You can imagine the scene, the Monty Python boys are meeting, probably in Michael Palin's house ( I hear his wife makes great sausage rolls) to discuss ideas for their new, and final, movie. Having tackled organised religion in "The Life of Brian" and outraged the Church, they have to decide ... Read review
Perhaps only the collective brilliant minds of theMonty Pythonfilm and television troupe ... more
are up to the task of tackling a subject as weighty as theMeaning of Life. Sure, Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, and their ilk have tried their hands at this puzzler, b...
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Those six pandemonium-mad Pythons are back with their craziest adventure ever! John ... more
Cleese, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin have returned to explain The Meaning Of Life. These naughty Britons offer the usual tast...
Perhaps only the collective brilliant minds of theMonty Pythonfilm and television troupe ... more
are up to the task of tackling a subject as weighty as theMeaning of Life. Sure, Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, and their ilk have tried their hands at this puzzler, b...
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Those six pandemonium-mad Pythons are back with their craziest adventure ever! These ... more
naughty lads offer the usual tasteful sketches involving favorite bodily parts and functions the wonders of war the miracle of birth and a special preview of what's ...
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Scorched:In the next 36 hours the Desert Savings Bank will be robbed. Could one of the ... more
bank's employees be the thief? When three employees (Alicia Silverstone, Woody Harrelson, Paulo Costanzo) plan to rob the bank they work at on the same weekend it em...
Returning to the sketch-show format of their earlier days, Monty Python' sThe Meaning of ... more
Lifewas always going to feel less ambitious and less coherent than their cinematic masterpiece,The Life of Brian. And inevitably given the format, some sketches ar...
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Intro (The Meaning Of Life) Fish (Morning) The Meaning Of Life (Part One) The Miracle Of ... more
Birth MP Link (Part Two) The Third World (Yorkshire) Every Sperm Is Sacred Bloody Catholics Link (Martin Luther) (Part Three) Growth And Learning (Part Four) Fighting Each Other Terry Gilliam Introduction Accountancy Shanty (Part Five) Live Organ Transplants (Galaxy Song) (Part Six) The Autumn Years (The Not Noel Coward Song) (Part Seven) Death (Christmas In Heaven) MP Link (Dedication To Fish) Intro Title Song Demo Meaning Of Life (Piano Version) Alternate Intro Title Song Meaning Of Life (Band Version) Fat Song (Deleted Intro To Mr Creosote Sketch) Alternate Christmas In Heaven Song Radio Ad - Philisophers Corner Radio Ad - Officer Radio Ad - German Translation Greasy Hair Dino Viccotti Stretch The Script Grand Prix Hard Of Thinking
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Comedy - Director: Richard Boden, Mandie Fletcher, Martin Shardlow - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Hugh Laurie, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Fry, Brian Blessed, Tim McInnerny, Tony Robinson, Rowan Atkinson
Comedy - Original Language: English - Classification: 12 years and over - Starring: Tessa Peake-Jones, Buster Merryfield, David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst
Comedy - Director: Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Carol Cleveland, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Jones
Production Year: 2004 - Comedy - Director: John Hay - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jimi Mistry, Kate Miles, Dougray Scott
Advantages: It's Monty Python, very funny, great songs Disadvantages: May offend some
...can imagine the scene, the Monty Python boys are meeting, probably in Michael Palin's house ( I hear his wife makes great sausage rolls) to discuss ideas for their new, and final, movie. Having tackled organised religion in "The Life of Brian" and outraged the Church, they have to decide who to tackle, and thus offend, this time. Perhaps after rejecting several ideas, a voice from the back of the room, probably John Cleese returned from ... ...well known inspirational aid, shouts.
"I've got it guys! Lets do a movie that offends everybody!"
And bloody hell ,they did it.
