Review of The Seventh Python: "A marvelous, thought-provoking, important meditation on the problem of art and fame, asking deep questions"

The latest review of The Seventh Python comes from David Isaak, author of the new novel, Shock and Awe, on his Tomorrowville website:

THE SEVENTH PYTHON
reviewed by David Isaak

The Seventh Python was a marvelous, thought-provoking film. Rather than a rehash of the career of Neil Innes, it was an important meditation on the problem of art and fame.

The first human problem is physical survival--how to find food and shelter. Once those needs are satisfied, then we are faced with the deeper question of what we want to do with our lives.

The artist faces a similar progression of questions. The first problem facing creative people is how to support themselves while doing their work. For most of them, this means either doing creative work as a "hobby" while earning a living through other means, or putting considerable effort into promoting themselves and their projects.

But promotion is a marketplace activity, and if you're not a natural self-promoter, success puts strange and conflicting pressures on you. Neil Innes lives permanently on the edge between fame and anonymity, and it's clear that particular edge is an uncomfortable place to reside. He obviously doesn't want to be a celebrity--but he also needs to maintain a certain degree of public prominence to have the means to do his art.

Anyone who works in the creative arts, from the very public world of performance to the more private world of writing, ought to see this film. Beneath a light, fluffy surface, it is asking some very deep questions.

"Proves that the exhibition of emotional scars is not needed to provide insight into the heart of a person": LAist reviews The Seventh Python

When The Seventh Python, our film about Neil Innes, premiered at the Mods and Rockers Film Festival in Hollywood last night, Elise Thompson of the LAist website was there.

Today she posted the film's first major review. And what can we say, but... "thanks":


JUNE 27, 2008
LAist Movie Review: The Seventh Python

There are a number of inherent contradictions in making a film like The Seventh Python. First of all, how do you spend two hours focusing on a person who notoriously shuns the spotlight?

Innes expounds upon his distaste for fame in a film that by its very existence could make him famous. It is a little ironic when his face is exponentially duplicated to fill the screen like a Herbal Essences commercial (..and they told two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on...), while Innes sings "Joe Public", his ode to the mundane everyman.

Secondly, there is the challenge of making a documentary comprised of talking head interviews and concert footage when your subject is perhaps best known for making The Rutles, a film that mocks that very formula.

Somehow The Seventh Python manages to pull it all together using visual effects, editing techniques and witty commentary, all the while keeping focused exclusively on Innes' professional life.

The film is subtly enhanced with a sprinkling of animation. Bonnie Rose, who founded www.neilinnes.org adds a style that is clearly in tribute to Terry Gilliam, even down to the crushing foot of fate. Other visual effects such the previously mentioned duplication and split screens are used to keep the eye entertained while the ears do the heavy lifting.

In a particularly inspired moment, Innes' attention to an airplane flying by cuts to a shot of an airplane, then to a shot of Terry Jones, whom we have already mentally established is in some distant location, as he pretends to hear the same plane pass overhead. It is an inspired moment that harkens back to the overlapping skits that made Monty Python great (Come back, Harold!).

Rockumentaries often have trouble finding the right balance between music and narrative. Most rock docs have no patience and start narrating over songs just as you are finding the groove. The Seventh Python strikes a nice balance, knowing to back off and allow "The Philosopher's Song" and "Let's be Natural" to play uninterrupted, while cutting into some of the longer, less iconic tunes.

The Bonzo Dog rehearsals follow Innes through a medley-like arrangement, another technique to avoid monotony. I almost wish they would exploit the similarity to a late-night K-Tel commercial and go for the gag, running song titles up the screen.
This film traces Innes' career from his earliest days with The Bonzo Dog Band and the childrens' show Don't adjust your Set, around the bend to Monty Python and just over the river to The Rutles until it gently slopes back to today. It covers his influences, from Magritte paintings to dusty 78s, and offers lots of fun, insider tidbits to chuckle over on fan sites.

Naturally, the commentary is hilarious; we would expect nothing less with friends like John Cleese and Michael Palin. Phil Jupitus is particularly funny, driving the audience into hysterics simply talking about Innes wearing a hat.

What you won't see up on the big screen is Innes' personal life. The closest you get is a short commentary from his wife, and some nostalgia regarding the death of George Harrison that Innes quickly nips in the bud. Such respect for the boundary between Neil Innes the man and Neil Innes the performer can only come from Burt Kearns, a director who penned the expose on tabloid journalism.

Kearns proves here that the exhibition and evaluation of emotional scars large and small is not needed to provide insight into the heart of a subject. This movie makes you admire Innes. It makes you like him as a person. It makes you want to be his friend. He comes off as quick-witted, approachable and clever. Even at his most mischievous he remains guileless. Who else but a self-aware pedant would dare rhyme "pedant" and "dead ant"?

This movie succeeds by coaxing its subject to open up just enough so that we do feel like his friend. The Seventh Python allows the audience to walk out of the theater with more than a taste of Neil Innes, but without having swallowed him whole.

The Seventh Python is a hit at Hollywood premiere! Reviewer: "Made me want to stand up and cheer!"

The premiere of The Seventh Python last night at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood was a rousing success for movie subject Neil Innes, Mods & Rockers Film Festival impresario Martin Lewis. And leave it to legendary blogger and Internet journalist Luke Ford to be first out of the gate with a review of the picture:

"A sweet and funny documentary!
The Seventh Python made me
want to stand up and cheer
for a good and funny man!
A must-see for any Monty Python fan!"
--Luke Ford

Chelsea Handler, Mark Hudson and music legend Chris Montez were seen in the crowd, which roared with laughter, applauded with approval and joined in a standing ovation!

Luke did the interviews above. See more here.

Los Angeles Times: "Neil Innes salute at Mods & Rockers fest"

June 26, 2008
Los Angeles Times

Neil Innes salute at Mods & Rockers fest

“Charming & illuminating documentary”

You can tell a lot about a person from their heroes. There are those who cite great statesmen or politicians; others look up to athletes, scientists, philosophers or artists.

