in the Top #250. Maybe I'll try it again if I can find a copy with captioning, I'm open minded enough to give it another go. For now, my only positive takeaway was the Roman Centurion garb, those guys looked pretty sharp.