The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Roger Ebert started his review by saying, “The motto of Second City is “Something Wonderful Right Away,” and maybe Terry Gilliam has the words displayed on his mirror when he shaves every morning. He has never faltered. “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” could be seen as a sideshow version of his own life, with him playing the role of the pitchman who lures you into his fantasies. That they may seem extravagant and overheated, all smoke and mirrors, is, after all, in their very nature.”

The story in Gilliam’s excited 2009 film is all over the place, as usual, but this time there’s a reason. His crazy inventions in character, costumes, and CGI effects are described for by a plot that requires revolving worlds. Ebert noted, “Elements of this plot were made necessary by the death of Heath Ledger halfway into the filming, but the plot itself I think was in place from the first.”

It involves a strange, ragged traveling show that comes out of a broken old wagon in dilapidated areas of London consisted mostly of alcoholics and uglies. The show includes the ancient Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) sitting worryingly on a stool while his barker, Anton (Andrew Garfield), his daughter, Valentina (Lily Cole), and his angry little person, Percy (Mini Me from the “Austin Powers” trilogy, Verne Troyer), perform for a rowdy crowd of lager ruffians.

Percy and Anton save the life of a man hanging from a bridge. They never explain why they can only perform this duty. The man on the rope is Tony, played by the late Heath Ledger in his final role. He joins the show, is shocked by its outdated form and suggests changes. The reason it’s stiff is because Parnassus has been around for centuries, having made a deal with Satan, played by Tom Waits, to live forever only if Satan can have Valentina when she turns 16. Ebert noted, “You have to admit Parnassus didn’t rush into reproduction. Of course he wants out of the deal. Satan frequently runs into credit payment risks.”

What is done is Tony can enter/suggest/control/create strange worlds on the other side of a looking glass on the rundown stage. In these worlds, anything goes, which is always what Gilliam does. CGI allows the director and his designers to go crazy, what they do so quickly, and some incredible visions are made.

Ebert mentioned, “I believe Ledger was intended to be the guide through all of these realms. But Gilliam apparently completed filming all the outer-world London scenes, Ledger returned to New York for R&R, and the rest is sad history.” Gilliam replaced him by casting Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell as the Tonys of Imaginariums Nos. 1 through 3 and giving no other explanation, as you can see with Imaginariums, he isn’t required to do. Depp looks the most like Ledger, but it’s a sad fact that Farrell steals the role.

Ebert admitted, “My problem with Gilliam’s films is that they lack a discernible storyline. I don’t require A-B-C, Act 1-2-3, but I do rather appreciate having some notion of a film’s own rules. Gilliam indeed practices “Something Wonderful Right Away,” and you get the notion that if an idea pops into his head, he feels free to write it into his script under the Cole Porter Rule (“Anything Goes”). Knowing my history with Gilliam, who I always want to like more than I do, I attended the Cannes screening of “Doctor Parnassus” to be baffled, which I was, and then the Chicago press screening, where I had an idea what was coming and tried to reopen my mind. Gilliam is, you understand, a nice man, and has never committed the sin of failing to amaze.”

Ebert continued, “Now what I see are a group of experienced actors gamely trying to keep their heads while all about are losing theirs. Can it be easy to play one-third of a guide to one-third of an arbitrary world? You just have to plunge in.” Ledger himself, who makes Tony fairly grounded in the “real” world, must have been prepared to do the same and would have given the story more continuity. Still, this is an Imaginarium indeed. The best way is to sit back and let it happen to you. See it in the moment and not with remembering it for long, which is what Parnassus does. It keeps his mind off Satan’s plans for his daughter.

I saw this on Tubi and I enjoyed it. As the last film Ledger was in before he passed, I thought this was well done. See it if you haven’t. You can still see it on Tubi and I think you should see it to know what I mean. This isn’t a film to take seriously. You just need to sit back and let everything happen. Don’t bring logic into this film.

Alright, we have come to the end of “Terry Gilliam Month.” I hope everyone enjoyed it. Stay tuned next month to see what other excitement I have for everyone.

The Brothers Grimm

Terry Gilliam’s “The Brothers Grimm,” released in 2005, is a work of countless invention, but it is invention without pattern, chasing itself around the screen without finding a plot. Watching it is a little tiring. If the images in the movie had been put to the duty of a story we could get engaged to, he might have had something. However, the movie looks like a style searching for a purpose.

He starts with the Brothers Grimm, whose fairy tales impress those lucky children whose parents still read to them. There is a scary quality to the Grimm stories that’s lacking in their Hollywood versions. Roger Ebert said in his review, “no modern version of Little Red Riding Hood approaches the scariness of the original story, where the Big Bad Wolf was generated not by computers but by my quaking imagination.”

