Comedy Classics

Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life Review

October 3, 2016 by JD Hansel

This is it – the last film in the Monty Python “Holy Trinity” – and it’s certainly the weirdest.

Its “prologue” is the worst part, and it is very clearly directed by Terry Gilliam. I have mixed feelings about Gilliam, and I think this short is a good example of what bugs me about his work. Somewhere between the films of Terry Gilliam and the books of Roald Dahl is the land of “Semi-Horrific, Mildly Comedic, Awkward Whimsy,” or “SHMCAW” for short. Shmcaw is my least favorite thing in cinema, or at least it’s up there. This is that nauseating feeling I have when a film presents uncomfortable dehumanizing in a whimsical way, causing my face to scrunch up. It happens in Prisoner of Azkaban when Harry’s aunt inflates, and all throughout The Witches, and it happens in The Crimson Permanent Assurance when we’re supposed to laugh at random businessmen being forced to jump out of a building to their deaths by delighted elderly folks. The whole thing just feels wrong, but I will not detract any points from my rating, because this is the short feature that plays before the main feature, and Wikipedia gives it a separate article as its own short film, but I felt the need to mention it because it is (in some respects) inseparable from the film.

There is very little for me to say for the film itself. I think that it offers much of the kind of comedy I expected, but its main focus seems to be doing whatever any other directing, production company, writers, or group of performers would never, ever, ever be allowed to do in a film distributed by Hollywood. It breaks rules of cinema that no one ever invented – there was no concept of a rule against showing a man in an elephant suit for no reason, or devoting half the movie to unimportant fish for no reason, or giving an impossibly fat man who vomits profusely and eats until he explodes his own scene for no reason. Monty Python made up rules to break, all in the spirit of giddy, childlike (or perhaps childish) fun. There is, however, the question of purpose – Life of Brian has good reasoning behind its scenes, with an important message, but why does this film need to exist? Is it merely here to weird out the audience as much as possible?

Personally, I’d prefer to see more sense to the senselessness, more logic to the lunacy, and more method to the madness, but that is not what the film is for. Many have said before that it is essentially an extended episode of Flying Circus, and that’s what it feels like to me. It is not their best film, but it is pretty good, with several, several moments that continue to pop up in my head many weeks every watching the film, and they continue to give me a chuckle. The music is some of Python’s best, making for a very enjoyable soundtrack. This movie offers a fair mix of some of the best and the worst that Python has to offer, but by the 1980s, the Pythoners had learned how to ensure that their worst was still rather fun.

To Be or Not to Be (1942) Review

September 30, 2016 by JD Hansel

Many consider this to be one of the greatest comedy films of all time, and I am happy to say that I have joined the many in that opinion. I’m afraid I have very little to add here that hasn’t been said, so I will keep my comments brief and simply urge all readers to watch this film. While it may not be my favorite comedy, it is one that I greatly appreciate, and one that I intend to emulate. It perfectly established so many great tricks to make a film extra-funny, and these are techniques that can still be employed today without losing much strength. Much of its brilliance and beauty come from the fact that it’s a comedy about World War II that was made and released during World War II, and yet the really great thing about it is how well it plays with an audience of young people today (as I had the good fortune of witnessing myself). Because I saw the Brooks film some years before seeing the Lubitsch original, there were some parts of the movie that annoyed me simply because I was hoping this film would offer more of the great moments I was used to seeing in the way I was used to seeing them. That being said, this film takes everything a different direction – its own unique direction – that I think is worth a little analysis.

After reading an analysis of the film from a few decades ago by cultural theorist Mladen Dolar, and reading Ebert’s review of the Brooks/Johnson remake, I am fascinated by two elements of this film’s humor. The first is the way it manages to be over-the-top without being over-the-top. While watching this film, I was a little let down during the soliloquy sequences, because the remake made me expect Jack Benny to totally lose his cool on stage and follow the man in the audience to the edge of the stage. This film doesn’t do that, instead focusing on understatement of big problems. This is tied to my second note, which is how petty everyone is. I think films are can be found on a rectangular spectrum-like chart with a particular type of fictional world in each corner:

Type A: The audience and the protagonist are sane, normal, and relatively smart people, but some people are inhuman, evil monsters.
Type B: All humans are inhuman, evil monsters.
Type C: The audience and the protagonist are sane, normal, and relatively smart people, but some people are short-sighted, ignorant, silly fools.
Type D: All humans are short-sighted, ignorant, silly fools.

