First of all, a note: this comment is not just for the title under which it is listed, but for the entire first disc of the DVD pack called "The Life Of Python", which is a program assembled in 1999 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the creation of the Monty Python team. The program begins with the entertaining, informative and not at all dry documentary "It's The Monty Python Story", which tells us....well, the title is self-explanatory. Among the highlights of this documentary: we see people holding signs that say things like "Python=Serpent=Satan" outside theaters playing "The Life Of Brian"; Cleese, Palin and Jones admit that "The Meaning Of Life" is not quite as good as their other films; Palin (probably the most eloquent of the bunch) and Gilliam explain why they are opposed to the idea of a formal reunion. Then we get a nice little feature about Palin re-visiting some of the places where the Pythons filmed some of their sketches 30 years ago. The show lags a bit in the middle, with a brand new "Gorilla Sketch" which I frankly found awful, and a "lost" 10-minute May Day Special, which Cleese symbolically finds in the BBC garbage dump, and which probably belongs there (as Cleese himself admits!). But then the show makes a brilliant recovery with another, shorter documentary ("From Spam To Sperm") about Monty Python and their music, which (as you know) is impossible to get out of your mind once you've heard it, and we get to see how Eric Idle became a pop star! There are also some great animated bits, not only by Terry Gilliam but also by the "South Park" creators, and Cleese gets some laughs when he complains about this whole celebratory program being shown on BBC-2, instead of the more popular BBC-1 ("thanks a lot for the vote of confidence!"). (***)
Python Night: 30 Years of Monty Python
(1999 TV Movie)
A mixed bag, but with enough priceless moments to make it worth watching
13 July 2005