However, Gilliam’s purpose is not to tell the fairy tales, however some of them have cameos in his movie. He makes the Brothers Grimm into traveling con artists, around 1796, who travel from village to village in Germany, making insincere magic and claiming it is real. Wilhelm Grimm, played by Matt Damon, is the operator of the duo, a greedy pessimist. His brother, Jacob, played by the late Heath Ledger, somewhat believes in magic. This is how it has been since “Jake” and “Will” were children, and Jacob sold the family cow for a handful of magic beans.

The con artists are revealed by Delatombe, played by Jonathan Pryce, Napoleon’s man in Germany. However, instead of punishing them, he releases the duo to the village of Marbaden, where children are missing and it appears that in the haunted forest “the trees themselves set upon them. Delatombe’s strange harasser Cavaldi, played by Peter Stormare, is sent along to be sure the Grimms deliver what they’re supposed to. Ebert noted, “they are apparently supposed to be 18th century ghostbusters, or maybe the equivalents of the Amazing Randi, unmasking fraud.”

The problem is, the forest really is magical. A local huntswoman named Angelika, played by Lena Headey, knows it is and tries to convince the brothers, who become convinced only that they love her. There is another romantic trouble when the evil 500-year-old Mirror Queen, played by Monica Bellucci, casts a spell over events. When the Grimms try to enter her castle and break the spell, they’re going against the real deal: A kiss from her can murder. Jacob is tempted. Ebert admitted, “Jacob is tempted. Considering that she is 500 years old, I am reminded of Mark Twain’s first words after being shown an ancient Egyptian mummy: “Is he, ah — is he dead?””

Ebert continued, “A great deal more happens in “The Brothers Grimm,” and none of it is as easy to follow as I have made it sound.” The film is built of traits that may look like a great idea in themselves but have not been made into a narrative we can follow and care about. There is also the problem of who, exactly, Gilliam thinks the Brothers Grimm are. Sometimes they look like romantic heroes, sometimes like clowns, sometimes like fraud magicians, sometimes like real ones. Ebert said, “Their own fairy tales had the virtue of being tightly focused and implacable in their sense of justice: Misbehavior was cruelly punished as often as virtue was rewarded. Their strict code is lacking in the movie, which is based on shifting moral sands. At times the Grimms are liars and charlatans, at times brave and true.” Those times appear selected at the convenience of the movie.

Gilliam has always been a director who fills the screen with vast visual delight. Ebert noted, “In “Brazil” and “12 Monkeys” and “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,” in the past and in the future, his world is always hallucinatory in its richness of detail.” Here the haunted forest is actually very impressive, but to what end? In a movie like Tim Burton’s “Sleepy Hollow,” the night and shadows hold real danger. Here the trees look more like an idea than a danger. Also, the movie, for all of its fantastic endeavoring, stays on the screen and fails to occupy our imagination.

I knew of this movie from the trailers when it was being released in theaters, but I never saw it. I was always thinking about seeing this, so a few months back, I saw this on Paramount+. I have to admit, there isn’t anything that really makes it memorable. If you watch it, you might forget about it easily since it doesn’t sit with you for very long. If you want to see it, it is currently streaming on Pluto TV, but I don’t know if I should recommend it.

Next week, we’ll be ending “Terry Gilliam Month” with the last film Heath Ledger starred in before he passed.

The Fisher King

The story of the Holy Grail goes back to the twelfth century, yet it clearly speaks to the current generation. In “The Fisher King,” released in 1991, screenplay writer Richard LaGravenese reworks this medieval legend by setting it in modern day New York City. Director Terry Gilliam originally goes into the handful of moods and settings of the city.

Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat said in their review, “Jack Lucas (Jeff Bridges) is a cold, calculating shock radio disc jockey in New York City whose greed and egotism have cut him off from the rest of humanity. When a deranged man murders seven people in a bar after hearing one of his on-air tirades against yuppies, the seemingly unperturbable celebrity plunges into a dark pit of alcoholism and depression.”

Jack is calm with Anne, played by Mercedes Ruehl, a strong woman who runs a video store. However, his guilt is always with him until he meets Parry, played by the late Robin Williams. He is a former medieval history professor who became delusional after his wife was murdered in the bar shooting.

Brussat said, “At first, Jack doesn't know what to think of this half madman/half fool who claims he is a knight on a quest and is being pursued by a Red Knight only he can see. Then Jack realizes that if he can restore Parry to his former life, he might be able to assuage his own guilt.”

Part of this restoration mission involves setting Parry up with Lydia, played by Amanda Plummer, a shy accountant he becomes enamored with from a distance. The stake is raised when another disaster happens to Parry and Jack when they must recover what his friend claims to be the Holy Grail from a millionaire’s mansion on Fifth Avenue.