I sorted them in order of popularity, and maybe I’ll make up a graphic representation later, but for now we can call our imaginary chart “The Fictional Cynicism Diagram.” This film is noteworthy for being an early example (if not one of the only really good examples) of a film that belongs right in the last corner, Type D. Most stories are somewhere in the middle, but this sets a tone that wouldn’t become more common until mockumentary shows and Tina Fey productions became popular. For a film made during the second world war to have this approach to even the Nazis, refusing to let them be anything but flawed, foolish humans, just like our heroes, is amazing. That’s what makes this a landmark film, and why its one of my favorites.

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World Review

April 29, 2016 by JD Hansel

Given my immense appreciation for comedy, I cannot help but appreciate an ode to comedy. Comedy can be such a powerful force for good, making the burdens of life more bearable, and bringing important issues to light in a way that people can easily handle. The beauty of comedy is that, even at its filthiest, it is a pure art form, in the sense it exists simply to bring about happiness. When one considers the element of challenge in justifying the emotional investment required for film with the emotional reservation required for comedy (all on the part of the spectator, that is), it borders on miraculous when a good comedy film is released. This is why I consider comedies to be one of the greatest cinematic achievements, if not the very greatest, known to date.

. . . And I guess this one’s okay.

By gosh, does it drag on. I wouldn’t mind the run-time if I could enjoy any of the characters, but what the film lacks is a group of characters (even if it’s a very small group) that’s mixed in with these annoying, stubborn, loud, rotten, mercenaries. Give me a Ferris Bueller or an Alvy Singer who will look me right in the eye and guide me through the insanity – this way the chaos becomes something to bond over with the movie as opposed to something that isolates me. In spite of the presence of many great actors I usually enjoy (Milton Berle, Ethel Merman, Jonathan Winters, etc.), the closest that the movie came to having a character I enjoyed was the police chief. His life was so miserable that I was quite depressed during the scenes in which I had to hear his wife and daughter on the phone, so the part of the movie I found most uplifting was when it looked like he was going to get a new life. That would have made the whole movie worth all the trouble.

I really do have several big problems with this movie, although I can’t quite call it a bad film. Yes, I am bothered by how they wasted some great comedians (by using Stan Freberg, known for songs and voices, as a non-speaking background role). I’m bothered by the needless subplots that focus on characters who don’t matter to me. I’m bothered by how little I laughed during the movie, and by how few times they wrote halfway decent roles for women or those in minorities. It bothers me that the screenwriters somehow, almost unfathomably, managed to make me dislike the characters to the point that I didn’t want to watch them, but still sympathize with them to the point that I felt bad when things went wrong for them. There is much to dislike in this movie. However, as much as I’m tempted to give it a relatively low rating, I’ll go easy on it. Why? Because by the end of the film, one thing is made very clear – laughter is one of the most important, magical, and precious things we have in this life, and this movie won’t let us forget that.

The Twelve Chairs Review

March 16, 2016 by JD Hansel

No, not Spaceballs. Not Blazing Saddles. Not even The Producers or Young Frankenstein. Mel Brooks insists that his best film is The Twelve Chairs. Not too many others seem to agree, but I can understand why he makes this claim. Is this my favorite Mel Brooks film? No, I still reserve that spot for High Anxiety. It is, however, a beautiful example of a wonderfully written and perfectly performed chase movie that captures the essence of fun.

My first exposure to this movie was the theme song. One day, I was trying to find a song that would perfectly express my daily anxiety, pessimism, and general expectation that everything in my life would go wrong, so I naturally sought the song “High Anxiety” from High Anxiety. When I purchased this song, I found it was actually cheaper to buy Mel Brooks’ whole greatest hits album, which happened to come with a song I’d never heard of – “Hope for the Best, Expect the Worst.” I naturally just had to hear this song, and it was just as satisfying as one would hope – it perfectly captured my feelings about living. I then realized just how crucial it was that I saw The Twelve Chairs. My hope was that the song would be part of a huge, extravagant, over-the-top musical number a la “The Spanish Inquisition,” but alas, this movie does not have such an extreme, flamboyant tone.

