Results tagged “montypython”

Thursday night was a milestone for anyone who ever came home to find their newly purchased parrot was not just pining for the fjords. The remaining five members of Monty Python gathered for a rare reunion in honor of the theatrical version of their new film, “Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyer’s Cut)." The lengthier version will be showed over six nights next week on IFC, starting tomorrow night. John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam took the stage after the screening for a Q&A, with the late Graham Chapman represented by a large cardboard cutout. At least they didn't spill his ashes like they did at the Aspen Comedy Festival in 1998!

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 black and white spy thriller The 39 Steps has been given a vividly colorful stage adaptation by a troupe of four British actors who’ve brought their madcap show to Broadway after an award-winning run on the West End. Adapted from a 1915 novel by John Buchan, the movie concerns the dashing but vague Richard Hannay, who gets ensnared in a deadly game of cat and mouse after shots ring out at a London music hall. In the ensuing stampede, a woman bluntly asks to go home with him and, once there, reveals that she’s a spy trying to stop a plot to smuggle British military secrets out of the country.

A look at some noteworthy television this week:

MOVIE: MoMA's Modern Mondays series explores innovation on the big screen, and tonight they dedicate an evening to Kevin Jerome Everson. "His films look for the art in everyday life, revealing people's relationship to their crafts and focusing on the conditions, tasks, gestures, and materials in communities. Much of Everson's recent work is inspired by found footage. He manipulates news and sports footage, old films, still photographs, and image files in various ways, subtly repositioning or restaging actions and movements to highlight or shift the original emphasis." Tonight several of his recent films will screen, including premieres of some new shorts.

TIP: Starting tomorrow Opera-For_all begins the first of three nights of performances. For cheap! The New York City Opera is selling tickets to every seat in the house for just $25. Over the course of "opera season" 50 or more seats in the front orchestra will be priced at just $25 as well. As for this week, here's the sched:

A look at some noteworthy television programs this week:

Eric Slovin and Leo Allen have been called modern comedy's greatest comedic duo since Abbot and Costello or Laurel and Hardy. Together they've earned accolades, devoted fans, a television pilot, and written for Saturday Night Live, all without ever compromising their comedic sensibility.

A Brooklyn high school student was reprimanded by school officials for coming to school in a Hitler costume. The Post reports that 16 year old Walter Pertyk was taken out of his second period English class at Leon M. Goldstein High School (named after a "prominent Jewish educator") over his Halloween garb.

"Excuse me, fuhrer, can I talk to you for a minute?" is how Petryk recalled the dean, Paul Puglia, summoning him out of class.

Continue reading "No High School Halloween for Hitler"

Let's take a look back at a week that raised this Zen koan: if Kevin Federline got into a wrestling ring with a wrestler, who would you root for?

Of course the big news in New York movies this weekend is the New York Film Festival which kicks off tomorrow at Lincoln Center. However, in an attempt reserve our NYFF excitement for a full post tomorrow, let's just focus on the regular releases. Here we go.

READING: Tonight at 192 Books, Marisha Pessl reads from Special Topics in Calamity Physics, her buzzy and well-received first novel. Seating is usually limited at 192 Books so call (212) 255-4022 to reserve a spot. - Krissa Corbett Cavouras

Action adventure, animated sci-fi, iconic '80s actresses and French sexual intrigue—this weekend is a good one for movie going in New York. Draw your swords landlubbers, Gore Verbinski's sequel to his bombastic film based on an amusement park ride is out this weekend, . In this installment, shot at the same time as the forthcoming part III, Johnny Depp's brilliant Jack Sparrow searches for Davy Jones's chest to free himself from some sort of curse. There's a boat-load of twisty-turning plot in this 2 hour and a half movie but fortunately there's also tons of great action, Kiera Knightley looking adorable in pirate gear and a huge tentacled man eating beast. So basically, something for everyone.

This past weekend saw a tradition that involves the Mayor dressing up in chainmail and belittling his various policies and efforts: The annual press corps spoofing of the city government. Last year, the Mayor skipped the follies because of Pope John Paul's death, but this year, he donned an outfit from Monty Python's Spamalot to sing "Spendalot," an ode to his super expensive campaign, and according to Newsday, he was "shimmying and kicking like a bad Rockette dancer." Boy, Gothamist isn't sure if we're glad or sad that we didn't see it! We do appreciate the fact that the Mayor didn't go in drag, because we still have nightmares from Rudy Giuliani's trowel-like application of foundation. The Politicker gives some extra details that weren't in the papers including how Bloomberg's girlfriend Diana Taylor and Deputy Mayor Patricia Harris sang Landslide and the Mayor made fun of NY1 and the NY Sun.

It’s a new year, which means resolutions. Gothamist aimed low with our resolutions this year, seeing as we always break them by oh, today. (Nails bitten? Check. Too much beer imbibed? Yes. Zero regard for finances? You betcha.) We do have one more resolution which is to see more live shows and we think that’s something everyone should do. Even though we love DVR. We think going out is important. Resolve to see shows you haven’t seen before and realize that some of the people performing in New York right now might be famous soon! A few suggestions for this week….

