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Himalaya with Michael Palin

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Monty Python: Almost the Truth - The Lawyer's Cut

Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus

North Korea: Michael Palin's Journey


            Brian Cohen is born in a stable a few doors down from the one in which Jesus is born, a fact which initially confuses the three wise men who come to praise the baby Jesus, as they must put up with Brian's boorish mother Mandy until they realize their mistake.Brian grows up to be an idealistic young man who resents the continuing Roman occupation of Judea, even after learning his father was a Roman Centurion - Naughtius Maximus. While attending Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, he becomes attracted to a young female rebel, Judith. His desire for Judith and hatred for the Romans lead him to join the People's Front of Judea, one of many factious and bickering separatist movements, who spend more time fighting each other than the Romans.The group's cynical leader Reg gives Brian his first assignment as a rebel: an attempt at scrawling some graffiti ("Romanes eunt domus", poorly translated Latin for "Romans Go Home") on the wall of the governor's palace. He is soon confronted by a passing Centurion who, in disgust at Brian's faulty Latin grammar, forces him to write out the grammatically correct message ("Romani ite domum") one hundred times. The walls of the fortress are literally covered in text by dawn.When the Roman guards change shifts at daybreak, the new guards immediately try to arrest Brian. After a series of misadventures, the fugitive winds up in a motley group of mystics and prophets who harangue the passing crowd in a plaza. Forced to come up with something plausible in order to blend in, he babbles pseudo-religious nonsense which quickly attracts a small but intrigued audience. Once the Roman guards have left, Brian tries to put the episode behind him, but has unintentionally inspired a movement; and a crowd begins to follow him around, with even the slightest unusual occurrence being hailed as a "miracle." After slipping away from the mob (who are busy persecuting a "heretic") and spending the night with Judith, he discovers that an enormous crowd proclaiming him the Messiah has formed outside his Mother's house. Appalled, Brian is helpless to change the people's minds, as his every word and action are immediately seized as a point of doctrine.The Romans finally catch the hapless Brian and he is scheduled to be crucified. Pontius Pilate asks the crowd whom he should pardon, but is fed various "fake" names intended to highlight his strong lisp, much to the their amusement. Pilate eventually orders Brian's release, but in a moment parodying the climax of the film Spartacus, the various crucified people all claim to be "Brian of Nazareth", and the wrong man is released. Abandoned by anyone who might be able to help him, the actual Brian remains hanging in the hot sun, and is told by his fellow sufferers, in song, to "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life".
    

Life of Brian

Monty Python's Personal Best

Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl

Ripping Yarns

Monty Python Live (Mostly)

