From: utzoo!decvax!wivax!dyer
Newsgroups: net.movies
Title: Re: The Meaning of Life (new Python flick)
Article-I.D.: wivax.13343
Posted: Sat Apr  2 12:15:01 1983
Received: Sun Apr  3 04:59:45 1983
References: rabbit.1287

If you're a Monty Python fan, then you'll probably enjoy "The Meaning of
Life", despite the fact that its skits often run longer than the jokes
support, that its targets (British colonialism, public schools, upper-crust
hypocrisy, the Church, etc.) are all too easy to lampoon, and that its
obsession with guts and vomit might drive the faint of heart away.

This movie is very inferior to "Life of Brian", which I consider a gem.
Unlike "Brian", it's a series of skits, much like Woody Allen's "Everything
You Wanted to Know About Sex", so there isn't a conventional plot to help give
the comedy some focus.  I enjoyed some of it, but I have to ask whether those
scenes were worth sitting through the whole movie--I'm still not sure.

There's an outrageous skit about the Roman Catholic Church and birth control
which is funny at first, but which has a raw undercurrent of anti-Catholic
bigotry.  There's a sop to lampoon Protestants as well, but it's so mild in
comparison that it underscores the bias.  If you weren't attuned to this,
you'd probably miss it, but I felt like a black person watching a parody
of Black Culture put on by white rednecks: the source of the humor is as
important as the humor itself.

Steve Dyer