Midweek Mention... Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

Austin Powers

Dan: Is it

Sidey: Yeah. Okay. It's

your week. It's your big week.

Dan: my big week. Austin Powers.

Sidey: Yeah.

Dan: This was mentioned to me after a long time and not seeing it. I thought, I'll throw it out there to the

Sidey: yeah.

Dan: pod and see what we all think of it. We all saw this the first time round, right?

Reegs: Yep. I believe I might have seen this at the cinema at

Sidey: I definitely saw this at cinema, yeah.

Dan: Oh, really?

Sidey: so

didn't know the Will Farrell was in it?

Dan: No, no. There's a few stars that we might be able to pick out and mention. This is the Spy Who Shagged me,

Sidey: Nope, it's International. International Man of Mystery. That

Dan: it's that one. Yeah, it exactly. It's the first one.

Reegs: It's the first one. And at this point, the whole world hadn't become completely oversaturated by this stuff.

Like it did Austin Powers by the time it got to the third one, and it was just horribly regurgitating itself.

Dan: Well, we'll get into it, but I think the whole series has laughs and it has some moments where you don't really laugh and it's,

Reegs: well, I'll be honest, I was a bit eye rolling when you nominated this.

I was a bit, oh

Dan: Oh, you [00:01:00] do that for everything?

Reegs: I don't think I do. But I was a bit like, 'cause it became a bit associated to like real dicks with me. Like who used to say the catchphrases, do I make you horny and stuff? And you're

Sidey: Like,

Reegs: no man, you're just some fucking twat named Andy who's an accountant with bad hair and bad teeth.

You're not suddenly sexy 'cause of this movie. So I was a bit like, oh, but then I forgot just how many great gags there are in it. We should get started then.

Sidey: Yeah. We start off back in 67.

67 Yeah.

He is Austin.

We meet him and he's

Dan: a great intro.

Sidey: He's

a great, he's a photographer. Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah. It doesn't actually start with them.

It starts with Dr. Evil in his layer,

Sidey: of course he does. Yeah. I always get that wrong.

Dan: But it soon goes into what would

be a musical number.

Yeah, a musical number da, just like this.

Sidey: No, we're not paying it.

Dan: it

Reegs: It's like Beatlemania

meets Benny Hill.

Sidey: Yeah, yeah, it is.

Reegs: just chasing around, like in, you know, and he's hiding away from all the adoring women.

And he's got his like crushed velvet suit with a kind of white cravat and,[00:02:00]

Sidey: you know, it's, you know, it's been a success when it crosses over into fancy dress Yeah.

Land. Exactly. Which is absolutely dead.

Reegs: Yeah. And still continues

Sidey: to do. Yeah. Yeah.

Reegs: So yeah, it's the big And it, what's the song? It's, is it.

Sidey: It's the, so this, the score is really good.

Dan: And he's just dancing in, in time with it. You get this whole catalog of other. Dancers in the street. Even a policeman who kind of stops him for one second and then joins in and you can just see he's, it's the swinging sixties baby.

Yeah. He's,

Sidey: like super promiscuous. Some sort of internationally renowned spy, although supposed to be secret. He

Reegs: much a homage to James Bond. Well, specifically Roger Moore, I would say. But, yeah. And we've also seen his nemesis just before this, Dr. Evil, he is assembled like the world's greatest assassins, which includes Will Ferrell.

Sidey: He's Mustafa. Yeah. And Farer. Yeah. And then there's a couple of others, but they all get.

Reegs: they get taken off to

Dan: there's an Irish guy, isn't there?

Sidey: He, he survives this round. He, he comes [00:03:00] back, he comes back later on. He is

Reegs: He's like literally in it, just for the joke of the Lucky charms. Like that's literally just him for one joke. It's

Dan: And well Will Ferrell goes down the fiery pit of hell, but it hasn't quite killed him off.

And you, you hear him kind of screaming in anger each time. Dr. Evil, who's also played with by Mike Myers

Sidey: they sort of keep that back for a little while, don't they?

