Dumb and dumber (6/27/99)
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Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. [Jay Roach, 1999.]
Curiously enough, after you factor out e.g. the appearances on the
Jerry Springer Show you realize that the plot of this second episode in the adventures of the furrychested anachronism is lifted straight from Ariosto’s
Orlando Furioso: returning from extraterrestrial exile, Dr. Evil perfects a time machine and dials back to 1969, where he extracts from the cryogenically frozen body of the world’s greatest secret agent a vial containing not Orlando’s wits but Austin’s Mojo, which then he spirits away to the Moon; our hero must pursue him from the Nineties back into the heroic age of Mods and Rockers and Apollo spacecraft to retrieve the purloined vital essence — and, incidentally, save the world, though [what with the fart jokes and the go-go girls] it was hard to pay attention to that part. — Heather Graham appears in the role of Felicity Shagwell; I have no doubt she does. — Great musical digressions, including a cameo by those unlikely bedfellows Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello. Don’t miss it.
Creatures The World Forgot. [Don Chaffey, 1970.]
Another Hammer homage to our cavedwelling ancestors, in the spirit of When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth and One Million Years B.C., with Julie [“former Miss Norway!”] Ege in the role of Victoria Vetri in the role of Raquel and [in a rare concession to realism] no dinosaurs. Despite the excitement of the antelope hunt, the struggle for tribal supremacy, the volcanic eruption that pelts everybody with paper-mache boulders, the trek across the burning desert, the savage copulatory beat of the tomtoms accompanying the firelit dance routine of a naked maiden, and that curious genre requirement, the war between the Tribe of the Blondes and the Tribe of the Brunettes, you come away with the impression that the world forgot these creatures because nothing much ever happened to them.
Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud. [Claude Sautet, 1995.]
Michel Serrault plays a retired business tycoon who takes a fancy to newly-divorced Emmanuelle Beart [I can’t imagine why] and hires her to edit a memoir of his early career as a judge in the colonial boondocks. Sure enough she’s a terrific editor, but she seems to fall for his publisher Jean-Hugues Anglade rather than for him. Presently she changes her mind and dumps the publisher, but by this time Serrault has reconsidered his position vis-a-vis his estranged wife, dropped the writing project, and left to circumnavigate the globe. — Alas; poor Emmanuelle. She must probably remain unattached for as much as thirty minutes.
____________Burning love (6/15/99)
