Fellini's Roma

Fellini’s episodic romp through the space and time of the eternal city at the time of its release might have felt like an indulgent recycling of his usual cinematic themes hung on a disorienting episodic documentary-like narrative. And yet with today’s eyes, in the context of Fellini’s body of work, it’s an essential part of his filmography, a visual essay of Fellini’s lifetime of experience with the city, told as a typically brilliant choreographed dance of motion, light, and music.

Fellini’s Roma (1972) dir. Federico Fellini
Starring: Peter Gonzales, Fiona Florence, Pia De Doses, Renato Giovannoli

By Alan Bacchus

During one of the sequences, in which we follow a camera crew around town photographing a hippie student rally, we watch a group of bystanders discuss with Fellini himself their desire for the director to depict Rome with a modern sensibility. Fellini candidly admits he can only make a film from his point of view with his own unique peculiarities. Thus Roma feels like his final chapter of self-reflection after his notable pictures La Dolce Vita and 8 ½ .

The opening chapter takes place in the pre-War 1938, depicts a teenaged Fellini arriving in Rome for the first time and observing the strange and wonderful characters in the tenement housing community of his family. The episode is anchored by a stunningly visual sequence of the community preparing for and indulging a group meal on the evening streets. It’s a sequence featuring a hundred or so actors and background players choreographed with the hypnotic, trance-inducing thrill only Fellini can create.

Two other mesmerizing sequences stand tall in Fellini canon. First, a journey underground into a subway construction project, wherein Fellini and his crew get a glimpse of the massive engineering project next to newly discovered artifacts from ancient Rome. When the crew discover a lost chamber they are forced to stop digging to investigate. Unveiled is a pristine room full of wall frescos which upon exposure to the exterior atmosphere degrades and fades never to be viewed in his former condition again. It’s an astonishing sequence.

A papal fashion show and an early brother sequence showcases Fellini’s indulgence in garish pomp, but his scenes of brilliantly choreographed movements recall the cinematic elegance of 8 ½. In particular the final sequence which follows a group of motorcyclists through the streets and roundabouts of the city is gorgeous and supremely cinematic.

Fellini’s Roma is available on Blu-Ray from the Criterion Collection


 
 

McCabe and Mrs. Miller

For those new to 'McCabe and Mrs. Miller' it can be hard to relate to its reputation as the anti-Western that shook up the genre. Today, a non-traditional film like this would be common place, but in 1971, at the beginnings of the New Hollywood movement Altman’s shaggy Hippie Western was as strange an anomaly as could be.

Over the Edge

A sublime time capsule of the era, Over the Edge, exists as a rarely-seen cult classic, plugging nihilistic punk-like anger into the conventions of a teen rebel movie. Based on an actual incident in which the teenagers of a dreary Midwestern town unite and use anarchic violence to take over their school, director Jonathan Kaplan and his team create an angst-fueled ride of adolescent rebellion. The soundtrack featuring Cheap Trick, The Ramones, Van Halen and the Cars, exemplifies the pitch perfect American suburban flavor of this film.

Sorcerer

What a strange and wonderful picture, a thrilling remake of Clouzot’s Wages of Fear, made with the documentary-like realism which embodied most of Friedkin’s films. At a cost of nearly $22m of 1977 dollars, Sorcerer exemplifies the hubris of those celebrated 70’s mavricks who at the beginning of the decade shook up the studio system with the New Hollywood movement then through a series of expensive flops saw the end of the progressive scene at the onset of the 1980’s. Sorcerer survives magnificently over time as one of Friedkin’s best films, now revered by cineastes around.

The Tragedy of Macbeth

The Bard’s tale of the ambitious Scottish lord who with his wife conspire to take the throne of Scotland by hook or crook has always made for great cinema. It’s one of the more violent and action-packed of Shakespeare plays and through the eye of Roman Polanski, at the peak of his abilities, turns the story into a ruthless and bloody parable of ambition - a film even more resonant with the Charles Manson tragedy only a couple years behind this production.

All That Jazz

The influence of Fellini’s 8 ½ is clear in Bob Fosse’s own memoir-like fictional film. The story of a theatre director under immense pressure to make his next show a hit, while under the usual pressures of the business, told with a mixture of fantasy and realism is cut from the same mould as Fellini’s great picture. The creative evolution of Fosse’s work from 'Sweet Charity', 'Cabaret' and 'Lenny' seems to culminate in this overly ambitious yet invigorating explosion of cinema.

