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Film · Python · 1975

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Monty Python and the Holy Grail

26Leave it.

You'll laugh, and the laugh is aimed at anything that still calls itself holy.

Take controlThis scores 26. Monty Python and the Holy Grail cannot be blocked by name on this shelf. The lock is the phone. Block it

The review

The coconuts got me first. Servants knock them for hoofbeats because the budget had no horses, and the film makes the poverty the joke. King Arthur's knights still seek the grail: a killer rabbit, a castle of French insults, men on foot. The wit is real. I am not going to pretend I sat through it with a straight face.

The holy thing is never allowed to be holy. The target is devotion itself, not just pompous knights. You can love the craft and still notice the quest is a prop. If your people can quote half of it, the jokes already worked. Before the next quote, ask whether the film thinks there was ever a grail worth finding.

Journal

Keep Monty Python and the Holy Grail in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 26. Yours can differ.

The glance

Industry and Household and Piety and Courage and Republic and Truth and Stewardship are the thin ones.

Does anyone here do a real job, and does that job matter?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

Consider this

Dr. Strangelove

38 instead of 26

Dr. Strangelove is still a comedy film, and it scores 38 instead of 26. What you gain is truth: The inadequacy is the truth, and the film will not give you a competent savior.

The eight

4
Industry
The empty budget becomes the joke: coconuts knocked together for horses.
1
Household
No marriage, no child, no parent. The company is a joke of knights.
1
Piety
The holy thing is never allowed to be holy. Devotion is the target.
2
Courage
The quest is a setup for fear that turns silly, rabbit included.
2
Republic
Arthur's kingdom is a costume. Nobody owes a village anything.
5
Temperance
The pleasure is wit, not a push toward the next excess.
3
Truth
It tells the truth about cheap pageantry and will not let the grail be real.
3
Stewardship
You keep the jokes. The holy errand leaves with nothing on it.

Where to watch

Finding the page.

Live Historic · Monty Python and the Holy Grail · 26IMDb

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Film · MGM · 1958

Pass it on

Gigi

26Leave it.

A best picture. The training is the rot, and the marriage at the end does not redeem the school.

Take controlThis scores 26. Gigi cannot be blocked by name on this shelf. The lock is the phone. Block it

The review

It won the best picture of its year, and the award does not change the curriculum. A grandmother and an aunt are training a young woman in Paris to be the mistress of a rich man: how to choose jewels, how to behave at the table, how to be expensive. The young man who has been wandering through other such arrangements decides he wants this one, and the happy ending is that he marries her instead. The film expects the marriage to retire the question.

It does not. The school was the story, and the school is a preparation of a girl for a man's use. The songs are lovely and the loveliness is the danger, because loveliness is how the curriculum gets past a room. I would not put it on for a young woman as a charming antique. If adults watch it as history, say what the aunt was actually teaching before the last waltz. The last waltz is not a pardon.

Journal

Keep Gigi in the record.