For British musician and humorist Neil Innes, it’s Brian Dunkleman, who quit his job co-hosting “American Idol” with Ryan Seacrest because he didn’t like the way contestants were being treated.

“Dunkleman turned his back on a fortune, and people ridicule him for it — I think he’s a hero,” says Innes, one-time member of the inner circle of the Monty Python comedy troupe who's often referred to as “The Seventh Python.” That happens to be the title of a new film documentary on Innes' career, which also has included membership in the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and Eric Idle’s Beatles satire project The Rutles, for which Innes wrote all the delightful Fab Four-esque songs.

“I say we should start a 'Dunkleman for President’ campaign,” he said.

His admiration for a pop culture footnote goes to the heart of the charming and illuminating documentary by director Burt Kearns who, like many of those he interviewed for his film, laments that Innes never has received wider recognition for his creative wit and musical acumen.

Innes, however, isn’t one of those bemoaning any absence of grand-scale fame and fortune.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Innes, 63, said earlier this week after arriving in Los Angeles for tonight's world premiere screening of “The Seventh Python,” which kicks off this year's Mods & Rockers Film Festival at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.

“George Harrison had the best take on it: There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be rich and famous,” said Innes, who will follow the screening with a solo concert performance Friday, also at the Egyptian. “But if you’re lucky enough to become rich and famous, you still have to find out who you are inside.”

Innes, apparently, has a sprite inside, one with a wicked sense of humor. That’s one quality that doesn’t easily lend itself to rock hero status. If you’re funny, it seems, don’t expect to be taken seriously. Just ask Loudon Wainwright III. Or "Weird Al" Yankovic.

“That’s the problem I’ve had all my life,” Innes said, an ever-present lilt in his voice. “The truth is there is a lot of music out there that isn’t trying to be funny, but it still is. The Bonzos used to point this out in the '60s. There’s that thing that you can’t ignore what you see, and the human condition is funny.”

So is much of “The Seventh Python” — even to its subject. “There’s a wonderful moment when they’re on the street showing a photo of me and no one can identify it. Then one person looks into the camera and says, ‘I know what you’re doing — you’re making a documentary about someone nobody’s ever heard of.’ I just adored that.”

It’s been an unusually reflective period recently for Innes. Earlier this year, Innes and Idle revisited the Rutles with “Rutlemania,” a theatrical production blending footage from the 1978 satirical film with live performances of the music. Innes has also done a string of shows in Europe with Fatso, a band frequently featured on Idle’s “Rutland Weekend Television” British TV series in the '70s, and he’s taken part in periodic get-togethers by the Bonzo Dog Band.

“We have a Bonzos reunion every year, but I think we should probably call it a day now,” he said. “It’s much better to carry on doing things that light you up the most. In the end, I’ve always felt that if you’re enthusiastic about something, people will be enthusiastic about watching it.”

The man who wrote such incisive pop ditties as “Cheese and Onions,” “I’m the Urban Spaceman” and the Bob Dylan send-up “Protest Song” is most interested lately in “fooling around with a book I'm working on about human consciousness. I’m more interested in what the scientist boys and the subatomic particle people are working on these days…. It’s an antidote to the sort of numbing rubbish that seems to be everywhere.

“The media seem to be biased against the understanding of everything. But you can have your own explorations into trying to understand why does this happen. I think you can say that God does exist, but perhaps only in one person at a time. And maybe that’s why people move in such mysterious ways.”

-- Randy Lewis

Photo of Neil Innes performing "The Protest Song" on a London street in 1976 by Yvonne Innes/Mods & Rockers Film Festival

LAist.com interviews Neil Innes on the morning of The Seventh Python's world premiere in Hollywood

JUNE 26, 2008
LAist Interview:

Neil Innes

Neil Innes is nothing if not a gentlemen, a distinctly British one at that.

Innes was - literally - the John Lennon of the Rutles, recently memorialized here with a thirtieth anniversary showing of the great Beatles-taunting mockumentary All You Need Is Cash that put the four principal actors on stage together for the first time. The anniversary of the film was also marked with the premiere of a multi-media stage show, Rutlemania, that featured an unbelievably accurate Beatles cover band playing slavish covers of Rutles tunes and re-enacting their faux history as if it were the Civil War.

Innes was also one of the two principal writers for the beloved Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, purveyors of psychedelic music-hall comedy that a times felt like an English Mothers of Invention indulging latent oom-pah fixations. But Innes remains best known in this country for his musical contributions to Monty Python, for whom he served as “music guy” and occasional sketch writer through the Holy Grail period, one of only two people to receive writing credit for Python besides the six core members. So despite a long and varied career, it’s perhaps inevitable that the documentary dedicated to his life, which premieres tonight at the Egyptian Theater, would be titled The Seventh Python.

Director Burt Kearns’ previous work will probably be familiar to many in the audience, though they may not know and might not admit it: much of his resume is in tabloid TV, including stints directing A Current Affair, Hard Copy and When Good Pets Go Bad II. His experiences on the front lines of exploitation led him to write the book Tabloid Baby, which he calls “part mea culpa, part expose”, in 1999. To say the least, its publication earned him no love from his former employers. With this film, he hopes, if not to make Neil Innes into an actual celebrity, at least to level the market share a little.

Innes himself hasn’t seen the final cut of the film yet. “I’m not sure if I’ll have to walk round the theater until it’s over,” he says from his room in Hollywood. Despite any last-minute jitters, he sounds more than pleased to be here, and talks most excitedly about his latest work, including a 2007 Bonzos album, the first full-length since 1971.

Being the subject of a documentary, which I presume you’ve now seen, was there anything surprising that you learned about yourself while watching it?


No question, it’s one of the oddest things I’ve ever found myself doing in my life. Because it’s not my film. And it shouldn’t be my film. But it’s funny to see my friends saying nice things because they’re normally very rude to me. So it’s a little bit hard to take (laughter.) I am still naturally quite shy. But a lot of it I quite like. I think John Cleese is very funny, Phill Jupitus is very funny.