So if you're at all sensitive and are either Jewish, Protestant, Catholic, a member of any religious body, male, female, black, white, American, Scottish, English, French, Northern, London urbanite, public school educated or offended by sexist comedy, strong language ... more
You can imagine the scene, the Monty Python boys are meeting, probably in Michael Palin's house ( I hear his wife makes great sausage rolls) to discuss ideas for their new, and final, movie. Having tackled organised religion in "The Life of Brian" and outraged the Church, they have to decide who to tackle, and thus offend, this time. Perhaps after rejecting several ideas, a voice from the back of the room, probably John Cleese returned from the toilet, the effect of urine on porcelain being a well known inspirational aid, shouts.
"I've got it guys! Lets do a movie that offends everybody!"
And bloody hell ,they did it.
So if you're at all sensitive and are either Jewish, Protestant, Catholic, a member of any religious body, male, female, black, white, American, Scottish, English, French, Northern, London urbanite, public school educated or offended by sexist comedy, strong language or scenes of extreme gore and violence, or female nudity or copious amounts of vomit you'll find something here to offend you, which goes for this op as well so you might want to look way now and I should say at this time that I do not subscibe to any views expressed in this movie or which may be described in this op.
Oh and before we get started proper, I must confess I'm come over all David Lean (not as disgusting as it sounds) as this review has a bit of the Epic's about it, so you might want to bring a packed lunch.
The movie, which is really an extended version of the tv show, is a series of sketches, linked very tenuously by the theme "The Meaning of Life". The sketches roughly trace out a life line thru birth to death, with various other skits on the human condition, but doesn't pretend to offer a profound comment on our existence or why are we here (would we expect it to?) and some of the sketches seem have no connection with this meaning of life theme (Live Organ Transplants?) but dang it all, it is all very funny.
As usual with the Python movies, all the major parts are played by the members of the team, sometimes having more than one role in a sketch.
The movie actual begins with a second feature (anybody here old enough to remember when you used to get a supporting feature when you went to the pictures?) about the pirates of the Crimson Permanent Insurance company...
..before going into the movie proper.
The sketches are split up into themed sections: THE MIRACLE OF BIRTH - A woman gives birth in hospital, surrounded by the most expensive equipment in the hospital, including the machine that goes "bing!".
Hospital Administrator - "What are you doing this morning?"
Doctor - "It's a birth."
Hospital Administrator - "Ahh and what sort of thing is that?"
Doctor -"Thats when we take a new baby out of a ladies tummy."
Hospital Administrator - "Wonderful what we can do now adays."
Only a short sketch but succesfully attacks the way that modern medicine is more interested in achieving targets and meeting budgets than actually treating patients.
THE MIRCALE OF BIRTH -PART 2:THE THIRLD WORLD - In this case, Yorkshire. Terry Jones gives birth at the sink, "she" has hundreds of childern, because, you see, she and her husband are Catholics and of course Catholics must breed. Unfortunately father, Michael Palin, has lost his job at the mill so has to sell the children for medical experiments.
Features the song "Every Sperm is Sacred", the chorus goes:
"Every sperm is sacred Every sperm is great If a sperm is wasted God gets quite irrate"
So having had a pop at the Catholics or rather the over populating of the world caused the opposition to birth control, we get balance by having a pop at the Protestants. Graham Chapman is the stereo-typical stoney faced Protestant bigot, waxing lyrical on condoms and sex.
Husband - "Because we don't believe in all that Papist clap-trap we can take precautions"
Wife - "What d'you mean? Lock the door?"
PART II GROWTH & LEARNING - After a short section of what I assume to be a typical church lesson at a public school, we get down to the main business of the day, sex education. No videos of humping bunnies, or birds & bees. this is the real thing. To ram home the point of his lesson, the teacher has sex with his wife in front of the class
Teacher - "Do stand up when my wife enters the room Carter"
A bit embarrassing if you watch it with your parents but pretty funny and gives John Cleese another excuse to get his kit off again.
