thewayne: (Default)
John Cleese and his daughter Camilla are working on a return to Fawlty Towers! The concept is Basil's daughter is running a boutique hotel and (is silly enough to) brings in her father to help run it.

What could possibly go wrong?

ROB REINER is involved in the production, so tremendous potential is seen. Reiner is also involved in making a sequel to This Is Spinal Tap!

Lots of good stuff! No information on when or where the currently non-existent series will stream.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-64563839
thewayne: (Default)
I found a documentary called Before The Flying Circus and got around to watching it tonight. It's only 55 minutes, made in 2000, and was quite good. Takes them through their school years, up through the inception of Python and the broadcast of the first episode. It had a lot more detail that I was previously unaware of.

If you're not a fan of Monty Python, then don't bother. If you don't have Netflix, then you can bug a nearby friend who does!
thewayne: (Cyranose)
I was amazed when I read this:

"July 26, 1996 Iberia Flight 6621, a McDonnell-Douglas DC-10-30 flying from Madrid to Havana was hijacked mid-flight. The hijacker, a Lebanese national named Ibrahim Saada demanded the flight be diverted to Miami International Airport. Saada was later apprehended and faced up to 20 years in prison. No one was hurt and the flight later landed at Jose Marti International Airport some hours later."

Wow. There's a Python sketch where Cleese and I think Chapman are the pilots and Palin comes in with a gun, saying "Take this plane to Luton!" Cleese's reply: "This is a regularly scheduled flight to Cuba, sir!"
thewayne: (Default)
Cleese, Palin and the Welsh git are all signed, Idle knows about it but has not yet committed. The source article, Entertainment Weekly, does not mention Gilliam, but as they do mention Robin Williams voicing an animated dog, presumably Gilliam will be involved.

http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/12/01/28/1340231/monty-python-crew-to-reunite-for-movie
thewayne: (Default)
SQUEEE!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/sfb

SO looking forward to listening to this! Scotland's Funny Bits is a podcast with the funniest bits from a Radio Scotland show called MacAulay & Co. I wish I could get the whole show, maybe there's a stream of it somewhere...
thewayne: (Default)
I knew nothing at all about this and stumbled upon it yesterday while looking for some movie trailers on the iTunes store. Apparently this started in 2007, Eric Idle et al staged Life of Brian as an oratorio, complete with full orchestra, chorus, pipers, and four major opera singers (the mezzo is an O.B.E.) at the Royal Albert Hall.

This is a 'making of' 30 minute featurette. All of the Pythons returned for it, except for Graham Chapman who was excused on account of being dead, and no John Cleese, for reasons undisclosed. Cleese left the TV show after the third season because he thought they were mostly rehashing old material, perhaps he didn't want to be involved in any 40th anniversary folderol (40th of the TV show, 30th of the Life of Brian movie).

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/not-messiah-the-road-to-albert/id374287357

iTunes has a soundtrack album for the production for $10 and the DVD and BluRay were released last week.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_the_Messiah_%28He%27s_a_Very_Naughty_Boy%29

Life of Brian is one of my very favorite films, definitely on my 'Stranded on a Desert Island' list. I saw it during its original theatrical run and own it both on Laserdisc and DVD. I am absolutely massively looking forward to picking this up later this week or ordering it from Amazon.

Speaking of which, there are already five reviews up on Amazon!

http://www.amazon.com/Not-Messiah-Eric-Idel/dp/B003DF44SI/
thewayne: (Default)
Wired has a nice little article including some video clips of their reunion in New York, and Fresh Air/NPR also had a good piece.


Wired article

NPR article with link to audio clip


I was first exposed to/corrupted by Python in the late 70's whilst in high school. They had probably already completed their BBC run at that point and the Phoenix PBS affiliate, KAET, ran the entire series. I don't recall the first sketch that I saw, but I was hooked pretty much immediately. I bought a few of their albums, including the original three-sided album (Matching Tie and Handkerchief) which I think I still have around somewhere, not that I have a functioning record player.

While in Tucson a couple of weeks ago, I was quite happy to discover two albums at one of the greatest used bookstores in the world, Bookman's, and drove back to New Mexico listening to the soundtrack to Holy Grail and an album called Monty Python's Previous Record (1972). I had many segments from Holy Grail from other CDs, but I was missing one of the most brilliant: the Professional Logician. It didn't appear in the movie, it was a comment on Sir Bedeviere's logic, but was nonetheless hilarious. I played it for Russet the other evening and it blew her mind ("Sex is more fun than logic. One cannot prove this, but it IS, in the sense that Mount Everest IS, or that Elmer Cogan ISN'T. Goodnight."). Sadly, with the Previous Record CD, although the album had something like 26 tracks on it the CD has two: Side 1 and Side 2. *sigh* If I get ambitious some day with a good sound editing program, maybe I'll break it in to chunks.


(and for the record, Powell's Bookstore in Portland, OR is the greatest used bookstore in the world. Bookman's is quite good, but it ain't Powell's.)
thewayne: (Default)
We picked this up recently at Barnes & Noble for around $25. It collects three John Cleese movies made in the mid 70's and include: How To Irritate People, The Strange Case of the End of Civilization As We Know It, and Romance with a Double Bass. Aside from Cleese, Connie Booth is the only Python to appear in all three. (I think she deserves credit as a Python considering how often she appeared in the series)

First, quality of production. It really isn't very good. The transfer did not include a cleanup of wherever they got the movies from and it shows it. That's not to say that the quality is bad, it just isn't very good. It's acceptable for 70's TV. Also, there is zero bonus material on these three disks. That was rather disappointing, but when you see what a low-budget production this is, you won't be surprised. One can only hope that some day they are fully restored and re-released. The three movies are 65 minutes, 55 minutes, and 45 minutes long respectively, and they're all at the television standard 4x3 aspect ratio.

On to the films!

Read more... )

The best thing about Strange Case and Double Bass is that we get to see a young(ish) Cleese doing consistent acting in a long format, as opposed to the shorter sketches of Flying Circus. He's sort of manic like he was in Fish Called Wanda and lots of fun to watch. And, as a bonus, we get lots of shots of a fully naked Connie Booth in Double Bass, what a lovely lady! (With HUGE... tracts of land!) Cleese is also naked, but they don't have any full frontals of him. Booth was also naked in a Python Sketch (whose title I will not get precisely correct), 'A Day in the Life of a Stockbroker.'


I so wish the US didn't have this 'violence good, nudity bad' attitude as opposed to the reverse throughout a lot of the rest of the world.

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