The Meaning of Life (1983)
Actors:
Graham Chapman (actor),
Graham Chapman (actor),
Graham Chapman (actor),
Graham Chapman (actor),
Graham Chapman (actor),
Graham Chapman (actor),
Graham Chapman (actor),
Graham Chapman (actor),
Graham Chapman (actor),
Graham Chapman (actor),
Graham Chapman (actor),
Graham Chapman (actor),
Graham Chapman (actor),
Graham Chapman (actor),
Graham Chapman (actor),
Plot: Why are we here, what's it all about? The Monty Python-team is trying to sort out the most important question on Earth: what is the meaning of life? They do so by exploring the various stages of life, starting with birth. A doctor seems more interested in his equipment than in delivering the baby or caring for the mother, a Roman Catholic couple have quite a lot of children because 'every sperm is sacred'. In the growing and learning part of life, catholic schoolboys attend a rather strange church service and ditto sex education lesson. Onto war, where an officer's plan to attack is thwarted by his underlings wanting to celebrate his birthday and an officer's leg is bitten off by presumably an African tiger. At middle age a couple orders 'philosophy' at a restaurant, after which the film continues with live organ transplants. The autumn years are played in a restaurant, which, after being treated to the song 'Isn't It Awfully Nice to Have a Penis?' by an entertainer, sees the arrival of an extremely fat man. He can eat a lot, but also throw up quite copiously. The Grim Reaper brings for the final stage of human life, death, a visit to a mansion, where the people are rather interested in him. But life doesn't stop at death. It's onto heaven, where it's always Christmas.
Keywords: 1870s, 1910s, 1980s, 19th-century, 20th-century, absurd-humor, absurdism, acting-like-a-fish, actor-playing-multiple-roles, africa
Genres:
Comedy,
Musical,
Taglines: What it is, Where it is, and how to avoid treading in it [Video Australia] It took God six days to create the earth, and Monty Python just 90 minutes to screw it up.
Quotes:
Hospital Administrator: And what are you doing this morning?::Obstetrician: It's a birth.::Hospital Administrator: Ah. And what sort of thing is that?::Dr. Spenser: Well, that's where we take a new baby out of a lady's tummy.::Hospital Administrator: Wonderful what we can do nowdays.
Man in Pink: [singing] Whenever life gets you down Mrs. Brown / and things seem hard or tough / and people are stupid, obnoxious or daft / and you feel that you've had quite enough! / just remember that your standing on a planet thats evolving / revolving at nine-hundred miles an hour / its orbiting at ninety miles a second / so its reckoned / a sun that is the source of all our power / the sun and you and me / and all the stars that we can see / are moving at a million miles a day / in an outer spiral arm at forty-thousand miles an hour / of the galaxy we call the Milky Way / Our galaxy itself / contains a hundred billion stars / its a hundred thousand lightyears side to side / it bulges in the middle / sixteen-thousand lightyears thick / but out by us its just three-thousand lightyears wide / were thirty-thousand lightyears from galatic central point / we go round every two-hundred-million years / and our galaxy is only one of millions of billions in this amazing and expanding universe. [musical interlude] The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding / in all of the directions it can whiz / as fast as it can go / the speed of light you know / twelve million miles a minute and thats the fastest speed there is / so remember when your feeling very small and insecure / how amazingly unlikely is your birth / and pray that there intelligent life somewhere up in space / cause theres bugger all down here on Earth.
Noel Coward: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Here's a little number I tossed off recently in the Caribbean. [singing] Isn't it awfully nice to have a penis? / Isn't it frightfully good to have a dong? / It's swell to have a stiffy. / It's divine to own a dick, / From the tiniest little tadger / To the world's biggest prick. / So, three cheers for your Willy or John Thomas. / Hooray for your one-eyed trouser snake, / Your piece of pork, your wife's best friend, / Your Percy, or your cock. / You can wrap it up in ribbons. / You can slip it in your sock, / But don't take it out in public, / Or they will stick you in the dock, / And you won't come back.
Grim Reaper: Englishmen, you're all so fucking pompous. None of you have got any balls.
Grim Reaper: Shut up, you American. You Americans, all you do is talk, and talk, and say "let me tell you something" and "I just wanna say." Well, you're dead now, so shut up.
Father: The mill's closed. There's no more work. We're destitute.::Children: Ohhhhh.::Father: I'm afraid I have no choice but to sell you all for scientific experiments.
Gaston: You see that house? That is where I was born. My mother said to me, "Garcon. The world is a beautiful place, and you must spread joy and contentment everywhere you go". And so I became a waiter... Well, I know it is not a great philosophy but... [pauses, looks offended] Well, fuck you. I can live my life in my own way if I want to. [begins to walk away in disgust] Fuck off. Don't come following me.
Chaplain: Let us praise God. O Lord...::Congregation: O Lord...::Chaplain: ...Ooh, You are so big...::Congregation: ...ooh, You are so big...::Chaplain: ...So absolutely huge.::Congregation: ...So absolutely huge.::Chaplain: Gosh, we're all really impressed down here, I can tell You.::Congregation: Gosh, we're all really impressed down here, I can tell You.::Chaplain: Forgive us, O Lord, for this, our dreadful toadying, and...::Congregation: And barefaced flattery.::Chaplain: But You are so strong and, well, just so super.::Congregation: Fantastic.::Humphrey: Amen.::Congregation: Amen.
Maitre d': Good evening sir and how are we today?::Mr. Creosote: Better.::Maitre d': Better?::Mr. Creosote: Better get a bucket. I'm gonna throw up.
Paitent: What do I do?::Dr. Spenser: Nothing, dear! You're not qualified!
The Disappearance (1977)
Actors:
David Hemmings (actor),
David Warner (actor),
Prudence Emery (miscellaneous crew),
David Hemmings (producer),
Virginia McKenna (actress),
John Hurt (actor),
Milena Canonero (costume designer),
Christopher Plummer (actor),
Peter Bowles (actor),
Donald Sutherland (actor),
James Mitchell (producer),
Patricia Hodge (actress),
Eric Boyd-Perkins (editor),
Monique Champagne (miscellaneous crew),
Stuart Cooper (director),
Plot: Contract hit man Jay Mallory works for an unknown organization. He returns home to his downtown Montréal apartment one winter day to find that his wife, Celandine, is gone. Mallory initially thinks that Celandine has left on her own volition since theirs was a sometimes stormy, albeit passionate, relationship. However, words from Mallory's main point of contact at the organization, Burbank, indicate that Celandine's disappearance may be associated with Mallory's last hit. Shortly after their discussion, Burbank himself disappears. The organization assigns Mallory another job in Suffolk, England. Mallory has a feeling that there is something unusual about this job - he is given little initial information including not knowing who the target is - and that it too is associated with Celandine's disappearance. Despite feeling that he may be being set up, Mallory decides to take the job anyway to see how it plays out and if it leads him back to Celandine.
Keywords: based-on-novel, bathtub, betrayal, canadian-noir, contract-killing, cornflakes, death-of-protagonist, disappearance, female-nudity, flashback
Genres:
Drama,
Thriller,
Taglines: A violent passion held them together. A passion for violence ripped them apart.