PART III:FIGHTING EACH OTHER - In the trenches during WWI, a division of soldiers are about to go over the top, so the tommys have a wip round and buy some presents for their captain, unfortunately getting picked off one-by-one during the presentation. Bizarre but very funny.
Then a small linking piece of Graham Chapman as a high ranking official army type explains why we will always need an army and "may God strike me down were it to be otherwise" <cue the hand of God> leads into Michael Palins sergeant major marching up and down the square.
Still with something to say on the this stage of life, we get another sketch this time set during the Zulu Wars. One of the British officers has been badly bitten during the night, so badly bitten that his leg has come right off at the knee, the culprit? A tiger. A tiger in Africa?. So of they go looking for the tiger which actually turns out to be........you wouldn't believe me. Very silly.
THE MIDDLE OF THE FILM - A fantastic link brings us to this part, which features a bizarre game "Find the Fish" which has Graham Chapman in a basque reciting a bizarre peom about a fish whilst a strange elephant headed creature fondles a plug dangling from Grahams crotch!?!?!
PART IV:MIDDLE AGE - A typical middle aged American couple are looking to eat in a typical American themed hotel and are guided to the Dungeon room, genuine Hawaiin food served up in an authentic medival English dungeon!! However there is no food on the menu, only conversations, so they go for philosophers, who of course attempt to describe the human condition and the meaning of life, yah see the connection? Yeh, perhaps just a little too clever.
PART V:LIFE ORGAN TRANSPLANTS - Graham Chapman and John Cleese are working for the liver transplant service, unfortunately their donors are still alive at the time of donation.
Potentail Donor - "But it says in the event of death."
Hervester - "No-ones ever had there liver taken out by us and survived."
The actual harvesting of the liver is horrific, altho you don't see the actual incisions, you see the flaying limbs of the donor, hear his tortured screams as Graham Chapman gets covered in tons of blood and gore and miscellaneous bits of flesh.
This tenuously links into a song, sung by Eric Idle emerging from a fridge in a pink suit to sing the "Galaxy Song":
"Pray that there's intelligent life some-where up in space coz theres bugger all down here on Earth"
At this point the movie is invaded by the pirates from the supporting feature shown at the start of the movie!!(I'm not making this up), altho steps are taken to remove them.
PART VI:THE AUTUMN YEARS - This is definitely my favourite part. It's a posh restaurant. We begin with "The Penis" song from Eric:
"You can wrap it up in ribbons You can pop in your sock But don't bring it out in public Or they'll put you in the dock"
And then in walks. Mr Creosote, a fat corpulent pig of a man:
Waiter - "Good afternoon sir and how are we today?"
Mr C - "Better"
Waiter - "Better?"
Mr C - "Better get a bucket, Im gonna throw up"
And by jingo he does, tons of the stuff, everywhere; in the bucket, on the carpet, on the menu, on the waiter, on the cleaning woman. By the end of the meal, which comprises the entire menu, twice and a several crates of brown ale, Mr Creosote is fit to burst, quite literally. The waiter tips him over the edge with a wafer thin mint. This causes Mr Creosote to balloon up and explode covering the restaurant and diners in tons of vomit and gore. Honestly it sounds disgusting but it is very very funny.
PART VIb:THE MEANING OF LIFE - No not really, the cleaning lady clearing up the remains of Mr Creosote, waxes lyrical on all the great places of learning she has worked in, and the fact that despite all the great works she has read she was no closer to formulating a theory on the meaning of life but at the end of all it at least she doen't work for Jews! She quite deservedly gets a bucket of vomit over her head.
PART VII:DEATH - The sketch involves a man who has been sentenced to death for making gratuitous sexist jokes in a moving motiton picture. He is allowed to choose the manner of his own execution, and chooses to be chased over a cliff by a dozen topless women, wearing nothing but thongs and cycling helmets, running in slow motion.