But I haven't seen the final cut, I saw it when it had everything and I did say, cut it down so that someone who never knew anything about me would get something, but don't dwell on things too much.

What can you tell us about the live show on Friday? Is this a band show?


I’d love to have had a band… the daft thing is, basically, I’m doing a benefit for Cinematheque. Most people come out to Hollywood to get in a movie and make a lot of money; I come to Hollywood and do a benefit for a cinema. But that’s true to form. (Laughter.) You see, Cinematheque and I have a lot in common, both of us are non-profit.

No, it’ll be a one-man show. There just wasn’t time to do that sort of thing. Actually a couple of guys, Ken Simpson and Ken Thornton, are coming from Illinois…and they’ll pop up and play a bit.

Listening to the Bonzo Dog Band albums this week, it struck me that they have a very soundtrack-like quality to them. I know you did some short pieces for British television but did the Bonzos ever consider doing a full-length video?


We have had a reunion recently, you know, in 2006, there was one show for the fortieth anniversary and that turned to be so popular, we did a tour of, I think twelve cities. And then this last year, we made a new album called Pour L'Amour Des Chiens, which is, I think, really… good! In this day and age, people trying to put out CD’s, you know… You can get it on the website, or go to Amazon, they’ve got it. I think it’s great listening for a Bonzos fan. Of course no one can replace Vivian (Stanshall, the other head writer and lead vocalist who passed away in 1995.) But we’ve got some great people, Phill Jupitus, Ade Edmondson…and the deluxe edition’s GOT a free DVD in it!

But as far as Bonzos, you know, none of us are getting any younger. We had our little reunion, and I think that should be it, really. We should move on to pastures green.

I’ve read the stories about Keith Moon joining the Bonzos for a handful of shows, how did that work out?

That’s not a guy known for excessive preparation. With the kind of arrangements you guys worked with…
Oh no, no, no. Bonzos live did not involve excessive preparation! (Laughs hysterically.) So it was a mutual approach.

What was it like watching Ron Nasty portrayed by a stage actor in Rutlemania?


I thought the Fab Four (the Beatles cover band that portrayed the Rutles on stage) were brilliant. They play the music so well. My only criticism was, you can’t tell they’re playing live. I thought, “Well cut loose!” you know. They had to do everything with earpieces, to synch up with the films, which I gather is how Beatlemania was done as well. That was also a multi-media show. But I thought it turned out pretty well, the new songs from Archaeology, that moment where Leggy had gone to Australia, I don’t know why, but it’s quite moving. And John (Halsey, who played Moptop drummer Barry Wom) and Rikki (Fataar, guitar, the quiet, swarthy one) liked it, too, that was the first time we’d all been together since we’d done it.

It was also the first time you’d performed together.


Oh that’s right! We did have to get up and do something with that kind of Keith Moon-ish “excessive preparation.”


The Seventh Python has its world premiere tonight, Thursday, June 26, 2008 at 7:30 PM, as part of the Mods And Rockers film festival, presented by American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theater, 6712 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood. Also on the bill is the US theatrical premiere of a film of the Bonzo Dog Band’s 40th Anniversary Concert in London.

Neil Innes performs a rare solo concert on Friday June 27, 2008, also at the Egyptian Theater as part of the Mods & Rockers Film Festival.

--Bob Thompson

Eve of The Seventh Python: Neil Innes premiere concert is LA Weekly music critics' top pick

Only slightly overshadowed by tomorrow's world premiere of The Seventh Python at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, is the solo concert that Neil Innes is performing at the Egyptian the following night.

Overshadowed perhaps, but not overlooked by the LA Weekly, which lists Neil's show as the top critic's pick for Friday:

ROCK PICKS
BY L.A. WEEKLY MUSIC CRITICS

Friday, June 27, 2008

Neil Innes at the Egyptian Theatre

You might remember Neil Innes from the daft ’60s British group the Bonzo Dog Band, whose rendition of “Death Cab for Cutie” in the Beatles’ film Magical Mystery Tour inspired the name of a much-less-clever modern indie-rock band. Or perhaps you recall Innes as Ron Nasty in the wickedly brilliant Beatles parody the Rutles, or the songs that he wrote for Monty Python, such as “How Sweet to Be an Idiot,” whose endearingly heartbreaking melody transcended mere novelty status. Maybe you’ve never heard of Innes at all, which is where the new film The Seventh Python comes in. The documentary (which screens on Thursday, July 26, at this theater) celebrates the merry life and mad career of this songwriter, who’s often underrated because of his “joke” songs, but also writes gorgeous melodies along with those sarcastic lyrics. Tonight he’ll play a set encompassing his many phases and incarnations, which should make up for the keen disappointment when he appeared — but didn’t sing — during the festivities surrounding Rutlemania, Eric Idle’s slapdash theatrical revue of Innes’ music that played in Hollywood earlier this year. (Falling James)

Both tomorrow's film and Friday's concert begin at 7:30 pm. Tickets available at ModsandRockers.com.

"Still Wacky After all These Years": Los Angeles Times feature on The Seventh Python appears online the night before its premiere

Los Angeles Times Calendar
June 26, 2008

Still wacky after all these years
'Seventh Python' Neil Innes at Mods & Rockers festival

By Susan King
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

NEIL INNES says he's reached that certain age at which "it's almost impossible not to have done quite a lot."

That's certainly an understatement in Innes' case. Over the last four decades, the 63-year-old singer-songwriter has fronted the beloved British group the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band; performed and written songs for the comedy troupe Monty Python’s Flying Circus; and played the John Lennon-esque Ron Nasty in the 1979 Beatles' spoof “The Rutles,” which was created by Innes and Python Eric Idle.

So it's fitting that Innes is front and center at the ninth edition of the American Cinematheque's Mods & Rockers Film Festival at the Egyptian Theatre.

