Paul – Pegg and Frost meet E.T., as played by Seth Rogen.

I'll start with a declaration of bias with regard to the movie I want to talk about today. I'm personally a huge fan of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the projects they've collaborated on before (Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) are favorites of mine, and unless this is your first visit to the site, you know how much I love comic books and science fiction. So, Paul is a movie that was made with someone very much like me in mind. The degree to which they'd have had to screw this movie up for me not to like it is profound, as I was on board from the moment I heard the concept. I finally got around to seeing it this past weekend, and I can only say that my expectations were exceeded in every way. In the long run, it may not have the timeless quality of Shaun of the Dead, but for first time viewing, I think I enjoyed myself more seeing this than I did the first time round with the British Zombie comedy that made Pegg and Frost household names.

I heard a lot about this before it came out, but it didn't seem to stay in theaters very long.

The setup is so simple that it is amazing that it took so long for someone to make this film. (For all I know, there could be an obscure indie flick out there that is similar in concept, but if there is, I'm unaware.) Two mega-nerds from England go on holiday to San Diego Comic Con as the payoff of a lifelong dream. Clive Gollings (Frost) is a frustrated science fiction writer who had minor success as a teenager but has remained unpublished since. Graeme Willy (Pegg) is his best friend and partner, a talented illustrator who creates images to go with his friend's words that are good enough that the book covers alone should sell a pile of copies, that it, if Clive ever finishes his magnum opus. The friends have an incredible geeky time at Comic Con, and plan to follow it up with a tour of the UFO hotspots of the American Southwest.

The setup and establishment of the pair as likeable characters is necessary for what comes later to happen to characters who are more than just cardboard cutouts (treatment that the rest of the cast doesn't get,) but I'll grant nit-pickers that this first 30 or so minutes almost feels like it belongs in a separate film, as the pacing and storytelling are different from the rest of the movie. Along the road, the guys run into a geek-friendly diner owner (played by Glee's Jane Lynch) and a pair of stock idiot rednecks who immediately take a dislike to the British Geeks. Right after this, the movie takes off, picking up the main plot as the guys drive to the Black Mailbox in Nevada in their rented Winnebago and a pair of headlights is bearing down on them. Fearing that it is the rednecks come to beat them up, they get on the road and are quickly surprised when the lights belong to a car that suddenly flips off the road.

Slackers in a zombie apocalypse, Cops in a police action/comedy/murder mystery,
and now nerds in a Winnebago. These guys are great.

Clive and Graeme investigate, and the driver of the car steps out of the night, unharmed... he is a genuine alien, escaped from a military base. Clive faints, and the alien, named Paul, convinces Graeme to help him out before the people after him turn up to recapture him. Paul is a brilliant piece of natural-looking CGI, well animated and voiced by Seth Rogen. As for Paul's personality, well, if you are familiar with virtually any of the characters Rogen's played before, you know about what to expect from Paul. In this case, that isn't really a complaint, as the charismatic low-key slacker type is a cool contrast to the Frost and Pegg buddy comedy, and he fits into the dynamic well. If it works in making a film entertaining, I won't hold Seth Rogen's typecasting against him.

Cue the cross country buddy comedy flight from the government agents after Paul, led by the serious Agent Zoil played by Jason Bateman with his usual talent for playing quirky characters. Zoil has two new agents (Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio) with him who are kept in the dark and sort of goofy on their own... one of them is even a comic book geek himself. The trio work through Paul's backstory, bond a little bit, and then meet a nice girl raised in an extreme religious household who immediately catches Graeme's eye. Ruth (Kristen Wiig), a one-eyed Bible thumping Daddy's Girl, is abducted by the guys when Paul reveals himself to her in the midst of an argument about science and religion conducted through the Winnebago's bathroom door. Eventually winning Ruth over, the group continues north with their pursuers, who now include Ruth's gun and Bible-toting father.

Jason Bateman isn't the only Arrested Development alum to appear in this film, but he has the biggest role.

The film frequently makes clever references to various specific scenes from popular science fiction films and programs, and settles down as an action-comedy that feels exactly like a comedy that is somewhere between one of Rogen's films and one by Pegg and Frost should. Paul breaks one of the cardinal rules of the “alien on the run” film constantly, not seeming to care much if people see him, as he plans to be gone soon, and after all, who'd believe the stories anyway? The supporting characters are entertaining in their roles, including Agent Zoil's boss whose voice is heard over the phone throughout the film, and whose identity is supposed to be a big cameo reveal at the end, but clever sci-fi fans will recognize the voice right away. The pacing of the movie is a little awkward and unwieldy in spots, but it is so much fun that I didn't care.

By the time the movie was over, I'd laughed quite a bit, appreciated the development of the various characters, recurring gags and saw the plot through to its fairly predictable end. There were perhaps a few too many supporting characters for all of them to get their due, and I did frown a bit here and there at how heavy-handed the “Religious people are idiots” bit got played, but overall, this is a movie I not only liked quite a bit, but will probably even go out of my way to watch again. Anyone who is a fan of any of the principal actors will probably like this a lot, as it is more clever than a typical Rogen film and less dry than the other Pegg and Frost comedies. Whether that is an improvement or not on those individual styles of comedy or not is a matter of personal taste.

