Weekly Comedy: Leslie Nielsen Rises from the Grave

Not a whole lot out this week, unless you’re really excited about yet another Ice Age movie. Which you really shouldn’t be. At all.

DVD

Monty Python: Almost The Truth – Easily the highlight this week, IFC’s 6-part in-depth and surprisingly candid documentary featuring all of the remaining Pythons (although it is a little strange to continue referring to them as “the remaining Pythons” considering only one of them is dead and according to this doc, it’s a shock he lived as long as he did). Interviews with a huge range of comics and comic actors are included; everyone from Simon Pegg to Russell Brand to Ricky Gervais to… OK so it’s mostly British comics but still, pretty fascinating stuff. Definitely worth a rental, or catch it in reruns on IFC.

Whatever Works – Woody Allen’s latest attempt to wring comedy out of a creepy May – December romance, featuring Larry David doing his best Larry David impression. Sounds like fun, right? This thing got pretty mixed reviews, but many said it was the best thing Allen’s done since Match Point, so who knows. Oh, and for the record, the poster for this is awful.

Adult Swim in a Box – This is a pretty odd box set; kind of a “best of” Adult Swim seasons (ironically missing Venture Bros., the best show on the network). You get: Aqua Teen Hunger Force season 2, Space Ghost Coast to Coast season 3, Moral Orel season 1, Robot Chicken season 2, Metalocalypse season 1, and Sealab season 2. It’s kind of a motley collection of episodes, but I suppose someone at Williams Street just cherry-picked what they thought were the best seasons they had. Probably makes a good gift for.. uh… someone who loves absurdist humor but somehow doesn’t own or hasn’t seen any of these.

Stan Helsing – Someone exhumed the corpse of Leslie Nielsen for this tired, sad-looking horror spoof about a video clerk who does battle with parody versions of famous movie monsters (Freddy, Chucky, maybe some Critters or Ghoulies show up, who gives a shit). This thing went straight to video, so yeah, now you know.

Stop Liking Monty Python and the Holy Grail So Much

a commentary by Shaun Clayton

Monty Python and the Holy Grail. People need to stop liking this film so much.

It is a good film. It is a terrific film. It's a classic of comedy. It's just that there are too many people who take their like of the film to lengths that are irritating and actually damage the film itself.

Let me first start off with the saying of "Ni." In the film, "Ni" is taken as a word that causes pain and discomfort. As life has so tragically imitated art, "Ni" is now in real life a word that causes pain and discomfort. Going around saying "Ni" in a high pitched tone repeatedly is not funny. Nor is it funny if, when someone tells you to stop, you continue to say "Ni" or demand "a shrubbery." It is especially disturbing if you have a small branch ripped off a shrub on your person which you produce exactly for that line. You are not clever, you are grounds for homicide.

Further, reciting "It's just a flesh wound," "Some call me...Tim" and basically any line of the film does not make you as funny as the people who said it in the first place on the screen. Nor does it make you seem clever. Nor does repeating a line over and over again make you more clever. In fact, it makes you less clever, in much the same way if you were to touch a pot on a stove, burn your hand, and then continue to try to grab the pot. Stop doing it.

Clacking together coconuts - oh, I get it. You are a horse. No wait, you are a guy who is annoying me with a repeated, loud noise. Please don't make me break your legs, because if you are a horse, I have to then shoot you to put you out of your misery.

I am glad to see that the female gender does not participate in these annoying rituals, or at least they haven't been seen by me. In fact, even mentioning you like Monty Python and the Holy Grail to a woman will make the merest chance of any proposition of having sex with her completely off the table from now until the end of time.

Therein lies the tragedy, that people who like the film too much make other people not like the film at all. They present a stereotype of the kind of person who likes the film and that person is not pleasant. Much like the man passed out in his own vomit on the bathroom is not a ringing endorsement of binge drinking cheap supermarket vodka, the man who shrieks the lines to Monty Python and the Holy Grail is not a ringing endorsement for the type of person who would like the film.

In fact, even if there is the rare screening of the film in an actual movie theater---then, I for one, can't even go see it. I know the place will be filled with people who like the film too much, wearing silly costumes, reciting every line as it is said on the screen (sometimes before) and essentially masturbating furiously and openly to the film in a way that is as disturbing as watching people literally masturbating en-masse in a movie theater.

I really wish to be transported far into the future, say thirty years, to see if the cult-like fanaticism has died down (emphasis on DIED) and the film has been relegated to being the classic bit of comedy that it is, without the people tainting it with their blind lust for it. Something that you can actually go into a movie theater and see without having to fight for silence.

I really wonder.

Stop liking this film so much.