Natey & Katy: At the Movies
Natey & Katy are two friends who love movies and love talking about them. Join them on their cinematic journey!
Natey & Katy: At the Movies
Hilarious Quests
What was your first encounter with Monty Python's iconic humor? This week, Katy and I reminisce about our initial exposure to the hilarious world of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." We break down the wacky mix of British wit, intellectual jokes, and slapstick comedy that make this film a timeless classic. From the absurd witch trial to the unforgettable bloodthirsty rabbit, we highlight the scenes that had us laughing out loud and discuss how the movie's sketch comedy format keeps things fresh and engaging. Plus, we reflect on the lasting cultural impact of "Holy Grail" and its successful leap to Broadway with "Spamalot."
Switching gears, we briefly mention the starkly different universe of the Coen Brothers' "No Country for Old Men." Known for its critical acclaim and high ratings, this film offers a serious contrast to the humor of their other works we've enjoyed. Our curiosity is piqued, and we share our excitement for next week's deep dive into this intense story. To keep the mood light, we sprinkle in a bit of Monty Python humor, tipping our hats to the classic "What is your name?" scene. This promises to be an episode packed with laughter, thoughtful analysis, and a touch of the unexpected!
Hello everyone and welcome to a brand new episode of Nadie and Katie at the Movies. I'm your host, nathan aka Nadie, of course, and with me, as always sometimes, is my good friend Katie. Hi Katie, how are you?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm not dead yet.
Speaker 1:Wait, is there something you need to tell me? Do we need to stop the show and just get off real quick and talk? What's going on, katie, it's only a flesh wound, it's fine. What did Scott do to you?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh Chopped both of my arms and legs off. What are you going to do?
Speaker 1:Bleed on me. Well, if you can't tell what we're talking about, this episode, then you've probably never seen this movie or ever heard any of the lines that we just quoted. We're talking about monty python and the holy grail, brought to you by the same guys who brought you monty python life of brian and monty python, the flying circus. But before we can talk about this movie, I have to go over the synopsis. King arthur and his knights of the round table embark on a surreal, low-budget search for the Holy Grail, encountering many very silly obstacles. Monty Python and the Holy Grail stars Graham Chapman, john Cleese, eric Idle and Terry Gilliam, who also co-directed this film as well. I did not know that, so let's dive right into what we thought of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Speaker 2:Katie, have you ever seen any of the Monty Python movies or TV shows before? I had not seen any of the other TV shows and movies, but I had seen clips of this movie. So I didn't realize how much of Monty Python I knew until we were watching it and I was like, oh, I remember people in middle like there was literally in my fifth grade class a girl that would could do the whole witch monologue where she's like what makes you think she's a witch? Well, she turned me into a newt. A newt, I got better. A newt, newt, I got better. All this stuff. I'm like, wait, I've heard of that before, um, or like the rabbit rabbit. There's like a crazy bloodthirsty rabbit, like. I remember seeing maybe gifs of that. I had seen bits and pieces and I will say for anyone who hasn't watched, please go watch. It's very silly, but it is almost like bite-sized clips, would you agree, nathan? Like it all. It's a somewhat flows, but they are in somewhat like an snl type way.
Speaker 1:It's like little bits yeah, it's definitely like a sketch comedy show I think that's what you're trying to say and there's like little little sketches in between what they I guess like a main storyline. Obviously, Obviously it's King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table searching for the Holy Grail, but they run into random villagers, random princes, random kings, all this random stuff that just takes place around this story. So my biggest like and maybe dislike is it is a very funny movie. I mean that's a big like. It is very funny. It's Monty Python, very much British humor. There's very sometimes intellectual humor in it on top of the the physical humor, and you know just the randomness of this film. But on the dislike side I feel like if you've seen this movie maybe more than two times, if you watch it again, it kind of loses some of the funniness Because you know all the lines, you kind of know all the punchlines already and so it's not as humorous as it probably would have been, maybe the first time you've ever seen it. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 2:I see what you're saying. It's like some of the thing that's making you laugh is the shock value, and once the shocks happen it's not quite as funny. I would agree. But also, being someone who has memorized almost every single line from the movie mean girls, I still enjoy it even though I've memorized it. So I would imagine it's a little bit. It's fun to say the lines along yeah, this is a really weird movie and you nailed it exactly with the humor. It is totally British humor which is not necessarily my type, but I do love slapstick and I did get most of the intellectual jokes. But of course my husband Scott leans over and he's like this is nerd humor. It makes sense because I was in a nerd store the other day, a comic book store, and there was all this Monty Python swag like Monty Python figurines and stuff. Is there a cult following for Monty Python and the Holy Grail?
