And Now for Something Completely Different (1971)

 "My hovercraft is full of eels."

This film is, of course, just a load of sketches from the first two series of Monty Python's Flying Circus, barely rewritten at all and reshot with a slightly bigger budget. That, of course, is no bad concept for a film.

Whether the "best" sketches were chosen is, of course, a subjective thing. Any thirteen episode series of half hour shows is going to be, as the cliche goes, hit and miss. There's so much good stuff in those two series, and the film has less than ninety minutes to play with, so it's a shame they went for the killer joke sketch, the rowdy old ladies, and other second tier stuff. I suppose they were pretty much obliged to include the slightly overrated parrot sketch. Nevertheless, we get the two mountaineering sketches, not being seen, the restaurant sketch, defence against fresh fruit, and other top tier stuff/.

Obviously, the film is superb. It couldn't possibly not have been. But what fascinates me, after the passage of fifty-odd years, is how much longer ago 1971 feels than it did the last time I saw this film, I suspect when John Major was prime minister. We no longer, mercifully, have many tobacconists. Let us just say that attitudes to LGBT+ people are a bit different. Even more fascinating, though, old people wear Victorian fashions because they are, of course, Victorians. It's middle aged women who look like my generation's idea of what old people look like. And there are the ever-present city gents with their black bowler hats.

This is a hilarious comedy, and also a fascinating little time capsule.

Transformers: The Movie (1986)

"Bah weep graahah weep ni ni bong."

I was born in 1977. Thus I care nothing for anything other than what is now called "Generation One". I'm firm in my belief, having rewatched bits as an adult, that the TV cartoon was casually tossed away crap, far inferior to the comics which were the true carriers of the flame. And, being British, I'm lucky enough to have been blessed with Simon Furman from early on- we got Target: 2006. And yet this film (comics canon!) is a huge part of my childhood, watched and rewatched many times. This time I watch with a critical eye- and no little trepidation.

So is it actually any good if you strip away the nostalgia? Well, yes, much as its roots as a cynical advert for toys are far more visible to me at forty-one than they were at nine. It has a truly awesome soundtrack, for one thing, and opening titles that, at one point, seem suspiciously to be channelling Tom Baker era Doctor Who title sequence tunnel. It has Orson Bloody Welles, for another. Unicron is, of course, blatantly based on Galactus, and for someone supposed to be planet-sized his scale compared to various Transformers isn't very convincing. But yes, destroying a world at the start creates a certain epic scale.

This film was, of course, planned far earlier than 1986, so the deaths of so many early Autobots- Prowl, Ironhide and Brawn among them- seems very cynical. Kids, all your favourite toys are dead. Now get your parents to buy some new ones. And why does this Decepticon attack happen to suddenly kill loads of Autobots where countless previous attacks haven't?

Anyway, we get a big cinematic battle for Autobot City- which evokes the toy Metroplex without actually being it- and the umpteenth epic battle between Optimus Prime and Megatron which this time happens to result in a dead Oppy (awww!), who promptly hands over the Creation Matrix to wet drip Ultra Magnus, and a badly injured Megatron  Then, inside a bizarrely large Astrotrain, a load of injured Deceptcons are jettisoned- the ever-awesome Starscream (Chris Latta was a legend) gets rid of Megatron, of course, but also, I spotted, Bombshell, Skywarp, Thundercracker and Shrapnel, at least. So we have Unicron upgrading Megatron to the much tougher Galvatron and his voice from Frank Welker to the much more famous Leonard Nimoy; not sure how this works diagetically.

Anyway, we get a few set pieces and some picaresque adventure on various planets inhabited by sentient robots. (Is this because the Singularity eventually happens within every technological civilisation and life is ultimately replaced by AI? I'm overthinking this, aren't I?) This gives us a chance to highlight new character such as Springer (who clearly has the hots for poor Arcee), and especially Hot Rod and Kup, who are in the shops now, kids. It also gives us the ridiculous idea of the TV-talking Junkions, silly dancing, Eric Idle and Weird Al Yankovic, so it's not all bad, even if that stupid "me Grimlock" way of talking for the Dinobots is utterly cringeworthy.

The ending, with Hot Rod becoming the Autobot messiah, is obviously lifted straight from all them legends about young Arthur pulling the sword out of the stone, but his defeat of first Galvatron and then Unicron is deeply satisfying, even if it also inexplicably leads to a sudden Cybertronian utopia. Have all the Decepticons been ethnically cleansed off screen or something?

This film is at once very, very silly, extremely cynical and deeply awesome all at once. I loved every frame in spite of everything.

Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983)

“Let the heathens spill theirs
 On the dusty ground
 God shall make them pay for
 Each sperm that can’t be found.”

There’s a sketch on That Mitchell and Webb Look which shows our two eponymous writer-performers sorting out the order of sketches for their comedy sketch series, which is of course very much in the lineage of Monty Python. The joke is, of course, that they try to arrange the hits and the misses in the correct sequence so there are equal amounts of each, as every sketch show has to be hit and miss; it’s a fully fledged cliche. And one often made of this film.