Until they revealed it. But yeah. Rfra does that sort of drawn out gag and then they bring it back in the second in the sequel to do exactly the same thing doing it. Yeah.

Reegs: So the plot kind of kicks off with, I think Basel Exposition, who I still like, think of his name every time a an exposition character comes on screen, that's his boss,

Sidey: Michael York. Michael

Reegs: York.

And he tells him that Dr. Evil's gonna be at his nightclub.

Sidey: electric pussycat, psychedelic swingers club or something like that.

Reegs: Yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah. And he foils a, a plot there when he hammers a waitress in the

Sidey: face.

Reegs: And it turns out to be a man, a gag that will pay off at the end when he punches York's mother.

Dan: Yeah, [00:04:00] yeah, that's right. It is a woman to begin with. And then when the camera pans back, it's clearly a man with a beard that only Austin Powers is identified.

Sidey: Yeah, he's at this point he's with Mimi Rogers, isn't he? He's he's got her in tow and he thwarts this part of the plan and he sees doctor, we still haven't seen the reveal that it's Mike Mars, but he, he sort of runs away.

He's, he's trying to assassinate, he's got a gun and he's like, there's the bastard and he runs off and he goes into his cryogenics chamber, fucks off in this big boy, and we get a little bit Clint Howard Magic here. Yeah. And that's the sort of intro bit, so they don't tell you immediately. It's not till after then that they explain that.

Austin Powers has also volunteered to be Cry Gently frozen Demolition man

Reegs: a bit. Demolition man. Absolutely. Yeah.

Dan: And so he's unfrozen. 60 odd years into the, into the future.

Sidey: This is where they, they start doing the taking the piss outta tropes. And literally explaining every trope as they do it.

Yeah. So this is the cryogenic thawing. Yeah. And explaining every little bit of it and him doing it and all that sort of stuff. So he's,[00:05:00]

Reegs: He's stored in the celebrity wing of the cryo Janice's chambers, along with Gary Coleman Vanilla Ice. Yeah. And he's like covering his genitals and like looking really gormless as he's frozen and they unfreeze him. He can't control his voice first,

Dan: He goes

through a, a conveyor belt of

Sidey: a piss, doesn't he?

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: He's taking a piss that goes on for a long, long time. They

Reegs: him his stuff back, which includes a Swedish male, Swedish made penis enhancer pump, which he argues is not his bag

Sidey: They go on for this gag for a long time, don't they?

There's the, there's the warranty card, the

Reegs: yeah, the book.

is, and

Dan: And it's all, all the time. While this beautiful young lady is accomp amendment. Of course it is the

Sidey: it's Elizabeth Hurley and she's playing miss Corning Stone. Okay.

Reegs: Kensington. Kensington.

Dan: daughter

Sidey: and it's the daughter of maybe Rogers in, in this she's very pri and proper not taking any of his fucking bullshit

Dan: looking amazing though. And it, it's clear that Austin has the. The Gladi for straight away. Yeah. But they've,[00:06:00]

They've

got a mission, they've got problem, they've got a mission Riggs

Reegs: and that mission is gonna be to foil Dr. Evil. Yeah. Who has, he's come back round and, you know, in the, I love this bit in the meantime, like having inflation explained to him, like when he, his request

Dan: 1

million pounds and they're like, Ugh. Yeah, we actually make in his evil empire

Sidey: billion

Reegs: 9 billion a year.

Yeah.

Dan: 9 billion.

Reegs: they're in heavy petrochemicals or something. And also his plans, you know, to destroy the ozone layer. And

Sidey: It says we've got a factory that makes just little miniature factories. They

Reegs: yeah, yeah. So eventually they settle on holding the world of ransom by getting nuclear material from the Republic of Stan.

Dan: yeah.

Which is dangerous material still even in this age.

Reegs: this is the bit where Mustafa gets found out. I mean, quite a lot of pain here. And is then you shot me.

Dan: The gags keep on coming. They don't all hit [00:07:00] home all the

Sidey: Not this time. I, I'd to say,

Dan: I think other people seeing it for the first time, maybe, maybe it's dated a a little bit, but I think there's still, there was still some, some choal for me even the way through it, you know.

