A Liar’s Autobiography (2012)

I love the hell out of Monty Python, the shows, the movies. I can’t get enough, even on repeat viewings. A wildly animated F.U. to the whole biopic genre, “A Liar’s Autobiography: The Untrue Story of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman” wants to be the M.P. version of the group’s founding member and leader’s life story, but it’s a pile of random tid-bits that don’t say much. Crazy fact: I learned more trivia about Chapman’s life and comedy impact in the “Making of…” documentary on this film than the film itself. That’s sounds like a Python satirical sketch. (Skip the movie! Watch the extras!) “Liar’s” never boring and much of the animation stuns – dig the section that represents Chapman kicking booze -- but there’s so little context I never got a hook on the man. A scene big on Python gore has toddler Chapman looking at the bodies of soldiers killed in a WWII plane crash. Why? Did he recall this a haunting memory? Who can tell when we’re told it’s fake? A letdown from a film I expected much from. C+

Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979)

God bless each and every member of the Monty Python. After taking on the Holy Grail in 1975 and giving us one of the greatest comedy of all time, the British (and one American) lads take on a most holy target – Christianity and religious fanatics of all kinds – in “Life of Brian.” The results are wicked hilarious, every bit equal to “Grail.” I don’t care a whit if it’s blasphemous, it only makes me love it more. (It isn't by the way.) The Brian (Graham Chapman) of the title is a chap born in a stable two over from the one holding the Son of God. Brian is no savior, though. He spends his life running from his iron-will mother and smack into the path of crazy prophets drunk on their own loud voices, crazier followers who think him the Savior, and the Romans, and a cross. By God, the scene involving separatists (led by John Cleese) denouncing Rome (”What have they ever given us?”) had me crying. Chapman is brilliant as the straight man, while Michael Palin again proves he can play more than a dozen characters in one film and hit a homer every one. Christ is treated with revered awe. Graham Chapman is poor Brian, hung out to sing. A miracle of satire. A+