Part of our CINEMA IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS series. Saturday, August 1, 2020 @ 8p, Netflix Streaming Service: MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL (1975, dir by Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones, UK, 92 mns)

HOW TO: While we all work to be socially responsible during the age of coronavirus, Secret Movie Club is experimenting with news ways we can all come together as a community and watch great movies.

We want to keep this very reasonable since folks have to have Netflix to start with. So donate whatever works for you. $1 is fine with us.

Just make sure you download NETFLIX PARTY on a Chrome Browser.

You'll see the initials NP in the upper right hand corner of browser after a succesful download.

Secret Movie Club will email the link for the Netflix Party at 30 minutes before showtime using the email you provide here. Click that link then click the NP in upper right hand corner. This will synch you to our screening. We will start the movie at exactly 5 minutes after the hour.

There will be a chat function that allows everyone to comment as we go.

The Secret Movie Club team will be offering trivia, history, insights, articles, deep dives throughout the movie(s). We're going to work to make this as rich a feast as possible utilizing the technology at hand.

Then we'll want your feedback immediately on how we can improve/make it better! This also will allow Secret Movie Clubbers from all over the world to join in on a virtual screening!

This week, we're doing a double feature of two Monty Python feature film classics: MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL and MONTY PYTHON AND THE LIFE OF BRIAN.

First up is 1975's HOLY GRAIL, the first and in the opinions of many the best of the Monty Python features (although all three features are pretty great). The British sensation television comedy sketch troupe had been on hiatus for a few years before joining together to do this feature film riff on King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and sacred British mythology. 

Python John Cleese had grown weary of the TV format the Pythons pioneered in the late 1960's (itself a grind to shoot for little to no money) but had always let it be known he would return if a suitable feature subject could be discovered. Well. . .boy did they discover it.

The Pythons essentially do a feature length series of hilarious sketches that skewers the sacred cows of British literature and identity. We also get to see co-director Terry Gilliam discovering the seeds of his lo-fi fantasy style that would go full blossom in the 1980's starting with TIME BANDITS.

Comedy has always been subjective and many folks were always a bit more bewildered than bemused by the Pythons' overly-literate yet mind-poppingly absurdist and irreverent take on absolutely everything.

Yet this programmer has always loved how the Pythons' very different sensibilities (Cleese's biting verbal and character brilliance, Palin's humanity, Gilliam's animation, Chapman's hidden subversive take on the mainstream, Jones' understanding of comedy fundamentals, Idle's side-door irreverence & topicality) came together in a group voice totally singular to this day.

Also, the Pythons more than almost any other sketch comedy troupe were as talented visually as they were comedically, lending all their movies an immediate cinema readiness that really remains unparalleled to this day.

So join us for some of Monty Python's most hilarious bits from the deep seated enmity the British and the French have had across centuries to holy hand grenade and terrible rabbit guardian of the cave to the coconut shells instead of horses method of transportation (the budget was so low, this was a brilliant first fix).

If you want to watch comedy with a clear strong irreverent voice, Monty Python is as good as it gets.