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Editorial Review:
"Blessed are the cheesemakers," a wise man once said. Or maybe not. But the point is Monty Python's Life of Brian is a religious satire that does not target specific religions or religious leaders (like, say, Jesus of Nazareth). Instead, it pokes fun at the mindless and fanatical among their followers--it's an attack on religious zealotry and hypocrisy--things that that fellow from Nazareth didn't particularly care for either. Nevertheless, at the time of its release in 1979, those who hadn't seen it considered it to be quite "controversial." Life of Brian, you see, is about a chap named Brian (Graham Chapman) born December 25 in a hovel not far from a soon-to-be-famous Bethlehem manger. Brian is mistaken for the messiah and therefore manipulated, abused, and exploited by various religious and political factions. And it's really, really funny. Particularly memorable bits include the brassy Shirley Bassey/James Bond-like title song; the bitter rivalry between the anti-Roman resistance groups, the Judean People's Front and the People's Front of Judea; Michael Palin's turn as a lisping, risible Pontius Pilate; Brian urging a throng of false-idol worshippers to think for themselves--to which they reply en masse "Yes, we must think for ourselves!"; the fact that everything Brian does, including losing his sandal in an attempt to flee these wackos, is interpreted as "a sign." Life of Brian is not only one of Monty Python's funniest achievements, it's also the group's sharpest and smartest sustained satire. Blessed are the Pythons. --Jim Emerson

Description of Life of Brian [Region 2]:
"Blessed are the cheesemakers," a wise man once said. Or maybe not. But the point is Monty Python's Life of Brian is a religious satire that does not target specific religions or religious leaders (like, say, Jesus of Nazareth). Instead, it pokes fun at the mindless and fanatical among their followers--it's an attack on religious zealotry and hypocrisy--things that that fellow from Nazareth didn't particularly care for either. Nevertheless, at the time of its release in 1979, those who hadn't seen it considered it to be quite "controversial." Life of Brian, you see, is about a chap named Brian (Graham Chapman) born December 25 in a hovel not far from a soon-to-be-famous Bethlehem manger. Brian is mistaken for the messiah and therefore manipulated, abused, and exploited by various religious and political factions. And it's really, really funny. Particularly memorable bits include the brassy Shirley Bassey/James Bond-like title song; the bitter rivalry between the anti-Roman resistance groups, the Judean People's Front and the People's Front of Judea; Michael Palin's turn as a lisping, risible Pontius Pilate; Brian urging a throng of false-idol worshippers to think for themselves--to which they reply en masse "Yes, we must think for ourselves!"; the fact that everything Brian does, including losing his sandal in an attempt to flee these wackos, is interpreted as "a sign." Life of Brian is not only one of Monty Python's funniest achievements, it's also the group's sharpest and smartest sustained satire. Blessed are the Pythons. --Jim Emerso

Life of Brian [Region 2] Reviews:
even better the second time around
2009-12-02 - Even funnier than the first time I saw this movie, years ago. Classic Python humor - never gets old. Even turned my kids onto it.

Python review/heavy handed mail carriers
2009-11-27 - Although I don't believe it's the fault of the person I purchased it from, I did find my DVD case to have a dent in it as if someone from the post office stepped on it. And I mean hard. Fortunately the disc was undamaged and it's all good. Thanks again. Love Monty Python.

Favorite Monty Python Movie
2009-11-24 - Of all Monty Python movies, I think 'Life of Brian' is overshadowed by the Holy Grail. I've watched this movie so many times and it still cracks me up every time.

Always look on the silly side of faith
2009-11-15 - Three wise men wend their way to a small hut in a small town, 2000 years ago. They are in search of the Messiah and they come bearing gifts...but first they make a small mistake and deliver them to He who is not the Savior, Brian, who happens to be born on the same day, just down the alley from that Jesus fella. Brian grows up a fairly oblivious and apolitical mama's boy, though sadly with less interest in stonings than is proper. Alas, events lead him to work with the People's Front of Judea, the attempted kidnap of Pilate's wife, accidental prophet-hood, and eventual crucifixion to the tune of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life."

The conventional wisdom on LIFE OF BRIAN is that it's the Python crew's most "polished" or "competent" film as a team, and I'd probably agree with that, though I find HOLY GRAIL funnier. It's still scattershot and somewhat inconsistent of course - I for one found the whole Pilate/Biggus Dickus thing a bit overlong, and the alien abduction while fun doesn't really add anything besides giving Terry Gilliam more to do - but it does actually feel like a moderately cohesive film, and of course it takes the typical Python over-the-top methods on attacking organized religion to a point which all but the most humor-challenged Christians ought to be able to admit to at least chuckling over - it's a bit more pointed and narrow in its humor. Of course, the film isn't really anti-Christian, or anti-Jewish, but rather anti-stupid. Maybe that was its biggest problem with some audiences....

Early highlights include the stoning scene and the scene with the ex-leper, but where the film really takes off in my mind is when Brian becomes an accidental prophet. It seems to be channeling or ripping off HOLY GRAIL at first - smart, articulate Brian being completely misunderstood by the idiot peasants, just exactly as Bedevere in the earlier film presiding over the witch's trial - but the brilliance with which Brian quickly goes from being just another hairy crazed prophet (reminiscent naturally of street-corner shouters even today) to being followed all around by a witless mob is startling and hard for me to describe. I think this may be the apex of the Pythons' wordplay, and the fact that it's foreshadowed in an early scene where Brian and others are listening to the real Messiah but misinterpreting his words wildly only adds an icing to the cake. If there's a message to LIFE OF BRIAN it's that people will hear what they want to hear, and sometimes no matter how clear you think you're being, you're not going to get through to them - especially if God's in the way.

I find comedy harder to describe or critique than just about anything else; perhaps that's a copout but I'm not sure how I can really get at just how clever and funny the film is without quoting a bunch of dialogue, and what's the point in that? You're here on IMDb, you can check it out easily yourselves. I will close by saying that in one way LIFE OF BRIAN does seem to "conform" to the more modern style of religious "epic" - the Jerusalem and the Jews here are dirty, disheveled, and poor. Gone pretty much for good by this time is the splendor of the 50s and 60s Cinemascope epics - although I suspect that may have as much do with the small budgets of the Pythons' film, and Scorsese's and Gibson's later, serious efforts at the Christ story, as with any conscious desire to make things grubby.

Note on the disc - the transfer is excellent, and you can't beat this (or most editions of Python films, really) for extras; I've only scratched the surface of the two commentaries, the documentary, etc, and haven't even touched the cast reading.

It's the little things that make this movie, but what are they?
2009-10-24 - We fans can rave endlessly about the geniuses behind "Life of Brian", but (like most good humor) it is pointless to try to define where that genius lies. Think of the scene with Pontius Pilate: it was probably funny on paper and even in rehearsal, but it will live as a great comic scene because of Michael Palin's superb delivery. Not just his lisp, but his facial expressions as he tries new phrases and watches for the audience reaction. Is this expert direction? Is it intuitively Palin's doing, because of his experience in sketch humor? Did it evolve, like Topsy, from the critical mass of comedy talent involved?

Another thing that puzzles me as I watched the documentary about the shows, the people, and the movies: I can remember seeing the shows for the first time and feeling threatened by the humor. Were they attacking me? And values I held? I couldn't relax and go along with the joke until about the third time through, when my kids were roaring at the zaniness. So: did I change or did my sense of humor adapt to something I knew was acceptedly funny despite being profane and bawdy and just plain silly?

And who cares, really?