MONTY PYTHON: ALMOST THE TRUTH THE LAWYERS CUT (Eagle Rock, 2009) D: Bill Jones, Allan G. Parker, w/ John Cleese, Terry Gilliam. Rating: NNNNN DVD package: NNNNN. Rating: NNNNN
If you’re a serious Monty Python fan, this is it: six one-hour episodes tracing the career of the most influential comedy troupe in the history of television, plus almost two hours of extended interviews, outtakes and seven classic Python sketches.
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There are extensive new interviews with the surviving Pythons – John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin and Terry Jones – and good archival chat from Graham Chapman. Except for Chapman’s alcoholism and cancer, you won’t learn much about the Pythons’ private lives, but they’re frank in their assessment of one another’s character and comedy.
You will learn a lot about their influences (The Goon Show figures heavily), why their sketches seldom have punchlines, their writing process and much more. Totally boring if you’re not a fan wonderful if you are.
EXTRAS Extended interviews, outtakes, Python sketches, Gilliam art gallery. Widescreen. English audio. English, French, Spanish subtitles.