Sidey: Had you seen this before, Chris? Yeah. Okay.

Reegs: So, the dynamic continues I guess with Austin. He's kind of, he's a man at a time and his sort of outdated opinions and beliefs are sort of exposed by the prim, miss Mrs. Kensington who, who asks him basic things like don't call her baby and that sort of stuff.

And he, you know, she. Pretty quickly like rebuffs him and sets him straight. She's not gonna be one of his sexual conquests. She seems immune to his charms

Dan: and he doesn't see anything wrong with having sexual conquests as they did in the sixties. It was all very promiscuous. It was, yeah, baby, I shagged her. Yeah.

Shagged her rotten. And quite proud of that. And obviously the, the times [00:08:00] have been a changing since he, he's been in there and he has a, a period of time where he has to adjust to that and understand that he will have to change as well. Yeah.

Sidey: Dr. Drew's got a new plan. Yeah. Hasn't he? 'cause they're getting to the crux of the villainy and he's, is it the un He keeps phoning.

It's like so amateur. The un bit like people doing dress up and he's got this. Incredibly phallic drilling mechanism with a warhead in. And his plan is to drill that into the center of the earth effectively and detonate that causing all the volcanoes on earth to

Reegs: Yeah. Scary. So Austin and Vanessa have gotta go undercover.

Essentially, they're gonna pose as a married couple.

Sidey: Oprah

Reegs: Oprah and Richie Cunningham.

Sidey: this is my wife, Oprah. Yeah.

Dan: What he gives away on the gambling table, isn't it?

Sidey: And he said he,

Reegs: he, he's playing number two and his mistress a lot of vagina.

Dan: Yeah. And he, he says, at, at one point, I like to live dangerously. Yeah.

Sidey: That's what Robert Wagner

Dan: Yeah. Robert Wagner. [00:09:00] He's got a. An x-ray eye patch, and he can see that he's on 17, and the, the car on card underneath is a four. So he,

Sidey: It hits.

Dan: he says, oh, I'll hit the, the dealer even says, are you, are you sure sir? And he goes, I like to live dangerously. And then I think

and he says, I'll

Reegs: stick.

Dan: I also like to live

Reegs: and

then allow myself to introduce myself as well, which is one that I quite often steal to. I was amazed how many gags from this. I, I often actually think about

Sidey: it.

Dan: just tip out anyway.

Reegs: There's a scene in the casino bathroom where he's next to Tom Arnold.

Sidey: He needs a shit.

Reegs: he's, yeah, he needs

Sidey: Have ever taken a shit in one of these toilets? No, they're

Dan: what? A cubicle toilet.

Sidey: The American ones? No.

Their cubicles leave loads of gaps. It's so

Reegs: What? So you can, between the cubicles,

Sidey: that you ever want to just look into one and see

Dan: don't wanna eyeball

Cris: What? do you mean? Sorry, I don't

Sidey: Like if you go to the, like where the doors draw and everything, they're just really

Cris: There's still [00:10:00] space

Sidey: Like ones that in the uk they'd do, you know, it'd be

Dan: sealed

Reegs: so you could make pure eye contact with a stranger

Sidey: like look in and go.

Yeah. Yeah.

Dan: and well, he, he's having a fight with the guy who's the Irish,

Sidey: shamer, so

Dan: shame is so fighter. He's trying to get a chain around his neck.

Reegs: Who does number two work for?

Sidey: Show that Tur who's boss.

Reegs: Yeah,

Dan: That was quite a funny moment. When they're doing the, the toilet gags, but that shows my level of humor. Maybe

Sidey: he ends up drowning Seamus in the like via bog wash. Yeah. And when when they come out, he's like, oh my God, what did you eat? Boy?

Reegs: He goes off to seduce a lot of vagina to pump her for information which is where he finds out about the project Vulcan plan and how they get onto this thing of the warheads.

