Family Movie Night: Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Title: Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Directors: Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam
Original Release: 1975
Choice: Purple Penguin's
My Overall Rating: 4 stars out of 5

via Wikipedia

Surely one of the most delightfully ridiculous films ever made, Monty Python and the Holy Grail has long been a favorite at our house.  For the comic genius Pythons, Holy Grail was a new kind of project.  Their previous feature film, And Now for Something Completely Different, was simply a compilation of sketches from their TV series.  Holy Grail was all new material.  Their $400,000 film made $5 million at the box office.  Surely, they've raked in plenty more from VHS and DVD sales in the years since.

King Arthur (Graham Chapman), accompanied by faithful squire Patsy (Terry Gilliam), is roaming England in search of brave men to join his Knights of the Round Table.  Once assembled, they are given a quest by God himself to find the Holy Grail.  Simple enough.

But this is Monty Python.  We don't want historical epic.  We want sketch comedy and sketch comedy we get.  It's non-stop absurdity: the taunting French soldier flinging insults and livestock at Arthur and his knights, the duel to dismemberment with the Black Knight, the Knights who say Ni, the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, the Bridge of Death.  These are all scenes which any teenage geek worthy of the title can quote on command, even 41 years after the movie's release. 

Holy Grail undoubtedly pushed the limits of the PG rating in 1975.  Most of the dirty jokes go by pretty quickly - certainly fast enough for our daughter to miss most of them.  But my wife did explain the bit about "huge tracts of land" this time.  I can't remember if the Purple Penguin ever noticed the farting trumpeters before but she did this time and responded appropriately with "Ew!"  Good family fun.