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March 28, 2024, 04:13:42 PM

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austin powers is fucking funny

Started by madhair60, May 02, 2022, 11:32:11 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

frajer

Great thread.

I think one of the many reasons the first film in particular works is that Austin is hardly ever a sleazy player type, he's just a sweet simpleton who happens to be the most irresistible man on the planet. Myers is great at playing that stuff.

The Austin being a man out of time stuff that inevitably gets lost in the sequels is great too, and gives it a hint of poignancy. Austin going out in Vegas to get mocked by all and sundry and then writing a list of all his dead friends is funny but oddly moving. "Ham sandwich."

But above all else, quite right, very fucking funny. My favourite scene might by Dr Evil's monologue about his childhood in the therapy group. Brilliant.

madhair60

Dr Evil just makes me laugh. Even thinking about him gives me the giggles. Why am I so basic. Myers' facial acting when Dr Evil sees the mole in Goldmember and goes from staring to gurning to making an apologetic "you know how it is" face then going straight back to the stare. Kills me.

JamesTC

I feel like if you were doing a new Austin Powers, it would be a parody of the modern approach to spy action films. The new Bond, Bourne and John Wick. Not sure it could really work.

shiftwork2

Yeah it's great.  Risky, could easily have been rubbish.  I remember seeing a trailer in the cinema and it looked like an embarrassment with Mike Myers spoofing something nobody cared about any more.  The dam broke during:

"Ah, there you are."
"Hi, do I know you?"
"No.  But that's where you are, you're there!"

QDRPHNC

On the SNL 25th anniversary show, there was a bit with Myers trying to justify Dr. Evil to Lorne Michaels, can't find it on YouTube. "Marvin Gaye is not gay, right?"

2 and 3 are ok, first is a stone cold classic.

Replies From View

Quote from: JamesTC on May 03, 2022, 11:39:53 AMI feel like if you were doing a new Austin Powers, it would be a parody of the modern approach to spy action films. The new Bond, Bourne and John Wick. Not sure it could really work.

Rowan Atkinson has it covered

JamesTC

Quote from: Replies From View on May 03, 2022, 11:51:32 AMRowan Atkinson has it covered

For my sins, I have a soft spot for those films. Must be my childhood love of Mr Bean.



Old Nehamkin

#69
Quote from: frajer on May 03, 2022, 11:36:19 AMGreat thread.

I think one of the many reasons the first film in particular works is that Austin is hardly ever a sleazy player type, he's just a sweet simpleton who happens to be the most irresistible man on the planet. Myers is great at playing that stuff.

The Austin being a man out of time stuff that inevitably gets lost in the sequels is great too, and gives it a hint of poignancy. Austin going out in Vegas to get mocked by all and sundry and then writing a list of all his dead friends is funny but oddly moving. "Ham sandwich."

Yeah I do like how the first film actually plays some of the character stuff fairly straight and has a certain earnestness contrasting the more arch/meta parts. Conversely I always felt a bit unsettled by the way that Elizabeth Hurley's character is glibly revealed to be a robot and then killed off at the start of the second one. I know these are inherently very silly films but it just felt a bit tonally jarring coming after the first one where her and Myers have real chemistry and their scenes together are genuinely quite sweet and charming.

gilbertharding

It's probably not mentioned in the film, but according to something on the cover of the VHS copy of Waynes World I owned ages ago, Wayne Campbell's occupation, according to his passport, is International Man of Mystery. So, there you go.

Replies From View

The Man From Unternational Nan Cf Lystery E


makes you think

idunnosomename

Quote from: Old Nehamkin on May 03, 2022, 12:19:16 PMYeah I do like how the first film actually plays some of the character stuff fairly straight and has a certain earnestness underlying the more arch/meta parts. Conversely I always felt a bit unsettled by the way that Elizabeth Hurley's character is glibly revealed to be a robot and then killed off at the start of the second one. I know these are inherently very silly films but it just felt a bit tonally jarring coming after the first one where her and Myers have real chemistry and their scenes together are genuinely quite sweet and charming.
Help I'm in a nutshell! How did I get into this nutshell!

QDRPHNC

Duckaduckaduckaduckaduckaduckaduckaduckahuuuuuuuuuh

frajer

I know by Goldmember it's a live-action cartoon with a scattershot aim, but I was always surprised by how much that film pissed some people off. I went to see it at the cinema with teenage pals (28 years old I was) and the cynical bastards hated it.

It's by far the most hit-and-miss but there's a load of good stuff in there. Goldmember himself is the weakest addition but everything with Nigel Powers is, er, pure gold.

Caine encouraging Dr. Evil's final armed guard to just lie down and pretend to be dead makes me laugh just thinking about it.

TommyTurnips

Quote from: Old Nehamkin on May 03, 2022, 12:19:16 PMI always felt a bit unsettled by the way that Elizabeth Hurley's character is glibly revealed to be a robot and then killed off at the start of the second one. I know these are inherently very silly films but it just felt a bit tonally jarring coming after the first one where her and Myers have real chemistry and their scenes together are genuinely quite sweet and charming.

I imagine that's probably because it was meant to be a stand alone film and when it turned out to be a sequel worthy success they needed a new "bond girl" and realised they had shot themselves in the foot by having him get married at the end of the first film. There's a great line in there though. "Machine gun jubblies, how'd I miss those baby?" "Maybe next time you should try foreplay".