Monty Python: The Meaning of Live


            George Thomason (Tom Georgeson) and his right-hand man, Ken Pile (Michael Palin), a beleaguered animal lover with a bad stutter, plan a jewel heist and bring in two Americans to help: an alluring con artist, Wanda Gershwitz (Jamie Lee Curtis) and a "weapons man", Otto West (Kevin Kline). Wanda and Otto are lovers pretending to be siblings so that Wanda can work her charms on George and Ken. Wanda and Otto plan to betray Ken and George after the heist, and vice-versa. Wanda, it later transpires, is also planning to betray Otto.After the robbery, Wanda and Otto betray George to the police, intending to take all the loot for themselves, but discover that George and Ken have moved the loot to a new location. Wanda decides to seduce George's unhappily married lawyer, Archie Leach (John Cleese) to find out where it is. Meanwhile, Ken is charged by George to silence a key witness, and Otto exerts his energies in fits of jealousy over Wanda and Archie and of impatience with Ken and Britain in general. Otto's interference, and other incidences of bad luck, lead Wanda and Archie's liaisons to go disastrously wrong.There is subsequent confusion and slapstick. For example, in various attempts to kill the witness, the animal-loving Ken accidentally instead kills her three Yorkshire Terriers one by one. The witness eventually suffers a fatal heart attack when her third Terrier is killed. The title is derived from the name of Ken's favorite tropical fish, which Otto eats alive, to Ken's distress, during the farcical torture scene.Archie and Wanda gradually fall in love and the movie ends with those two leaving the country with the jewels. Ken finally has his revenge on Otto by running him over with a steamroller (which he somehow survives). Title cards at the end of the movie reveal their futures: "Archie and Wanda were married in Rio, had seventeen children, and founded a leper colony. Ken became Master of Ceremonies at the London Sea World. Otto emigrated to South Africa and became Minister for Justice.=================================At the London flat of Ken an animal lover with a large tank of tropical fish (the large angelfish is named "Wanda", after his flatmate George's sexy American girlfriend) and a nasty stutter, a meeting takes place with himself, the attractive Wanda, her lover George and her "brother" Otto. They plan to rob the store of a prominent London jeweler and steal a cache of diamonds. Otto, a belligerent and boisterous former CIA operative, will provide the weapons and plot the strategy to rob the business with no deaths involved, at the behest of George, who has brought the idea for the caper to the group.The robbery goes off without a hitch and as the team makes their getaway, they nearly run over an elderly woman out walking her dogs. She sees George without his ski mask on. The team splits up, George, Wanda and Otto place the diamonds in a small safe housed in a garage and continue with their plan to lay low for a few days before flying out of the country. Just after Wanda and Otto leave the garage, George returns, retrieves the loot and drives off with it.Back at Otto's flat, Wanda (who reveals that Otto is not her brother but her 2nd lover) fends off Otto's attempts at seducing her long enough to have Otto phone the police and give them George's name.George is arrested at his own flat and implicated with the crime; he has particles of glass on the leg of his trousers from the jeweler's. George is allowed to meet with Ken and gives him a small key, which Ken hides in the tiny treasure chest of his aquarium -- Wanda sees Ken hiding the key and later takes it, hiding it in her locket. When she later checks with a locksmith about the key, he is unable to identify it other than it being to a safe deposit box. When Wanda and Otto meet with George, he is immediately suspicious of Otto despite Otto's attempts to be concerned about George. At a police lineup, the woman that George nearly killed with his car points him out as the man who nearly killed her dogs. At the grand jury hearing, George gives Ken a small nod, identifying the old lady.Wanda sees that George is being represented by a barrister named Archie Leach. Wanda begins to play up to him, trying to find out more information about George's case. Archie initially tells her he is not allowed to speak to her since she's been subpoenaed as a character witness for George. Archie, himself in a loveless marriage, later acquiesces, saying that it's permitted for him to talk to Wanda as long as they don't discuss the case itself. The two meet clandestinely several times -- at Archie's house, while his wife and daughter are out for the evening, Wanda loses her locket with the key inside. Archie's wife, having returned with their daughter after they had a tire blow out, believes the locket is a gift to her from Archie. Wanda demands the locket be returned.Wanda is also faced with Otto's extreme jealousy with regards to Wanda's attempts to seduce Archie. Several times Otto threatens Archie with bodily harm, even dangling him out a window. Wanda is furious, explaining to Otto that his jealous behavior may get them in trouble & they still won't be able