This film is sort of a change of pace for Brooks, in part because it’s one of his only G-rated films, but also because it’s not trying to parody anything – it’s just an adaptation of an old novel. However, this makes it a much safer choice to show the younger members of the family (although it is not completely clean), and it also means that the side of Mel Brooks that we see here sticks to a strong story led by likable characters, which happens to thrust the characters into very chaotic situations. In a way, it’s a little more down-to-earth and believable than a lot of his other works, but at the same time, it gets so, so wild and crazy that it makes Spaceballs seem tame. For someone expecting Men in Tights or Young Frankenstein, this may be a little disappointing, but I can completely see why Brooks considers it to be his best work.

Rather than trying to throw crazy, “cartoonish” jokes at the audience the whole time, and rather than trying to put a twist on things that have been parodied to death anyway, Brooks managed to get an enormous amount of comedy from a small cast and a simple premise, while keeping the story first instead of the jokes. One of the best moments in the film is surprisingly when we see some very dramatic tension between two of the main characters, and because it comes in the middle of such a silly movie, it’s actually one of the most powerful moments in all of cinematic drama. The ending, while not as climactic as I had hoped, has a lot of heart to it, and better yet, it handles the heart in a way that even I, the hater of all things sappy, can really, really enjoy. It just puts a smile on my face.

As is usual by the time that I have reached the last paragraph of a review, I am left with only a few miscellaneous thoughts about various aspects of the movie, which in this case might hopefully persuade readers to find a way to see this rare work of genius. There is not a single moment, at least to my memory, when this movie is boring, and there are very few movies that can get such praise out of me. The whole production is perfectly paced, the story is marvelously structured, and the performances are exactly what they ought to be. I would go so far as to say that Mel Brooks’ acting in this movie is funnier than his acting in any other (Muppet Movie-inclusive). I still wouldn’t say that this is my favorite Mel Brooks film, as it doesn’t quite have that special, unique distinction about it that a Young Frankenstein or a Spaceballs has (which is to say that the movie’s cast and setting lack a unique collective personality that sets the world of the film apart from ours). I must also reiterate the lack of satisfaction in the conclusion of they’re chase, because the story has a twist ending of sorts which I find devastatingly underwhelming. What I will say is that I can never argue with anyone who claims that this is Brooks’ best work; for it truly is a masterpiece.

Modern Times Review

February 11, 2016 by JD Hansel

It’s really quite fitting that Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times gets the review that follows my review of Brazil. Each one is a crazy comedy that can get rather over the top, but each one is also a social commentary with something to say; namely, these films express frustration with the faulty technology that’s being thrust upon them. This is somewhat noticeable when the Tramp has to work with a conveyor belt that goes too fast, and he ends up getting carried by the conveyor belt into the giant gears that run the machinery in the factory where he works. However, when this attitude is most obvious is when the Tramp is strapped into a machine that feeds the factory workers lunch so that they don’t need to take a lunch break – which sounds just like something Gilliam would have loved to put into Brazil had the idea not been taken already – and of course, it goes berserk. This kind of a film is to be expected from a man who had been very popular in the silent era, but now had virtually no choice but to make sound films (Modern Times being his first go at them). This movie is fascinating because it shows what happens when the man who had universal appeal in silent cinema tries to make a part-talkie so he can adapt to… well, “modern times.”

Overall, I’d say Chaplin did a good job. The story isn’t all that coherent, but since this film comes from an early time in the history of feature-length narrative film, and because the movie had to be tailored to fit the Tramp’s style, I’m willing to be quite forgiving about that. As long as the comedy and the characters work, and as long as sound is used well, I think this movie did what it needed to do; I’d say these goals were all achieved. I was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed Ellen, his leading lady, who brought a lot of energy and excitement to the picture. I was very fascinated by Chaplin’s depiction of the depression, which made me feel like I was looking at an entirely different world from our own. While I don’t think the musical number towards the end is particularly enjoyable, and although I get bothered by how the film jumps around from one situation to a completely different one, I recommend this movie to anyone who likes part-talkies and loves big laughs.