Tess

Thomas Hardy’s tragic 19th century novel adapted as a luscious period film by Roman Polanski is a unique notch on his filmography rarely discussed or acknowledged. Made in 1979 after his escape to France, the film beautifully rounds out Polanski’s long and successful career as it remains one of the three pictures of his nominated for best picture and best director (along with Chinatown and The Pianist).

Sisters

The first of Brian De Palma’s ‘Hitchcock-influenced films, Sisters boldly begat a career long obsession with the Master of Suspese, recycling and deconstructing his stories, themes, techniques in a dozen films or so over forty years. Without the slickness of later and bigger budgeted works, Sisters feels like a marriage of the director’s handcrafted underground/avant garde works of the late 60’s and the delirious visual showman of the 70’s/80’s.

Autumn Sonata

Anchored by the best performance ever by the Hollywood legend Ingrid Bergman, and matched by an equally mesmerizing Liv Ullman, Ingmar Bergman presents to us a visceral unforgettable two–hander of a mother and daughter hashing out latent conflicts with devastating emotional power.

Scum

Alan Clarke’s powerful indictment of the British juvenile penal system is a virtuouso cinematic achievement, ugly and beautiful at the same time, influential to the modern works of Steve McQueen, Gus Van Sant and others. Scum, like Clarke’s mostly television work in the 70’s and 80’s represents some of the best films ever shot for television.

Westworld

Michael Crichton’s terrific slice of speculative fiction exemplifies the allure of the pre-Star Wars science fiction genre. Sharp socio-political commentary, in this case the darkside of man’s insatiable desire for entertainment, trump kitschy low rent production values to arrive at a rivetting thriller with intriguing and complex underlying ideas.

Cabaret

Rethinking the traditional notions of the Hollywood musical, Bob Fosse’s Cabaret still bedazzles us with seemless blend pre-war period melodrama and its the unpolished kitchen-sink musical numbers to arrive at his sublime political musical which discards the razzle-dazzle in favour of the seediness of a two-bit burlesque show.

The Duellists

Little seen and infrequently discussed, it's easy to forget Ridley Scott made this humble period film, based on Joseph Conrad's short story, The Duel. It's also easy to overpraise this picture because of its obscurity. Spectacularly beautiful, influenced heavily by Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, the film suffers from Scott's stolid pacing and a palpable disconnect between style and substance, recurring critiques in many of Scott's later work. That said, this movie is essential for any film buff's collection, as it shows the early development of Scott's prevailing visual aesthetic, which, for good and bad, has made him a populist auteur.

Blue Collar

One of the greatest performances in cinema, barely recognized by the Hollywood establishment, is undoubtedly Richard Pryor’s astonishing turn as Zeke the conflicted auto worker in Paul Schrader’s amazing directorial debut 'Blue Collar'. The racial barrier in Hollywood was never more egregious than the lack of recognition for Pryor’s work here. Pryor is so utterly compelling from the very first frame on screen only Brando’s dramatic Hollywood coronation in 'A Streetcar Named Desire' might compare.

Blue Collar (1978) dir. Paul Schrader
Starring: Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, Yaphet Kotto

By Alan Bacchus

The performances of Harvey Keitel and Yaphet Kotto match Pryor’s, a unique dynamic which helped each of the actors inject infallible honesty and sympathy, even at their worst moments, to their characters. Pryor, Keitel and Kotto play three friends, Zeke, Jerry and Smokey, toiling away on the line of a Detroit-area car manufacturing plant, each of them barely making a living. When they’re pushing up against the corrupt Union or suffering from the financial pressures of raising a family, or in Smokey’s case trying to make a living as an ex-con trying to go straight, the tension of their lives is thick.

Pryor articulates these frustrations, frustrations of all blue collar workers living in America at the time, emphatically in his dramatic speech during their Union hall meeting. It’s Pryor’s first speech, running about 2 minutes in length, a scene written to play off his notoriety as a stand up comic, but also to establish his credibility as a dramatic actor.

With this scene Schrader successfully breaks our preconceptions of Pryor as a comedian and this picture as a comedy. The rest of the film plays out the dramatic journeys of Zeke, Jerry and Smokey with earth shattering fury. After a wild (and controversial) party scene involving some coke and some local prostitutes the three hatch a plan to rob the local union office. Unfortunately, when they do the job they don’t find money but something more lethal, a smoking gun ledger of illegal loans borrowed from union funds.

