Best movie of this year hands down!

Don't listen to the negative reviews

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I was too young to know about the controversy surrounding "The Life Of Brian" when it was first released, but in my adult years I discovered that not everyone felt the same way I did about the film - their loss.Casting of the actors playing Monty Python cast was just about perfect from a visual point of view. The only issue I had was with the actor portraying Terry Gilliam not being able to fake an American accent effectively.There are so many shout outs to the way the Flying Circus series was made in this film to make it almost seem like the original cast had made it in the early '80's and it had gotten lost somewhere and recently found and broadcast.The irony of Stephen Fry portraying his particular character is outstanding.I laughed out loud a lot while watching this "mockudramedy" and I would have given it a 10 star rating if not for the aforementioned bad American accent.

As a long time Python fan I was curious to see this piece, upon discovering the Blu-Ray at a store. It's a curious undertaking that teeters on a see-saw, between comedy and drama. Unfortunately, it's this inability to commit to one or the other that undermines both. There are spotty humorous moments and equally spotty excellent dramatic moments; but, the whole is less than the sum of its parts.The casting is quite good visually and even somewhat verbally, for the central pair of Palin and Cleese. Unfortunately, the performances are too often mired in caricature, rather than actually portraying the Pythons. The peripheral Pythons (Gilliam, Chaplin, and Idol; mostly) are all but ignored, with Gilliam portrayed as a gibbering idiot (more or less) and Idol as a money-grubbing b#$t%^&. Chapman is barely portrayed at all and Terry Jones mostly serves as a joke, as Palin's wife. Palin comes closest to being real, with Cleese coming off more as Basil Fawlty than John Cleese. Unfortunately, this lack of depth undermines any serious drama and is rarely very funny, apart from the odd jokes and a few surreal moments. Actually, many of the supporting players have a better handle on balancing between comedy and drama, especially Michael Cochran.It really isn't until the end, as the televised debate has wrapped up that the drama finally rises to a level that grasps at greatness. When Palin chastises Cleese in the hallway, we finally see more of Cleese the person, not Cleese the persona from television. The film does make the point that the Pythons came out on top because they were seen as serious artists making a point about their work, in the face of uninformed and dogmatic attacks from pompous mouthpieces of the conservative establishment. This is where the film is most effective and demonstrates that the production should have just taken this path, in the first place. The comedy is an attempt at doing Python, but rarely equals it, though the puppet battle between Cleese and Palin is worthy of Gilliam.In the end, much like the debate about Life of Brian, you really have to see the finished product and decide for yourself. I found myself laughing much less than I had hoped and aching for them to go more deeply with the drama. Others have described it as hysterically funny or complete rubbish. I suppose some of that may be influenced by familiarity with the original television debate, news reports of the period, and interviews with the Pythons. The film exaggerates much of it and underplays much of it, leaving you to sort it out for yourself, which isn't all bad. I give it points for trying and for daring to be the first to try to examine Python in a dramatic form. In that alone, it is worth viewing.

The BBC has outdone themselves in this wonderful piece about the reception of Life of Brian. Having been taken along with 20 other pupils to see Life by my school chaplain while taking a Religious Studies A level it always has had a special place in my heart. This wonderful reconstruction captures something of the Pythons complete silliness, and the even more complete silliness of those who found Brian offensive. This is seriously the best tribute film to the Pythons out there, the effort in casting to get it right has paid off, to say they look and act like how and who they're meant to is a gross understatement - they really do capture something of each of the Flying Circus with marvelous alacrity.All in all, this is rude, crude, very, very silly in places, and, above all, fall on the floor funny. Quite simply, one of the funnier films I've seen recently and for those who like Python in any form this is smart and just what the doctor ordered.

I've been a Python fan for a very long time - buying their comedy albums on vinyl before their "Flying Circus" show ever aired in the U.S. I have the entire "Flying Circus" series and every one of their films on DVD. And when I heard "Holy Flying Circus" was coming out, I anticipated a totally different film than what I ended up seeing.When "Life of Brian" premiered, I was managing a theater in Portland, Oregon. Two of my snack bar workers (sisters) were members of a fundamentalist Christian sect. And before the film had even been released (so they could personally judge its worth), they both refused to work as long as the theater was showing the film. I tried very hard to explain to them that this film was NOT meant as a satire on Jesus Christ himself - but was, instead, meant as a satire on the times in which Jesus lived. But, their minds were already made up.Out of respect for their feelings on the matter (though I disagreed with them), I did not fire them - choosing instead to hire temporary replacement workers until the film ended its run.To sum this film up in a word, it was "unfunny." But it was an unfunny film that was trying to be funny. As it happens, I was hoping for an unfunny film that was unfunny on purpose - a film that seriously explored the ordeal the Pythons had to go through as a result of the film's reception by fundamentalist Christians.Now ... I suspect the actors in this film were trying to offer a tribute to the Pythons by imitating their style. And as the old saying goes, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." But I found it unsettling considering the real-life pressure (ie., death threats, effigy burnings, etc.) the Pythons were under during this time (not to mention certain theater managers).