Next sketch has The Grim Reaper making a visitation on a dinner party to collect the diners, altho they seem to think he is a little deaf and has come to cut the hedge. They soon get the point when he explains that they have all been posioned by the salmon mousse. So of they go to Heaven which turns out to be the hotel from the earlier section of the movie, God has obviously been on a hotel management course with Howard Johnsons and allowed Disney to take up a franchise. Heaven here is Las Vegas dinner show, where it's Christmas Day every day. Sounds more like Hell! Final song "Its Christmas Day in Heaven"
THE END OF THE FILM - Finally, we get The Meaning of Life from Michael Palin, want to know what it is? Well its something about being nice to each other, not eating fat, reading a good book and living in peace and harmony. He then delivers a tirade on the sensationalistic nature of modern cinema.
"Family Entertainemnt. B*ll*cks! What people want is filth"
How true.
And thats it, one of the funniest and most politically incorrect movies ever made. But it is all so silly and over the top tho that I don't think anybody could be really all that offended by it.
The movie has an "18" certificate. For material likely to offend, see the op.
Advantages: Very funny and highly amusing. Disadvantages: Some sick jokes.
...people of my age the Monty Python team hold a special place in our laughter glands. The Python television programmes broke every convention of comedy at that time and the transfer to the movie world has given the team the chance to expand their sketches and produce a great film. The film is split into seven parts and each part looks at a different aspect of life, but from rather an unconventional angle. Part 1. “The Miracle of Birth” ... ...very strange way of being presented that only the Monty Python team could write and perform. If you enjoy the quirky type humour of Monty Python then you will love this film, it is excellent and I can recommend it to anyone with a strange sense of humour. ...
daseaford 13.06.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life (DVD)
Advantages: Very funny, Monty Python, Weird moments of pure brilliance Disadvantages: Sick, foul mouthed, sometimes unfunny, (bit like a grandparent)
...Life
The last of the Monty Python films and not considered to be their best work, it is nonetheless a fine peice of groundbreaking, gross-out, off-the-wall comedic delight and if you have never seen it, hunt it down.
Unlike previous Python offerings like Life of Brian and Holy Grail, MOL is more a return to the sketch based comedy roots of Flying Circus days. The film is split into acts, (birth, middle-age, death that sort of thing) but is essentially ... ...and songs.
Before the film proper is a marvellous, bizzare mini B-featire directed by Terry Gilliam about a group of chartered accountants whose building breaks free like a ship and sails the acountant-sea, it ends with a song and leaves you (not for the last time in MOL) in that state of mirth filled confusion so lacking in todays film industry. Films are not nearly annoying and confusing enougth nowadays.
The first really good sketch that springs ...
Raybid 25.07.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life (DVD)
Advantages: Genius Disadvantages: Slows to the end
...obscure humour that made the Monty Python gang the king of comedy that they are today. Pure Genius! I his takes you through the many stages of life from birth through killing people to death. My favourite bit in the whole film is the Every Sperm Is Sacred scene which will be forever etched into my memory as one of the greatest movie moments of all time. A load of great sketched punctuated by the well-known Gilliam animation does, in my opinion, slow ...
muc 12.07.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life (DVD)
Advantages: Excellent special features, a must for all die-hard Python fans. Disadvantages: Not as funny as their previous feature films, humour is a bit crude.
...and the, lo and behold, Monty Python decide to pick up where those philosophers left off.
Being a big Monty Python fan, I decided I had to buy this, for the sake of my own sanity! So I perched it on my shelf in between Holy Grail and A Life of Brian and saved it up for a special occassion. Following a particularly bad day at work, and the impending doom of a new term at Uni looming ahead of me, I felt now was the right moment. With mounting trepidation, ... ...Sacred" and "The Universe Song". Monty Python is generally stupid and mindless, but in an utterly amazingly humorous way, but I found a lot of "Meaning of Life" was just stupid and mindless full stop. For example, Eric Idle takes us on a long walk at the end, which is all but pointless, Mr. Creosote only really serves to gross out the audience without being all that funny and so on. Don't get me wrong, the film isn't bad as such, I think it is just ...