to find out where George hid the diamonds. She demands Otto apologize to Archie.Archie's attempts to get the locket back from his wife mostly fail. One day he goes to his own house and stages a robbery. While he loots a few small objects from his wife's jewelry collection (and breaks a small ceramic figurine) Otto, who'd arrived at Archie's house to apologize, finds him and beats him, believing he's helping out Archie by catching a random burglar. When he discovers that he's beaten Archie himself, he leaves him tied up and flees. Archie, just as his wife arrives home and becomes distraught at the minor destruction her husband had staged, hides Wanda's locket in his mouth until his hands are freed and he can spit it out and hide it in his pocket. He rushes off to a flat belonging to a friend and meets Wanda, giving her the locket. The two decide to have sex -- Archie inadvertently finds that Wanda can be easily seduced when he speaks any foreign language, until they're interrupted by a family that had rented the flat. Archie is caught naked and embarrassed. He calls Wanda and says he's going to end their tryst. Right after he does so and returns home, he's intercepted by Otto, who apologizes to him and grants him permission to continue his affair with Wanda. Unknown to Archie, Wendy is listening from an open window above.Ken, charged by George with killing the elderly woman with the dogs, tries to make her death look accidental. He only succeeds in killing her dogs one by one until, when he accidentally kills the last dog, the woman dies of a heart attack on the street. Ken reports to George, who gives Ken the go-ahead to retrieve the loot & pack for their escape destination: Rio de Janeiro, saying they'll take both Wanda and Otto & eliminate Otto later. At Ken's flat, Otto figures out that Ken knows where the loot is & tortures him: he ties Ken up and eats all the fish in his aquarium one at a time, including the beloved angelfish Wanda until Ken confesses that the safety deposit box is in a hotel near Heathrow Airport. However, the key is not in the aquarium and Otto calls Wanda, who tells him she'll give him the key and the loot if they flee to Rio together after she testifies on George's behalf.In court, Wanda takes the stand and Archie questions her about her relationship with George. She portrays him as an honest man until she drops a few details that clue the court into George's involvement in the crime, stating that George had left their flat armed with a shotgun right before the crime. Archie, surprised by Wanda's turn, calls her by her first name and calls her "Darling". Wendy, observing in the mezzanine, is silently infuriated.George becomes enraged at Wanda's comments and attacks her, causing general melee in the room while the guards try to subdue him. Archie receives a knock on the head from George and is left alone in the courtroom. When Wendy approaches him, she slaps him and tells him she's filing for divorce. Archie then takes a private meeting with George, assuring him that he'd arranged to lead Wanda on the witness stand to get George exonerated. He strikes a deal with George to receive a lesser sentence and convinces George to reveal the location of the diamonds: George tells Archie he'll find Ken back at his flat, who knows where they are.Outside the court building, Archie finds Wanda trying to sneak off and takes her in his car to George's flat. Archie goes in alone to find Ken and possibly face off against Otto. He finds Ken tied up and hears a car collision outside: Otto, having found Wanda alone, takes off with her after the minor fender-bender to the airport. Archie tries to get the nervously stuttering Ken to tell him where the diamonds are hidden. He finally gets Ken to write down the name of the hotel, the Cathcart Towers, and they take off for the airport.At the Cathcart, Wanda and Otto retrieve the diamonds and get their tickets to Rio. As they walk to the gate, Wanda clubs Otto and locks him in a small closet. Archie finds Otto lagging behind Wanda after she'd clubbed him and is able to grab Otto's Walther PPK but tricks Archie into dropping it and grabs it himself. Having a few minutes before he has to leave with Wanda, Otto takes great delight in humiliating Archie by making him stand in a barrel of used oil outside the terminal while insulting him and his British heritage. Archie spots Ken driving toward them on a steamroller. Archie distracts Otto by ridiculing America's loss to North Vietnam. When he warns Otto of Ken. Laughing and thinking that Ken could never catch up to him, much less kill him, Otto steps into a recent batch of wet concrete and is stuck. Frantically apologizing to the vengeance-bent Ken for eating his fish, he's run under the steamroller. Ken, overjoyed at gaining revenge on his tormentor, suddenly loses his stutter and is arrested.Archie is able to make it to Wanda's plane and the two reconcile. As they take off, Otto, still alive, suddenly appears at their window but is blown off. Closing titles tell us that Archie and Wanda married, had children & founded a leper colony. Ken became master of ceremonies at London Sea World. Otto left for South Africa and became a minister of justice.
    