The festival's opening tonight features the world premiere of the 2008 documentary "The Seventh Python," as well as the 2007 documentary "The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band 40th Anniversary Concert." And on Friday, Innes will perform in concert.

"It's really nice," Innes says from England about the Mods & Rockers' honors. "A lot of people can't get around the fact that I have met all of these people and worked with all of these people and still kept out of the limelight. I don't like that side of it."

Martin Lewis, who co-created and programs the festival, says Mods & Rockers has evolved over the years. "It is no longer purely about the '60s," he says. "It has become a very expansive, broad view of pop culture. It is about the essence . . . of the 1960s."

Last year, Lewis says, the festival was very music-oriented. "I felt some of the humor was missing," he says, adding that it was "an essence of the balanced aspect of the festival."

Enter Innes.


Lewis, who earlier this year presented a Mods & Rockers 30th-anniversary Rutles concert at the Ricardo Montalban Theater, says he had been a huge fan of Innes since he was a kid.

"I loved the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band," he says. "They were the wacky side of rock 'n' roll. They made their first record in 1966, and in 1967 they were picked to be in the Beatles' film 'The Magical Mystery Tour.' "

They were also the house band on the children's program called "Do Not Adjust Your Set," which featured Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam, before they became Pythons.

Innes recalls that one journalist referred to the group as "the clown princes of rock." "We were not easy to label," he says.

And when the Bonzos broke up in the early 1970s, Innes joined the Python gang as an unofficial member, writing a lot of their music and performing with them in concert.

"I have to say I am the man who wrote the whistling for 'Always Look on the Bright Side,' " he quips.

As for the concert Friday evening, Innes says that "mercifully" he won't be playing all of his tunes. "There's quite a lot. I will be cherry-picking ones."

MODS & ROCKERS FILM FESTIVAL
WHERE: Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. today and Friday for Innes programming; the festival continues through July 9
PRICE: $7 to $10
INFO:modsandrockers.com

LA CityBeat runs Neil Innes interview on the eve of The Seventh Python premiere

LA CityBeat
published 06.25.08

NEIL INNES

By Ron Garmon

In a town full of fame junkies and discarded icons, the affection held for the unglamorous likes of Neil Innes is heartening. A nimble musical satirist in the jolly company of W.S. Gilbert and Spike Jones, Innes spent the latter half of the ’60s as the musical mainspring behind the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, a raucous meld of English music hall, psychedelic rock and Goon Show buffoonery. The seven-man gallumfry (which housed such eminent lunatics as “Legs” Larry Smith and the late Vivian Stanshall) released five albums, toured relentlessly, and appeared with Michael Palin, Eric Idle and Terry Jones on the pre-Monty Python TV series Do Not Adjust Your Set. Innes pressed on with Python, his writing chores including the songs in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). The low-key and eccentric Innes is the subject of the documentary The Seventh Python, premiering Thursday at the venerable “Mods & Rockers” festival at the Egyptian Theater, and performs a solo concert there on Friday. Here, the puckish rocker trades wheezes with our resident rock critic, and answers a musical question first posed on the 1970 Bonzos album Keynsham.
–Ron Garmon

CityBeat: Hello and how do you find yourself this morning?

Neil Innes: Well, I just rolled back the sheets and there I was!

Does ex-Bonzos saxophonist Rodney Slater still have his bird?
No, I don’t think he does. It was an African Grey and we always would pick Rodney up last before a gig so we could spend a half-hour to 45 minutes marveling at the parrot. I’d like to get it down on record that it never belonged to Hitler. That was a bit of whimsy.

Tell us about The Seventh Python. It sounds a bit like Harry Reems meets Ray Harryhausen.
Bonnie Rose and Laurie Stevens started this Web site a couple of years ago in L.A. and they decided to get in contact with me and asked if I’d come play there. I was coming through in 2003 on my way to a comedy festival in Melbourne, and said if they can find a couple of rooms, we’d play. A little band was put together and, in typical fashion, the Iraq war and the Oscars happened that weekend, so L.A. was pretty much gridlocked. But nevertheless, the filming took place and the movie began to take shape, and it soon turned out they were making a movie about someone who didn’t really want to become rich and famous! [wheeze] So they had to work hard to make it interesting, and they have the rest of the Pythons on there talking through their trousers. I haven’t seen the finished thing, but it’s quite sweet and fun for me to hear people go on about my songwriting in a grown up way, since I muck about so. It’s not a career move, but hopefully an interesting thing, as it was born out of love.

Have you written any good parodies lately or is Amy Winehouse too easy?
No, but I will share this. We have this game in England called cricket and people sometimes go to matches dressed up. I was watching this local match and there were seven or eight Amy Winehouses in the crowd.

Oh, my God ...
No, no! It looked quite good. Some of them even had beards! At one point, one of the Winehouses was deep in conversation with some straight-looking serious old man, and I thought that was a great moment. I wish the very best of cricket upon America!

Your first two trips to these shores were when the Bonzos toured America in the late ’60s.

It was 1969, it must’ve been. Every English band going was in America at that time, and managers were slashing each other’s tires to get them gigs, and we would be in hotels waiting to do them and Bill Graham, bless him, booked us for first the Fillmore East and then West. He said he couldn’t pay us, but did pay our fares and expenses and we had a wonderful time, playing with Joe Cocker, Jefferson Airplane and Pacific Gas & Electric. We were so daft! We were doing “we are normal and we want our freedom,” and there were all these people on the floor, and by the end it was “Bring ’em back, Bill!”

It was a wonderful time to be alive. America at this time was in its infantility...

As opposed to today’s senility...

[Quickly] I won’t go there.

[Laughs] I will. You’re an atypical rock ’n’ roller, but compare la vie rock now to ages past...
It was like children in a village who’d never heard music and, all of a sudden, a brass band comes through, going pom-pa-pom-pa-pom-rumpity-pom-pa-pa. I think my generation heard rock ’n’ roll that way – we’d never heard anything like it and we took to it as the message of the future. I think as time’s gone by, people have gotten bored with beats and tempos and gotten all Noël Coward dry-around-the-edges in sentiment. We have too much music; we have too much sound. I don’t know the way out of it, but Duke Ellington said there’s two types of music – good and bad.

