We love to talk about our past favorites in terms of how well they have “held up.” In the case of Monty Python, that can be a tricky standard to measure, except in the case of Holy Grail and this deathless masterpiece, which is as smart, silly, and overpoweringly hilarious as it was in 1979. Life of Brian’s ingenious production design (by Terry Gilliam, no less) and whole-cloth satirical takedown of religious/ideological idiocy gives it the nod as the most essential of Monty Python’s features by Sean Nelson