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

It's like going to a restaurant, the starter is "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and then comes the piece of resistance "Life of Brian" and if you look at the right side of life, I mean, kitchen, you'll see the dessert coming with "The Meaning of Life", a bit lighter but you've had a good meal already. What's that got to do with "And Now Something Completely Different"? Well, you have the film that played the role of the appetizer.As far as Monty Python's history goes, there will be a before and an after 'Flying Circus' in Britain, and a before and after 'And Now For Something Completely Different" in the rest of the world, where foreign audiences will discover that they're onto now something completely different on the field of humor."And Now For Something Completely Different",This is the recurring joke that marks a brief pause between the sketches, an interlude that is as hilarious as Gilliam's trademark animation. But talk about misleading audiences: yes, they're right in the sense that they do introduce something completely different, but if you expect another display of purely British absurd humor meant to produce a reaction of hilarity, the word 'different' IS misleading. That's just to say, this film, which was the first to introduce the Monty Python to the American audience by playing some of their most famous sketches without an audience, is simply the greatest monument to their comedic genius, you'll laugh, you'll chuckle, you'll faint and you'll hurl.Well, that's it. What can I say now? Nice weather isn't it? Mmm, I don't know, I don't think there's any need to get further, who is going to read this anyway? One who saw the film knows how great it is, and one who didn't will check by himself if he didn't, and since the opening sketch is "How Not to be Seen", well, I don't think one can consider the film as unfunny after that. So, I don't know I'm wasting my time writing this while I have probably more constructive things to do.Well, not precisely at this time, I'm unemployed and it's ten o'clock PM, so this would be the most appropriate time to write a little review. Or maybe I should go in my bed with my wife… our marriage is a real wreck… Wait … maybe I should get back to the point.(clearing throat)So, what's the film about? It's about a TV political program praising the virtues of not being seen, ever, providing some advice many stars of our time should follow, it is also about an accountant who dreams to become a lion tamer, a dirty book that translates Hungarian with naughty words, it's about gang of old ladies or baby snatchers, it's about a lumberjack (who's okay), a writer who wrote the deadliest joke in the world, so deadly even a chuckle can kill you, it's about a contest of upper class twats, a dirty fork's comment that escalated quickly, and many many many other glorious attempts to be funny that actually works, some better than others, but the lesser ones work better than the better of today's inner lesser programs, get my point? I can't be serious while reviewing the film but I hope it conveys the point that this film is exactly what was war according to Clemenceau, something too serious to be given to generals, humor is too serious to be given to comedians, Monty Python aren't comedians, they operate beyond the requirements of comedy, they know the structures by the book, when to put a punch line but most of the time, they get nowhere, there is something so instinctive in their humor that you just wait until the genius clicks, when it doesn't, it means that the premise of the sketch might have been overestimated but when it does, it's laugh-out-loud that justify the more timid chuckles, what a small price to say to have a good old belly-laugh.I enjoyed the film, I remembered I used to watch it with my high-school friend, yes, I'm a nerd (and I'm okay), it contains some of the funniest jokes ever and that it didn't meet with the initial public shows how sophisticated it was for their time and yet they could make you laugh with a few fast-motion and grimaces. You can't just label Monty Python, they're beyond any form of humor with humor as the focal point, the punctuation mark, the package, the structure and the deconstructive elements, many writers write gags with the basic elements: set-up-gag- punch-line, even the set-up in its own right is funny.And now for something completely different… is a fantastic showcase of Pythonesque humor, one that will never cease to be, kick the bucket or be told about like a certain Blue-Norwegian parrot. Got my point, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more, say no more

It's an adjustment seeing classic bits of television comedy being repurposed for the cinema. The first-ever film by TV's Monty Python troupe offers an enjoyable, if rather restrained, showcase of reshot series excerpts.What "And Now For Something Completely Different" lacks in originality, it makes up for in zaniness and wit. Meet a group of elderly ladies who terrorize city streets: "We like pulling the heads off sheep...and tea cakes."Thrill to a fight to the death for the title "Upper-Class Twit of the Year:" "He doesn't know when he's beaten...He doesn't know when he's winning, either. He has no sort of sensory apparatus known to man."Learn why British film directors don't like being called "Eddie Baby," "Angel Drawers," or "Frank," even if President Nixon has a hedgehog by that name.It's also a chance to see the stars of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" with longer hair and shaggier sideburns, except for Terry Gilliam who makes just a couple of token appearances while sticking to animation. John Cleese steals much of the show with his delicious overacting, yet Eric Idle makes the strongest impression as everything from a randy marriage counselor to one of Hell's Grannies. Meanwhile, Terry Jones squints, Michael Palin smirks, and Graham Chapman disapproves of everything. None are as sensational as they would become, but all make impressions.For all that it has going for it, "And Now" connects only about half the time. Gilliam's animation seems slower and more ponderous here than it did on television, and the one-joke nature of his cartoons gets exposed in a way they didn't as television interstitials. A kind of pokiness cuts into the live-action material as well, like bits involving mice that squeal on key when hit with a hammer and men with tape recorders up their noses. Each of these may be only a minute or so, but they feel much longer.Several of Python's best-loved sketches don't appear here, like the Ministry of Silly Walks, the Spanish Inquisition, and the Crunchy Frog. The best-known sketch that does appear, the Dead Parrot, is actually a little dead itself for some reason. Director Ian MacNaughton was Python's usual director for television, and if anything shoots things in an even flatter manner here than he did for the BBC. Perhaps it's because television was Python's medium, for the way it offered a kind of subversive platform for their entertainments.Other sketches do shine. The Funniest Joke in the World is a great laugh unless you're German, in which case view with caution. Even better is the Milkman sketch, which demonstrates the pitfall of falling for the wrong woman.Overall, "And Now" makes for a fine Python primer, a starter course as another reviewer suggests. It's not a landmark film, or even that major a milestone by Python standards, but it delivers some laughs along with a sense of what these guys were about.

*** 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.