Part of our CINEMA IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS series. Saturday, August 1, 2020 @ 10p, Netflix Streaming Service: MONTY PYTHON AND THE LIFE OF BRIAN (1975, dir by Terry Jones, UK, 93 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.
MONTY PYTHON AND THE LIFE OF BRIAN made four years after HOLY GRAIL may be the comedy where the sketch troupe took the biggest comedic risk of their professional lives.
Essentially a satire on certain aspects of Christianity, BRIAN tells the story of a lowly commoner named Brian born roughly at the same time as Jesus. Their lives parallel each other in strange ways including Brian's unwanted elevation to a kind of prophet among the people.
Python was always too smart to make a comedy that was one sided and simplistic. So while they skewer everything here from biblical inconsistencies to Christian hypocrisy to the Roman empire (not as controversial), there is a strangely sincere heart at the center of the piece investigating what the true nature of Christianity might be.
Still, get ready for tons of nudity, space aliens, verbal battles of wits, musical crucifixions , and tons of irreverence.
Paradoxically (and this programmer understands if this is a minority opinion), it has always seemed that a little sincere blasphemy is sometimes the greatest way of celebrating the best aspects of something. Judge for yourself. As we take on THE LIFE OF BRIAN. . .