Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)

 "You know, what's remarkable is how much England looks in  no way like Southern California."

I'm not in the mood for anything serious, so this it is then. It is, of course, just more of the same sort of stuff from the first film with pop culture jokes combined with lots of metatextual fun, but I for one am not complaining. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

This time we're introduced to Mini-Me as well as Fat Bastard, a third character to be played with aplomb by Mike Myers. We get rid of Vanessa with hilarious simplicity and then get introduced to the wonderful Felicity Shagwel and... well, it's an Austin Powers film. You know the drill. It's very, very silly indeed.

What's interesting, though, about a film from 1999 being all nostalgic about thirty years earlier is how very '90s it all is from a quarter century later. Even this version of the '60s is very much a version of the decade curated to '90s sensibilities, more Oasis' "All Around the World" than "Yellow Submarine" in aesthetic. But we get the late Jerry Springer, absolutely in his pomp and a reminder of how even trash telly back then had a layer of basic decency to it that would eventually be got rid of. Even Starbucks was sort of newish back then.

The film works so well because it knows full well how daft it is and leans into that, with the time travelling shenanigans and the best knob, fart and poo jokes in cinematic history. The script is magnificent. So is the cast. But praise has to go especially to Mike Myers, absolutely at the peak of his career here. Brilliant stuff.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

 "That's right, buddy. You show that turd who's boss."

It's 1997, Cool Britannia amd that. That brief period of time when the Union Flag meant Noel Gallagher's guitar, not fascism. Where the flag of our nation was not considered as a sign of fascism by the dimmer kind of right winger, as though conceding the key national symbol to nationalists who are in no way patriotic is a clever thing to do. Sigh.

Anyway, isn't this film fascinatingly dated while still being awesome, bearing in mind that today's "dated" is tomorrow's "period"? I mean, let's look at the version of 1967, through the prism of 1967. It's shown as a decade of universally accepted free love drugginess and grooviness that bears zero relation to the actual decade in which my parents both grew up, in Leicestershire. Which is, of course, part of thejoke.

Indeed, while Space appear in the closing credits, this is not a Britpop reimagining of the decade. This is a '60s of Burt Bacharach and Nancy Sinatra.

This is a bloody funny film. Obviously, it's the same style as Wayne's World, but better. The James Bond pastiche is on point. Austin Powers is in no way like James Bond in character, puns excepted: he's more obviously the popular image of the decade. But Doctor Evil, the consummate pastiche Bond villain, is exquisite pastiche. The laughter scene alone is priceless. An then we have the comical canonisation of the deceased henchmen.

Groovy baby. Sgagadelic.

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

“I pity your wife if you think six minutes is a long time."

I like Queen. Unlike Mrs Llamastrangler I wouldn't say they're my favourite band or anything- I like this kind of polished, musicianlike rock and Freddie Mercury's voice is amazing, but punk needed to happen and I prefer the less technical likes of Chris Cornell (RIP) and Mark Lanegan to the late Mr Bulsara. Still, they were of course awesome, and a biopic is clearly overdue.

It’s a very straight biopic, with Gwilym Lee in particular doing a superb Brian May impression, but the plaudits have to  belong to Rami Malek, who simply becomes Freddie Mercury in an extraordinary performance. But the film takes us from the beginnings of the band to Live Aid gradually, missing out what has to be missed out for time reasons but showing us an awful lot. The focus is on Freddie, of course, from the racism he experienced in his youth to his relationship with his Parsee Zoroastrian family to the decadence to a dramatically impactful AIDS diagnosis just before Live Aid, using artistic licence to ignore the fact he wasn’t actually diagnosed until 1987, but rightly so. Other highlights include Mike Myers as the man who lost Queen, and the ambiguous relationship between Freddie and Mary which is played for pathos here.

The film has been criticised, not without justice, for portraying Freddie’s gay lifestyle as a decadent distraction, and it’s certaibly odd to see the excess and partying as something quite divorced from rock ‘n’ roll. But perhaps we should be careful to necessarily equate promiscuity and the leather subculture of the time with being gay. It’s still a hard criticism to answer, though.

This film isn’t particularly deep or meaningful; it’s a straightforward rock biopic, with the facts reshaped for medidramatic effect and for an emotional finish, but it’s very well done and the sort of rock biopic that needs to exist. I rather enjoyed it.

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

"I'm French. We respect directors in our country."

Meh. Quentin Tarantino doesn't exactly make bad films- this is still well shot, and remains fun to watch in spite of everything- but I enjoyed Inglourious Basterds significantly less than any other Tarantino film I've seen, and I've seen most. In fact, I'd go as far as to say this film is merely good rather than great, and for a filmmaker like Tarantino that is criticism indeed.

So what doesn't quite work? Structurally and aesthetically it's as clever as ever, with a non-linear yet easy to follow chapter structure and loads of fun set pieces. I love the chutzpah in the cheerful deliberate ignoring of history by having Hitler and all the senior Nazis die in June 1944. The long dialogue scenes are there, too. But this time they fail to sing without the pop culture references. Christoph Waltz puts in an outstanding performance as the main SS baddie, but he's much better in a less cliched role in Django Unchained.

I think, perhaps, it's an unevenness of tone; little touches like Mike Myers' exaggerated plummy accent and, yes, Brad Pitt's entire misjudged performance take you out of the events.Tarantino has shown a mastery of humour and fourth wall-breaking in the past, but always with an assuredness that is missing here. Perhaps it's simply that Quentin Tarantino, master of so many genres, simply doesn't have quite the same sureness of touch when it comes to the Second World War film. Still, I'd like to see him try again someday.

The Cat in the Hat (2003)

"Can't I have some rules?""

"No chewing tobacco!"

Lots of people don't like this film. This is mainly because they have fond childhood memories of the original work by Dr Seuss and don't like the more adult and naughty tone of this film. I can sort of see their point, and won't necessarily put this film at the top of the pile of films to show my little girl. However, I've never read any Dr Seuss and came to this with no preconceptions, just wanting to see a bit of comedy starring Mike Myers. And you know what? On those terms, this film is pretty good, and the naughty bits are among the best.

Mike Myers is great, naturally, and perfect for this version of the Cat, but the real revelation is the young Dakota Fanning as the strait-laced Sally in a perfectly judged deadpan comic performance for one so young. The direction and look of the film is perfectly stylised and coloured, with absolutely no concession to realism.

There may be no subtext other than the rather obvious one about properly balancing fun and responsibility, but there's nothing didactic in how the message is conveyed, and much naughty and mildly sweary fun is had in the meantime, with songs and all. Why, we even get a bizarre cover of the Beatles' "Getting Better", albeit without Paul McCartney's dodgy lyric about domestic abuse.

Don't be put off by the critics; this is an enjoyable comedy. Just don't necessarily assume it's for very young children!