The Onion AV club has a great interview with John Cleese this week, in honor of a special release of Life of Brian. I’m not going to discuss his views on religion (which, coincidentally, match mine as regards ego), but I do recommend reading the interview.
I was introduced to Monty Python in my AP English Language class, by a teacher who tainted the experience by explaining that in the 70s, everyone read the Hobbit, listened to Led Zeppelin and watched The Holy Grail. At the risk of sounding treasonous to music-lovers everywhere, I must explain – I do not care for Led Zeppelin. I respect them as musicians, I like a couple songs, but most of the time, I can’t stand them. If you play the first few bars of Stairway to Heaven on the guitar, I begin contemplating committing a murder-suicide. I’ve been waiting for this to change for years now, but it hasn’t – and I have come to accept that personal preference is sometimes unreasonable. I listen to a multitude of musicians who wouldn’t exist without Led Zeppelin and I still can’t listen to the Led. Oh well.
Anyway, we watched an hour or so of the Holy Grail in class after the AP exam. I really didn’t think it was that funny, at the time, and couldn’t understand why my teacher (and my smarty-pants classmates) adored it.
Fast forward five years, and Michael decides he has to introduce me to the proper Pythons. We watch Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life, and both of those movies are about a zillion times better (imho) than the Holy Grail. I watch the Holy Grail again, too, but it pales in comparison to the other two films. When I have to get my python craving satisfied, I’ll turn to The Meaning of Life or the Life of Brian. I’ll be honest, while I think Life of Brian is the better film, I usually watch The Meaning of Life. I’m not entirely sure why, but I like it best of all. Once again – personal preference is sometimes unreasonable.
I’ll have to credit John Cleese and the Pythons and Douglas Adams with my dropping out of college. Maybe if I hadn’t spent so many insomniac nights watching Fawlty Towers, Python movies, and the BBC series of Hitchhiker’s Guide, I wouldn’t have flunked. But then, what would have been the cost? I shudder to think.
2 Comments
ya know, I used to watch monty python when I was a wee lass at home. I guess by the time you were that age we didn’t watch it so much anymore. I LOVE flying circus. I think dad’s dad was a big python fan [?].
[and I still had led zeppelin too]
s/had/hate/
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