AsparagusTrevor

Quote from: Old Nehamkin on May 03, 2022, 12:19:16 PMYeah I do like how the first film actually plays some of the character stuff fairly straight and has a certain earnestness contrasting the more arch/meta parts. Conversely I always felt a bit unsettled by the way that Elizabeth Hurley's character is glibly revealed to be a robot and then killed off at the start of the second one. I know these are inherently very silly films but it just felt a bit tonally jarring coming after the first one where her and Myers have real chemistry and their scenes together are genuinely quite sweet and charming.
That's all worth it for the bit where Austin tells Basil she was a fembot and Basil replies "yes, we knew all along, sadly." And not another mention of it.

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: frajer on May 03, 2022, 12:44:45 PMIt's by far the most hit-and-miss but there's a load of good stuff in there. Goldmember himself is the weakest addition but everything with Nigel Powers is, er, pure gold.

Caine encouraging Dr. Evil's final armed guard to just lie down and pretend to be dead makes me laugh just thinking about it.

I love the way he says "I thought I smelled cabbage!" when Mini Me appears behind him. I'm not sure I even got the reference at first (a callback to Austin describing carnival folk as "smell like cabbage, small hands" in the first film), which probably made it even funnier.

Replies From View

I watched them out of sequence - I may have even seen the third one first, when it was at the cinema - and I liked it enough apart from the farting/shitting humour.

I guess if you're coming straight from the first two it would come across as more stale, but I think part of its schtick is being quite knowingly rubbish, like pantomimes where characters have crap names like Fatima, Thinima and Enema and everyone on stage is like "oooop, funny right, we'll just wait gawping at you until the humour sinks in!"

Maybe not what the producers had in mind; dunno.  But the film is undeniably 'knowing' about its moments of being shite.

Twilkes

Quote from: Replies From View on May 03, 2022, 10:30:05 AMan obese Scottish man who constantly shits himself and relishes it?

Or as it's known in Scotland, 'Sauchiehall Street'.

Is it true that The Guru pretty much killed Mike Myers' career and he's done nothing of note since apart from Shrek?

Also crazy to think I probably watched him when I was little on the Wide Awake Club on Saturday mornings.

The Lurker

"And the best part of this plan is no one can stop me. Not even Austin Powers. Mua-hahaha mua-hahaha"
"We've got you surrounded, Dr Evil"
"Shit."

Magnum Valentino

Love the off camera "there's the bastard" when Dr Evil is escaping in the first scene in the first film.

druss

"He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark." is such a good line.

Catalogue Trousers

'When Mr Bigglesworth gets angry, people DIE!!!'

frajer

Quote from: Twilkes on May 03, 2022, 06:18:36 PMIs it true that The Guru pretty much killed Mike Myers' career and he's done nothing of note since apart from Shrek?

Also crazy to think I probably watched him when I was little on the Wide Awake Club on Saturday mornings.

I bloody love Mike Myers. I was obsessed with Wayne's World when I was young and loved So I Married an Axe Murderer and the Powers films, so he'll forever get a pass from me, but he has clearly long since lost his mojo (eyyy!)

Would love him to have another great role but it's looking doubtful. His new Netflix show doesn't inspire confidence based on the trailer, but I will watch at least the first one before possibly sacking off the rest.

Old Nehamkin

Quote from: Twilkes on May 03, 2022, 06:18:36 PMIs it true that The Guru pretty much killed Mike Myers' career and he's done nothing of note since apart from Shrek?

I always assumed that Myers' post-Love Guru exile was at least partly self-imposed. It's a bad movie that deservedly flopped and definitely brought his stock to an all-time low, but I don't think it was a big enough disaster in itself to warrant his near-total absence from the screen for the next 10 years. I can imagine that his pride was badly stung and/or his confidence shaken by having one of his own projects rejected so resoundingly by audiences after a string of monster crowd-pleasing hits with Wayne's World and Austin Powers, and maybe he just felt like he'd lost his bloody mojo...baby.

(EDIT: It seems that frajer also made a joking reference to Mike Myers losing his mojo above. I don't care. It's staying in.)

idunnosomename

Quote from: druss on May 03, 2022, 06:37:01 PM"He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark." is such a good line.
someone linked that whole monologue here recently, it's all wonderful absurd dialogue

frajer

Quote from: Old Nehamkin on May 03, 2022, 06:51:41 PM(EDIT: It seems that frajer also made a joking reference to Mike Myers losing his mojo above. I don't care. It's staying in.)

It's all groovy, baby!

I never saw The Love Guru and not sure I can bring myself to. Everything I've heard and seen about it looks awful.

Elderly Sumo Prophecy

My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Some times he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical, summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds, pretty standard really. At the age of 12 I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen, a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum, it's breathtaking, I suggest you try it.

Old Nehamkin

Quote from: frajer on May 03, 2022, 07:03:25 PMIt's all groovy, baby!

I never saw The Love Guru and not sure I can bring myself to. Everything I've heard and seen about it looks awful.

I watched it for the first time just a few weeks ago with the dim hope that it might be reclaimable in some way, but nah. Pretty bad. Just a very crass, tacky, largely joyless film that doesn't feel very far removed from watching one of those "from 2 of the 6 writers of Scary Movie" movies.