Now, Gothamist has not read Chris Elliott's new book, The Shroud of the Thwacker, yet, but it sounds so much like one of our favorites - The Alienist by Caleb Carr, which was about an investigation of a grisly serial killer in turn of the century Manhattan. Here's a description of the Thwacker:

The book debut from the Get a Life and Cabin Boy star is billed as a parody, but this murder mystery wrapped in laughter is simply straight-up enjoyable. Jack the Jolly Thwacker is leaving dead bodies all over 1882 New York City. Chris Elliott, a modern-day researcher, is tracking the serial killer through time. Elliott's wry humor fastens on the burgeoning, Boss Tweedified city, giving it a hilarious and vividly imagined set of anachronistic technologies and accoutrements (New York's Mayor Teddy Roosevelt, who has mysteriously disappeared, has a navel piercing). The narrative leaps back and forth in time, as 1882 police chief Caleb Spencer chases the Thwacker through the streets, and Elliott, convinced the killer is from the 21st century, chases him through time. Elliott's ability to time travel is facilitated by Yoko Ono (don't ask) and a willing suspension of disbelief, but the results are very amusing (if often infantile in the style of There's Something About Mary), with asides on every page that bring in everyone and everything from Typhoid Mary to Skyy Vodka. If Shroud feels like an extended, Americanized Monty Python skit, it's also a rousing good yarn.

It's time to get sweaty in the sand, surf and of course the long subway ride to Coney Island. Siren Fest is this weekend, and rain or shine we'll be there. But for those not up for the long haul and long day under the sun and stormclouds, there's always an alternative. Either way, it all seems to be about the surf this weekend...

Last weekend Gothamist lucked out once again with tickets, and got to see Spamalot. The show has been relentlessly promoted, and with 14 Tony nominations now they’re especially shameless about it, but fortunately it’s a great production. We hadn’t seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail in some time, so after seeing the musical we decided to rent the DVD and do a little comparison.

The weekend is here, and unfortunately our run of nice weather has run out. The rains will be coming. Luckily the city is prepared with plenty of indoor activities to enjoy, and if you're not scared of getting a little wet there is some outdoor fun to be had as well.

Gothamist readily admits to getting a major kick out of Michael Reidel's Wednesday and Friday theater beat columns in the Post. We love that directors punch this guy out when they dis their shows and that he seems to love to stir up controversy. He also seems to have a good feel for the mechanics of Broadway, so we took notice at his column yesterday when he declared that the upcoming Mike Nichols-directed prodcution of Monty Python's Spamalot will be the big hit of the Broadway season. He's saying it's going to be a smash on the level of The Producers. Remember when that show opened and the lines wrapped all over Times Square?

(1979) over at Makor at the Steinhardt Theater (35 W. 67th Street). No matter what ails you, a few sacreligious jokes by Eric Idle, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones and Michael Palin will fix you up right quick. Poor Brian. He doesn't want to be the messiah. He just wants to join the People's Front of Judea. Or is it the Judean People's Front? All he knows is, "I'm not a Roman, Mum. I'm a kike, a yid, a heebie, a hook-nose. I'm kosher, Mum. I'm a Red Sea pedestrian, and proud of it!"

Blah blah blah, Shrek 2 made over $100 million over a five day period, which is a record for any film except Spiderman 2 and a record for an animated film with the voices of a Canadian, former model, one of the greatest comics, a Spaniard who stars in some great Almodovar films, a member of Monty Python, and Mary Poppins (while Shrek 2's record breaking is legit, if we had a buck for everytime Hollywood makes up these so-called records..."record for a film starring Brad Pitt in a toga directed by Wolfgang Petersen after The Perfest Storm" - Jesus, Gothamist would like to write the press release for New York Minute: "Record opening for twins of any kind in a film co-starring someone from SCTV"). Whatever. Gothamist went to see Shrek 2 and while it's entertaining and all, it's not that great. There are a number of fun in-jokes, you know, clever jokes that will appeal to adults only while kids laugh at the incongruities of a donkey becoming a horse, but overall, it lacked whimsy and heart that makes other animated films transcend their format and be remember as movies (think Spirited Away, Iron Giant, and yes, Disney films like Dumbo and Toy Story). Shrek 2 seemed to be more about being a great DVD later on, so you can stop and pause to admire the cleverness of the writers and animators, but as a film, it's pretty shallow. There are some structural issues as well (splitting up the two ostensible leads, Shrek and Fiona, being the main one, making it seem like a bad romantic comedy) that don't benefit the film. But, if you really want to go, the animation is dazzling and while Jennifer Saunders as Fairy Godmother is delicious and Eddie Murphy/Donkey is a scene stealer as ever, however the best thing about the movie is Puss...in Boots. In the name of disclosure, we didn't much care for the first Shrek, but at least that one seemed new to us. And, yes, Gothamist is a curmudgeon.

Perhaps, in order to forget the craziness of the world and really concentrate on ourselves, the thing is to do is read The World According to Mister Rogers, a new book of the sayings and thoughts of our favoritest neighbor, Fred Rogers. His wife, Joanne, tells CNN, "Most of the people who read this book will feel as if they're having a visit with him...It's not a book for children, not a book for children but a book for people who had watched the show over the years -- grown-up children who were familiar with his program and who knew him."