Monty Python\'s The Meaning of Life 1983 (Director\'s Cut +

Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life hit theaters in 1983, when the troupe was falling apart and both the surrealist sketch-comedy movement and the midnight-movie craze it helped pioneer were running out of steam. Yet the Pythons had stored up enough respectability to be granted a large Hollywood budget for The Meaning Of Life, which earned good reviews from mainstream critics and even won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, where a stunned audience made snap comparisons to Luis Buñuel and Jacques Tati. Those plaudits are unusual, given that The Meaning Of Life is the seamiest of the Python features, and represents the troupe's most uneven work since its television days. Essentially a series of dark, Python-esque sketches linked by the progression of humanity from birth to death, The Meaning Of Life finds co-directors Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam letting impressive (and oppressive) style overwhelm the nimble humor of the Python past. What saves the film are the polished performances of Jones, Gilliam, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, and Michael Palin, all of whom had been on stage and screen for so long by that point that they were capable of leaping in and out of characters and delivering impeccably timed speeches in extended takes. Even when the jokes are overly familiar—predicated on skewering such common Python targets as wimpy religious leaders, the pompous upper crust, and dim working-class slobs—they're still recited with confidence, and with a trained ear for the sound of human self-delusion. The new double-disc DVD of The Meaning Of Life features a comprehensive making-of documentary, as well as some amusing deleted scenes (a few of which have been reintegrated into the film) and a handful of lame new comedy pieces that are too self-deprecating and toothless to belong to the Python tradition. More substantial is the commentary track, on which Jones and Gilliam make a case for The Meaning Of Life as the group's collaborative pinnacle. From a comedy point of view, or even a "comment on life" point of view, they're wrong: Both Monty Python And The Holy Grail and Monty Python's Life Of Brian are insightful where The Meaning Of Life is nasty, and sidesplitting where the later film is merely amusing. But from a cinematic point of view, Jones and Gilliam may be right. On the DVD, Idle calls The Meaning Of Life "a punk film," and there's an element of rage in its obsession with sexual anxiety, dismemberment, and bodily fluids. From the grisly scene of live birth in a sterile hospital, where the doctors care more about the machines than the patient, to the grotesquely obese Mr. Creosote, who binges and purges simultaneously, The Meaning Of Life is unsparing and elaborate in its vision of humanity at its foulest.












[url]http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085959[/url]


Extras included:

Snipped Bits (Deleted Scenes)
Martin Luther
An Expert
The Cheese Lady
Randy in the Jungle
The Hendys
Mr. Creosote Arrives at the Restaurant
Gaston Takes Us for a Good Walk


The School of Life
The Meaning of Making the Meaning of Life (this is the main extra)
Education Tips
Un film de John Cleese
Remastering a Masterpiece


Show Biz

Song and Dance
Songs Unsung - includes Christmas in Heaven, Every Sperm Is Sacred, It's The Meaning of Life
Selling The Meaning of life - includes Rejects (rejected posters), "Telepathy", Trailer and TV Spots, UK Radio and US Promotion


Fish

Virtual Reunion
What Fish Think


Source: PAL DVD9 x 2 discs
File Name .........................................: The.Meaning.of.Life.(Director's.Cut.2003).2Audio.DVDRip.XviD-OwL.avi
File Size (in bytes) ............................: 1,865,106,744 bytes
Runtime ............................................: 1:51:42

Video Codec ...................................: XviD ISO MPEG-4
Frame Size ......................................: 704x384 (AR: 1.833)
FPS .................................................: 25.000
Video Bitrate ...................................: 1699 kb/s
Bits per Pixel ...................................: 0.251 bpp
B-VOP, N-VOP, QPel, GMC.............: [B-VOP], [], [], []

Audio Codec ...................................: 0x2000 (Dolby AC3) AC3
Sample Rate ...................................: 48000 Hz
Audio Bitrate ...................................: 384 kb/s [6 channel(s)] CBR
No. of audio streams .......................: 2

Audio 1: AC3 5.1 384kbps
Audio 2: MP3 128 kbps stereo

----

File Name .........................................: The Meaning of Making the Meaning of Life.avi
File Size (in bytes) ............................: 545,934,490 bytes
Runtime ............................................: 49:00.040

Video Codec ...................................: XviD ISO MPEG-4
Frame Size ......................................: 640x368 (AR: 1.739)
FPS .................................................: 25.000
Video Bitrate ...................................: 1283 kb/s
Bits per Pixel ...................................: 0.218 bpp
B-VOP, N-VOP, QPel, GMC.............: [B-VOP], [], [], []

Audio Codec ...................................: 0x2000 (Dolby AC3) AC3
Sample Rate ...................................: 48000 Hz
Audio Bitrate ...................................: 192 kb/s [2 channel(s)] CBR
No. of audio streams .......................: 1