Jeff Bridges and Robin Williams are convincing as two rebellious men who meet when they are both sunken deep in their depression. Like the Fisher Kind, they are damaged and suffering. Then through caring and a few good works, they change each other.

Brussat noted, “The performances by Bridges and Williams are high-wire triumphs where each actor contributes to the other's dazzling leaps and somersaults.” In supporting roles, Mercedes Ruehl is lovable as Jack’s girlfriend Anne and Amanda Plummer is extraordinary as someone Parry is infatuated with: the oddball Lydia.

Brussat claims, “The Fisher King bears witness to the universal search for wholeness. It also speaks forcefully to the longing for spirituality afoot in our land. We all carry wounds as deep and unyielding as Jack's guilt and Parry's grief.” Through the good deeds done, we too can be recovered from our own suffering.

This is a good movie that everyone to see. I think a lot of people can relate to the issues Bridges and Williams’ characters are going through since so many people have fallen deep after the passing of a loved one. However, this film gives you hope that even though you are at this point in your health, there is always a guiding light to help you out of any issue you are dealing with. There’s one funny scene where at the climax of the movie, Williams’ character gets nude in Central Park. Williams admitted it was a cold night when he made the nude scene. However, the effects of this movie still look good and they are scary, especially when you see what is going on in Parry’s mind. This is one of those films that have to been seen in order to be believed. I recommend it.

Next week, I will look at another movie that is based on scary story writers in “Terry Gilliam Month.”

Monty Python’s Life of Brian

Roger Ebert started his review by saying, “‘Monty Python’s Life of Brian” has been re-released, I suspect, because of the enormous box office of “The Passion of the Christ.” This is a classic bait-and-switch, because Brian, of course, is not Christ, but was born in the next stable. In cinema as in life, poor Brian never did the big numbers. When the film was released in 1979, it was attacked as blasphemous by many religious groups. Consulting my original review, I find I quoted Stanley Kauffmann in the New Republic, who speculated that Jesus might have enjoyed it; he had a sense of humor, proven by his occasional puns. That opens up another line of controversy: Are puns funny? Certainly “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” is funny, in that peculiar British way where jokes are told sideways, with the obvious point and then the delayed zinger.”

The tragedy of Brian, played by Graham Chapman, is that he has everything it takes to be a success, except divinity. Not that he has any passion to found a religion. He impresses followers who convince themselves he is the savior, is the object of unusual respect, and unsuccessfully tries to persuade his (small) crowds that he is not who they think he is. No, that’s the other guy. Ebert said, “His followers seize upon the smallest hints and misunderstood fragments of his speech to create an orthodoxy which they claim to have received from him.”

We see the real Jesus twice, once in the next manger (unlike Brian, he has a halo) and again when he delivers the Sermon on the Mount. Most biblical movies show the Sermon from a point of view close to Jesus, or looking over his shoulder. Ebert noted, ““Life of Brian” has the cheap seats, way down at the bottom of the mount, where it’s hard to hear: “What did he say? Blessed are the cheesemakers?””

Unlike Brian, “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” team had a distinguished family tree. Ebert mentioned, “It was in direct descent from “The Goon Show” on BBC radio (Spike Mulligan, Peter Sellers) and the satirical revue “Beyond the Fringe” (Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett) — which was inspired by Second City. Cook and Moore also had a TV show named “Not Only…but Also,” which along with Second City more or less invented “Saturday Night Live.”” Then came the Pythons, who adapted best to movies (“Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” “Monty Python’s Meaning of Life”).

Ebert said, “The success of “Life of Brian” is based first of all on Brian’s desperation at being a redeemer without portfolio. He’s like one of those guys you meet in a bar who explains how he would have been Elvis if Elvis hadn’t been so much better at it. Brian is, in fact, not a religious leader at all but the member of an underground political organization seeking to overthrow Pontius Pilate and throw the Romans out of the Holy Land. There are uncomfortable parallels with the real-life situation in the Middle East, and a jab at the second-class status of women in the scene where men stone a blasphemer. The joke is that the “men” are women pretending to be men, because as women they never get to have fun attending stonings and suchlike. Monty Python rotates the joke into another dimension, since all of the women in the movie are men in drag (some of them risking discovery, you would think, by wearing beards).”

The movie helps by looking vaguely historically accurate (it used the sets build by Lord Lew Grade for Franco Zeffirelli’s “Jesus of Nazareth”). It includes familiar figures such as Pontius Pilate, played by Michael Palin, but observes that he speaks with a lisp (his centurions weakly laugh behind his back). At important moments, he breaks into song, and there is a certain irony, considering how it is used on the movie, that The Bright Side of Life has taken on a long life in exactly the opposite meaning.