Guru-On-A-Mountain 11.09.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life (DVD)
Advantages: Some classic Python moments Disadvantages: A weak plot - it seems like a series of sketches.
...of Brian or Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but it is still well worth a look.
Of course, if you don't like Python, don't bother with this, get the Life of Brian instead - a comic masterpiece. If you are already a fan, you will love this film. ...
drewish 08.12.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life (DVD)
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Advantages: A collection of all the great Monty Python movies Disadvantages: Some movies, ie., Monty Python and the Meaning of Life, have no extra features
, as I found it unfunny mostly, and a waste of time. I have only seen it once, and that was when I first watched it after purchasing this DVD box set.
The acting is brilliant and while scenarios are quite often absurd and sometimes feeling quite random, acting sometimes feels as though it could be real. The acting is naturally funny as well, backing to the jokes that are made, causing these films to be the funniest I have ever witnessed in my life.
~~~ The DVDs ~~~
So, the box set has 4 DVD cases in, compromising 5 DVDs. These are the three films; MontyPython and the Holy Grail, MontyPython's Life of Brian and MontyPython and the Meaning of Life, as well as the movie of Flying Circus; MontyPython's And Now For Something Completely Different.
~~~ DVD Features ~~~
DVD features I found were generally lacking, following ...
DVD as part of a box set along with "And Now For Something Completley Different", "The Life Of Brian" (by far the best MontyPython film ever) and the below par "Meaning of Life". It's available on two-disc DVD seperatley, usually between £11.99 and £17.99. However, there are the new special editions recently released with a script book, postcards (left blank for your amusement!) and a genuine 35mm still from the film. Personally, I would go for that disc rather than the one I have just reviewed. Which is more than a little annoying for me as I'm going to have to shell out on that again...
Overall, if you're a MontyPython fan then you need this film in your collection. If you're not, you still need to see it and the plethera of special features will certainly compliment your taster in to this silly world of mayhem. I would reccommend ...
DTS 5.1 English Dolby Digital 5.1 English, Dolby Digital Stereo English Dolby Digital Mono French German Italian
Aspect Ratio
Wide Screen, 1.85 Wide Screen
Sound
DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital Stereo, Dolby Digital Mono
Special Features
Eric Idle Introduction, Feature Commentary With Terry Jones And Terry Gilliam, Soundtrack For The Lonely, Directors Cut With Three Deleted Scenes, The Meaning Of The Making Of The Meaning Of Life, Educational Tips To Prepare You For Life In The Real World, Un Film De John Cleese A New Trailer For The John Cleese Version Of The Film, Remastering A Masterpiece How To Revive An Old Master, Song And Dance A Featurette About Two Of The Films Musical Numbers, Songs Unsung Alternate Versions Of The Original Songs, In Your Face Promotional Material Selling The Meaning Of Life, Virtual Reunion The Pythons Together Again, What Fish Think Go Into The Minds Of Fish, The Snipped Bits Deleted Scenes, DVD ROM Features, Scene Access, Interactive Menus
Professional reviews
Review
"...A monumental revue, the BEN HUR of sketch films..." (New York Times, p.C13, 31/03/1983)
"...Funny....The seasoned British comedy troupe has this time come up with an expertly biting, off-the-wall satire of life's various passages..." (Variety, 23/03/1983)
DVD Description
The Monty Python team get together for this last feature-length outing. The Pythons explain it all in this episodic, bawdy adventure as they satirise religion, birth control, British politics, Americans, hospitals and of course sex. Amongst the highlights are the "Every Sperm is Sacred" episode that starts off the film, and the grim reaper visiting a bourgeois dinner party where there are some fishy goings on, and the gross Mr Creosote.
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