Speaker 1:I mean, I think there is I wouldn't even say it's a cult following, because it's very well known. It's a very well known comedic team. It's kind of like Second City Improv or, like you stated before, saturday Night Live comedy show themselves the Monty Python and the Flying Circus, which I mentioned before, and so these are just guys that did sketches together that came up with pretty funny ideas. Life of Brian is another one. It actually is about a guy named Brian who's born in the stable next to Jesus around Christmas time and so he kind of has his own little adventure and that's where and that's kind of like where you get the song always look on the bright side of life. I don't know if you've ever heard that song before. That's kind of where that song comes from and it's actually when he's like hanging on the cross and stuff. But anyway, we won't talk about that. This movie, the holy grail, is where the musical spam a lot came from. I don't know if you've ever heard of that musical, but they actually have.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes, yeah, I think it became a Broadway hit when Tim Curry played King Arthur and so it went on Broadway and a local theater here in Fayetteville did it as well. I actually auditioned for it. Unfortunately, Long story about how I didn't get cast in that show. So it's a very funny show. It has the always look on the bright side of life in it and it has a lot of the same, you know shtick things in the movie. But going back to the movie, what did you think of the ending? It kind of ends abruptly and I think there's a reason behind it. What'd you think? Or can you explain how it ends and then tell us what you think?
Speaker 2:Right, the whole movie is supposedly, you know, kate Garth rounding up the Knights of the Round Table and going in search for the Holy Grail. You know, although I know it's a sketch comedy movie, you're still wanting like closure on it, like you still want the storyline to wrap up and yeah, it does not end. Really, they don't get the Holy Grail, there's not even any inkling that they will. I feel like it ended way abruptly, and I was telling my husband this as well.
Speaker 2:I feel like this would be even funnier. It was funny, sure, but it would be even funnier if I watched it when it came out, which was in the 70s, because I think it's one where they were spoofing things like so maybe to your point that you may be making that it's supposed to not end with getting the holy grail. They want it to be a cliffhanger like that. But I grew up with the scary movie movies, those spoofs of all the scary movies, like scary movie three was one of my favorite comedies for a long time, and so I wonder if in the seventies there was a lot more TV shows and movies happening like this, that would make this even more hilarious, cause I'm not quite familiar what they're probably spoofing.
Speaker 1:Well, that's not.
Speaker 2:That's not what I was going for with the other thing so the real reason why it ends the way it does.
Speaker 1:So if you've never seen the movie, spoiler alert. But it ends with modern day police officers arresting King Arthur and all the knights, and taking them to jail for for murdering all these people throughout the whole film.
Speaker 1:So they kill a lot of characters in this film and so it ends with them basically being arrested and that the movie, just the film just stops. There is a story behind the reason why it ends like that. So, as stated before in kind of in the synopsis, it is a very low budget film and a little tidbit is the one of the reasons why they use coconuts for horses is because they could not afford actual horses.
Speaker 2:That's actually one of the reasons.
Speaker 1:Now, I guess it's because it was funny too, but I think they're like we can't afford horses. What can we do? Hey, this is random and funny. Let's just slam some coconuts together. So the ending of this movie is the way it is because the budget was so low Originally. Apparently they wanted to have this big battle at the end of the movie, but they spent so much of their money on this movie that they had to change the entire ending of the film, and so that's what they ended it with. They ended it with basically no ending and it kind of goes with Monty python. It's random, it makes no sense whatsoever. And right. The story behind it is even makes it even funnier. That that's why I had it that way research I can't.
Speaker 2:I found this, um, I found several like documentary type docu-series s things about the making of this and there seems to be, which I won't go into it. There's all this drama between the directors and the main actors and you know, because they're also they're directing and in it. And then, like you said, the low budget, and I do remember them there was some talk of there was supposed to be a lot more real, like cutting back to real time, in which you know they did a little bit of. And I wonder if that was another thing that was cut, because one interview I watched they were saying that 90% of the original script was cut. So you're like huh, I wonder what the original was Like.
