Yeah, baby yeah! Austin Powers is back with Mike Myers’ brilliant cult comedy Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery getting a special edition Blu-ray and DVD release this April.
The Austin Powers films are all great fun and loved by so many people so why not go back to the start with this new special edition Blu-ray and watch the grooviest secret agent of all return after 30 years of being cryogenically frozen to defeat Dr Evil. After Dr Evil narrowly escapes from Powers in 1967, the two must return in the 90s and Evil plans to threaten the world once more and only the world’s greatest spy only Austin Powers can stop him.
Mike Myers is on top form here, not only did he write the film, but he also plays both Austin Powers and Dr Evil. It’s a brilliantly hilarious spy movie parody that gets you in stitched the whole way through. Dr Evil is a far superior villain than Blofeld or any of the Bond villains; none of them ever tried to kill the protagonist with ill-tempered mutated sea bass or sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads.
It perfectly spoofs spy films and the James Bond films in many of its characters and in many different ways, but it also works perfectly on its own as a comedy without having to be watched in the context of 007. At just 94 minutes long, the time flies by and it has you laughing out loud every few minutes, even if you’ve seen the film multiple times before.
The film came out in 1997 and it doesn’t really hold up in terms of cultural opinions. The film’s main character is a misogynist who spends the whole time talking about how randy he is. There’s even a character called Alotta Fagina. I doubt we’re going to ever see any more of Austin Powers just because of how politically incorrect the character is but that being said, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery is still very funny. Even re-watching it in 2021, it still gets quite a lot of laughs and it’s still a very funny film.
In terms of the bonus features on this new special edition Blu-ray there isn’t really anything to get too excited about. It includes a featurette on the characters Austin and Vanessa as well as some B-roll footage, character soundbites, TV spots and clips as well as the funky music video for the credits song “BBC” by Ming Tea. None of these extras are particularly exciting which is a bit disappointing but nonetheless it’s exciting to have such a groovy film on a nice brand new Blu-ray.
Groovy baby!
★★★★☆
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery is on special edition Blu-ray, DVD and Digital 19 April.
Lawrence’s character portrays the “ne’er-do-well” who answers a Craigslist ad that was placed to hire a date for an introverted and socially awkward teen boy, by his mother and father, who also just so happens to be preparing for college soon.
Jennifer Lawrence, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Natalie Morales
Plot Summary:
Lawrence’s character portrays the “ne’er-do-well” who answers a Craigslist ad that was placed to hire a date for an introverted and socially awkward teen boy, by his mother and father, who also just so happens to be preparing for college soon.
Everyone’s favorite girl group is returning for more adventures, this time with a girl’s trip to West Africa. Variety exclusively learned in an interview at the Sundance Film Festival with Girls Trip co-writer Tracy Oliver that a sequel is officially a go with the foursome headed to Ghana. Oliver was in Sundance promoting the second season of her Amazon series, Harlem.
Variety also confirmed that all the original cast members are set to return so look forward to seeing Regina Hall, Tiffany Haddish, Jada Pinkett Smith and Queen Latifah back on the big screen together soon. One of the stars of Harlem, Shoniqua Shandai yelled “Afrochella!” upon hearing the breaking news referring to Ghana’s major culture and music festival. Oliver later confirmed that the production was looking to head to the African festival for the sequel and implied that her script is due any day now.
The female-centric comedy Girls Trip was a big box-office hit grossing $140 million on a very modest $16 million budget. Malcolm D. Lee (The Best Man, Space Jam: A New Legacy) directed the first feature on a script from Oliver and Kenya Barris (black-Ish, You People). The movie also launched comedian Tiffany Haddish into stardom putting her at the top of many casting directors lists for comedic and dramatic work.
Tracy Oliver has been one of the most consistent black writers in Hollywood in recent years; in addition to scripting the Girls Trip films and Harlem, Oliver scripted the upcoming horror comedy, The Blackening starring Jay Pharaoh, Yvonne Orji and Jermaine Fowler.
Many were surprised when the Season 2 finale of Hulu comedy, Only Murders in the Building revealed that Paul Rudd would be joining the series for its upcoming season, however, it seems his casting may have just been topped. According to a tweet from the show’s Twitter account, it appears that Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep (Out of Africa, August: Osage County) will join the cast led by Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez for Season 3 of Only Murders in the Building.
One can believe that Streep stumbled into the series similar to how she did for Season 2 of HBO’s Big Little Lies. With the latter show, Streep was a fan of the mysterious female-led drama and was written into the sophomore season. You wouldn’t be hard pressed to believe that Streep was probably a fan of the beloved comedy series and might want to join in the hijinks along with friends, Steve Martin and Martin Short. Streep will also appear in the upcoming AppleTV+ anthology series, Extrapolations in March.
The original tweet revealed that the third season of Only Murders in the Building has just begun filming. The show has been nominated for tons of awards thus far and with growing popularity as well as the additions of Streep and Rudd to the cast, anything can happen in the murder mystery program. Season 2 released back in June so we can probably expect Season 3 to begin streaming in Summer 2023.