Brazil Review

January 28, 2016 by JD Hansel

SPOILER ALERT

I think I finally understand what happened here! Not what happens in the movie Brazil – I could never understand that – but what happened to Labyrinth and Time Bandits. Some movie buffs and comedy lovers may know that the Monty Python approach to writing movies was generally to come up with different scenes/sketches that would be funny all centered around a general theme, and then a loose story would be created out of stringing the pieces of the movie together. Naturally, when someone who approaches screenwriting this way has the challenge of writing a more traditional narrative story (that’s focused on likable characters dealing with a dramatic plot, even if that drama is not meant to be taken seriously) we can expect issues to arise with the flow of the story. For Labyrinth, Terry Jones’ screenplay had to be doctored in secret by other writers because it needed a lot of work before it could be made into the film Jim wanted (which still had leftover story problems in the end). For Time Bandits, fellow Pythoner Terry Gilliam made a bizarre family film that makes no sense whatsoever, and is often more awkward and convoluted than entertaining. For Brazil, Gilliam made an iconic ’80s movie masterpiece, but it had similar flaws.

Before going any further, I must recognize that this is, in some ways, a brilliant film. As satire, it’s practically perfect in every way, and makes the human race seem hilariously absurd. At some moments, its comedic criticism of war is better than Stanley Kubrick’s. Much of the film is good fun, and the performances are perfect. The world Gilliam created is brilliantly clever, and the visuals are absolutely outstanding. This truly is one of the most beautiful movies I have ever laid eyes upon, as far as visual art is concerned, because the lighting, the colors, the set designs, and the cinematography are all spot-on. It’s a masterful work of art that raises the bar for the genre of comedy films, and I can respect it if people love this movie a heck of a lot more than I do.

I, however, just don’t get it. Every now and again, I encounter a movie that has me saying to myself, “What the heck IS this movie?!” more and more as the film progresses. It’s a very memorable experience, and it usually means that the movie is going to mean a lot to me for a long time, regardless of whether I think of it positively or negatively. This film had that special quality to it like no movie I’ve seen in a long time, if ever, and I can’t help but be reminded of the first time I saw Gremlins 2, one of my favorite films, and the first time I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey, one of my least favorite. As blown away as I was with just how perfect certain elements of the film are, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that the story didn’t make enough sense. Some of that special feeling I mentioned above was coming from a sense of being immensely impressed, but some was coming from being annoyingly confused. I now understand why Roger Ebert only gave Brazil just two stars saying, “This is a confused and unsatisfying film in which the magnitude of the special effects, and the chaotic implications of the plot, make the movie hard work for any audience to follow, let alone appreciate.”

So, my first criticism is that the movie doesn’t make enough sense. What starts off seeming like it offers too little with its minimalist plot (which consists of a man trying to meet the woman he’s seen in his dreams) eventually unravels into a psychedelic acid rock song that’s sad about the loss of friendships and angry with society’s constraints. There is very little correlation between what happens in Sam’s dreams and what he deals with in real life, and this gives the audience too big of a chore when they have to try to find the patterns and the meaning in all this. Heck, even the movie’s title, and its titular song of the same name, don’t seem to be very connected to the film at all. There are just too many things that Gilliam did not communicate as efficiently as one would hope.

My second big criticism is directly tied into the first, as it pertains to the lack of satisfaction. I’m not against a movie that doesn’t end with the characters living happily ever after, but I am against endings that don’t feel “correct.” I may have written a bit too much about this before, but screenwriter Terry Rossio’s rules about how an ending must be set up, inevitable, and yet unexpected are a good way to figure out why one might feel unsatisfied by a movie. If the simplistic plot consists of navigating through a dystopian future to marry a dream-girl, there had better be a good reason for missing the one goal we’re rooting for Sam to achieve, but this Gilliam’s only reason seems to be that he wanted to blow one last raspberry at western governments before he had to step down from his soap box.

I think it’s plain to see that I have mixed feelings about this unique work of art. The various trains of thought that I’ve boarded because of this film are so numerous and labyrinthine that I can reach no final verdict. I can completely respect the opinion that this is one of the greatest motion pictures of all time, and I can equally respect the opinion that this movie is whiny, bitter rubbish. Any efforts to unveil what exactly I feel because of Brazil seem to be disappointingly futile, but perhaps the important thing is that it made me feel, and it did so profusely. When it comes to rating the visuals, however, my feelings are clear: it’s in the 99.9th percentile, A++.