A Fish Called Wanda


            The film begins with a stand-alone 17-minute supporting feature entitled The Crimson Permanent Assurance (directed by Terry Gilliam). Set in London, England in present day 1983, a group of elderly office clerks in a small accounting firm rebel against their emotionlessly efficient, yuppie corporate masters. They commandeer their building, turn it into a pirate ship, and sail into a large financial district, where they raid and overthrow a large multinational corporation (before ultimately sailing to the edge of the earth and falling off).The film proper consists of a series of distinct sketches, broken into seven chapters.Part I: The Miracle of BirthA woman in labour is taken into a hospital delivery room, where she is largely ignored by doctors (John Cleese and Graham Chapman) and nurses, who are more concerned with using the hospital's most expensive equipment to impress the hospital's administrator (Michael Palin). The woman in labour notices that hospitals are changing, with "lots and lots of machinery".The Miracle of Birth Part II - The Third World In YorkshireA Roman Catholic man (Palin) loses his employment. He goes home to his wife (Terry Jones) and an impossible number of children, where he discusses the church's opposition to the use of contraception, leading into the musical number "Every Sperm Is Sacred". Watching this unfold, a Protestant man (Chapman) proudly lectures his wife (Eric Idle) on their church's tolerance towards contraception and having intercourse for fun, although his frustrated wife points out that they never do.Part II: Growth and LearningA schoolmaster (Cleese) and chaplain (Palin) conduct a nonsensical Anglican church service in an English public school. The master lectures the boys on excessively detailed school etiquette regarding the school cormorant, and hanging clothes on the correct peg. In a subsequent class, the schoolboys (Idle, Palin, Jones, Chapman, and others) watch in boredom as the master gives a sex education lesson, by physically demonstrating techniques with his wife (Patricia Quinn). Later, a team of boys is beaten physically and on the scoreboard in a violent rugby match against the masters; the scene then match cuts to Part III.Part III: Fighting Each OtherA World War I officer (Jones) attempts to rally his men (Chapman, Gilliam, Palin, Idle, and Cleese) to find cover during an attack, but is hindered by their insistence on celebrating his birthday, complete with presents and cake.A blustery army RSM (Palin) attempts to drill a platoon of men but ends up left alone when he excuses them one by one to pursue leisure activities.In 1879, during the Anglo-Zulu War in Natal, a devastating attack by Zulus is dismissed due to a far more pressing matter: one of the officers, Perkins (Idle), has had his right leg bitten off during the night. The military doctor (Chapman) hypothesises that, despite not being native to Africa, a tiger might be the perpetrator. Ainsworth (Cleese), Packenham-Walsh (Palin) and a sergeant (Jones) form a hunting party, which encounters two suspicious men (Idle and Palin) dressed in two halves of a tiger suit, who attempt to assert their innocence through a succession of increasingly feeble excuses to explain why they are dressed as a tiger.The Middle of the FilmA woman (Palin), as if on a talk-show called "The Middle of the Film", introduces a segment called "Find The Fish" a brief surreal piece in which a drag queen (Chapman), a gangly long-armed man (Jones), and an elephant-headed butler eerily challenge the audience to find a fish in the scene.Part IV: Middle AgeA middle-aged American couple (Idle as the wife and Palin as the husband) heads to a dungeon-themed Hawaiian restaurant at a holiday resort. They are presented with a menu of conversation topics by their waiter (Cleese), and choose philosophy and the meaning of life. Their awkward and generally uninformed conversation quickly grinds to a halt, and they send it back, complaining "This conversation isn't very good."Part V: Live Organ Transplants Two paramedics (Chapman and Cleese) arrive at the doorstep of Mr. Brown (Gilliam), a card-carrying organ donor, to claim his liver. He protests on the basis that he is not dead, but is nonetheless gruesomely operated on against his will. Cleese's paramedic unsuccessfully attempts to chat up Mrs. Brown (Jones), then requests her liver as well. She initially declines, but after a man (Idle) sings a song about man's insignificance in the universe ("The Galaxy Song"), she agrees.In a large corporate boardroom, a businessman straightforwardly summarises his two-part report on the meaning of life: that the human soul must be "brought into existence by a process of guided self-observation", which rarely happens because people are easily distracted; and that "people aren't wearing enough hats." This is followed by an attempted takeover of the building by the Crimson Permanent Assurance from the short feature.Part VI: The Autumn YearsA posh restaurant (complete with a pianist played by Idle, singing "The Penis Song" à la Noël Coward), is visited by Mr. Creosote (Jones), a morbidly obese man in his autumn years. Creosote swears at the unflappable maître d' (Cleese), vomits copiously, and consumes an enormous meal and a huge quantity of beer and wine to the disgust of other patrons. After he has finished, the maître d' offers him a small after-dinner mint; despite initial resistance, Creosote eats it then explodes, showering the restaurant with human entrails and vomit.Part VI-B: The Meaning of LifeAfterwards, two of the restaurant's staff clean up the mess left behind by the late Mr. Creosoto and offer their own thoughts on the meaning of life. The maître d' converses with cleaning lady Maria (Jones). The waiter Gaston (Idle) leads the viewer to the countryside where he was born, and explains that his mother encouraged him to notice the beauty of the world and love everyone. Realising that the audience is unamused, he angrily dismisses them and walks off.Part VII: DeathA condemned man (Chapman) is allowed to choose the manner of his execution: being chased off the edge of a cliff by a horde of topless women.A depressed autumn leaf "commits suicide" by falling off its tree. Distraught, his wife and children quickly do likewise, followed by the rest of the tree's leaves simultaneously. (Animated segment)The Grim Reaper (Cleese) visits an isolated country house, and finds himself invited into a dinner party. Not knowing who he is, the dinner guests spend a lot of time arguing with him before finally being told they've all died from eating contaminated salmon mousse. Their souls leave their bodies, and they follow the Grim Reaper to Heaven.The dinner guests arrive in Heaven, a bright Las Vegas-style hotel where every day is Christmas. In a large auditorium filled with characters from throughout the film, a cheesy lounge singer resembling Tony Bennett (Chapman) performs "Christmas in Heaven", while bare-breasted women wearing Santa Claus costumes perform an elaborate dance number.The End of the FilmThe hostess from "The Middle of the Film" is handed an envelope containing the meaning of life, and casually reads it out: "Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations." She retorts that "gratuitous pictures of penises" and other meaningless controversies would do a better job at bringing the audiences into the cinema, and bitterly announces the closing credits.
    

