Still Looking on the Bright Side of Life

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been thirty years since average joe Brian Cohen was mistaken for the Messiah in Monty Python’s Life of Brian. For the UK’s Telegraph, writer Sanjeev Bhaskar looks back fondly at the production and outraged reception of this giddily blasphemous gospel tale, which found its greatest ally (and last-minute financial savior) in George Harrison and made plenty of clerical enemies (the Catholic Film Monitoring Office declared it a sin to see the movie). And though Bhaskar writes that Life of Brian is “regularly touted as the funniest British comedy of all time,” he also argues that “current tastes and sensitivities make it highly unlikely that a comedy group would even attempt making a film like Brian today.”