How did you become involved with Monty Python?

It was while the Bonzos were still going. We had a show called Do Not Adjust Your Set with most of the Pythons, apart from Graham [Chapman] and John [Cleese]. We did 26 programs and after those were up, we left for America. By the time we came back, they’d formed Monty Python with John and Graham. After the second tour of America, we came back, paid off three managers and said enough was enough. It’s been five years straight with no holiday and it was time to take a step back. During that step back, Eric Idle rang me up and I became involved with them.

You were something of their de facto music director at times.

Well, that’s a bit pompous, since there was no musical direction! [laughs] Confidant and fellow drunk are more like it.

From internal evidence of Bonzos LPs, you certainly had an ample boozing résumé...

It was absolutely the perfect thing for me to come out of the Bonzos and into the Pythons. It was another trip and absolutely the same sort of giggles. It was the same matrix, if you like, as Pythons – a kind of anarchic presence.

What is the one thing to remember about humor and music?

[Wheeze] Being able to laugh and whistle a tune. Which are two things. [giggles and makes faint whistling sounds] Sorry. Can’t do it. [cackles]

The Seventh Python comes to Hollywood

Our Neil Innes biopic has its world premiere this Thursday, June 26th at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. It's the opening selection in Martin Lewis' ninth Mods & Rockers Film Festival (a division of American Cinematheque). Showtime is at 7:30 pm. Neil Innes himself will be there; a Bonzo Dog Dooh Dah Band concert film follows, and on Friday, June 27th, Neil is performing an unprecedented solo show at the Egyptian!

Tickets at ModsandRockers.com.

PR: "'Weird Al' raves about Seventh Python: 'WITHOUT QUESTION ONE OF THE FINEST DOCUMENTARIES I'VE SEEN! (about Neil Innes) (so far this year)!'"

Neil Innes film premieres June 26 at Hollywood's Egyptian Theatre

"Weird Al" Yankovic raves
about The Seventh Python:
"WITHOUT QUESTION,
ONE OF THE FINEST
DOCUMENTARIES
I'VE SEEN!
(about Neil Innes)
(so far this year)!"

HOLLYWOOD (JONAS PR) - Grammy-winning, million-selling, Top 10 recording artist, parodist, singer and accordionist 'Weird Al' Yancovic has stunned the show business world and brought the art of the 'movie quote' to a sublime new level of greatness in his outrageous praise of The Seventh Python, Frozen Pictures' nonfiction film about fellow satirist, Rutle and Monty Python collaborator Neil Innes, which premieres June 26th at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, opening the ninth Mods & Rockers Film Festival.

"Weird Al" was among a select group-- including Innes, festival organizer Martin Lewis and comic Emo Philips-- to attend an early advance screening of the film on the Sunset Strip. As he prepares to embark on his Summer 2008 Straight Outta Lynwood concert tour that opens Friday June 27 in Henderson, Nevada, he took time to send producers a quote that sums up his feelings about the film:

"The Seventh Python is without question one of the finest documentaries I've seen about Neil Innes so far this year."

Blue Smoke & Mirrors Inc., the design firm that created The Seventh Python graphics and ad campaign, slapped the quote on the premiere poster that's showing up across Hollywood this weekend.

By the time the film's producers read the quote, it was too late.

"It sounded right," says BS&M's creative director Joaquin Blanco, whose native language is Portuguese.

"In my business, you don't always have time to read the fine print."


Innes, who's traveling from London to Los Angeles for the promotion leading to the premiere and his June 27th solo show at the Egyptian, said he thought 'Weird Al' captured the spirit perfectly.

Tickets for The Seventh Python on July 26th at 7:30 pm and the Neil Innes concert on July 26th at 7:30 pm are available at www.modsandrockers.com

Tickets for "Weird Al"'s Straight Outta Lynwood Summer Tour can be found at www.weirdal.com/touring.htm

PRESS RELEASE: "Exclusive: Director of The Seventh Python is tabloid television pioneer and web's leading critic of TMZ.com"

Neil Innes biopic premieres June 26th at Egyptian Theatre

Exclusive:
Director of The Seventh Python
is tabloid television pioneer and
web's leading critic of TMZ.com

HOLLYWOOD (JONAS PR) -- The director of The Seventh Python, the new musical film about Monty Python collaborator and Rutle songwriter Neil Innes- says the picture that premieres June 26th is a direct slap at the celebrity tabloid culture that he helped create in the Nineties and has spun out of control today.

Burt Kearns, a tabloid television pioneer with A

Current Affair and Hard Copy, is the author of the controversial 1999 memoir-exposé Tabloid Baby, and is known in media circles as the leading online critic of the celebrity website, TMZ.com.

'Neil Innes represents everything that's good about show business, rock ‘n'roll, and pop culture,' says Kearns. 'TMZ is everything bad, stuffed into one noxious box. They celebrate the vapid; they mock true talent; they taunt noted artists. And they ooze in the notion of fame for fame's sake.

'Consider that to be a subtext of The Seventh Python,' Kearns says. 'Neil has spent a career avoiding what he calls ‘The Fame Game.' He loves to create. He loves to work in a number of media with talented people, but he's managed to remain under the radar without the distractions and often fatal consequences of celebrity.

'This film opens and ends on Hollywood Boulevard's Walk of Fame. What the audience will see in the hour and half in between is a portrait of an artist whose work has influenced, reflected and satirized our culture for the past forty years and who speaks to his audience one person at a time. And he's really funny. It's the antidote to all the celubutard drivel that TMZ and its offshoots have sump-pumped across pop culture culture, and I can't believe that we were the ones who spawned them."

