And now for something completely Awesome!((tag: xavierpop, film, pop-culture, nerdiness, tumblrize,1983 Cannes Film Festival,Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life,Holy Grail,Jonathan Pryce,Monty Python,Monty Python and the Holy Grail,Monty Python's Life
TIFF has come and gone but if you think that the good folks who run the world's most important film festival are going to rest on their laurels and chill, you are very wrong my friend.
Armed with a shiny new building, the good folks at TIFF have put together quite the heavy programme of really wonderful and quite awesome things. Right out of the gate we have an in-depth exhibition on Princess Grace Kelly of Monaco. Just before that, I am absolutely thrilled to announce that there will be a Terry Gillam retrospective.
For those who don't know the name, Gillam graduates from the extremely school of Monty Pythos and went to also direct 12 Monkeys, Time Bandits and Brazil
The retrospective is to mark the restoration of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Monty Pythonâs Life of Brian to their original 'murky glory'.
Try and stop me from attending.
Oh Look! A Press Release:
Late Night: Python in Excelsis
October 8 to December 10
TIFF Bell Lightbox, Toronto
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On the occasion of the restoration of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Monty Pythonâs Life of Brian to their original murky glory, this seasonâs Late Night series surveys the Python boysâ ventures into the cinema, as well as the solo directorial outings of their mad animation genius Terry Gilliam. Films in the series include Gilliamâs most ambitious and visionary film Brazil (1985), a darkly funny vision of a dystopian future starring Jonathan Pryce and Robert De Niro; a restored print of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), the Pythonsâ rain-soaked, mud-covered and insultingly low-budget first original feature funded by Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd; and a restored print of Pythonâs biggest box-office hit Monty Pythonâs Life of Brian (1979), which was picketed in the US by fundamentalist Christian groups who condemned it as blasphemous.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Dirs. Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones | UK 1975 | 91 min |14A
Horselessly galloping across the land to the thundering sound of coconut shells, King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table traverse Dark Age England in their quest to find the Holy Grail, encountering fearsome warriors, eccentric enchanters, insulting Frenchmen, anarcho-syndicalist peasants, killer rabbits, itinerant shrubbers, the fair horny maidens of Castle Anthrax, vexed questions about avian migratory habits and, of course, the Knights Who Say "Ni." Funded by Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd (and reportedly the favou rite film of Elvis Presley), the Pythons' rain-soaked, mud-covered and insultingly low-budget first original feature "makes Ben-Hur look like an epic," as its ads proudly proclaimed. King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table gallop horselessly across the land to the thundering sound of coconut shells in the Pythons' majestically murky send-up of the Grail legend.
Saturday, October 8 at 11pm and Saturday, December 3 at 11pm
Monty Python's Life of Brian
Dir. Terry Jones | UK 1979 | 94 min | R
Born a bastard in the manger next door to Jesus, young firebrand Brian Cohen joins a Jewish terrorist organization to drive the Romans from Judea, unwittingly finds himself hailed as the Messiah â" though his harridan mother insists that he's just a very naughty boy â" and is shuffled off to Calvary by a lisping Pontius Pilate prior to a merry sing-a-long to "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life" with his fellow crucifixees. Python's biggest box-office hit was picketed in the US by fundamentalist Christian groups who condemned it as blasphemous.
Saturday, October 15 at 11pm and Saturday, December 10 at 11pm
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
Dir. Terry Jones | UK 1983 | 107 min | PG
Returning to the team's sketch origins, The Meaning of Life offers a haphazard meditation on the Big Question through a series of episodes involving birth, death, war, religion, live organ transplants, epic musical numbers about sperm, a jolly game of "Find the Fish," hardcore classroom sex-ed, and a literally stomach-churning survey of the gastronomic habits of one Mr. Creosote. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival.
Saturday, October 22 at 11pm
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Jabberwocky
Dir. Terry Gilliam | UK 1977 | 105 min | PG
Terry Gilliam's first solo directorial effort after sharing credit on Monty Python and the Holy Grail returned him to that film's picturesque vision of medieval mud, blood, gloom and fog. In the reign of good King Bruno the Questionable, bright-eyed proto-capitalist Dennis Cooper (Michael Palin) journeys from his home village to the capital city, which is being terrorized by a fearsome beast. Much ribaldry, fornication and defecation ensues, along with a cameo by Python alum Terry Jones as an unlucky poacher and some gleefully disgusting dismemberments that rival the fate of Holy Grail's stubborn Black Knight.
Saturday, October 29 at 11pm
12 Monkeys
Dir. Terry Gilliam | UK 1995 | 127 min | PG
In a post-apocalyptic future, prisoner James Cole (Bruce Willis) is recruited for a time-travelling experiment to discover the source of the virus that has killed off most of the world's population. Landing in a psycho ward in 1990 Baltimore, Cole encounters a fellow patient (Brad Pitt) who might have something to do with the future outbreak. Along with his skeptical doctor (Madeleine Stowe), Cole sets out to prevent the future he left behind from ever happening â" and in the process discovers the secret of a childhood memory that has haunted him his entire life. Terry Gilliam's mind-bending, critically lauded remake/extrapolation of Chris Marker's classic La Jetée seamlessly combines Hollywood thrills with Gilliam's eccentric and grotesque vision, while Pitt's antic, fidgety performance brought him an Academy Award® nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
Saturday, November 5 at 11pm
Brazil
Dir. Terry Gilliam | UK 1985 | 132 min | 14A
Terry Gilliam's darkly funny vision of a dystopian future focuses on Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce), a meek clerk in a collapsing, retro-fitted and stiflingly bureaucratic Orwellian state who is only free in his dreams, where he becomes a winged warrior saving a maiden in distress. When he attempts to correct an administrative error that resulted in the arrest and execution of an innocent man, he gets drawn into an underground resistance movement involving a rebel repairman (Robert De Niro) and a young woman who is the very image of his dream girl. Hilarious and horrifying in equal measure, Brazil remains Gilliam's most ambitious and visionary film.
Saturday, November 12 at 11pm
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And Now for Something Completely Different
Dir. Ian MacNaughton | UK 1971 | 88 min | PG
The first Python film belies its title by featuring the team re-enacting some of the best sketches from their groundbreaking TV series Monty Python's Flying Circus. Highlights include the Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook, the Ministry of Silly Walks, the Lumberjack Song, Hell's Grannies, Self-Defense Against Fresh Fruit, the Townswomen's Guild Recreation of Pearl Harbor, the Upper-Class Twit of the Year competition, and the immortal Dead Parrot sketch. (Sadly missing is the Fish-Slapping Dance.) A flop in North America on its original release, the film was re-released in 1974 to strong business after Flying Circus began showing on PBS and gave Americans their first Pythonian education.
Saturday, November 19 at 11pm
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Time Bandits
Dir. Terry Gilliam | USA 1981 | 116 min | PG
Terry Gilliam's time-tripping fantasy follows a young boy as he travels through a space-time rift located in his closet and joins forces with a renegade band of dwarves for an adventure that spans centuries and continents, meeting such figures as Robin Hood (John Cleese), Napoleon (Ian Holm) and King Agamemnon (Sean Connery) as he and his new companions try to keep their precious time-travelling map out of the hands of Evil (David Warner).
Saturday, November 26 at 11pm

