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This issue is about ‘Time Bandits,’ lapses in common sense, ancient gizmos, NSFW Deadpool jokes, funny tweets, and much more.

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Taika Waititi’s ‘Time Bandits’ Makes Hours Feel Like Days

In 1981, as the Monty Python sketch comedy troupe approached the end of its most fertile period, Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin co-wrote the feature film Time Bandits, which Gilliam also directed. Though Monty Python’s Flying Circus and some segments of their various movies would be entertaining to kids and adults alike, Time Bandits was pitched at a younger audience and, according to an essay by Bruce Eder at Criterion.com, became “the most critically well-received children’s film in nearly two decades.” 

For some Gen Xers who saw it as children, Time Bandits was a formative event: a fantasy story that didn’t hold back on physical or emotional violence, and (spoilers ahead for a 40+-year-old movie) had no compunction about giving the young protagonist’s terrible parents an unambiguously punitive ending.

Robin Williams Was Unnerved By Eddie Murphy’s Success

Robin Williams, who would have turned 73 over the weekend, loved making “strange films.” Out-of-the-box early choices like The World According to Garp and Moscow on the Hudson let Williams stretch his acting wings. But did their middling box-office success lower his status in the comedy hierarchy? 

He was especially freaked out by the success of Trading Places, according to Dave Itzkoff’s biography, Robin. The odd couple/buddy comedy starring Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy went gangbusters in the summer of 1983, and by Williams’ math, that was a problem. In his eyes, one comedian coming up meant another had to come down. 

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