Tea and a movie at the Honeysuckle Tea House

The Honeysuckle Tea House is having their fourth outdoor movie night of the season this Friday. They are showing Monty Python’s "The Meaning of Life."

Doors open at 7 p.m. and the movie will start when it gets dark.

Tickets are available on the event’s Facebook page.

Whitney Dane, creative director at the Honeysuckle Tea House, said the movie nights were started to get the community to come out and enjoy the tea house since it is a somewhat remote location.

So far, they have shown "The Wizard of Oz," "The Princess Bride" and "Bee Movie."

In the future, the tea house is planning on showing "The Goonies" and several Halloween-themed movies.

The movie selection has been a combination of staff input and timely themes. "The Wizard of Oz" and "The Princess Bride" are both considered cultural classics which is why they were chosen. "Bee Movie," while notorious, was shown because it was National Bee Day.

Dane said they would also look to get more input from the public. She said after they showed "The Wizard of Oz," there were requests to pair it with Pink Floyd’s "The Dark Side of the Moon" album.

According to Wikipedia, the two match perfectly (depending on which roar of the MGM lion you use to start the album).

Another reason for selecting classical movies was because the tea house must pay a fee to publicly show the movies, so they must choose movies with a broad appeal.

Because of this, they thought "The Meaning of Life" would be a good movie to show. Monty Python works have established themselves as somewhat timeless pieces in today’s culture. Dane said this was evident to her because her 11-year-old son enjoys Monty Python.

Monty Python’s "The Meaning of Life" is a comedy released in 1983.

It has some semblance of a plot but is mostly a series of comedy sketches tied loosely together using the theme of man’s quest to find the meaning of life.

Jon Ackley, the general manger at the Honeysuckle Tea House, was the biggest proponent for the tea house showing the movie.

“Well, I think in these troubled times, we all need some advice on what the meaning of life is,” Ackley said. “You know, when I was a kid, my dad took me to see this movie, and it has really guided my life ever since.”

As of Thursday, the event’s page on Facebook listed 36 people going and 877 people interested. One of those people was Hunter Baehren, a senior majoring in political science and economics.

Baehren said he was interested in attending because he’d seen some of his friends RSVP and he was a huge Monty Python fan himself.

His favorite Monty Python film is "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," and he has never seen "The Meaning of Life" in its entirety.

“The girl I’m seeing has never seen any Monty Python,” he said. “So I thought this would be a good date. Plus, we both like tea.”

@sethpyle22

arts@dailytarheel.com