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This issue is about Monty Python, Alexander Payne, dark humor jokes in cartoons, insane experiences at music festivals, town weirdos, and much more.

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John Cleese Complains That Monty Python Was Early Target of Cancel Culture

Comedy curmudgeon John Cleese is at it again, telling The Sunday Times that Monty Python and its members were “early targets of cancel culture.” How early? Cleese says the persecution started back in the 1970s, making the Pythons one of the first comedy groups to be silenced. (Announcer voice: Monty Python was never silenced.)

According to Cleese, Monty Python’s 1979 film Life of Brian set off a firestorm in some corners of the Christian community. “People don’t like to have their cherished ideas punctured or questioned,” Cleese told the Sunday Times.

Nobody Does Funny/Sad Like Alexander Payne

The characters in The Holdovers are unhappy. They have different reasons for feeling so down in the mouth, but for each of them, the misery is real, accentuated by the fact that the movie is set during the holidays, a time of year they don’t find cheery at all. This superb comedy-drama, which opens in select cities on Friday, could be a depressing affair, but instead it’s often a bitterly funny movie about being in a not-great-place in your life. And once you know that Alexander Payne made it, that ought to seal the deal. Nobody does funny/sad like him.

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