It what must be the most brain-dead headline of the week. the BBC has announced.... wait for it ....
BBC NEWS Python film to challenge Passion
It would seem the boobs at the Beeb have missed the part about Gibson's Passion of the Christ heading towards a world box office of around a billion dollars. Such is their shock that a religious film can suceed they have looked to a ex-comedy team's lamest film as a "Challenger." What can we say but, "Jesus wept?"
Monty Python's film The Life of Brian is to return to US cinemas next month following the success of The Passion of the Christ.That tells us something about the inventory of spirtually uplifting films currently in Hollywood's arsenal. "My God, Jesus is pulling humongous BO! Get something out there. Anything. Who? The Pythons? Don't we have something where they speak American or at least Aramaic?"
The Biblical satire will be re-released in Los Angeles, New York and other US cities to mark its 25th anniversary.Make that two other US cities -- Greenwich Village and Santa Monica.
Adverts will challenge Mel Gibson's blockbuster with the lines "Mel or Monty?", "The Passion or the Python?"Humm, you can spend some time with Jesus, or you can let the studio bozos pick your pocket for a 25 year old movie that last had a copy rented from Blockbuster in the late 20th Century. You decide. Distributor Rainbow said it hoped the film would "serve as an antidote to all the hysteria about Mel's movie"..... Translation: We've got a payment due on the Benz and its going to go to repo if somebody doesn't see this turkey pronto."
Rainbow president Henry Jaglom said: "We decided this is an important time to re-release this film, to provide some counter-programming to The Passion."Ah, the high-minded motives of the maker of tiny movies rises to the surface like froth on a cesspool. Wouldn't it be clearer to say, "We decided to re-release this wheezing pile at this time so we wouldn't get run over by the sixteen biblical epics now in turnaround at every major studio from here to Alpha Centauri.
He said the surviving members of the Monty Python comedy team "all agreed this was a good time" to bring back the film and would help promote it.Let's be clear about this. This film, The Life of Bryan, is a dead parrot. It has passed on. Gone to meet its maker. Joined the choir invisible.... fill in the rest.
I can't wait to see the "surviving" Pythons nattering on to Charlie Rose about their clapped-out old film and how it "had to be released" in order to quell the Mel-steria. Not a bit about scraping a few more dimes off the eyes of this cinematic dead horse. Nope. I like people who stand in water.
Posted by Vanderleun at March 24, 2004 10:32 AM | TrackBack