Da'ud Bob's Movie Review
for
  May 2024


This month's review never appeared in any of the monthly newsletters or in the regular Da'ud Bob ibn Briggs Goes to the Movies collections; it only was published in The Very Best (and Worst) of Da'ud Bob ibn Briggs Goes to the Movies, put in print 25 years ago in 1999. But it's a Classic!




Oh, dear, oh, dear.  Where to begin?  The subject of this review is a movie that probably everyone in the SCA has seen, and memorized many of the lines from.  And those few who actually haven’t seen the movie have heard many of the lines, even if they may not realize it.  And it’s not even a terribly good movie.  Low budget, with production values than really cannot be considered to be very high.  The plot is only there in the widest, most general sense.  It’s really nothing more than a series of short skits, only loosely tied together.  It ends with nothing really having been accomplished.  And yet, it remains pretty much a classic, one of the movies which helps define the SCA’s approach to the Middle Ages.  And so it is that Da’ud Bob reviews Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

This one, like most of the other Python movies, stars the entire Monty Python crew in multiple roles as just about everybody in the movie: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin, with some help from Neil Innes (who also wrote the songs), Connie Booth and Carol Cleveland.  The plot of the movie can be broken down into two basic parts:  Part I: Arthur seeks knights.  Part II: Arthur and his knights seek the Holy Grail.  There, that’s it.  No plot to get in the way of the mayhem.

Good points.  Real mail.  Sir Robin’s minstrel.  Many of the pot and barrel helms.

Bad points.  Fake mail.  Metal on metal heraldry.  Horned helms.  The dragon-headed ship sailing into the wind.

Ah, but the script!  “Where’d you get the coconuts?”  “Must be a king.  He hasn’t got shit all over ‘im.”  “I thought we were an autonomous collective.”  “If I went around callin’ myself Emperor just because some watery tart lobbed a scimitar at me, I’d be a laughingstock.”  “I’ve had worse.”  “It’s just a flesh wound.”  “I can defeat them.  There’s only 150 of them.”  “I blow my nose at you.”  “Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries.”  “Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time.”  “She has ... vast tracts of land.”  “That one burned down, fell over, and sank into the swamp.”  “And there was much rejoicing.”  “That rodent has a vicious streak a mile wide.”  “One rabbit stew comin’ right up.”  “We have the Holy Hand Grenade.”  “And the number of the counting shall be three.”  “Five is right out.”  “What is your quest?”  “Well, you have to know these things when you’re a king, you know.”  “You tiny-brained wipers of other people’s bottoms.”

Zero breasts.  5½ gallons of blood.  39 dead bodies (including the Historian).  Dead cart rolls.  Wooden rabbit rolls.  Waves roll.  Police car rolls.  Great sword fu.  Sword fu.  Cow fu.  Duck fu.  Wooden rabbit fu.  Arrow fu.  Rabbit fu.  Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch fu.  Offal fu.  Gratuitous Swedish subtitles.  Gratuitous forehead beating.  (“Pie iesu domine.  Thump!  Dona eis requiem.  Thump!”)  Gratuitous armored chorus line.  Gratuitous Grail-shaped beacon.  Gratuitous “Book of the Film”.  Gratuitous Ralph the Wonder Llama.  Gratuitous sacking during the opening credits.  The Bridge of Death over the Gorge of Eternal Peril.  Academy Award nomination to “Brave Sir Robin” for soiling his armor a number of times and for bearing Quarterly checky argent and vert and argent, a chicken passant regardant sable.  96 on the Vomit Meter.  Three and a half stars.  Da’ud Bob says “Check it out!”




Upcoming movies and miniseries to watch for!


Snow White
March 21, 2025		 Starring Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen, Rachel Zegler as Snow White, Andrew Burnap, and Ansu Kabia, this Disney production is a live-action "reinterpretation" of the 1937 animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This movie has gone from an early 2024 release to an early 2025 release.


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