Dan: It also upsets Liz Hurley's character who can't believe he's been so promiscuous, just as she was softening to

him,

Reegs: well, he seemed to start to understand the world a little bit more and all that sort of stuff.

Dan: She's the village

bike, baby[00:11:00]

Sidey: They've had the rooftop bus sequence with B Backrack, playing piano with them. He's Serena, she's, she's starting to come round. He's, he's maybe gonna be a one woman man, but no, the mission comes first.

Reegs: We see Dr. Evil's terrifying plan to unleash the fembots.

Sidey: through for, isn't it? She's, she's the architect of the fembots

Reegs: I like to see girls of that. Caliber.

Dan: Yeah.

But o obviously Austin deals with them as, as they're all on, on the floor

Sidey: was so dreadful this bit. Now I thought when, when he dances and they all go and they explode him,

Dan: yeah, so there's, there's a few just kind of crazy mad cap bits that don't seem to have fitted the film. You just couldn't guess they were coming.

Reegs: I liked all the crazy interstitials and stuff.

It makes it a bit different. All the like bits in between where they're just sort of dancing and he's putting faces

Sidey: see who's in that band that they're, no. It is

Dan: Elvis.

Sidey: no.

no,

Dan: Tom Petty.

Sidey: really

Reegs: it's gonna be somebody really awful.

Sidey: No, it's sounded really [00:12:00] great.

The name's gone totally outta my head. We'll come back to it.

Dan: Alanis Moer.

Reegs: So yeah, they do pose as a couple. They do go undercover. They do end up getting caught by the henchman after

Oh,

right, okay. From the Bengals.

Sidey: and she's married to the director of the film.

Reegs: ah, there you go. We do get the gag of the henchman being very slowly ran over. Yeah. No,

Sidey: This is what I like when it cuts down to his family. Yeah.

Reegs: It's just brilliant, isn't it?

Dan: Nobody ever thinks about the henchman

Reegs: and

the gag of him getting stuck sideways with the golf cart, with a reversing, which I think of every time I

Dan: back. I think. I think that one just sticks in everybody's mind who's seen this film? Yeah. I'm gonna Austin Powers it out of inching forward and back or forward and back ways clearly just better off reversing. Brilliant. Yeah.

Reegs: So we get all of that and then we get kind of the big finale set up via Dr. Evil's son, Seth Green. They've had a sort of couples break. A counseling session is one of the great, I couldn't [00:13:00] even do it justice, but one of the great introductions where Dr.

Evil talks about his origin.

Sidey: is the

the therapist, didn't she? Yeah.

Dan: yeah. Lots of stars watching

Sidey: I was placed. In Burla was he placed in burlap sacks and beaten with reeds.

Reegs: My mother was a 15-year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. It's just, I honestly, every line of dialogue is just absolutely brilliant in his origin story.

And then we just get the end, which is stuff happening, isn't it? I mean,

Sidey: Well, no, they have the, the sharks with fricking laser beams. Yeah. Which hasn't happened. And they've got angry sea bass.

Reegs: Well, they're mu they're ill tempered.

Sidey: Yeah. And that decapitate someone who then it cuts to his mates with Rob Lowe at his ba And, and this I found this weird 'cause they're American and they say stag party. It didn't say bachelor party, which I was like, oh, that's like culturally quite different for him.

Dan: Well he is English though,

Cris: He's English?

Dan: yeah. Austin Powers

Sidey: yeah. But then Yanks aren't, they're at Hooters.

Dan: yeah, they're, [00:14:00] who is, but he's still keeping it

Cris: he's also one of the producers.

No,

Sidey: Yeah, Yeah, yeah.

Cris: so at least

Sidey: he's, no, he's Canadian,

Dan: He's,

Reegs: He is, but he's Scottish as well.

Dan: Born in

Sidey: he was on, he didn't, wasn't he on Timmy Mallard's show originally?

That was one of his first gigs. Yeah. Behind the scenes. Yeah.

Dan: Mallet. Mallet.

Cris: sorry. I apologize to any Canadians that

Sidey: the 51st state. Yeah.