From here the bond of the three characters is pushed to the extreme. Schrader masterfully shows how the union uses the isolation of the three heroes to dissolve their bond of friendship - a tragic irony considering it's an organization originally set up to unite brothers of labour. Whether it’s overt violence or financial incentives to buy off their morals, they must either stick to the principles so dramatically articulated by Pryor’s introductory speech or sell out and become the enemy.

Schrader, notable as a critic before becoming a celebrated screenwriter, wears some of his influences on his sleeve. The social realist tone of Rossellini and Bresson is strong, even the Peckinpah-esque opening sequence, a series of freeze-frame credits, punctuated by Jack Nitzsche/Ry Cooder’s bluesy music cue adds a strong cinematic Scorsese-like flare.

The behind-the-scenes production of this film has made for good anecdotal stories over the years, particularly the conflict between the three actors. Schrader has cited an on-set punch-up between a drug-addled Pryor and Keitel (likely drug-addled as well) causing the director to have a mental breakdown. None of the conflict inhibited the execution of the story or the chemistry of the characters on screen. What did get imbued was the resounding passion for this story and the sharp commentary the film makes on the influential union movement in America at the time, including the socio-economic hardship of its salt-of-the-earth workers.

Blue Collar is one hell of a film anchored by a Richard Pryor performance that is criminally underrated.

****

Mean Streets

One of the most valued treasures of the Scorsese canon, 'Mean Streets' birthed Scorsese's distinct cinematic vision of the world: street-wise, working class hoods with foul mouths and hair-trigger tempers seen through the lens of a dynamic camera with bursts of slo-motion and jumpy editing, set to a soundtrack of '60s vinyl and Italian crooning classics.

Mean Streets (1973) dir. Martin Scorsese
Starring: Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, David Proval, Richard Romanus

By Alan Bacchus

The opening 30 minutes established Scorsese's style emphatically ― it's a riveting introduction to the characters, location and flavour of the film. There's Charlie (Keitel), the confused gangster torn between his loyalty to his friends, his girlfriend and his faith, and the mentorship of his mob heavy uncle; Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro), the irresponsible loose cannon and boyhood pal of Charlie's; Tony (David Proval), the nightclub owner and host to the film's character interactions; and Michael (Richard Romanus), the affable loan shark chasing down the debts owed by Johnny Boy.

But the film essentially begins in the nightclub, bringing this foursome together. In particular, two shots in this scene essentially announce Martin Scorsese as a master: Charlie's entrance to the club, with Keitel moving through the crowd, the camera following elegantly behind; and Johnny Boy's arrival, with De Niro sloppily prancing around, two women on his arms, set to the rip-roaring Stones classic "Jumpin' Jack Flash." These are two great character introductions, the contrast of which expertly foreshadows their intense conflict, which drives the movie.

The rest of the film is a mix of these lively, rambunctious moments and anger-fuelled confrontations, which result in an aggressively violent ending reminiscent of the bloodshed in his next milestone film, Taxi Driver. But the experience of Mean Streets is less traditional narrative storytelling than a cathartic expression of Scorsese's youth and the intimate connection to filmmaking, an obsession that famously permeates his very being.

Sadly, despite being so influential in his career, Mean Streets always gets the short shrift. It's one of the last Scorsese pictures to get the Blu-ray treatment and sadly only a "catalogue" treatment by Warner, which means cribbed extras from a previous DVD release, a plain plastic box and uninspired cover art with none of the glossiness given to other (arguably lesser) Warner films of late. But the high definition transfer is decent, considering the grainy, run-and-gun, unpolished look employed by Scorsese. The vintage featurette is rudimentary and short, showing Scorsese and the two boyhood pals who inspired the film walking through the authentic Little Italy filming locations. Audio commentary by Scorsese should always be cherished, but, as usual, his comments are a mix between informative and meandering.

****

This review first appeared on Exclaim.ca

Jaws (Blu-ray)

Hot off the terrific ‘Spielberg-approved’ digital print of 'Jaws', ultra pristine and perfect, playing in select cities across the continent (including TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto), comes the first-ever Blu-ray edition of the film. It’s been over 5 years since Blu-ray won the HD war (we miss you HD-DVD), and for some people it has taken longer than expected to get master titles such as 'Jaws', 'Lawrence of Arabia' and 'Star Wars' onto Blu-ray. I always knew flooding the market with all these titles at once would dilute the value of each of these releases. Unfortunately, 'Jaws' had to wait this long…

Jaws (Blu-ray) (1975) dir. Steven Spielberg
Starring: Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw, Murray Hamilton, Lorraine Gary

By Alan Bacchus

It's been worth the wait and the re-release on Blu-ray has given the film another shot of acclaim and appreciation as one of the greatest films of all time (despite not making the Top 50 cut from Sight and Sound Magazine).

