This was the first of many Monty Python feature length films made and it's as hilarious as you would expect. I will admit that I don't like it how it's just reusing sketches from the show. Even better movies like "The Meaning Of Life" used all new material and worked better. The funny thing is that I haven't seen that many episodes of Monty Python. There are just so many online clips I've seen. There's actually a funny story behind that.The creators of Monty Python were aware that people were putting their sketches on YouTube and tried an experiment. They decided that for awhile, they would allow people to post sketches and see if it would hurt their DVD sales. The sales actually went up and you can see them on YouTube! My favorite year would probably be the self defense against fruit. The show still did it better, though. Hard to not like anything with these guys. ***1/2

If you want an introduction to the surreal Monty Python humour of their early years then this film is a good introduction with sketches and animation from the first two BBC series.Some of the sketches do look slightly different as they were filmed and of course they are slicker.I think in the movie you can better appreciate Terry Gilliam's cartoons. You also have the classic sketches and links such as The accountant wanting to be a lion tamer, Blackmail, Dead parrot sketch, Lumberjack song, Upper class twit of the year, Hells grannies, The amorous marriage guidance counsellor.If you do not like this you will face the Spanish Inquisition, which is not here.

The first of the four MONTY PYTHON movies is simply a compilation of popular sketches from the first series of the TV show MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS. All of the most famous sketches are here, from the lumberjack song to the dead parrot sequence, and they're all handled with aplomb.While the series has clearly dated in the forty years since release, I found AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY to have plenty to offer to modern viewers. First, there's the influx of surreal humour that would make the likes of Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel proud; secondly, there's a sense of madcap energy coming from the performers, each of them hard at work playing multiple roles throughout, and third, it just happens to be very funny.Of the entire film, my favourite sketch is the last, the 'Upper Class Twit of the Year' competition, but that's merely the cherry on a hugely tasty cake. There's a definite predominance of successful over unsuccessful gags here, making this a real riot and a perfect introduction to the concept for newcomers.

*** MAJOR SPOILER ALERT *** A man walks into the office of a guidance counselor, and takes a seat. The counselor advises the man that he has looked over his aptitude tests and has concluded that the best position suited to him would be as an accountant. "But I am an accountant," the man says, "I have been one for the past 20 years. I want something exciting that will let me live." He reports that his current job is desperately dull and boring, to which the counselor informs him that his tests reveal that he is dull and boring. The job he wants: lion tamer. This despite the fact he has no training and seems to have mistaken lions for aardvarks. He does have a proper hat though. The counselor informs us that "This is what accountancy does to people." That's the grand anarchic spirit of Monty Python. Grab a normal scenario and whip it into something so over-exaggerated and silly that we almost have to laugh at the concept. I think the British are experts at this. There's a drollery to their delivery that allows a scene like that to work. Week after week, this was what made the best parts of The Monty Python troup's TV show "Monty Python's Flying Circus" work. They adopted a sort-of shotgun approach to their sketches, firing every idea at us no matter how ridiculous and hoping that one of them would make us laugh.The laugh ratio on the show was about 40%. Some sketched worked but many did not. Their first feature film And Now for Something Completely Different culls their best sketches into a kind of "Best of" collection. These sketches are not just replays from the show, but actually reenactments, on film without an audience. The laugh ratio in the film is about 70/30. Many of their ideas work if you're willing to stretch your imagination.The troup, which is comprised of six players - Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin - work exhaustively throughout this film to play more than 100 different characters, are so willing to make us laugh that they will come up with nearly anything. That would explain an opening scene featuring a man who claims to have a tape recorder up his nose. He presses one nostril and the tape plays "La Marseillaise". He presses the other nostril and he can rewind the tape. Even stranger is the follow-up act featuring the man's brother who suffers from the same affliction, this time the song plays in stereo. Far from classic comedy, but you get the idea.My favorite is a sketch called "Hell's Grannies", which involves a news report dealing with a roving gang of little old ladies who beat young men over the head with their pocket books. We see them in their flowered hats, swinging their purses and roaring around on their motorcycles while wrapped in shawls. One nervous citizen in a leather jacket and a Jolly Roger helmet informs us that "It's not even safe to go out to the shops anymore." The news reporter lets us know that their domain is "a world in which the surgical stocking is king". Only slightly worse are a roving gang of baby snatchers, grown men in diapers who snatch adults from in front of grocery stores.One of the best creative touches in the film is the way in which the sketches are linked together. One sketch leads into the next in a way this oddly fitting. For example the scene with the accountant ends with a fairy waving his magic wand and giving the accountant something more exciting. That makes him the host of the game show that is the next sketch. It is called "Blackmail" a sadistic game show in which privately obtained films of adultery are shown, and the person on the film has to call in with a cash offer so the show will stop running the film.All of this is very subjective and no one laughs at exactly the same thing. That's pretty much what makes Monty Python work. Either you are in on the joke or you're looking for laughter elsewhere. Either the sight of an armed bank robber committing his crime only the discover that he has walked into a lingerie shop is funny to you or it isn't. For me, I laughed most of the time, the rest I was left scratching my head. Maybe that was the point.