July Film Club #2

 Our fourth film in our Summer Series comes to us from Monty Python alum, Terry Gilliam. (Film Club veterans may remember that we watched Gilliam's brilliant Brazil 11 years ago! Time flies when you're watching good movies!) We will be watching The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a 1988 adventure fantasy film, cowritten and directed by Terry Gilliam, starring John Neville, Sarah Polley, Eric Idle, Jonathan Pryce, Oliver Reed, Robin Williams, and Uma Thurman. The film is based on the tall tales of the 18th-century German nobleman, Baron Munchausen, and his wartime exploits against the Ottoman Empire. It underperformed at the box office, but received favorable reviews from critics and was nominated for 4 Academy Awards: Best Art Direction, Costume Design, Visual Effects, and Makeup. It currently holds a 91% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Roger Ebert gave it 3/4 stars saying this in his review, "There really was a Baron Munchausen, and he lived from 1720-1797. He was, it is said, in the habit of embellishing his war stories, and in 1785 a jewel thief from Hanover named Rudolf Erich Raspe published a book in England which claimed to be based on the baron's life and times. The real von Munchausen apparently did not complain about this book that made free with his reputation, even though it included such tall stories as the time the baron tethered his horse to a "small twig" in a snowstorm, and discovered when the snow melted that the twig was actually a church steeple. Terry Gilliam's film is, in itself, a tribute to the spirit of the good baron. The special effects are astonishing, but so is the humor with which they are employed. The wit and the spectacle of Baron Munchausen are considerable achievements. Gilliam says it's the third part of a trilogy, his first film, "Time Bandits" was about childhood, his second, "Brazil" was about adulthood. "Baron Munchausen" is about old age. He may be telling us the truth. He may also be telling us he tethered his film to a twig in a snowstorm."

We will be meeting Thursday, July 25th at 5:30 pm

Here's a trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1M-vhN8lsg&ab_channel=TrailerChan

Hope to see you there!