The film is amazing no matter what format (even VHS!). On Blu-ray, it’s spectacular. It’s one of Spielberg’s least glossy films. Filming mostly in exteriors on locations and on the ocean meant there was little artificial lighting to be done. Instead Spielberg relied on Bill Butler’s camera realism for dramatic effect. But hell, the film looks sharp enough to cut glass. Filmmakers in the mid- to late-'70s often used trendy diffusion filters, which created a soft look to many films. Jaws has edges - razor sharp edges like shark’s teeth, a look only enhanced by high definition.

If anything, the special features offer minimal extra bonuses that have not already been seen in previous incarnations. The ‘new’ materials include a fan-created documentary entitled The Shark is Still Working: The Impact and Legacy of Jaws. It’s actually an older documentary, up-rezed in HD specifically for this disc. Unfortunately, it’s pretty awful and dated. Roy Scheider’s voiceover is overwritten and offers a simplistic examination of the making of film featuring anecdotes already familiar to us but told as if we’ve never heard of the film before.

The treasure of this disc is still the Laurent Bouzereau-produced 2-hour making-of documentary, originally released on the Jaws LaserDisc in the '90s. Bouzereau’s doc, comprehensively told, tells us everything about the production and has the story of Jaws covered from every angle. The candor of Spielberg, who is never shy about revealing details of the production, is still a joy to watch, and no one can tell a story better than Richard Dreyfuss.

****

Jaws is available on Blu-ray from Universal Home Entertainment.

Deliverance

Perhaps the ultimate film about the male bravado, four city men, in the outback of Appalachia, out to conquer nature and canoe down the rapids of an untamed river wild, become hunted by a group of hillbilly locals. While some of the character conflict and thematic pronunciations hit the nail on the head, looking back 40 years later, Deliverance is still a riveting adventure film equalled by deep connections of man, nature, class and gender.

Deliverance (1972) dir. John Boorman
Starring: Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, Ronnie Cox

By Alan Bacchus

Each character is written to highlight the Freudian core of ourselves. Ed (Jon Voight), a lawyer and organizer of the excursion, serves as the everyman point-of-view into the nightmare. Lewis (Burt Reynolds), a swaggering outdoorsman and Darwinist to the extreme, acts as the group's spirit mentor to their internal expression of their primal desires. Drew (Ronny Cox), the moralist and guitar player, fights the group's amoral decision-making. And Bobby (Ned Beatty), the portly nave, famously loses his bravado and gets raped and humiliated by the sadistic hillbilly woodsmen.

Whether it's the conflict within the foursome, such as Lewis's constant taunting of Bobby, or the culture clash of the mountain men versus the city slickers, it's a passive battle for the ages. Look carefully and there's very little direct conflict. Instead, Boorman simmers his pot with scenes of brilliantly quiet tension and consciously oblique plot turns.

The opening scenes are masterful, featuring the group's stop off at the gas station and the first meeting of the foursome and the locals. Despite their inbred poverty, the locals easily read Bobby's arrogant superiority and tense body language. Lewis's negotiation for the drivers who would take their cars to the bottom of river deliciously establishes Lewis's confidence and respect for these salt of the earth inhabitants. The scene, of course, ends with the memorable duelling banjos sequence, a superlative metaphor for the battle of wills about to commence.

John Boorman and Vilmos Zsigmond's brilliant outdoor, on location cinematography looks stunning in Blu-Ray. Few directors used anamorphic widescreen better than Boorman, and fewer films have are more intimately connected to its location than Deliverance.

The film's most famous sequence ― Bobby's rape ― sits right at the midpoint and represents the only scene of direct, face-to-face violence. At a glance, it's certainly most cruel to the character of Bobby, but it can also be seen as one of cinema's great acts of comeuppance for his passive but brazen superiority complex and disrespect for the environment and its people.