Speaker 2:Was it not as funny what we got? But yeah, I would be curious, nathan, would you agree? I would, I would be curious, nathan, would you agree? I think this would be funnier if we watched it in the 70s because, again, I think, in the same way that austin powers is funnier if you watched james bond movies, I think this would have been funnier if you were living in a time period where there was a guy doing like a history documentary. That looks exactly like something I would watch from a history channel from the 70s.
Speaker 1:I just didn't think it was as funny because I had seen it so many times and because I knew what was going to happen and I knew I knew the lines already. Did I still laugh at it? Yes, because it is funny, especially the part where the prince is is about to start singing and his dad's like no no, no no, no, no, no, stop that singing.
Speaker 1:All this is going to be yours. What the curtains? No, no, no, no, not the curtains. So I mean, those little moments still made me laugh. I think that's probably funny, as I would have thought it was. Maybe if I had seen it when it first came out, or if I could relive the first time I ever saw it, I probably would laugh out loud. It's probably like napoleon dynamite, a little bit Napoleon Dynamite. The first time I watched Napoleon Dynamite I probably cried laughing because it was so random. But now, if I watch it now, it's not as funny, and that's kind of what this movie reminds me of.
Speaker 2:I think that's a really good reference point because, yes, napoleon Dynamite was so quotable. So, whether you watched the movie multiple times or not, it's the quotes that you keep saying and that are part of some people's everyday vernacular that makes I think Monty Python and the Holy Grail live on. For example, the last week since I watched it, I can't stop but going the knights who say just literally just keeps popping in my head and it wasn't even a part. I thought that was that funny. So there's little line that pop up, pop up and I did appreciate that. But let's write this bad boy, it is a comedy, so you know I liked it.
Speaker 1:But how does it stack up for you against all the other movies, maybe even the comedies, on our list? Ok, so I know I'm probably going to get some some grief from people just for the fact that I compared it to napoleon dynamite. So I'm probably gonna get grief about that. But I'm also gonna get grief because I'm gonna rate it. I'm probably gonna give monty python and the holy grail a 4.5 out of 6. It just wasn't as funny. Asi remembered it being when I watched it, probably the first time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, monty Python is a classic. But I like your 4.5 because I think Fargo is still probably my favorite comedy we've watched on our list, because it seems so clever this was clever, but because it feels, like I said at the beginning, like so many bits, like clips that are all put together. It doesn't feel like a movie to me and for that reason I don't know that would rank it higher than a 4.5.
Speaker 1:And there you have it, folks Monty Python and the Holy grail. Yes, it's a classic comedy, but if you've watched it so many times it's just not as funny. Sorry, sorry. So that is our first episode of August. By the time this episode drops, next week I start school back up again. Oh yeah, oh, goody, goody gumdrops.
Speaker 2:Well, you have time to watch our next movie, which is Take a listen.
Speaker 1:What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss, sir? The most you ever lost on a coin toss? I don't know. I don't know. I couldn't say Call it. Call it, yes, for what? Just call it. Well, we need to know what we're calling it for.
Speaker 2:Here you need to call it. I can't call it for you, it wouldn't call it. I can't call it for you, it wouldn't be fair. I didn't put nothing up. Yes, you did. You've been putting it up your whole life, you just didn't know it.
Speaker 1:We're watching another Coen Brothers movie, but this one's like totally not like the other two we've watched before.
Speaker 2:Nathan, I have already watched it and I have to say it is not. It's not really funny. Like you said, there's no funny, but people on this list, imdb, folks that are voting, y'all must love you, some Coen Brothers.
Speaker 1:They are pretty well known for making good films. So I mean, I guess we'll give no Country for Old Men a try. That's what we're going to talk about next week, and it's going to be good times. So let's end with one of maybe not one of the most famous parts of Monty Python, but it's still a very funny part. What is your name? It is Arthur, king of the Britons. What is your quest? To seek the Holy Grail. What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow? What do you mean? An African or European swallow? Huh, I don't know that. Ah.
