'Life of Brian', 'Airplane!' - The First (of few) Great Spoof Movies

Spoof movies can be funny. Really, really funny - and it's a shame the plethora of Scary Movie, Date Movies, Epic Movie, etc has kind of tainted the genre beyond repair. You've got great films like Shaun of the Dead which parodies the horror genre, the good ol' Gene Wilder/Mel Brooks Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, the sci-fi parody brilliance of Spaceballs, and I even have a soft spot for Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

The first great spoof movie I ever saw was Monty Python's Life of Brian. For some reason that's still the only Monty Python film I've ever seen, and I really need to check out Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Anyway, Life of Brian shows modern parodies exactly how it's done, and in turn retroactively exposes many of the flaws of modern-day spoof films. Where nowadays there's a sort of a cruel edge to most of the parodies of genres that come across as decidedly unpleasant and 'gross-out', Monty Python are certainly daring, are certainly not hesitant at all in using their point of parody, the Bible, to its fullest, but behind all the terrifically funny and rude jokes there's a certain heart, a very affectionate edge for the material they're telling that makes it most appealing.

In terms of my favourite scenes of the film, I think Michael Palin quite easily takes the cake. Any scene with the ridiculous Pontius Pilate (showcasing his talent for utilizing a speech impediment for both endearing and hilarious effect that he'd later display again in A Fish Called Wanda), or his amiable centurion sending people off to hang in the most pleasant manner, are downright brilliant comedic performances. Even if they are rather one-note in nature, it works completely for the film - the utter hilarity of each of Palin's funny moments is amplified by for example, the extras in the scene above who were genuinely forcing themselves not to laugh.

Beyond Palin of course there's a whole lot of other gems of scenes to speak of. The whole concept of the film itself, firstly, is quite inspired in telling of Brian (Graham Chapman), born next to Jesus Christ's manger and is subsequently overshadowed/mistaken all his life for the Messiah. The film acts as a sort of reverse Ben-Hur as where in the 1959 epic, the presence of Christ helped revitalize our hero on his journey and at the end helped wash all his hate away for a happy ending, in Life of Brian Jesus causes nothing but trouble for poor Brian. It's a scattershot film, that's for sure, but I love it just for that. One skit after another, and it's enjoyable enough for the most part, with several scenes of complete hilarity. Not every joke hits the mark, but when they do it's quite something.

Airplane! (1980) is a very different sort of spoof film, and is also a film I thoroughly loved when I first watched it. Though I certainly wouldn't consider it to be one of the greatest films of all-time, I'd certainly consider it one of the most enjoyable.

The plot, though there really isn't one, is simple. Plane. Food poisoning on the plane. Turbulence, emergency landing, ending. And a romance at its centre between a flight attendant Elaine Dickinson (Julie Hagerty) and passenger/ex-fighter pilot/cab driver/most boring anecdote deliverer ever Ted Striker (Robert Hays) which resolves itself at the end. It's all intentionally very simplistic, like Life of Brian and therein lies its brilliance.

Like Life of Brian, the humour of a lot of Airplane! though not all of it, is derived from deadpan, serious actors delivering some rather deadpan, intensely comedic turns. Most prominent of course is Leslie Nielsen. I haven't seen any of the Naked Gun films, I really should, but there's a reason Nielsen made a whole late career out of roles like Dr. Rumack, the intelligent but also very dumb doctor on board the Beoing 707.

The deadpan way in which the film is directed means that it can get away from with quite a lot of forms of ridiculousness, as it can touch upon some rather touchy places for humour in a way that doesn't come across as offensive because it's played both seriously and humorously. The casting of renowned dramatic actors like Peter Graves and Lloyd Bridges to deliver the lines is pretty great choice as well (Bridges' 'Looks like I picked the wrong day...' series of lines are some of my favourites). As well as the iconic cameo by none other than Kareem Abdul Jabbar which is played with to marvelous comedic effect in the film.

And of course there's the broader sort of humour. I like how Robert Hays' straight man gets to play a role in some of these in the scenes where he bores people literally to death with his soppy romantic stories, and I also find the scenes in which the passengers engage in ever more ridiculous activities like speaking jive, or spitting out eggs. Meanwhile, back in ground control we have Stephen Stucker's  Air Traffic Controller Johnny Henshaw-Jacobs, who I understand is a point of contention for people who either do or don't buy his sort of campy humour, I do personally and love every moment of his ridiculously over-the-top performance.

A lot of the Airplane! wordplay jokes are I'll have to admit, pretty ingenius, for example Ted Striker's 'drinking problem' of an altogether different sort. My personal all-time favourite gag, which probably isn't even that witty, is the scene where the reporters in ground control say, 'let's get some pictures' and proceed to literally...get pictures off the wall. It's these sort of jokes that make Airplane! such a great experience to watch even though, in all honesty, it's a very muddled and messy film, which is sort of it and Life of Brian's appeal.