The script was then rejected by every major movie studio before Idle and producer John Goldstone turned to former Beatle George Harrison, who quickly secured the required $4 million.
Right, but besides Sgt. Pepper, Life of Brian, and the invention of the CT scanner [1], what have the Beatles ever done for us?
I used to work for EMI and I'd never heard of that before. I think that just goes to show part of the problem with the big record companies now, they don't seem to like getting their name out there attached to good things anymore.
"However, current tastes and sensitivities make it highly unlikely that a comedy group would even attempt making a film like Brian today"
It seems from the article that it was highly unlikely that a comedy group would even attempt making a film like Brian in 1979.
I highly recommend Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyer's Cut) - it's a great documentary about Python. The author of the article appears several times.
While I respect your opinion, I think your missing the point.
The point is that in both cases, a movie was made about religion that was also (an attempt at) a comedy.
That aside, I agree that LOB was more insightful, but I think there is something interesting about what Dogma did. It was an attempt to look at the modern day implications of taking the bible literally. You can say they sucked at it if you want, but its a neat idea.
It's interesting to me that this showed up on HN, as I remember Monty Python being a huge part of my first experiences with the internet. Before searching was so easy, I would spend hours looking up quotes, scripts, clips, and so on.
I might be tempted to say something else that 'Life of Brian' did for us was give people like me reasons to become more familiar with the internet, leading to careers in programming, etc.
Well fwiw Grail is rated higher on IMDB than LoB. And I can agree that some (a lot?) of the skits in Meaning of Life are pure gold, but overall it lacks the narrative that ties both Brian and Grail together.
Life of Brian being rated as one of the best British comedies I can understand if only because it had more of a broader appeal (at least more widespread coverage thanks to the religious hullaballoo).
Grail on the other hand, may appeal to the cult market more and be more popular on that front (being the type of people who might vote on IMDB).
I'm grasping at straws here, but at least in my books the religious aspect of Brian (combined with the overall quality of the film) would lead me to say that it's more important than the other two Python films.
It's also telling that the two films you regard as better than Life of Brian are both by the Pythons :)
Indeed, The Invention of Lying by Ricky Gervais makes the case that religion wouldn't exist at all in a world without liars and peddlers of false hope. That seems pretty damn blasphemous to me.
Today in more enlightened times it's illegal to make jokes about any religion, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/rowan-atkinso...