Hazel Motes

Who made the superior comedies?

Monty Python:

And Now For Something Completly Different
The Holy Grail
Life of Brian
The Meaning of Life

Christopher Guest & Co:

This Is Spinal Tap
Waiting For Guffman
Best In Show
A Mighty Wind
For Your Consideration

Rockmjd23

Of course the correct answer is Happy Madison.

BambooLounge

Hmmm...this is tough. It's the team with MJ (Holy Grail) and Lebron (Life of Brian) versus a well-balanced All-Star team with no single player better than the other's top 2.

If I'm going to be dropped on an island with just one batch of films, I'm going with Christopher Guest. Best in Show is one of my favorite comedies, but it is so hard to declare a comedy a winner over Holy Grail and Life of Brian, but Meaning of Life has one good song and not much else.

JumpCutz

A very tough choice for me, as these are some of my all time favorite comedies.

If I had to combine them into a top five:

1 This is Spinal Tap
2 The Life of Brian
3 Waiting for Guffman
4 The Holy Grail
5 Best in Show

godzilla rules

I hate the Guest movies. They come off as very pretenious. That may be what they are going for, but it rubs me the wrong way. I am, however, a huge Python fan.

The Antipodean

I think they're so different there's no way I could choose.

arminius

Not even close, Monty Python.

bunkaroo

For me Spinal Tap is slighty better than Holy Grail which is the best of the Python films.

The rest kind of wash each other out. Brian is great and Meaning of Life is pretty good. Guffman is pretty good, Best in Show and Might Wind are great. Haven't see ANFSCD and For Your Consideration wasn't very good. Edge goes to Guest.

Mattflix

Very much a case of apples and oranges here. I'd have no idea how to choose, love both for different reasons.

Groucho

Almost Heroes far exceeds anything in the Monty Python oeuvre.

Hokeyboy

Do you even begin to understand what "pretentious" means?

Groucho

Pretentious, moi?

Sondheim

Monty Python by a considerable margin - though mainly for Life of Brian and Holy Grail. Meaning of Life has some great moments, but is extremely inconsistent. ANfSCD is often very funny, but it's still just repackaged skits from the TV show.

rexinnih

Monsieurs Monty and Python are my choice.

rocket1312

Despite their overwhelming pretentiousness, I had to go with Guest & Co. This is Spinal Tap is far and away my favorite comedy of all time and Waiting for Guffman is in the top 5. Those two alone make up for the fact that Guest's movies seem to be trending in the wrong direction, although I haven't been able to check out his new HBO series yet.

I do love Python, so my vote is definitely not a vote against them. Admittedly, I've never seen And Now for Something Completely Different and it's been 15-20 years since I last saw Meaning of Life, so maybe I should check those out.

Ash Ketchum

Python hands down. But then I've only seen one Guest movie, A MIGHTY WIND, and parts of THIS IS SPINAL TAP, a film I'm completely unable to relate to.

Why So Blu?

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/QnpB3_Oknmw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

majorjoe23

If it was just Holy Grail and Brian, Monty Python would probably win. Considering their works as a whole, I'm going with Guest's group.

Mabuse

Love Christopher Guest but the win goes to Monty Python. And I love The Meaning of Life. I fail to see any moment in that film that is less than great. What do you folks not like about it?

Crocker Jarmen

I do love Meaning of Life, I think everything in it is hilarious, I love the garish look of the movie, one of my favorites, but I still rate Holy Grail and Life of Brian WAY above MOL.

I'm sure MOL's episodic nature is a big reason why people are less passionate about it. Holy Grail has consistent characters and a bit of a story, and Life of Brian has a lead character that we come to genuinely care about. How can the disjointed, vulgar skits of MOL stand up against that?

godzilla rules

Yes I do. The Guest crew has always come off as having a "we're better than you" attitude. Every movie that I have seen from them suffers because of this attitude. Add to the fact that none of their movies, Spinal Tap included, is very funny. I just find them to be boring and trying way too hard to make us laugh.

Supermallet

Christopher Guest and his group is pretentious?

The two groups are doing such different types of comedy, I'm not going to even bother to compare them. Spinal Tap, Waiting For Guffman, and Best In Show are three of my favorite comedies. Monty Python's Flying Circus, Holy Grail, and Life of Brian are all brilliant and broke tons of new ground. No point in trying to say who's better. Just watch, laugh, and enjoy.

Hokeyboy

Message given is message received. I would say this says more about you than the films of Christopher Guest.

And FYI there's a sizable difference between pretense and arrogance. And the Guest films have neither.

inri222

Ky-Fi

"You're bastard people!"