The Meaning of Life

And Now for Something Completely Different

Brazil with Michael Palin


            Empire is a major five-part series presented by Jeremy Paxman. Jeremy Paxman travels the world, exploring many different aspects of the British Empire. It tells the story of the British Empire in a new way, tracing not only the rise and fall of the empire but also the complex effects of the empire on the modern world political, technological and social and on Britain.
    

Empire

Monty Python: Before the Flying Circus

Vanity Fair

Not the Messiah: He's a Very Naughty Boy


            In early 1980s England we find Kevin Lotterby (Craig Warnock), an average 11-year-old boy who is fascinated by history and its legends. However, his material-obsessed parents (David Daker and Sheila Fearn) could care less and spend their evenings ignoring their son and watching game show programs on TV.One night, Kevin is made to get to bed early and just as he lies down to sleep an armored knight riding on horseback bursts from his wardrobe. He then finds himself smack dab in the middle of a forest clearing. Just after Kevin gets to his feet, the forest falls away and his bedroom has turned back to normal, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Examining a picture on his wall almost identical to the scene he just witnessed--a knight on horseback in the middle of a forest--it's his father who bursts in through his door this time, complaining about all of the racket Kevin was making and yells at him to get to sleep.The following evening, Kevin returns to bed equipped with a Polaroid camera and a flashlight, determined to document whatever else might decide to emerge from his wardrobe. Just as he's given up hope and begins to fall asleep, a group of six strangely dressed dwarfs file out of his closet. Kevin shines his light at them and they cower, calling him the "The Supreme Being." Soon after discovering his true identity, they gang up on the innocent Kevin, accusing him of things he has no knowledge of. While interrogating him they push him against his picture-decorated wall and find that it moves. Babbling that they've "found it" they push further on the wall, which reveals a tunnel.Suddenly, a frightening head-shaped apparition appears in Kevin's room and demands that they return what they've stolen from him and that it will bring them "great danger." The dwarfs continue to push Kevin's picture-filled wall. The face follows them. Kevin runs and helps the dwarfs. The wall soon gives way through an opening at the end of the hall and the group plummet into the black space beyond.On a seemingly normal countryside, the dwarfs and Kevin suddenly fall from a hole in the sky. As it turns out, they have used a portal to travel back to Italy of 1796, during the Second Battle of Castiglione. They sneak into a fortress where they find a wrecked theatre and Napoleon Bonaparte (Ian Holm), watching local actors perform follies for him. Napoleon laughs at a Punch and Judy show until the puppeteer is shot and dies. Dismissing the rest of the acts, he's suddenly thrilled when the dwarfs appear onstage and begin to perform a soft-shoe number to "Me and My Shadow", a song that won't be written for another 130 years. Napoleon is pleased to see people shorter than himself performing and invites them to dinner, proclaiming them his new generals. The dwarfs wait until Napoleon passes out from drinking wine and proceed to rob him of everything his forces had plundered and carry it out in a large tapestry. As they make their escape, one of the real generals discovers their plot and chases them. The dwarfs find another portal and are able to escape.They subsequently arrive in the Middle Ages. They end up plummeting through the roof of a carriage, upsetting a betrothed couple, Vincent and Pansy (Michael Palin and Shelley Duval), who run off into the forest. The six dwarfs finally explain to Kevin that they worked for The Supreme Being, the creator of the Universe, as designers, creating all the flora and fauna of the world. Kevin learns that the dwarfs, whom are named Randall (David Rappaport)-the self-proclaimed leader, Fidgit (Kenny Baker), Strutter (Malcolm Dixon), Og (Mike Edmonds), Wally (Jack Purvis), and Vermin (Tiny Ross). After designing a particularly foul-smelling tree, the dwarfs were demoted to the job of repairing portals in the space-time fabric. Spurned they spitefully stole the map of the holes' locations, which they are now using to travel around, stealing treasures from across history and get "stinkin' rich." As they count up their loot, Kevin suggest they all pose for a group picture with their map. They suddenly hear the cries of the couple they'd landed on and find that they're being robbed by a motley band of thieves. They follow the thieves, landing themselves in snare traps. After convincing the thugs they're criminals, they're taken to Robin Hood (John Cleese), who looks upon their haul from Napoleon as wealth he can "redistribute" to the local poor. As Hood hands out the loot, the dwarfs leave in disgust, angry that their haul has been repossessed.Meanwhile, in secret, this journey is being observed via mystical powers by a malevolent sorcerer, known simply as "the Evil Genius" or "Ultimate Evil" (David Warner), who seeks the map for himself to recreate the universe to his liking. In the Fortress of Ultimate Darkness, the Evil Genius rants a little about The Supreme Being, saying that slugs are a demonstration of his incompetence. "What about you?" one of his henchman asks. "He created you." Evil responds by blowing him up, adding "Don't ever ask me another question like that! No one created me! I am absolute evil! I made myself!" Another henchman pushes his luck, asking, "Then how does he keep you here? How does he keep you trapped in the fortress?" He promptly gets blown up. "Good question," Evil states. "If I were creating the world I wouldn't mess about with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers, eight o'clock, Day One!"While the dwarfs ponder their next move, Ultimate Evil decides to magically speak through the mouth of one of the more dunderhead-ed dwarfs in order to convince the rest of them to pursue the resting place of "the most fabulous object in the world." The dwarfs begin to fight amongst themselves for the map until the Supreme Being re-materializes, which leads Kevin to jump through a time-travel portal on his own in escape.Kevin land in an arid desert and unintentionally aides King Agamemnon (Sean Connery) when he falls from a time portal in the sky. After inadvertently helping Agamemnon slay a vicious Minotaur, Kevin is welcomed to Agamemnon's royal court and treated like a son. Reflecting on his own neglected life and family, Kevin wishes he can stay with the king forever. Kevin is elated with his new home, capturing scenes during his stay with his Polaroid camera, but this is not to last. A few days later, during a birthday party for Agamemnon, the six dwarfs suddenly appear again and in yet another time-traveling robbery scheme, they manage to steal Agamemnon's riches along with the boy before fleeing through another time portal door.After time-traveling to the infamous luxury liner Titanic, Randall tells Kevin that he'd studied the map more closely & found that Og was right: the Time of Legends is the location of the Most Fabulous Object in the World. However, the boat begins to sink and the stranded group is forced to search out the most fabulous object in the world which turns out to be the Fortress of Ultimate Evil.The Evil Genius, meanwhile, begins to manipulate the adventure with his magical influence, so that Kevin and the dwarfs end up transported out of the freezing waters of the Atlantic Ocean to the ocean of the Time of Legends. Here, circumstances become even more fantastical. The group is picked up by a ship containing the Oger Winston (Peter Vaughan) and his human wife (Katherine Helmond). After overpowering Winston and throwing him and his wife overboard, the group takes command of the ship, but they barely escape when their ship is adorning the head of a giant. After putting the giant to sleep by injecting the top of his head with sleep potion, the travelers escape and find themselves in a vast desert.The dwarfs believe an epic treasure, "The Most Fabulous Object in the World," awaits in this time-period within the Fortress of Ultimate Darkness, where Evil himself resides. Meeting an invisible glass-like wall in the middle of the desert, the dwarfs begin to argue and dissent from Randall's authority, when they accidentally down the wall by smashing a skull through it like a pane of glass. They step through the jagged opening to behold Evil's fortress lying ominous on the other side. Once inside, the dwarfs are immediately deceived by Evil's shape-shifting abilities into handing over the map. Evil imprisons them and Kevin in one of many cages hanging over a bottomless void, but the group undoes the lock and swings from cage to cage until they are back within the fortress hall. They are able to use a photograph of