The visual and visceral brilliance notwithstanding, Deliverance is as rich in theme and context. The environmental story of man's desire to tame nature, redirecting the river and flood the valley for the benefit of its largely white, civilized population, is inseparable from America's self-determined, wealth-based class system and the external desires of men to conquer everything they encounter.

The Warner Special Edition Blu-Ray, wonderfully packaged with comprehensive liner notes, does right by the film. Featurettes and director commentary from a 2007 release are present, as well as a new high definition retrospective of the four actors sitting down and discussing the making of the film. The lack of a moderator in the discussion makes it mostly awkward, not to mention its location: the Burt Reynolds museum in Jupiter Florida.

****

This review first appeared on Exclaim.ca

¡Alambrista!

¡Alambrista! (1977) dir. Robert M. Young
Starring: Domingo Ambriz, Trinidad Silva, Linda Gillen and Ned Beatty

By Alan Bacchus

Like recently revived indie landmarks The Exiles and Killer of Sheep, Robert M. Young’s immigration story, Alambrista, is a milestone in socio-political independent American cinema - a powerful salt-of-the-earth journey told with remarkable honesty and integrity.

Shot in 16mm with a unique verite aesthetic, at the time it was too didactic to become a hit like Easy Rider. Today its claim to fame is being the first-ever recipient of the Cannes Camera D’Or for Best First Feature. Now it's available in a wonderfully packaged and crisp-as-possible-looking Blu-ray transfer dutifully annointed by the arbiters of classic cinema, The Criterion Collection.

Gregory Nava’s El Norte (also Criterion) was a landmark film, but Young beat Nava by five years in telling the story of Mexican immigants making a living illegally in the United States. With the techniques learned from Young’s documentary background, Alambrista follows the journey of Roberto, a Mexican husband and new father who ventures across the border like thousands of others each year to make a living for his family in the most treacherous of lifesyles.

Young’s mobile camera, shooting wonderfully grainy 16mm film, follows Roberto on a roadtrip of sorts as we meet the men and women along the way who aid in his journey. Across the border in California Roberto is aided by a cocky and confident Joe, who shows him the ropes of being an Alambrista (meaning an ‘Illegal’), such as ordering breakfast in a diner or train-hopping or making oneself look American.
Young mixes his pathos with light humour and nimble, suspenseful action scenes. His ability to place his lightweight camera virtually anywhere he pleases enables him to shoot on trains, in nightclubs and other scenes with overachieving production value.

The film finds its emotional core when Roberto develops an unlikely romantic relationship with a local naïve diner waitress/single mother charmed by Roberto’s sensitivity and blind innocence. Young plays out this relationship wonderfully, at first passing it off as a means for Roberto to survive without disrespecting his abandoned family back home. But the relationship lasts longer than expected, eventually forcing Roberto to confront his immoral behaviour when he realizes he’s become a mirror of his own absent father.

Thus, Alambrista becomes more than just a slice of life or a documented aspect of American culture. It's a beautifully rendered and deceptive character study, brilliantly told.

****

¡Alambrista! is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.

Chinatown

Chinatown (1974) dir. Roman Polanski
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston

****

By Alan Bacchus

Chinatown is a unique Hollywood concoction – a gumshoe thriller in the classic noir genre, but also modern and beguiling. It’s a twister that unravels to reveal a salacious melodrama motivating a big business urban conspiracy.

Jake Gittes is an L.A. private detective in the 1930s. One day a woman named Evelyn Mulray enters his office and hires him to spy on her husband, Hollis Mulray, whom she suspects of cheating. Jake is initially hesitant to take the case, as he honestly explains that she’s better off not knowing because it would cause more pain for her. Mulray is insistent that Jake take the case. Jake follows Mulray around for several days. He discovers he’s the chief engineer of the city’s water department. There’s a major drought in the city of Los Angeles, and Mulray is in the middle of a heated debate about an expensive new dam project. Despite all this, Gittes’ investigation reveals a conspiracy involving the city dumping precious water in secret overnight. Gittes performs his job and captures Mulray’s rendezvous with a young girl. But when Hollis Mulray turns up dead the next day, and a different woman shows up claiming to be the real Evelyn Mulray, Gittes realizes he’s been set up in an elaborate murderous plot.

