Grails and Such

Lazy days, lazy days. Something interesting, though: yesterday I popped in Monty Python and the Holy Grail for some background noise while I was reading (not the best idea as it tends to distract with its hilarity), and today for various reasons I decided to look up the script online. Well, here's a copy of it, one which the person posting dates to March 20th, 1974, before shooting had started. What is fascinating is that the person has marked portions of the script which were crossed out and lines which were pencilled in. For anyone who's never shot a script, it's a neat look at how much scripts can and frequently do change between the end of the writing process and shooting. For any actors who are familiar with the process and are fans of Monty Python (which should be all of you, and if you're not then I don't want to hear from you), it's a neat look at exactly what was pre-planned and what was relatively last minute.

Another thing I find neat is watching so-called "Director's Cut" versions of movies versus theatrical releases, and the differences that can be made. The movie that always comes to mind when I think of this is Empire Records, a dorky, mildly-obsessive fave of mine ("Oh Rexy! You're so sexy!"). I watched the original release, came to love it, and then a few months ago I saw the extenda-mix version you can get on DVD these days - and the theatrical release is miles better. The extra scenes did nothing but bog down the action. When there's a good editor, things are cut for a reason; no matter how awesome the writing and acting is, the story and the film always has to come first. The first film I ever worked on, the director forgot/never knew/didn't care about this, and as such, his film ended up this 2+ hour long mess that could have been a decent, stupid 90 minute ok movie

There's some things in the script that I'd heard were actually improv'ed; I might have to go back and watch the special features again, because I think that was where I heard it; supposedly the French taunting and the name of the enchanter were both kind of made up by John Cleese on the spot, because he had problems remembering the actual lines.