Some might call those 'fighting words' ironic. Kearns was the first managing editor of the original tabloid television show, A Current Affair. He moved west to Hollywood in 1990 with Hard Copy, and helped transform celebrity reporting with a wicked wit and irreverence-- but not without controversy.

With a background in mainstream television and print journalism, Kearns turned his experiences into the book Tabloid Baby, a blistering exposé of the era.

'Around the time the book came out, I began working with a producer named Brett Hudson. He'd seen the tabloid world from the other side. He was a celebrity with the Hudson Brothers. His niece Kate Hudson was just beginning to feel the heat. We bonded over our love for rock ‘n' roll and Jerry Lewis. With my background in journalism and Brett's experience in entertainment, we hit on a unique formula that shows through in all our work.'

Kearns and Hudson formed Frozen Pictures and began producing a diverse and very distinct array of television and film projects, including the 2001 record-rating Court TV miniseries, Adults Only: The Secret History of The Hollywood; Showtime's My First Time docudrama series; All The Presidents' Movies with Martin Sheen for Bravo, and last year's nonfiction film, Basketball Man.

In 2006, Kearns and Hudson teamed up with Academy Award winning producer Albert S. Ruddy (The Godfather, Milion Dollar Baby) to write and produce Frozen Pictures' first feature film, Cloud 9, a beach volleyball sports comedy starring Burt Reynolds and DL Hughley.

Along the way, Kearns has also directed or produced a number of other projects, including Hollywood Animal Crusaders, on which he worked with John Travolta and Cher; the international documentary, Bin Laden's Escape; and the 2000 nonfiction film, Death of A Beatle.

'I first met Neil Innes in London, while filming the John Lennon project,' he says. 'Along with friends and colleagues, I wanted to interview the man who played Lennon in the Rutles. Neil was wary. When we asked about Lennon's legacy, he said it taught you to never trust a journalist. We put that in the doco. When we asked where he was when John was killed. Neil said he didn't like being part of a montage of remembrances. We ran Neil's objection. We also included him the montage. He liked that. And we developed a friendship that led to this film.'

Kearns denies there's any incongruity in a once-notorious tabloid producer taking on the story of an artist who's been called the most important musical satirist since the days of vaudeville.

'I came up from rock ‘n' roll, radio stations and music journalism in the Seventies' says Kearns. 'Brett was a rock ‘n' roll star. The rock ‘n' roll sensibility has informed everything we do. And it influenced tabloid television, which was a great liberator for me. We changed the way stories were told on television, and all the techniques I learned we transferred to our work with Frozen Pictures.'

Along with his film and writing work (he and Hudson are penning the book based on the film), Kearns is also editor of the Tabloid Baby news and satire site. 'It's place for media criticism, satire and good interesting stories,' he says. 'We've got people contributing from around the world, and always make room for Seventh Python stories. And we keep an eye on TMZ.'

The Seventh Python, which also features Monty Python alums John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin; acclaimed singer-songwriter Aimee Mann; and The Simpsons creator Matt Groening, among others, opens the Mods & Rockers Film Festival at the Egyptian Theatre on Thursday, June 26th.

Neil Innes will attend the premiere and appear in a special solo performance at the Egyptian on Friday, June 27th. Both shows begin at 7:30 pm. Tickets are available at Modsandrockers.com.

www.theseventhpythonmovie.com

Here's the premiere poster for The Seventh Python

Monty Python website features The Seventh Python

Pythonline, the official website and news source for fans of Monty Python, is featuring a major item on the premiere of The Seventh Python, June 26th. Our movie was selected to open the ninth Mods & Rockers Film Festival at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.

THE SEVENTH PYTHON WORLD PREMIER! WITH NEIL INNES

Mods & Rockers festival number 9 opens on Thursday June 26 at Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre with the World Premiere of the full-length documentary “The Seventh Python.” The film is a portrait of Neil Innes – who since his film debut in the Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour” in 1967 has been a major presence as a comedic composer and performer with Monty Python, The Rutles (the spoof Beatles band he created with Eric Idle) and originally with the cult British group – the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. The film features all five of the surviving Monty Python members – John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam – who in a nod to the expression “the Fifth Beatle” – have dubbed Neil Innes as “The Seventh Python”. Innes will be present for the World Premiere and will partake in a conversation about his career with Festival producer Martin Lewis.

(Innes and Lewis are old friends and collaborators. They worked together on Lewis’ “Secret Policeman’s Ball” shows in the 1970s and 1980s – and Lewis instigated and produced Innes’ Rutles reunion album “Archaeology” in 1996.)

SECOND NIGHT – FIRST-EVER MODS & ROCKERS CONCERT AT EGYPTIAN!
The festival’s second night – Friday June 27th - sees a first – the first-ever concert presented inside the historic Egyptian Theatre as part of the Mods & Rockers Festival. Neil Innes will return to the theatre to present a very rare solo concert – his first L.A. live appearance in several years. He will perform songs drawn from his entire 40-year canon – including Bonzo Dog Band, Monty Python and Rutles material – and from his extensive solo catalogue.

click here for more information and ticket sales

Beatles fans say "yeah!" to The Seventh Python

The premier Beatles fansite, Beatles Unlimited, has taken notice of The Seventh Python, the movie from our pals at Frozen Pictures about Bonzo, Python pal and Rutle Neil Innes.

Beatle connections? A few. Paul McCartney produced Neil's only Top 10 single (I'm The Urban Spaceman by The Bonzo Dog Band); Neil and the Bonzos appeared in Magical Mystery Tour; Neil portrayed Ron Nasty, the Lennon character in The Rutles; Neil was good friends and collaborated with George Harrison; Neil's music was ripped off by Oasis; and The Seventh Python will be screened in August at the Fest for Beatles Fans in Chicago.

The Seventh Python premieres June 26th at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, opening the American Cinematheque's ninth Mods & Rockers Film Festival.

PRESS RELEASE: "The Seventh Python introduces moviegoers to legendary satirist and songwriter Neil Innes"

John Cleese: “I’d say he’s up there with Chaplin & Steve Martin!”