With his pride and reputation on the line Gittes retraces his steps to uncover the conspiracy. He develops a relationship with the real Evelyn Mulray (Faye Dunaway). Evelyn, a good-looking erudite woman with an emotional detachment to the mysterious goings-on, intrigues Jake and he takes her case to find the other woman who was seeing her husband. No one seems to be telling the truth, not even Evelyn, and as Gittes moves through the city of Los Angeles, the stakes get higher and higher. When he meets Evelyn’s father, Noah Cross (John Huston), who owns the water company, we realize the conspiracy is as personally motivated as it is money-driven. Chinatown’s byzantine plot expands larger as the film moves along becoming a big business conspiracy about the creation of modern-day L.A. and a searing melodrama with operatic plot twists.

I’ve seen the film several times and it still confounds me. The mechanics of the plot, like The Big Sleep, are notoriously difficult to follow. And though I do get lost each time I watch it, I’m comforted by the intermittent expository lines Towne gives Jake to say, which always helps me catch up.

Roman Polanski directs the film to perfection. Nobody has shot Los Angeles better than Polanski and his DOP, John Alonzo. For a film noir, they chose to shoot the film as bright and sunny as possible. Film noirs are traditionally shot in shadows and are under lit to complement the secretive elements of the genre, but Alonzo and Polanski hide nothing from us. They choose to beautify Los Angeles and bathe their characters in the brightest colours. Polanski’s camera follows Gittes very closely the entire film, much of it behind his neck. With a 2.35:1 wide angle frame we are able to see everything Jake sees and still see Jake’s wandering eyes and furrowing brows up close and personal. The handheld work is subtle. It’s so close to everything it becomes part of the action, but without the jerky movements that overtly remind us a camera is there. Sometimes the camera is so close to the actors we can feel it getting in the way. Watch the very end, after the shootout in Chinatown. When Jake and the cops run up to the car and see the damage done, Nicholson actually knocks the camera. It’s unintentional but unobtrusive and natural to the film.

Chinatown never tires. It contains so many indelible characters and situations, an unravelling plot that gets bigger and bigger as it goes along, beautiful locations and a modern quality that continues to resonate today.

Chinatown is available on glorious Blu-ray from Paramount Home Entertainment, the treasure of which is an audio commentary discussion between Robert Towne and David Fincher.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974) dir. Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones
Starring: John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam

****

By Alan Bacchus

After watching this film countless times in my youth, I'll admit my once boisterous laughs have turned to much quieter chuckles. Thus I envy those young people who will be seeing this for the first time. The fact is, in my life, there are only a handful of films that produced as much riotous, gut-wrenching laughter as Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

The legendary comic troupe needs no introduction, featuring six men― John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman and Terry Gilliam ― each with their own brand of comedy, working in complete harmony. Monty Python and the Holy Grail was their first original feature film, after the highly successful television series in the '60s/'70s and their first equally riotous sketch compilation feature, And Now For Something Completely Different.

The narrative is sketchy at best, inspired by the Arthurian tales, but it's just an excuse to string a bunch of new sketches together to lampoon the treasured medieval myth, dress up in period costumes and even mock their attempt to tell a legitimate story. Back then, the idea of breaking the fourth wall and self-referencing one's movie was ahead of its time. In the packaging of this new Blu-Ray edition and the previous DVD special edition, they've kept that theme going strong. Their cast commentaries are referred to as "Enlightening Commentaries by Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam, Plus General Complaints and Back-Biting by John Cleese, Eric Idle and Michael Palin." It's these throwaway gags that have kept the troupe relevant and fresh all these years.

The sketch-like plotting of the film means fresh new characters and gags constantly bombard us every minute. Leading the gang and playing Arthur is Graham Chapman, the most erudite of the bunch, who, as in The Life of Brian, often played the straight man to the more audacious antics of the others, thus underrating his contribution to the troupe's best bits. Some the more famous scenes include the "flesh wound" soldier, played by John Cleese; Eric Idle calling the townspeople to "bring out your dead"; the killer rabbit of Caerbannog; and the supremely silly failed Trojan Rabbit plan.

Not everything lands with a laugh. For what it's worth, I've never liked "the Knights who say, 'Ne'" gag, nor the three-headed knight. Much discussed in the Blu-Ray commentary is the arduous shoot, hampered by its low but ambitious budget. Gillam and Jones, however, executed some smart cinematic tricks to fool us, including some fine forced perspective work with the castles in the background, and for comedic purposes, using squires banging coconuts together instead of horses, resulting in one of the film's best gags. All of this information is conveyed to us in the mondo special features, with a mixture of informative reflection and irreverent silliness.

This review first appeared on Exclaim.ca