It was interesting except it wasn’t. Here and there were some nice tidbits but mostly blaah. How can you do 6 hour long shows on MP and have hardly anything funny outside of the old clips?
It was weird what they included/left out. They didn’t mention (I think) the German shows which I’ve seen good anecdotes about before. They covered “Spamalot” but no other semi-Python projects. No mention of Terry Jones’ health status.
The comics interviewed were hit or miss. Could have used more of Simon Pegg or Eddie Izzard. And none of Russell Brand or Jimmy Fallon. They had Dan Aykroyd but no coverage of MPFC influence on SNL.
And not enough Carol Cleveland of course.
The behind-the-scenes of getting the movies made was interesting. Especially the LoB controversy.
John Cleese of course was always ticking off the others. But he usually turned out to be right later. It’s all about how you work with others.
Terry Gilliam is a brilliant film maker who must not be allowed to make films. He just gets lost (and not just in La Mancha).
I did like that there was some concern about the quality of “The Meaning Of Life”. By far the worst MP movie (or project). They resorted to - if we can’t get laughter by being funny, then maybe we can get nervous laughter by being shocking. I was dissapointed that they praised “Mr. Creasote” (sp?) - by far the worst thing MP ever did.
I’ve watched documentaries about composers like Beethoven and artists like Van Gogh in which the filmmakers didn’t attempt to create original compositions or paintings in the style of those geniuses.
And yet the producers of documentaries about Monty Python somehow imagine that they can create a comedic opening sequences that don’t look like shit in comparison to the worst MP sketch. Once again they’ve been proven wrong.
Here’s a lesson to all aspiring documentary makers.
If you can do a six-hour documentary on someone, then you don’t need to have talking heads on screen telling us over and over how wonderful they are. We know they’re wonderful. We’re willing to watch a six-hour documentary on them. :smack: Get it?
Strip out all the talking heads and fill in the two hours of time you gain by adding more of the Pythons dishing dirt on one another, which were the funniest bits.
The tapes of the MPFC were almost wiped! Terry Gilliam went down to the Beeb and bought all the shows’ tapes from them. Other shows like MPFC were not so lucky. Most of the programs with Milligan, Cook/Moore, Feldman, etc. are lost. So most people don’t know how influential these people were on MP.
Imagine if those tapes had been wiped too. No MPFC airings in the US. Less likely there would have been films. Etc. Wow.
Under the name of each interviewee, there’d be a job title. For Hugh Hefner (why?) it just had “Playboy”. Is that his job description? For Russell Brand they should have had “Annoying Git.”
It was a piece of crap. Pre-python was done with very quickly mentioning only the 1948 show and DNAYS.
The stories are exactly the same as they told 10 years ago for the 30th anniversary. And the decade before that for the 20th anniversary. In total there are well over a dozen Python documentaries and they all tell the same story.
The only new anecdote was the confirmation that they did a wee-wee winetasting sketch which had long been a rumour.
Oh, and there were five more seconds of the Lif of Brian debate than previously seen in documentaries and two more seconds than they usually show of Graham’s memorial service.
It was discussed with the BBC. The BBC and Cleese were against it. I only saw the 1 hour version - did they say explicitly and clearly that it was never recorded?
There was also supposed to be a sketch about big-nosed statues (circumstantial evidence for this is a big nosed sculpture in the sherry drinking vicar sketch).
It’s actually the only “premium” channel (in that it shows movies uncut, uncensored and commercial free) I get on my basic DirecTV plan. It’s in the upper echelon of the channel listings - it’s 550 on my tuner.
Most (but not all) of the time. I haven’t seen a lot of him, but what I’ve seen of him as well as other accounts, his style of standup humor and such is specifically designed to annoy and enrage people. Some people think that’s funny. Cf. Howard Stern.
In talk show interviews, like in this MP special, he’s just a rambling idjit. I think that’s supposed to be his schtick in those situations and not his real persona but it doesn’t work for me.
He actually can act to some extent, so don’t bail on a movie just because he has a small role in it.