And Now For Something Completely Different. - Monty Python for Geeks.

I woke this morning to check my usual routine of e-mail and social media sites, and noticed something... odd... on Facebook. Many friends, from many different walks of life, had quotes published to their respective statuses that were oddly familiar. With a little food in me and some of the morning fog cleared from my head, I made the connection. All the various statements and unusual quotes were from Monty Python's Flying Circus, or one of the Python films. The majority of the geeks I've met in my time, aside from the odd perpetual contrarian, have a deep abiding love for the British Comedy Troupe. Gamers, in particular, are capable of quoting large sections of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” verbatim.

In college, I videotaped a marathon of the entire series, and never watched it again (at least on VHS.)

The Monty Python Comedy Troupe, formed in 1969 by five British men and one American expatriate, in large part defines British Comedy to American audiences. The mixture of dry intellectual wit with surrealist slapstick and non-sequiturs characterizes a style of humor that not everyone appreciates, or even understands. The troupe consisted of Michael Palin, Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, John Cleese, Terry Jones, and Terry Gilliam (the animator and aforementioned American.) The sketch comedy show “Monty Python's Flying Circus” ran from 1969 through 1974 for three and a half seasons, with John Cleese absent from the fourth abbreviated season. It was during the run of the television show that the first Python Movie: And Now For Something Completely Different was released, made up of sketches from the show and marketed towards exposing Monty Python to American audiences (which it did not.)

The end of the television program and the years immediately after had some of the greatest impact on geek culture because of two things, the discovery of Douglas Adams, and the first post-Flying Circus Film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The man who would go on to write the Sci-fi comedy epic series “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”, was discovered by Graham Chapman originally, and he was one of only two people not a part of the troupe to ever get a writing credit for the TV show. He also appeared in several episodes, the first of which was episode 42 (a number which would have some significance in his work later.) The Holy Grail retold the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round table in a frequently silly and over-the-top typical Python style.

One of the very first DVDs I ever bought.

Something set in a medieval adventure setting with knights, horses and even a fire-throwing wizard all cast in the British comedy style was something that geeks world wide could get into. In America in particular, by 1975 when the film was released, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings was undergoing a major revival, and Dungeons and Dragons games were starting to pop up across the country. The Knights who say Ni!, Tim the Enchanter and the dread rabbit of Caerbannog have appeared in games, comics and novels in one form or another ever since, where ever a geeky fan has wanted to pay homage. For years, one of the more popular themes for early versions of Windows was a pack including graphics and Python quotes, most from The Holy Grail.

The next feature film came from an inside joke, as whenever the press would ask the members of the troupe about their next feature film, even though they hadn't even decided on making one, the stock answer to shut them up was “Jesus Christ – Lust for Glory”. This joke developed into a serious idea for giving the Bible's New Testament the Python treatment in making The Life of Brian, and led to the film that was the group's most controversial as well as highest rated by film critics. The controversy over the film was in spite of the fact that Christ himself was treated with respect throughout, while the story focused on a similar infant born one manger over whose life took a series of parallels to Jesus' own worthy of comic lampooning attitudes and actions of the times. Both times Christ himself is portrayed in the film (briefly) the character is played straight.

All 6 members of one of the greatest comedy teams ever.

The last two films, Live at the Hollywood Bowl, and The Meaning of Life were a return to sketch comedy in the style of the early television work, and the troupe broke apart as a team following the 1983 production of the latter. Over the next six years, solo projects and collaborations of several of the members followed, with Terry Gilliam in particular enjoying success as a film director. The final reunion of all six members was for the 20^th anniversary special “Parrot Sketch Not Inlcuded.” The eve of the actual 20^th anniversary in 1989 closed the book on official Monty Python projects with the death of Graham Chapman.

The years post Monty Python have seen the troupe's influence continue on geek culture as the surviving members have lent their ideas and voices to many video games, including several games directly based on the troupe's earlier work for the PC (Flying Circus - 1990, Complete Waste of Time - 1994, Quest for the Holy Grail -1996 and Meaning of Life – 1997.) John Cleese is a regular contributor to science fiction projects, continues to act and lends his talents as a voice actor, most recently in Fable 3. The computer world named unsolicited e-mails “spam” based on a classic Python sketch, and the Python computing language got its name from the troupe.

Did *you* know that the concept of Spam, and Spam-filtering all
came from a comedy sketch with a diner full of vikings?

Personally, I'll always have a special place for this body of work, as it introduced me to a style of humor that has stuck with me throughout the years. Anyone else have any memories of Python comedy, maybe some of my younger readers hadn't heard much or (gasp) anything about these guys, and will be inspired to check it out. Let me know.