Monty Python Box Set [3 Discs]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

You want Monty...you got it! You want completely hilarious...well this is it! This 3-disc rib-tickling set includes Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1972/90 min.) starring the whole Monty gang, And Now For Something Completely Different (1972/90 min.), the first Monty full-length feature and finishes with The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. (1988/127 min.) as an added bonus. 3 DVDs. Color/NR.

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 3
• Audio: Dolby Digital Stereo
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (Theatre Wide Screen)
• Screen: Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
• Features:
  • cc

AWARDS

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

•     Nominated Best Art Direction - 1989 (Francesca Lo Schiavo, Dante Ferretti)
•     Nominated Best Costume Design - 1989 (Gabriella Pescucci)
•     Nominated Best Makeup - 1989 (Fabrizio Sforza, Maggie Weston)
•     Nominated Best Visual Effects - 1989 (Richard Conway, Kent Houston)

• British Academy of Film and Television Arts

•     Won Best Makeup - 1990 (Fabrizio Sforza, Pam Meager)
•     Won Best Costume Design - 1989 (Gabriella Pescucci)
•     Won Best Production Design - 1989 (Dante Ferretti)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Graham Chapman - King Arthur
       Eric Idle - Berthold
       Eric Idle - Various roles
       Eric Idle - Sir Robin
       Charles McKeown - Rupert/Adolphus
       Michael Palin - Sir Galahad
       Jack Purvis - Gustavus
       Valentina Cortese - Queen Ariadne/Violet
       Bill Paterson - Henry Salt
       Peter Jeffrey - The Sultan
       Alison Steadman - Daisy
       Ray Cooper - Functionary
       Andrew Maclachlan - Colonel
       Mohamed Salem Badr - Executioner
       Kiran Shah - Executioner's Assistant
       Ettore Martini - First General
       Jose Lifante - Dr. Death
       Bee Duffell - Old Crone to Whom King Arthur Said "Ni--"

• Director:

  Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Ian MacNaughton

• Producer:

  Mark Forstater, Michael White, Patricia Casey, Thomas Schühly

• Screenwriter:

  Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Charles McKeown

• Book Author:

  Gottfried Burger

• Cinematographer:

  Terry Bedford, David Muir, Giuseppe Rotunno

• Composer (Music Score):

  Neil Innes, De Wolfe, Douglas Gamley, Michael Kamen

• Editor:

  Thom Noble, Tom Noble, Peter Hollywood

• Production Designer:

  Roy Forge Smith, Dante Ferretti

• Art Director:

  Colin Grimes, Maria Teresa Barbasso, Massimo Razzi

• Co-producer:

  Ray Cooper

• Supervising Producer:

  Stratton Leopold

• Executive Producer:

  John Goldstone, Victor Lownes II, Jake Eberts

• Set Designer:

  Francesca Lo Schiavo

• Costume Designer:

  Hazel Pethig, Gabriella Pescucci

• Makeup:

  Maggie Weston

• Special Effects:

  Julian Doyle, Richard Conway

• First Assistant Director:

  Douglas Hermes, Michele Soavi, Lee Cleary

• Animator:

  Terry Gilliam

• Camera Operator:

  Howard Atherton

• Stunts:

  Tony Smart

• Choreography:

  Leo Kharibian, Pino Penesse, Giorgio Rossi

• Production Manager:

  Kevin Francis

• Casting:

  Margery Simkin, Irene Lamb

• Continuity:

  Zelda Barron

• Line Producer:

  David Tomblin

• Short Story Author:

  Rudolph Erich Raspe

REVIEWS:

• The fabled Baron von Munchausen appeared in a number of live-action and animated screen incarnations prior to 1989, including Josef von Baky's 1943 UFA-funded, Goebbels-produced Munchausen. Yet Terry Gilliam bravely resisted the temptation to rework any of those prior screen versions. Instead, his film is twofold. On the most rudimentary level, he uses the Munchausen stories as a kind of loose framework on which to hang an assortment of the most audacious visual fireworks ever to illuminate the silver screen. And on that basis, the work is truly extraordinary, bringing to light effects unlike any created before or since in a Western feature, which defy all boundaries of form, dimension, and logic. Consequently, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen -- like Ray Harryhausen's 7th Voyage of Sinbad 30 years prior -- held captive the imaginations of those viewers who were fortunate enough to catch this film as children, during its initial theatrical run. From the "animated constellations" that swirl and gyrate through the celestial fabric, to the scythe-wielding Grim Reaper who bursts forth from an inert stone statue, sending stone shards flaying off omnidirectionally, to the glimpse of a white sand-filled sea of tranquility with the half-buried stone head of some obscure lunar monarch in the foreground, Gilliam plunges breathlessly and rapturously into a preadolescent visual dreamscape. If the film only functioned as a collection of visual pyrotechnics (as many assumed), it would indeed be disappointing; instead, Gilliam intuitively plunges deeper, and the film gains longevity from its thematic level.
  
  With Baron, Gilliam completed a planned screen trilogy on the theme of imagination as it triumphs over stiff-necked reason and logic. This thematic triumvirate began some eight years prior with Time Bandits, continued with 1985's only fitfully successful but equally ambitious sci-fi tragicomedy Brazil, and wraps with Baron. And that theme is the glue that holds this massively overscaled, freewheeling production together, ingeniously justifying every one of Gilliam's deliberate logical and temporal lapses (particularly in the confusing denouement). With -- as an added bonus -- the one-of-a-kind Pythonesque humor that flavors the majority of Gilliam's screen works providing much-needed lunacy and comic relief, the film earns its right to masterpiece status. Unfortunately, Western audiences did not agree. This outrageously expensive film (presumably greenlit during David Puttnam's tenure at Columbia) confounded many American viewers and slipped by others, bringing untold financial loss for the studio. Gilliam survived, however, rebounding to box-office gold two and a half years later, with the Christmas 1991 blockbuster The Fisher King. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
• The first feature-length film from Monty Python, the quintet of physically and verbally gymnastic British sketch comics, is not only widely considered their funniest, but one of the funniest films ever committed to celluloid. Known for abruptly ending TV skits mid-stream with the segue "And now for something completely different" -- due both to their distaste for writing endings and their ADD giddiness to move onward -- the troupe finds uncharacteristic continuity here, examining one fertile topic from each of its absurd angles. Yet the movie is still comprised of distinct segments, any of which could serve as a favorite for fans who want to recite the choicest dialogue and make converts of the uninitiated. But for five minutes of sheer uncontrollable hysterics, one need only watch the scene in which Graham Chapman steadily lops the limbs from a foolishly determined knight, who continues issuing taunts even after he's been totally neutralized. Irritated more than threatened, Chapman's King Arthur keeps hacking at the prating cripple just to shut him up -- it's the only sane reaction in this ridiculous world full of delusional windbags. Chapman is a wonderful constant as the frustrated straight man, and his colleagues lob one demented set piece after another "in his general direction." The temptation is to enumerate these clever interludes, but a catapulted cow really needs to be seen to be appreciated. The only time Monty Python and the Holy Grail stumbles is at its sudden ending, a cop-out that's pure Python. Or maybe it's just that any end to such enlightened joke slinging is cause for lament. ~ Derek Armstrong, Rovi