If the film has a message, and it may, it’s that a lot of what passes in religion for truth is the result of centuries of opinion and theory. Ebert noted, “Its version of the Brian legend is like a comic parallel to the theories of Christian history in The Da Vinci Code — itself a ripe target for Pythonizing. The difficulty with a literal interpretation of the Bible is that it is a translation of a translation of a translation of documents that were chosen by the early church from among a much larger cache of potential manuscripts.” “You’ve all got to think for yourselves!” Brian insists his followers, who obediently repeat after him: “We’ve all got to think for ourselves!”

I heard about this movie when Doug Walker said it was one of his favorite comedies. I would say it is also one of mine, despite that there are some controversial topics they joke about, like how Chapman and Palin do with the speech impediments. Still, I think this is a movie that everyone should check out, especially if you’re a Monty Python fan. This is currently streaming on Xumo Play, Pluto TV, Roku, Sling TV, The CW, PLEX, Peacock, and Prime to name a few. I knew about the end song before watching the film because we had a karaoke game where this song was an option on, and my brother had my mom sing along with him. If you don’t get easily offended by what they do with Christianity, then I would say to check it out and have a great time laughing. I’m not anti-religion, anti-Christian, atheist, or agnostic, as I respect all religions and faiths, and Monty Python does not try to offend in any way. I’m not a Monty Python fan, as I have only seen two of their movies and a couple of their sketches, but I think they are very influential and were a great comedic team. I have not seen anything else Monty Python related after this, so I do give this a recommendation. Just watch it and see for yourself.

Next week, we will look at a fantasy comedy drama that is a good one to see in “Terry Gilliam Month.”

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

For this month, I thought of looking at films made by one of the great British filmmakers, Terry Gilliam. Let’s start this month with one of my favorite comedies and a classic that is loved by many, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” released in 1975, which is still extremely funny a little over 50 years later.

For the amateurs, the film’s story is right there in the title. The famous comedy troupe made a film all about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table on a journey to find the Holy Grail. That is pretty much a minimal way to say these hilarious people are going to go on all types of misadventures, as they eventually go through some story on a holy quest.

Graham Chapman plays the protagonist as King Arthur, but he is joined by the entire cast including John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. The entire cast plays the different knights, along with many of the other characters seen throughout the film. Aaron Neuwirth said in his review, “I’m honestly not even sure what else I am supposed to say about the plot and characters this point, so I’ll stop.”

What makes this film work is the amazing hilarity that is helped by very smart comedians. Anyone who has never seen this film will probably recognize different references their friends have quoted over the years and be excited by the context. This is one of the most quotable films, but what makes it hold up so well is the amount of fun found behind every piece of comedy in this film.

Every Monty Python member was involved in “Holy Grail’s” production, with Jones and Gilliam as the directors. Neuwirth said, “This mix of creative control and limited funds also aided in making this film a difficult production, but an incredibly successful one. Yes, it has a cheap look to it, but that is very much how the team mines even more comedy out of the film.” Who needs horses, when you can use coconuts to make the sound of their galloping and then make so many jokes around that exact part?

Neuwirth credited, “There is also something to be said for this film’ staying power. A film does not just become one of the greatest comedies ever made for having a collection of jokes that play well. So much inspiration and intelligence surrounds those who grew up with a film like this and it helps that this film is so fixated on delivering on each new sequence, without dwelling too much on various bits.”

It is hard to describe what else makes this film a masterpiece, so to put it bluntly, it really just is. Yes, it’s a comedy and that is not enough to attract everyone, when it comes to telling someone what is funny, but “Holy Grail” is a film that really delivers everything. The fun, silliness, quotable moments, casting, and everything else have combined for a famous comedy and anyone not already impressed, this is the time to watch it.

Neuwirth admitted, “This film will never stop being hilarious to me and I can only hope new viewers realize why it is so special.” Basically, this is a comedy you have to watch right away.

Currently, this is streaming on YouTube, Roku, Pluto TV, The CW, Peacock, and Prime to name a few. If you haven’t seen this film, stop reading this review and go watch it. You have to see it to know what a great comedy this is. After watching it, you will understand, as you will be laughing throughout. Then, you will get all the references that people have made and will start quoting it yourself. See it if you haven’t because you will love it, I promise. I cannot give it a high enough recommendation. I saw a little bit of the film in college. One time for a Philosophy Logic class, and another in an Ancient Comedy class. Then, I saw the entire film because everyone was talking about it that I had to see it to believe how great of comedy this is.

Next week I will look at the next “Monty Python” film in the next review of “Terry Gilliam Month.”