Lee Eisenberg Terry Gilliam rips apart the yuppie culture with this short that preceded Monty Python's "Meaning of Life". Focusing on some elderly employees who rebel against their bosses and turn their office building into a pirate ship, "The Crimson Permanent Assurance" is really an indictment of how greed dominated the 1980s. Yes, this kick in the balls to Reaganomics is what cinephiles get to see before watching a poor man (Michael Palin) sing about how every sperm is sacred, watching a professor (John Cleese) demonstrate sex to his students, and watching a morbidly obese man (Terry Jones) vomit all over the place. Terry Gilliam succeeds again.A piece of trivia is that "The Crimson Permanent Assurance" is the film debut of Matt Frewer, who played Russ Sr. in "Honey I Shrunk the Kids".

TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews The short film that directly precedes The Meaning of Life by Monty Python(meaning, it runs directly before the rest of the film starts), this was put together by Terry Gilliam, the masterful director among the team, and the man behind both Twelve Monkeys and the animations that the team include in the Flying Circus television series. I have to admit that this is my least favorite of all of the full production, but it can't be claimed that this is not well-done. Direction is top-notch, and the whole thing runs very smoothly. Acting fits well. Production values are all of very high quality. The music and score is great, and this even gets a Monty Python song, and a good one at that. Cinematography and editing(save for just a few obvious cuts for effects) are rather good. This hardly features the Monty Python people(on-screen) at all, save for a few cameos. It's got a run-time of 16 minutes or so, if you count the credits. The pacing is marvelous. It doesn't overstay its welcome, nor does it end before it should. It has the utter madness and bizarre humor that most things Python do, coupled with that of Gilliam himself. The ending itself is typically Monty Python, and a fitting end. I recommend this to any fan of Gilliam and Monty Python, but do give the rest of The Meaning of Life your time and attention, too... I personally think it's worth it. 7/10

selfparody My very favorite is a documentary I saw called THE SUNSHINE, about a flophouse in the Bowery which like require intense callousness to not get some reaction. SO, it's not really a fair fight when it comes to considering fiction.Terry Gilliam has made a flick about old-world business versus corporate seizures that will make one who has an appreciation for physical comedy, the absurd, or business satire enjoy wasting fifteen minutes. It has the best music I have ever heard outside of Clint Mansell (PI and Requiem for a Dream.) It has some magnificent models, and a song that is so immensely witty I forgave Eric Idle for being in BURN Hollywood BURN.

nickname1 It's funny & imaginative, as everyone else has mentioned. However almost no-one else has mentioned that the film was intensely satirical when it came out - practically everything in it captured the zeitgeist in London at the start of the 80s, from the flapping sacking around office buildings being refurbished to the wholesale layoffs/business closures. Maybe irrelevant to the casual viewer but IMO it's the most political Gilliam film that I've seen. Incidentally I believe that the building used in the exterior shots is Loundes House - still standing just north of Finsbury Square in the City of London.