‘The Seventh Python”
introduces moviegoers
to legendary satirist
and songwriter Neil Innes

HOLLYWOOD (JONAS PR) - Frozen Pictures' new musical film The Seventh Python, will introduce the mainstream audience to a man who's considered to be the living link between the most influential music and comedy of the past forty years.



Neil Innes, associate of Monty Python, key member of The Bonzo Dog Band and Rutles singer and songwriter, has long been a pop music and comedy worlds, but despite appearances in The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour, Monty Python's TV series and films, and Saturday Night Live-- and music in Broadway's Spamalot-- he's managed to maintain a brilliant career as he like it: under the radar.

The Seventh Python may change all that, as his work, philosophy and accomplishments are laid out, and friends like John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michal Palin, Simpsons creator Matt Groening, songwriter Aimee Mann and others sing his praises.

'Neil Innes writes perfect pop songs, he writes parodies like no one else and he's a charismatic, winning performer,' says director Burt Kearns. 'If nothing else, The Seventh Python will show how he does what he does, and let the audience see for themselves what they've been missing.'

'Here's an artist who's still at the vanguard of psychedelia with the Bonzo Dog Band, yet his music is featured on Broadway in Spamalot, while his parodies are beloved by Beatles fans,' producer Brett Hudson says. 'I think Neil's managed to stay under the radar because he's so specific to so many different audiences. Plus, he wears a duck on his head.'

The film about the artist has been selected to open the American Cinematheque's ninth Mods & Rockers Film Festival on June 26th at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. The night after the world premiere screening, Innes himself will perform a special solo concert at the Egyptian-an unprecedented tribute to the tremendous talent.

"I've always thought Neil Innes is the embodiment of the two finest aspects of the culture of the last 40 years: the music and the humor," festival organizer Martin Lewis said Wednesday. "It's still astonishing to me how few people know about him. There's no point in having a film festival if you can't use it to promote the people who are truly worthy of it."

When asked about Innes' place in comedy history, John Cleese calls him 'irreplaceable.

'I'd say he's up there with Chaplin and Steve Martin,' Cleese says.

'Neil is brilliant, he writes the best songs I've ever heard,' says Terry Jones. 'He's a magnetic personality when he's performing, and yet he's only had one hit record. He's had a lot of success, but why hasn't he become a huge star? Why isn't he Paul Simon? It's an enigma.'

'He's absolutely brilliant,' agrees Rutles creator and frequent Innes collaborator Eric Idle. 'He is so natural with his audience, he loves the audience and he's very funny. But I think he could get out more and I wish he would. Because if you're really talented like he is, you should get out more. You owe it to us!'

Oscar-nominated singer-songwriter Aimee Mann adds: 'I think Neil Innes is one of our great undiscovered geniuses. Or maybe partially discovered and he should be unearthed completely!'

Showtime is 7:30 pm. Tickets for the film, and the concert are available now at modsandrocker.com ; $10 general admission; $7 for American Cinematheque members; $8 for students and seniors at $7 kids 3-17.

www.modsandrockers.com
www.americancinematheque.com
www.theseventhpythonmovie.com

Preview: LA Times on Seventh Python premiere

Tomorrow's edition of the LA Times announces the June 26th world premiere of The Seventh Python as the opening selection of the Mods & Rockers Film Festival in Hollywood. In keeping with Neil's artistic integrity and forty-year campaign to sidestep celebrity and fame, the typesetters left his name out of the lede!

We're sure they'll fix it by tomorrow... but meanwhile, it's a good collectors' item.

Here's the story:

Mods & Rockers Film Festival in Hollywood opens June 26

By Randy Lewis, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 12, 2008

The ninth Mods & Rockers Film Festival opens June 26 in Hollywood with the world premiere of "The Seventh Python," a look at the life and music of longtime Monty Python associate, former Bonzo Dog Band member and Rutles singer and songwriter .

The following night, Innes will play a solo concert in the American Cinematheque's Egyptian Theatre, where the festival's mix of new and classic music-centric films will be run. "The Seventh Python" references Innes' close working and personal relationship with the six members of the British comedy troupe. The opening-night program also will include the first public screening of the film of the Bonzo Dog Band's 40th anniversary concert.

"I've always thought Neil Innes is the embodiment of the two finest aspects of the culture of the last 40 years: the music and the humor," festival organizer Martin Lewis said Wednesday. "It's still astonishing to me how few people know about him. There's no point in having a film festival if you can't use it to promote the people who are truly worthy of it."

PRESS RELEASE: "NEIL INNES BIOPIC 'THE SEVENTH PYTHON' GIVES POWER TO AUDIENCE WITH INTERACTIVE ELEMENT"

NEIL INNES BIOPIC
'THE SEVENTH PYTHON'
GIVES POWER TO AUDIENCE
WITH INTERACTIVE ELEMENT

'Interactive' documentary feature is selected to open the Mods & Rockers Film Festival in a two-day Hollywood blowout that includes Innes concert at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre-- the first artist performance in American Cinematheque fest's nine-year history

HOLLYWOOD (JONAS PR) -- The Seventh Python, Frozen Pictures' nonfiction film about musical satirist, Rutle and Monty Python collaborator Neil Innes that premieres June 26th, contains a unique interactive element that gives the power to the audience.



Eschewing the standard use of archival still photos and film clips for state-of-the art animation that combines the aforementioned elements into an innovative new method of biographical time travel, The Seventh Python also contains prompts that encourage viewers to expand and extend the film's scope in any direction they wish.



“This isn't a crawl through someone's photo or video archives. This is a 21st century nonfiction film that takes advantage of the almost unlimited resources of cyberspace,” says director Burt Kearns. “Neil's entire musical and comedy history is there online. We're giving the power to the audience and encourage viewers and fans to find it and do their own directors cut.”



