Monty Python and the Holy Grail

A man flings his shovel, takes a deep breath and sinks his knees into the sand. Next, he inserts a rusted key into a gold-plated slot of a deteriorating wooden box. Click. The man wedges his fingers underneath the latch of the chess then begins to raise the lid. A hinge begins to squeak when a ray of golden light reaches the man’s eyes. A pile of riches sits before him. He looks up at the horizon carved by sand dunes and promptly closes and latches the box. The man grunts as he lifts the…

perform magic, walk the slack rope, or present funny business. Slapstick comedy became popular in 19th-century music halls and Vaudeville theatres. And now some of the most recent films that are slapstick are movies like “Happy Gilmore” or “Monty Python and the Holy…

that, in 1509, when King Henry VIII gained the throne, he had commissioned the Winchester Round Table of Edward III to be repainted with a King Arthur resembling his likeness. This had sparked an obsession with King Arthur. He wished to become the Holy Roman Emperor, (as to divorce his first wife Catherine of Aragon) and the repainting of the table was designed to show, both Rome and England, that he was ‘obviously’ a direct descendant of the King Arthur of legend. In 1834, a fire had burnt…

glasses up the bridge of his nose as he sits behind his desk in room 302 of Colbourn Hall grading a student-written essay. A copy of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” sits to the right of him, while the 25th Anniversary edition of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” rests to the left. “He joined UCF in 2001 and has accomplished more during his time here than anyone I know,” said Dr. Barry Mauer, a friend and professor of English. “He was promoted and…

The influence of William Shakespeare’s plays on modern culture, especially in television and movies, is apparent. The plot of Disney’s the Lion King is based off of the plot for Hamlet; Arthur Laurents’ West Side Story is loosely based off of the plot of Romeo and Juliet, and Twelfth Night has been the basis for countless teenage romantic comedies. Aside from regurgitating the same overused plots for blockbuster movies, public figures can be found quoting Shakespeare in their speeches,…