the map Kevin had taken earlier to identify holes they can use to recruit help and recover the map. The dwarfs begin putting their plan into action. Randall and four of the dwarfs split up while Kevin stays behind to try to lure away several of the Evil Genius' demon minions that chase him.Kevin is almost left to face the Evil Genius alone when suddenly all kinds of characters from all time periods come to the rescue, among the group several Roman archers, cowboys, a battle tank, knights, and a futuristic soldier, and the dwarfs.The cowboys attempt to wrangle Evil with their lassos, but he begins to spin and the centrifugal force sends them flying. Evil's skull opens up and a wicked looking pole extends from it, producing a knife which cuts the ropes which unsuccessfully bound him. When the archers attempt to skewer them with their well-aimed arrows, Evil essentially turns himself into a pincushion and fires the arrows right back at their sources.Although the hodge-podge group puts up what could be considered a good effort, all efforts to foil evildoing prove in vain and all certainly seems lost. But then, out of nowhere, The Supreme Being appears in human form (Ralph Richardson) and turns Evil into black brittle stone. While Randall tries to apologize to The Supreme Being for his groups actions, The Supreme Being reveals that everything which had occurred was actually all part of his plan.The Supreme Being (nicknamed 'SB' by the dwarfs) goes on to briefly explain that he let the midgets borrow the map because, as it turns out, Evil was HIS creation after all and the Supreme Being simply wanted to see it put to the test. Free will is the reason why evil still exists, he explains. He instructs them to dispose of Evil's crumbling bits and pieces into a English Post Box he has provided in order to rid the world of it and warns them not to touch it with their bare hands. Unbeknownst to them, one chunk is overlooked and slowly begins to fester. The SB forgives the dwarfs for their insolence, deciding demotion and a pay cut will suffice as a good enough punishment and announces that it is time to go (presumably back to Heaven). With the time map safely in hand, SB and the dwarfs then leave an indignant Kevin behind "to carry on the fight." Soon, however, the festering piece of Evil begins to smolder and in moments Kevin is enveloped in a cloud of thick, strangely yellow-colored smoke.Almost instantaneously, Kevin wakes up to find himself back in his bed, surrounded now by thick, black smoke. Two firemen burst through his bedroom door just in time and rush him from his burning home. Outside, his parents fight over which kitchen appliances should have been saved from the flames and seem to have no concern for whether Kevin had made it out of the house alive or not. It is now morning as Kevin watches the growing flames lick at his home as firemen hose it down and begin to get the fires under control. One of the two firemen who saved him walks by and asks if he is all right, and then says "You're a very lucky boy." On second look, Kevin recognizes the fireman as the spitting image of King Agamemnon. Baffled, wondering if it was all a dream, Kevin checks his pockets for any evidence of his journey and is amazed to find all of the Polaroid snapshots that he took while on his adventures, thus confirming that it wasn't a dream after all.But before Kevin can show the photos and proof of his time traveling adventures to his bickering parents, another fireman emerges from the home with a charred toaster oven in hand, declaring that it was the cause of the fire, which was left on overnight. His parents open the appliance, revealing the smoking chunk of evil rock lying inside. Kevin gasps, realizing it was the source of the fire. "Mum, Dad!" He warns, "It's Evil! Don't touch it!" But as always, his stupid parents foolishly ignore him and touch it anyway to remove it. They both explode on contact with the black rock, leaving almost no trace behind. When Kevin turns around looking for help, he sees King Agamemnon-turned-fireman winking at him who then drives away in his fire truck along with the rest of the firemen now that the fire is put out. Kevin is left all alone and bewildered on the front lawn to look back at the smoldering remains of his destroyed house and smoldering (now dead) parents while his nosy neighbors look on.The camera zooms out from the town, the world, and the galaxy to reveal its location on the Supreme Being's map. The Supreme Being's hands then roll up the map, ending the film.
    