“To be honest, we're sick of the old ‘stills and archival footage' docos,” says Brett Hudson, who wrote and produced with Kearns, “They're 20th century. They're old. We've been there and done that too many times. The Seventh Python takes us on a journey through the past, but Neil's story is set in the present and leads the audience into the future, just like Neil Innes does.”


As the filmmakers capture Innes in and around a series of concerts in Hollywood and Melbourne, Australia, then follow him home to Suffolk, England, they also explore the role of the Internet in spreading Innes' work to a new generation, as well as consolidating his diverse fanbase around the world.

“Neil isn't interested in being a star or even being the center of a movie,” says Kearns. “He wants the fans and viewers to be a part of this, and have the ability to take this story any way they want, and go as deep as they want. 



“And there are a lot out there.'”



The Seventh Python has been selected to open the American Cinematheque's ninth annual Mods & Rockers Film Festival, June 26th at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. The world premiere showing is part of a two-day spectacular that includes a special concert performance by Neil Innes on June 27th.



“Neil will be performing songs from the Bonzos, the Pythons, the Rutles and his solo career,' promises festival organizer Martin Lewis. “Consider this to be a living, breathing Neil Innes anthology! Or Archeology!”

The film includes interviews, appearances and performances by Innes friends, colleagues and protégés including surviving Pythons John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin; The Simpsons creator Matt Groening; Oscar®-nominated songwriter Aimee Mann; comedians Phill Jupitus and Emo Philips; and an assorted Rutle or two, among others.



Showtime for The Seventh Python premiere is 7:30 pm on June 26th. Tickets are available for the film and the June 27th Innes concert online at www.modsandrockers.com or at the Egyptian Theatre box office.



www.theseventhpythonmovie.com

www.modsandrockers.com

www.frozenpictures.com

www.frozenpictures.blogspot.com

www.myspace.com/theseventhpython

Media: Monsters & Critics & The Seventh Python

Monsters and Critics, one of the larger independent web-only news and review publications, reaches millions of unique visitors each month and this weekend they’re reaching them with the latest news about The Seventh Python, our Neil Innes movie that’s been selected to open the American Cinematheque’s prestigious ninth annual Mods & Rockers Film Festival in Hollywood on June 26th:

Movies Features
The Seventh Python Neil Innes fêted in Hollywood June 26, 27

by April McIntyre

A rare Neil Innes concert will follow the world premiere of “The Seventh Python,” Frozen Pictures’ nonfiction film about the life, work and unplanned career of musical satirist, Rutle and Monty Python collaborator Neil Innes, Thursday, June 26th at 7:30PM at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.

The biopic opens the American Cinematheque’s 9th annual Mods & Rockers Film Festival.

The two-day premiere includes a special concert performance by Innes at the Egyptian on Friday, June 27th.

The film will combine concert performance footage, animation, a unique interactive element and interviews, appearances and performances by Innes' friends, colleagues and protégés, including surviving Pythons: John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin.

Matt Groening, Aimee Mann, comedians Phill Jupitus and an assorted Rutle or two, among others will be in attendance.

“The Egyptian Theatre on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is the perfect place to open this film,” says director Burt Kearns, who produced and wrote Python with Frozen partner Brett Hudson.
“Neil Innes has spent his entire career fighting the celebrity fame game that’s gotten so out of control here in recent years. This film celebrates a true comedy and musical genius who’s been all too happy to work beneath the radar. Until now, of course.”

“Even more important,” Hudson adds, “we explain why Neil wears a duck on his head.”

Innes’ resistance to the celebrity worship that haunted his friend George Harrison is at the heart of this film that one early reviewer has called “Touching, hilarious and inventive!”

“The Seventh Python” traces Innes’ winding path at the edge of fame with his influential work that keeps one foot each planted in the worlds of comedy and rock ‘n’ roll.

From the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band to the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour, from Monty Python to The Rutles, from his work with Harrison to his songs in Idle’s Broadway smash Spamalot, Neil Innes is that rare artist who is both a brilliant satirist and songwriter who happens to occasionally wear a duck on his head.

John Cleese has likened Innes to Steve Martin and Charlie Chaplin; Terry Jones draws comparisons of him to Paul Simon.

Showtime is 7:30PM for the June 26th premiere. Tickets are available for the film and the June 27th Innes concert online here or at the Egyptian Theatre box office.

UK comedy guide catches The Seventh Python

Excitement over the June 26th premiere of The Seventh Python has already reached back to the United Kingdom, where it all began in the first place. And in the country that gave us Oasis, there's reason for soccer-style chants and anticipation, for while many in the United States may be unaware of the brilliant work and widespread influence of the satirist, songwriter and performer, Neil Innes is a hero in his homeland, and word of the imminent release of a movie about his life and career is causing great ripples across Old Blighty.

The latest bulletin comes from Chortle, the UK comedy guide:

Rutle & Hum
Innes subject of new documentary movie

Musical satirist Neil Innes is to be the subject of a new documentary film, The Seventh Python.

The movie - which features John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin talking about Innes's contribution to Monty Python – receives its word premiere in Hollywood later this month.

Other contributers include Simpsons creator Matt Groening, singer-songwriter Aimee Mann and comedians Phill Jupitus and Emo Philips.

The film charts Innes's career from art school through The Bonzo Dog Dooh Dah Band, work with the Beatles, Monty Python and The Rutles, mixed with concert footage and animations.

Here’s a trailer for the film, which will open the American Cinematheque's ninth annual Mods & Rockers Film Festival at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood on June 26:

City Beat highlights The Seventh Python premiere

The Seventh Python, our Neil Innes musical biopic, is the hottest attraction of the Summer of 2008, according to Los Angeles City Beat.

The alt weekly paper is first out with word of the ahead of all others, as the film section of its Attack of The Summer Guide leads off with the June 26th premiere of The Seventh Python at Martin Lewis’ Mods & Rockers Film Festival-- and its selection as the film to open the program at the American Cinematheque's Egyptian Theatre.

To top it off, they describe Neil Innes as “briliantly funny.” Which he is. And which The Seventh Python proves.