My church youth minister turned me on to Monty Python when I was in high school. He showed us Holy Grail first, and when we loved that, he showed us Life of Brian. By us I mean me and a few of my friends – older kids in the youth group who he thought could both enjoy the material and wouldn’t make a fuss (or, more likely, whose parents wouldn’t make a fuss if they found out.)

In typical youth minister fashion, he tried to tell us that Life of Brian was actually an incisive critique of certain sects of Judaism and could be applied to Christianity if you looked at it right.  Or some such thing. 

I also remember him standing in front of the television set during a brief nude scene. 

I loved both films and later watched The Meaning of Life and lots of the TV series. I watched them a lot in college, and then they kind of vanished from my life. It wasn’t so much that I stopped liking them but that I’d had enough of them and moved on. Then I kind of forgot about them.

My wife randomly turned on Holy Grail the other day, and my goodness, that movie is funny. It was wild how much I could still quote even though I haven’t seen it in decades.

I still haven’t watched Life of Brian again, but I know it is still funny, and now that Criterion is giving it the UHD treatment, I’m totally on board for it being my pick of the week.

Also coming out this week that looks interesting:

The Phantom: The 1990s were a weird time for superhero movies. Tim Burton’s Batman made a splash in 1989, but the sequels were less than great. There were some good ones like The Crow and Blade, but there were a lot of films that just didn’t seem to know what they were doing. 

The Phantom stars Billy Zane as a hero from Bengalla who must travel to New York to protect some magic skulls and fight bad guys. It bombed upon release, but like so many things from the 1990s, it has been reappreciated and is now getting a UHD release from Kino Lorber.

Trouble in Paradise: Ernst Lubitsch is one of those guys who many of my film loving friends absolutely adore. I’ve only seen a couple of his films, and while I’ve enjoyed them, I didn’t fall head over heels for them or him as a director. But I need to watch more. This one is about a love triangle between two jewel thieves and their intended victim.  Criterion has the UHD release.

Becoming Led Zeppelin: Documentary about the band.

Remo Williams: Fred Ward stars in this silly attempt at creating a new action hero from some old stories. You can read my full review here.

Death Ship: Goofy horror film about a Nazi torture ship cruising the ocean looking for new victims.  You can read my full review here.

Hearts of Darkness: The Making of The Final Friday: Documentary about the making of one of the more interesting Friday the 13th movies.