Austin Powers in Goldmember

I was a big fan of the original Austin Powers movie. I paid to watch it in the theater, even before it became a major hit. I even liked the sequel, mostly. So it was something of a puzzle why I never bothered to watch this third installment. Now I know why. Apparently I smelled a rat, and my experience watching this flick confirmed my intuition. The only truly good thing about this film is that, at an hour and a half, it’s mercifully brief. The quick running time probably reflects the fact that there just weren’t any ideas left at this point. The cast and crew even acknowledge that very point in the very midst of the proceedings, breaking the fourth wall repeatedly to acknowledge the repetitive nature of the jokes. 'Jokes,' in this case, is a term of convenience; the actual laughs are few and far between. There are, however, certainly takeaways from this movie. One, Beyoncé was a profoundly good looking girl back in the day (and is probably still holding up fairly well)—which explains at least in part why so many people lose their minds over anything she does. Two, it suddenly becomes clear why Mike Myers pulled back and restricted himself to mostly character roles in the wake of this fiasco. One supposes that if you were expected to continually repeat the success—both financial and artistic—of the first of these flicks, you’d probably wind up withdrawing in disillusionment, too. At least one can congratulate this group for calling it an end here—if it truly is the end for Powers, in this relentlessly recycling and rebooting world—even if that spasm of wisdom came one film too late. (Late edit to add: Gah! There's rumors of a fourth movie in development. Shame on them!)

Bombshell (2019)

I can't resist the hot blonde chicks. Apparently, that was Roger Ailes' premise, too. He and Rupert Murdoch built a media juggernaut--and quite literally changed the world--using mostly the power of the flaxen-haired. This work would have you believe that Ailes was a tremendous creep, and that his media machinations happened at a tremendous cost to the well-formed mannequins employed by FOX News. The former premise seems plausible--though, as this movie itself makes clear, it's easy to cast a guy who was substantially less easy on the eyes than Megyn Kelly as a monster (I'm familiar with that reality myself). The latter premise is questionable, or at least this flick does not do a fully successful job of making that case. For certain, it does not raise the point of the Faustian bargain that these women made. It's hard to imagine that any gal grows up looking that attractive (Kelly and Gretchen Carlson are undeniably good-looking, regardless of their work as political spokesmodels) and doesn't know by the time she's 17 years old that doors open for her that would otherwise be closed to others less endowed by nature with looks (to say nothing of more or less talent). None of these women would have been there--and reaped years of benefits--without their looks, and what those looks meant to others (read: males) who employed or watched them. It also doesn't help that the movie's liberal viewpoint is bluntly apparent throughout (and voiced by Theron's Kelly, which comes across as somewhat false), and thereby distracts from what would otherwise be a more effective (dare one say, fair and balanced) indictment of Ailes and the whole operation. Oh, well--at least most of the scenes feature visuals that are nice to look at.

Dinner for Schmucks

Yet another of those comedies that just keeps hurling joke after joke at you, hoping enough of them hit the funny bone to make the whole experience worthwhile. By my count there are enough belly laughs in this flick to make the cut, though it must get downgraded slightly for descending into schmaltz towards the end. If it had stayed true to its nasty self to the bitter end, this would have been a better movie.

Mystery, Alaska

Simple, yet sweet--very straightforward, and in this case that's enough. It could almost be for hockey fans what Field of Dreams is for baseball fans. And there is a tremendously important lesson to be learned from the ending. Posted .

Meet The Parents

Not as good as the hype made it, but still pretty damn funny.