Reegs: There's nearly a betrayal by number two who's had enough of being pushed around. But he doesn't do it because Austin he's Dr. Evil takes him out, doesn't

Sidey: yeah.

Reegs: So

Dan: well, it, it

Reegs: get escaping to the rocket, isn't it? He just escapes Dr. Evil escapes in his rocket, basically.

Dan: Yeah. He, he just slips into what we all knew was gonna happen. Austin Powers is gonna win the day and Dr. Evil is going to

Cris: live to fight another day,

live

Dan: to fight another day, live to fight another day.

But the world is safe, at least for another.

Sidey: is a little aside though, isn't there?

Because he's, they're now romancing him and

Cris: Vanessa.

Sidey: Yeah. And random task, who is [00:15:00] the odd job proxy comes in and we've seen him throw a shoot at the statue and like just smash the sta the statue. And this time he just throws a shoe. It just bounces off, off and says, ow

Reegs: that really hurt

Sidey: Who

throws a shoe?

Reegs: And we get, and we finish with one of the site gags that we'd had earlier, which is somebody having their genitals ex like covered like quite cleverly in sort of closeup frame, like a bottle of this or pouring a tea bottle or whatever.

Our

Dan: job gets sent, sent off with the the penis.

Sidey: That's how, that's how they get rid of him. Yeah. With the, the

Dan: the

Sidey: sweetest made penis en

Dan: It's too much pain for him. They squeeze too much air out of it and that does him off.

Reegs: Yeah. And I think that the last shot is Dr. Evil sort of fro sort of half cryogenically frozen with the hairless Mr. Ellsworth sort of

Dan: Setting up for number two,

Sidey: inevitable sequel. Yeah.

Reegs: Yep.

Dan: Well, here, here we go. It's the first Austin Powers film that we've done for the pod. We've done Mike Myers before, I

Sidey: we did. So I married an ax

Dan: yeah. [00:16:00] I mean, his humor does well. It probably made me laugh when I was a bit younger. Did you watch this with anyone or was it

Sidey: just No, it was on my top.

Dan: No, I wonder if it might hit home with a teenager or I also just watch

Sidey: I also just watched, oh. I mean, I was a teenager when I first saw it, and I thought it was the funniest thing ever.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. And

Sidey: there's, there's one joke in it, one gag that I still think is one of the best gags ever when, she says, well, after he's fucked a lot of vagina, I hope you use a condom. He says, only sailors

Reegs: condom. Yeah.

Sidey: She goes, not anymore Austin. He goes, well, the ought they go from Port Topo.

Dan: dirty buggers.

Yeah. So there's lots of good lines. There's, there's a lots of ones that don't really hit home anymore, but I was glad I revisited.

Reegs: it, the writing is really strong on this first one that, like we talked about numerous jokes that were really funny and have really permeated popular culture

Dan: Yeah.

Sidey: way they do when, when he is got Austin and Vanessa strung up and he's like, begin the unnecessarily slow dipping

Reegs: Yeah, yeah, exactly. All that

Sidey: those tropes. Yeah. That was really good.

Reegs: And aren't you gonna stay? No. I'm gonna walk away and assume that it's [00:17:00] just gonna be, yeah. There's loads of that stuff that makes it really funny.

I think as it got on, you know, like I say, it became a little bit oversaturated, but I was surprised just how good this was.

Sidey: The second film is exactly the same.

Reegs: same. But they start to get a bit more mean-spirited though. 'cause this one was like quite like Austin is the butt of the jokes basically. And they get started to get a bit more Yeah.

And stuff. Stupid stuff like Yeah.

Sidey: How do you feel about it, Chris?

You dig it?

Cris: I didn't really like it the first time because I didn't. I I never really understood the humor the

Reegs: first time. Yeah.

Cris: because I, my English wasn't, was definitely not in 97. I barely

Sidey: It feels like a quite an anglocentric, a

Cris: words. And it's also, it is quite a British humor. Yeah, definitely. If you, if you, I understood more of the jokes now.

I still didn't really

Sidey: No, I agree with that.

