Life of Brian (1979)
Wait ‘til Biggus Dickus hears of this!
THE SUMMARY: A boy named Brian is born the same day and next door to Jesus Christ, is again mistaken for the Messiah later in his adult life, and gets sentenced to the same fate, crucifixion. I’m sorry to disappoint Blonde’s father on his birthday, but I’ve never not laughed harder than I did watching this trash - it was a godawful viewing experience throughout.
THE BEST:
The transgender dialogue was way ahead of its time: I’m not a fan of this movie’s writing or performances overall, with one significant exception: the dialogue in the ‘Loretta’ transgender scene is spooky accurate to today, and amazingly ahead of its time. ‘What’s the point of fighting for his right to have babies when he can’t have babies? It’s symbolic of our struggle against oppression. Symbolic of his struggle against reality.’
The closing song was catchy: Always look on the bright side of life - the words and the whistling have been repeating in my head all week. Catchy melody, catchy lyrics - I can acknowledge at least that.
Don’t oppress Loretta.
Aways look on the bright side of the crucifixion.
THE WORST:
It’s just not funny: Haha, I get it - clumsy combat. Haha, I get it - exaggerated high-pitched voices. Haha, I get it - petty arguments despite more pressing matters. Brian is confronted with absurdity and he screams about it annoyingly and runs away. Repeat several times, and call it a movie. It’s all just terrible. Call me unsophisticated. Call me too dumb to understand the layers and nuance and complexity of the masterpiece. Call me whatever you want - if it’s in opposition to this movie, it’s a compliment to me.
And speaking of exaggerated high-pitched voices: Brian’s mom is one of the worst movie characters ever - a man acting as a woman as though that’s automatically funny for some reason, speaking in an extremely irritating high-pitched voice that’s impossible to understand, and then when you rewind to try to hear what he said, the line isn’t funny anyway. Insufferable. I’ve heard parrots with more pleasant, understandable voices.
And if one irritating character with that voice isn’t enough, they had to do a second - an old man with the same damn voice, and his balls hanging out too. It wasn’t funny the first time. It wasn’t any funnier when I have to look at his nuts dangling around either.
What the hell was that alien spaceship bullshit: Silly isn’t always funny. Without any logic to it, it’s just incoherent nonsense. The scene of Brian being ‘saved’ by an alien spacecraft is a perfect example. It has no connection to any premise or setting in the movie. It just happens without any explanation, and the sheer absurdity of it is apparently supposed to be funny. It isn’t, and there’s nothing clever about it. ‘Look how stupid this is’ isn’t great comedy. It’s just stupid.
What in God’s name was this?
THE RATING: 1/5 Wickies. Not funny. Not clever. Not entertaining. Not good. Not ever gonna be watched again.
YOUR RATING: Vote here ⬇
NEXT WEEK: Dredd (2012). Note that this is a holdover from last week’s poll, since we decided to substitute Life of Brian this week for Blonde’s dad’s birthday.
AFTER THAT? YOU PICK - VOTE! February’s nominations are from listener Charles.
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