Thing is, though, this criticism is somewhat dodgy. Of course the Monty Python telly series could be hit and miss; they had to fill thirteen episodes a series at the pace of telly, where union rules meant the studio lights went off at 10pm no matter what. But it’s commonly a criticism not made of The Holy Grail or The Life of Brian, both more narrative and less explicitly a series of sketches. Yet The Meaning of Life gets these criticisms full force.

But this is absolute pants. Yes, this film isn’t quite as good as the other two; I accept that. But how many individual telly episodes have this kind of hit rate? I mean, Every Sperm Is Sacred, sex education, a run of excellent war sketches, the Galaxy Song- this would have been a critical hit if it were the only Python film.

It’s also a lot more explicitly political, a sort of last hurrah for the Beyond the Fringe generation, as it gleefully skewers the church, public school, the armed forces and all sorts of upper middle class pretensions. Even Terry Gilliam’s glorious opening feature with its accountants raiding international finance on the high seas, a live action version of one of his own animations, is aimed squarely at Thatcherism. But more than that, it’s hilarious. And so is the film as a whole. So forget all this hit and miss stuff; this is classic, superb Python for the very last time.

Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)

"He wanks as high as any man in Wome!"

This is, surely, the greatest comedy film ever made. By miles. I suspect that’s an uncontroversial comment. It’s also not at all about religion. That one needs a bit more explaining.

Life of Brian is about how ideas, such as Jesus’ rather excellent views on how to live one’s life, are always taken over and twisted into something else by those who want to use them to gain power and status. Hence the central part of the film, where Brian is followed by professional disciples (“I should know- I’ve followed a few”) who argue amongst themselves and split into various denominations over a dropped shoe on day one, killing their first heretic for good measure. The main example of the film’s central message is in that context. But it isn’t only applied to religion- aren’t Reg’s People’s Front of Judea and all the other “splitters” am example of exactly the same thing? Yet again, principles are subordinated to power, status and meaningless bureaucracy, exactly the same as per every organised religion that has ever existed. That’s how humanity always twists religion but also, I’m afraid, politics. Principles don’t stand a chance. That’s the film’s message, beneath the inspired humour. It’s very bleak, very Adam Curtis, and every bit as dark as the gleefully dark humour.

It’s bloody funny, though. We all have our favourite lines; mine is when Brian convinced the crowd that “we’re all individuals” and “we’re all different”, and one bloke shouts “I’m not”. The performances are superb, the Pythons being geniuses, and the script is the best comedy script ever. The filming in Tunisia looks lush and expensive- thank you, George Harrison, for paying for such things as this and Shirley Bloody Bassey. If you haven’t seen this then just bloody watch it now.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

"Your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries!"

I'm obviously not blogging the telly series; it’s brilliant and revolutionary, of course, and any kind of “best of” will always be hilarious, but a sketch show with thirteen episodes to fill will inevitably be, to use the hackneyed phrase, hit and miss. And it’s not an appetising thought to attempt to review individual episodes of a series that is, deliberately, rather stream-of-consciousness. But I’ll have a go at the films. And yes, I know And Now For Something Completely Different is technically the first Python film, but I think we’re safe to treat that as a stand-alone compilation.

So, what of the film? Well, it's utterly hilarious, obviously, a serious contender for funniest film ever made. The Python style and humour translates perfectly to the big screen, in spite of the obviously low budget. The great locations and bloody good direction by Terry Jones (not Terry Gilliam, but they didn't know at the time that he would go on to be a big Hollywood director) really help here.

It's interesting to see, though, how coherent the sketches more or less are as a longer narrative, the perfect fruition of what Michael Palin and Terry Jones were trying to do increasingly during that final, truncated series. But the many iconic scenes, which we all know so well, are an absolute triumph. Forget the gleefully dodgy history; this is comedy gold. Even Elvis thought so.

Yellowbeard (1983)

"Three farthings for a lump of shit please..."

This film is, well, not all that good which, considering that two of its three writers were Peter Cook and Graham Chapman, is rather bewildering. But it just isn't much good. And it killed Marty Feldman.

That isn't to say that there are no laughs at all, of course, nor that it isn't a pleasure to see the talents of those in them tags down there, plus Spike Milligan, Nigel Planer and even an eyebrow-raising from a very Let's Dance era David Bowie. But the whole thing never really takes off, perhaps partly because the script isn't great but in large part, I suspect, to a rather flat directorial style with no comedic timing or flourishes. Also, I have to say, the constant rape jokes don't exactly make for comfortable viewing.

Still, Graham Chapman is good, as is Marty Feldman in his last film, although Peter Cook is somewhat wasted in a straight man role. And the character of El Nebuloso is superb, with the scenes of Cheech and Chong, the acid pool and the torture device being the closest the film gets to being Pythonesque. But the film as a whole is a bit of a damp squib and worth seeing only for Monty Python or Peter Cook completists.