Time Bandits

Remember Me

A Private Function

American Friends

Fierce Creatures

Jabberwocky


            Graham Chapman, probably best remembered as 'the dead one from Monty Python', writes and stars in the animated movie of his own life story, 'A Liar's Autobiography'. He was born, he went to Cambridge and met John Cleese, he smoked a pipe, he became a doctor, he became a Python, he decided he was gay (well, 70/30, according to a survey he did on himself), he got drunk a lot, he stopped being drunk, he made some films, he had some sex (actually, a lot), and moved to Los Angeles. Finally, he was whisked up into space by aliens (although that might have been in a film). Although Chapman selfishly dropped dead in 1989, he had taken the trouble to record himself reading his book, 'A Liar's Autobiography', and those recordings have now ingeniously been used to provide Chapman's voice for the 3D animated feature of the same name. Fellow Pythons John Cleese, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam also turn up, playing themselves and other characters, along with a few surprise guests. Not a documentary, not a Monty Python film, 'A Liar's Autobiography' is Chapman's own take on his bizarre life and his search for self-knowledge. Incredible, yes. Surreal, certainly. True, who knows? At his memorial service, John Cleese called Chapman 'a freeloading bastard'. Now, as the film re-unites Chapman with Cleese, Jones, Palin and Gilliam for the first time in 23 years, he is set to earn a new title the most prolific corpse since Elvis.
    

A Liar's Autobiography: The Untrue Story of Monty Python's Graham Chapman

Consuming Passions

Michael Palin

Michael Palin

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Michael Palin

Michael Palin Movies or Tv Shows (upto Nov 2024) - Watch Online

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Michael Palin's Movies and Tv Series available to Stream now ..

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