Cris: I, I, I, I, I dunno, the first time I watched it, I definitely, I, I knew the global phenomenon and all that. I would say to your point with all these gags for me is it's almost because I [00:18:00] didn't really like it the first time. I've heard it so many times the, the same like, yeah, baby and the finger and all that.

And every time I would be like,

it's not that funny. What the fuck

Reegs: but that's why he said at the beginning, like the distance from having all that now makes you enjoy it.

Cris: the second time now watching it, I'm not saying I enjoyed it more,

but I also understand, yeah, I understand the jokes better because obviously my English has got better, so I'm just a bit like, oh actually I can understand if I would've watched it with the level that I know now and with more the British culture that I know and more movies that I

Dan: first time. around,

Cris: probably would've, would've actually thought that.

It's funnier now, but I still thought,

Sidey: well, it's I dunno.

Well received

apparently

Cris: made it, it, it was,

Sidey: it, well, I guess to tell you it cost 16 and a half million to make well received. We all generally liked it. Yeah. Thought of as being a mega hit. How much money do you think it actually made?

Cris: Oh, I've seen that. It's what, 68

million or something?

8 million. Yeah. I've seen

Sidey: Which probably talks to what you are saying is there's gonna be territories where this humor [00:19:00] doesn't work. Yeah. But it's still done. Well still it's probably America.

Reegs: And when they went on to make three of them, and I, I guess they

Dan: Canadia

Cris: what they say it is gonna make a fourth one.

Sidey: Well, I think that's basically what pen TAVR is.

It's just him dressing up. I read some stuff, which is really disappointment 'cause you got in this one, right? You got. Well in, in Wayne's world you had Rob Lowe and he was in like career. Yeah, like, 'cause he had the underage.

Reegs: yeah, yeah, yeah. And the sex video and

Sidey: completely fucked. And so he's kind of like rescued him and he is got him in this one again, and I think he plays number two in the second one where they go back in time.

So that sort of stuff's like really positive in terms of like reaching out to someone and having whatever. Read loads of stuff about him being a complete company. He's one of those people on set who you're not allowed to make eye contact with. If

Dan: Mike Myers.

Sidey: if you make eye, you get a call now later you're sacked.

And it happened to millions of people loads of reports from him just being a told douche. Yeah. I'm

Reegs: Real pri Mad Donna,

Cris: Can I give a shout out to someone because I, there's this lady that comes to the cafe every day and she's really nice and, and really, really funny. And, and I, she [00:20:00] recently discovered that I do a podcast and she was like, oh my God.

I listened to a few episodes and she said, I can't believe you did the. Princess Bride. It was one of my favorite films, and I was like, fucking hated that film.

But anyway, and, and she said, well, what are you reviewing this week? And I said to her, we are doing my the Austin Powers. She's like, oh, that's such a classic.

It's so funny. She's like, oh, here's one for you. I once went on a, on a date with a guy over here and, when we ordered the drinks and drinks arrived, she, he, he went cheers. And he was like, jazzy baby. Yeah. In the Austin Powers voice. Like, he was like, and she was like original voice and everything else, and she was like, I just didn't know how to get home quicker.

Sidey: Yeah.

exactly. Yeah.

Cris: again, in a way, shout out to Georgina, but also to my point is. These kind of things is, it is funny to say it in a blokey environment after you washed

Sidey: it Yeah. In

Cris: oh, that was funny. Yeah. But

Dan: within the first week or two,

Sidey: I went, I remember, I remember a partly when we were in the sixth form half, you know, it was like our whole school [00:21:00] year was there probably like a third to half people were in some sort of Boston Powers themes. Yeah.

Reegs: That's what I hated about it, because it became so like

Sidey: so ubiquitous.

Yeah. Yeah.

Reegs: And like you say,

Sidey: it is actually funny.

Reegs: complete nerds into thinking that they were Rios 'cause they had bad hair and bad teeth. No,

Cris: no,

Sidey: but it's a strong recommend.

Reegs: Oh,

Cris: oh

Dan: yeah, baby.