![]() The Jerk Year: 1979 Director: Carl Reiner Stars: Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, Catlin Adams, Mabel King, Richard Ward, Dick Anthony Williams, Jackie Mason, Bill Macy, M. And maybe the one true through line of history is that stupid people will always follow stupid people, whistling on the way to our meaningless, futile deaths. Maybe the standard of what makes a miracle should be a little higher. Maybe coincidence (and also class struggle) is reality’s only guiding force. Maybe a “virgin birth” was really just called that to cover up a Roman centurion’s sexual crimes. He’s a very naughty boy!”), the film explores Jesus’s life by obsessing over the context around it. Steeped in satire fixing on everything from Spartacus to Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth, and buttressed by as many iconic lines as there are crucifixes holding up the film’s frames (as Brian’s equally squealy mother hollers to the swarming masses, “He’s not the messiah. Of course, Life of Brian isn’t the first film about Jesus (or: Jesus adjacent) to focus on the human side of the so-called savior-Martin Scorsese’s take popularly did so less than a decade later-but it feels like the first to leverage human weakness against the absurdity of the Divine’s expectations. ![]() As such, the British comedy group stripped all romanticism and nobility from the story’s bones, lampooning everything from radical revolutionaries to religious institutions to government bureaucracy while never stooping to pick on the figure of Jesus or his empathetic teachings. As a Christ story, the telling of how squealy mama’s boy, Brian (Graham Chapman) mistakenly finds himself as one of many messiah figures rising in Judea under the shadow of Roman occupation (around 33 AD, on a Saturday afternoon-ish), Monty Python’s follow-up to Holy Grail may be the most political film of its ilk. Pretty much made on George Harrison’s dime and considered, even if apocryphally, by the legendary comedy troupe to be their best film (probably because it’s the closest they’ve come to a three-act narrative with obvious “thematic concerns”), Life of Brian got banned by a lot of countries at the butt-end of the ’70s. Monty Python’s Life of Brian Year: 1979 Director: Terry Jones Stars: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin Rating: R The first-time co-direction from onscreen performer Terry Jones (who only sporadically directed after Python broke up) and lone American Terry Gilliam (who prolifically bent Python’s cinematic style into his own unique brand of nightmarish fantasy) moves with a surreal efficiency. It certainly doesn’t look like a $400,000 movie, and it’s delightful to discover which of the gags (like the coconut halves) were born from a need for low-budget workarounds. If you’re truly and irreversibly burnt out from this movie, watch it again with commentary, and discover the second level of appreciation that comes from the inventiveness with which it was made. There are so many jokes in this movie, and it’s surprising how easily we forget that, considering its reputation. Holy Grail is, indeed, the most densely packed comedy in the Python canon. But, if you try and distance yourself from the over-saturation factor, and revisit the film after a few years, you’ll find new jokes that feel as fresh and hysterical as the ones we all know. Or, in my case, of repeating full scenes to people as a clueless, obsessive nerd. Nowadays, when we hear a “flesh wound,” a “ni!” or a “huge tracts of land,” our first thoughts are often of having full scenes repeated to us by clueless, obsessive nerds. It sucks that some of the shine has been taken off Holy Grail by its own overwhelming ubiquity. Monty Python and the Holy Grail Year: 1975 Directors: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones Stars: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Connie Booth Rating: PG Here are the best comedies on Netflix as of October 2023.ġ. For the purpose of these rankings I’m looking at how funny a movie is alongside how well made it is-meaning you might see some absolutely hilarious comedies that aren’t that well respected by critics coming in higher than better reviewed, more technically proficient films. So let’s take a quick trip through the funniest movies on Netflix right now. We even link right to ’em, because we’re polite like that. Instead of scrolling endlessly through that app, looking for the right movie so long that you fall asleep halfway through, you should consult our quick and easy guide to the best comedy movies on Netflix. When it comes to great comedies, Netflix has you covered, from classics like The Jerk and Coming to America, to recent Netflix originals like The Mitchells vs. ![]() October might be peak spooky season but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a good laugh or three.
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