TGME Round 1: Life of Brian Vs. South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut

[GregMcduck]

How it works: Each poll will be open for two weeks, giving all of you time to watch each film. New polls added every Sunday and Wednesday.

Life of Brian (1979) vs. South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut (1999)



The Life of Brian is a comedy film written, directed and largely performed by the Monty Python comedy team. Brian Cohen is born in a stable a few doors from the one in which Jesus is born, a fact which initially confuses the three wise men who come to praise the future King of the Jews. They manage to put up with Brian's boorish mother Mandy until they realize their mistake. Brian grows up an idealistic young man who resents the continuing Roman occupation of Judea, even after learning his father was a Roman Centurion - Naughtius Maximus - who raped Brian's mother ("You mean; you were raped?", "Well, at first, yes"). While attending Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, he becomes infatuated with an attractive young female rebel, Judith. His desire for her and hatred for the Romans lead him to join the People's Front of Judea (PFJ), one of many factious and bickering separatist movements who spend more time fighting each other than the Romans. The group's cynical leader Reg gives Brian his first assignment: He must scrawl some graffiti on the wall of the governor's palace. Just as he finishes doing this, he is confronted by a passing centurion who, in disgust at Brian's faulty Latin grammar, forces him to write the grammatically correct message ("Romani ite domum" or "Romans, go home") 100 times. The walls of the fortress are covered in text by dawn. When the Roman guards change shift at daybreak, the new guards try to arrest Brian, but he manages to slip away with the help of Judith.

The film has been seen as a critique of excessive religiosity, depicting organised and popular religion as hypocritical and fanatical. The film's satire on unthinking religious devotion is epitomised by Brian's attempt to persuade an enormous crowd of his followers to think for themselves. The film also satirises both the tendency to interpret banal incidents as "signs from God" and the factions and infighting that can emerge from this. For example, when Brian loses his shoe, some of his over-zealous followers declare it to be a sign but they can't agree on what it means, while one other instructs them to "Cast off the shoe. Follow the gourd!" (which has been decreed to be significant due to Brian's seemingly charitable refusal to accept a price for it - and not even haggle over what it's worth - the truth actually being that it was a cheap, unwanted gift).



South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is an Academy Award-nominated animated satirical comedy/musical film released in and based on the animated television series South Park. The Terrance and Phillip movie "Asses of Fire" opens in South Park's movie theater, and despite the R-rating for the film, Stan Marsh, Kyle and Ike Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormick manage to pay off a homeless guy to act as their guardian. Nearly all the dialogue in the film has swear words in it. After three hours of non-stop swearing and profanity, the boys come out with more foul language in their vocabulary than ever before. They utter many of the profanities in the film to their peers, causing most of the rest of the student body to eventually sneak in to watch the film and subsequently utter similar profanities, despite efforts by the school's teacher Mr. Garrison and school counselor Mr. Mackey to teach the students to not swear. After seeing a showing of the film, Eric dares Kenny to light a fart as done in the movie; Kenny tries to but ends up catching on fire and being rushed to the hospital for an immediate operation. Unfortunately, his heart is replaced with a baked potato by mistake. In the end, Kenny ends up dying, once again, and Kyle's mother, Mrs. Broflovski, learns that the kids have been seeing the movie and have learned to swear from it, as well as copying the terrible stunts, and takes steps to encourage other parents to help ban the film.

The movie's use of profanity gained it a spot in the 2002 edition of Guinness World Records for "Most Swearing in an Animated Film" (399 profane words, including 146 uses of fuck, 79 uses of shit, and 66 uses of bitch, 128 offensive gestures and 221 acts of violence). The film was also banned in Iraq, for its depiction of Saddam Hussein as Satan's lover. While the real Saddam was on trial for genocide charges in 2006, Matt Stone joked that the U.S. military was showing the movie repeatedly to the former dictator.

Please take the time to watch or re-watch these two films before voting. You can use this thread to post reviews after having watched them, campaign for your preferred movie, or just discuss the movies in general.

[Courtney]

Oh god, this is the hardest one yet.  This one will take me awhile.

[Petey Wheatstraw]

SERIOUSLY?

First Duck Soup versus Spaceballs, now this. Sheeeeeeeeesh.

Stone and Parker are such smug, arrogant bastards...can't wait until their ride on the gravy train ends.

[mrbasehart]

I never really got South Park.  The movie was fine, but Life of Brian is special. 

[RVR II]

Man! This is actually a tough one.. I like them Both! 

[Rude]

Stone and Parker are such smug, arrogant bastards...can't wait until their ride on the gravy train ends.

Heh. The irony in that is priceless.

Anyway, i'm not sure where i heard that these match-ups are random. But i'm starting to believe it less and less. Maybe they were split up by genre or something? I don't know. Whatever is going on, i'm going to have to watch both of these again before i vote. Brian would seem like a sure thing, but that's just because i automatically give anything Python an unfair advantage. Although, it's always been my least favorite of their films.

-Rude

[Courtney]

Stone and Parker are such smug, arrogant bastards...can't wait until their ride on the gravy train ends.

Heh. The irony in that is priceless.

Anyway, i'm not sure where i heard that these match-ups are random. But i'm starting to believe it less and less. Maybe they were split up by genre or something? I don't know. Whatever is going on, i'm going to have to watch both of these again before i vote. Brian would seem like a sure thing, but that's just because i automatically give anything Python an unfair advantage. Although, it's always been my least favorite of their films.

-Rude

LOB is actually my favorite Python flick of all, I LOVE it.  But the South Park movie, and the series too, was so layered and the movie made such great statements, all while singlehandedly resuscitating the movie musical genre.  So even though I love the show more than the movie, I'm torn.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

 The answer is clear to me.
*hums "always look on the bright side of life"*

[Petey Wheatstraw]

Stone and Parker are such smug, arrogant bastards...can't wait until their ride on the gravy train ends.

Heh. The irony in that is priceless.

How dare you suggest that Monty Python are smug and arrogant! What is wrong with you?

[GregMcduck]

Anyway, i'm not sure where i heard that these match-ups are random. But i'm starting to believe it less and less. Maybe they were split up by genre or something? I don't know. Whatever is going on, i'm going to have to watch both of these again before i vote. Brian would seem like a sure thing, but that's just because i automatically give anything Python an unfair advantage. Although, it's always been my least favorite of their films.

-Rude

I swear on my mother's grave* these were  all randomly set up based on how many votes they got in the selection round. If you're looking for something comedy vs. something not comedy, we just finished Airplane Vs. North by Northwest.

*note to self: kill mother

[Petey Wheatstraw]

Life of Brian is MY favorite Python film.

[Ortega]

AS much as I liked the South Park movie, DUDE.........its Monty Python.

[Courtney]

AS much as I liked the South Park movie, DUDE.........its Monty Python.

And in the end, that's the route I took too.  Sorry Matt & Trey. 

[Rude]

How dare you suggest that Monty Python are smug and arrogant! What is wrong with you?

I'm a twit.



-Rude

[doggans]

I love Python too, and LOB definitely has my favorite ending of any Python flick...but just about EVERY song in the South Park movie is among my favorite movie songs.

This was an insanely tough choice, but in the end, the combination of "La Resistance", "Mountain Town", "Blame Canada", "It's Easy Mmm'kay", "Up There", and, of course, "What Would Brian Boitano Do" JUST NARROWLY beat "Always Look On The Bright Side of LIfe".