Tag: film review

Pandemics in Film: Nate’s Top Ten Virus Movies

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

It’s crazy times we’re living in because of this Coronavirus, and I hope everyone out there is staying safe, taking necessary precautions and keeping a level head about the pandemic. I also hope you all are finding time amidst the chaos to take care of yourselves, have a beer, cuddle your pets, chill with loved ones and do things that make you happy. I myself am continuing the blogging train to stay sane and this week it’s time to take a look at my top ten favourite films about viruses, yay! Not to be deliberately morbid but it does seem appropriate given our situation and there are some really excellent films out there that deal with outbreaks, from procedural dramas to schlocky horror to fascinating science fiction. Enjoy my picks!

10. Robert Kurtzman’s The Rage

I had to include at least one low budget gore fest on this list because it’s an incredibly formative arena in the genre for me. Legendary FX guru Kurtzman makes hilariously scrappy work in telling of a batshit insane evil Russian scientist (the great Andrew Divoff having a blast) who releases a horrific rage virus into human tests subjects. When they get loose and vultures feed on them the vultures go ape shit and become nasty mutants that go after everyone and it’s all a deliriously violent bit of B horror mayhem. Can’t go wrong with mutant vulture puppets done with knowingly crude effects and a whole lot of choppy editing commotion.

9. Breck Eisner’s The Crazies

This one is interesting because the deadly virus isn’t your typical flesh eating zombie kind but rather infects the population of a small county with mental instability and eventual madness. There’s something so unnerving about the afflicted’s behaviour here and the incredibly suspenseful efforts of one sheriff (Timothy Olyphant) to keep the insanity under control.

8. Neil Marshall’s Doomsday

It’s unfair to call this film simply a virus themed horror flick, as there’s just so much going on. It’s part Escape From New York, part Tomb Raider, part Mad Max like several films collided into each other at top speed and yes, there’s a nasty killer virus here too that wiped out most of Britain’s population. Malcolm McDowell’s scientist turned medieval despot puts it best when he observes: “A virus doesn’t choose a time or place. It doesn’t hate or even care. It just happens.” Astute analysis of such an event.

7. Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever

The gross-out factor is to the extreme and the dark humour dial turned up to the max in this ooey gooey tale about a group of vacationing friends who encounter a horrendous flesh eating virus at their rural getaway. Man there are some wince-out-loud moments here, just watch what it does to a girl shaving her legs, as well as the shocked reaction of one dude who goes to finger bang his girl and comes up with a handful of… well, her I guess. Also that running joke regarding the redneck convenience store owner and the rifle above his counter? Fucking top tier comedy gold right there. Avoid the remake, Roth’s original vision is the real deal.

6. Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later and Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s 28 Weeks Later

I’m trying not to make this list too zombie-centric because it somehow feels like cheating but one slot gets designated and it has to be these two superb films. There’s a ferocity, an overwhelming intensity to those infected by this virus that makes both films feel thrillingly alive, dangerously immediate and gives them a cutthroat edge. Oh and I guess I cheated already anyways by putting two films in one spot but I’m one of the rare people who finds Weeks just as amazing as Days so they get to share the pedestal. Robert Carlyle going full Jack Torrence on bath salts man, can’t beat that aesthetic.

5. The Farrelly Brothers’ Osmosis Jones

This is such an underrated flick and if I ever do a top ten list on films that combine live action with animation it’ll make that cut too. Bill Murray is a slobbish zookeeper who contracts a wicked nasty virus played by… Laurence Fishburne lol. Half the film takes place inside his body where a rogue cop white blood cell (Chris Rock) races to stop the fiendish strain before it gets to all the major organs and it’s game over. The animation is slick, uniquely styled and the film just hums along with cool ideas, colourful imagery and terrific voiceover work.

4. Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil

This film has quite the virus, it doesn’t just stop short of turning people into zombies but mutates than into all kinds of giant horrific monsters for Milla Jovovich’s Alice to fight. I think these films are great, particularly this super stylish, sexy first entry that’s got enough blood, psychotic Dobermans, gunfire and security system gadgetry to bring the house down.

3. Wolfgang Petersen’s Outbreak

While this one does take the big budget Hollywood approach to the virus motif, it’s still a smart, scary and incredibly suspenseful piece, and holy damn the virus here is one monster. “It’s the scariest son of a bitch I’ve ever seen” says Dustin Hoffman’s virologist guru, and he’s not fucking kidding. It has a kill timetable of 24 hours, which are almost insurmountable odds but these people try their best and provide one hell of an engaging film.

2. Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion

This one, while still a Hollywood release, takes the clinical and detached route. Despite being heavily casted with big time A list talent the real star of the show here is the virus itself and it’s ruthless journey from Hong Kong to the states and beyond. Soderbergh employs crisp, precise editing and a sonic jolt of a score from Cliff Martinez to keep this thing moving along at the same scary pace as the pandemic it chronicles.

1. Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys

This one made the top spot on my time travel movie list too and does the same here, it’s just an all timer for me. We don’t even really see the virus here that wiped out most of humanity or it’s effects, most of the film takes place either just before or long after it’s released. But we get a sense of it, in the desolate snowy streets Bruce Willis walks through in a Mr. Freeze looking quarantine suit, filled with spectral roaming animals turned loose from a zoo. We feel the maniacal nature of the insane doomsday prophet (David Morse) who released it too.

-Nate Hill

DJ Caruso’s Disturbia

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Speaking of being stuck at home with nothing to do, I didn’t expect to enjoy D.J. Caruso’s Disturbia as much as I did, but man was this film ever a blast. I always felt like this would be a run of the mill teens in peril type thriller that didn’t take the genre that seriously or provide decent scares. Not only was I wrong in that regard but the film also beautifully captures both the odd, consistently quirky ensemble symphony of suburban life as well as the very personally nostalgic experience of summer vacation in the mid 2000’s from Green Day blasting over speakers to Halo on Xbox live. Shia Leboeuf had a wicked teenage career run and is quite engaging here as Kale, who has lost his dad (Matt Craven) in a tragic recent car accident and is just trying to continue life with his stressed out mom (Carrie Ann Moss). When his dipshit Spanish teacher makes a very out of line remark Kale one punches him and finds himself on three months house arrest over the summer, confined to his home and bored to tears. That’s when the fun begins as he finds romance with the new girl next door (Sarah Roemer) and stumbles upon danger when he suspects his charming neighbour (David Morse) of being a gnarly serial killer. No one believes him of course and the guy keeps finding ways of covering up his would be crimes which allows for a delightfully suspenseful series of stakeouts, covert missions and eventually full on chases. Morse is appropriately evil without going too far into the guy’s psyche, he’s just the casual bachelor next door who happens to murder women in his spare time and really doesn’t appreciate being spied on. The film’s biggest influence is obviously Hitchcock’s Rear Window but I also got a flavour inspired by Joe Dante’s The Burbs, another comedic sendup of life behind picket fences and both films capture the atmosphere nicely. A super solid thriller that doesn’t take itself too seriously and one that made me feel wistful for those mid 2000’s summers with nothing to do but binge video games, hit on local beauties and spy on the neighbours. Good times.

-Nate Hill

Liz Garbus’s Lost Girls

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

There’s a certain melancholy defeat in viewing a film where missing and murdered people’s cases are met with lethargy, inaction and suspicious reluctance by the authorities, but in the same token they’re important films to watch as they shed spotlights on gross miscarriages of justice and impart that it can’t continue to go on like this. Liz Garbus’s Lost Girls uses a sobering tone, moody visuals and a deep intentional focus on the victims of the mysterious Long Island serial killer as human beings rather than ‘murdered prostitutes’ or statistical notches on the media’s callous belt. Around 2010 in rural New York State a serial killer struck, dumping bodies along a desolate stretch of road and leaving few clues save for vague ties to a nearby gated community that may be harbouring secrets. For struggling single mother Mari (Amy Ryan) this is a different kind of nightmare as her eldest daughter was in the area around this time and is still somewhere out there missing. Together with her two other daughters (Oona Laurence and Thomasin Mackenzie) she launches a fierce personal investigation into the matter when the lead detective (a smarmy Dean Winters) and even the police commissioner himself (Gabriel Byrne in introvert mode) seem to be willfully dragging their asses. It’s a sad story because Mari’s life is already tough enough; she’s severely low income, on her own as a mother and mental illness runs deeply within her family, already blooming in her youngest daughter. None of this makes the situation any better but she has grit, resolve and a desire for redemption that Ryan infuses in her performance nicely. The best work in the film goes to Thomasin Mackenzie as her middle daughter though, she’s an actress who made a big splash in Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace a couple years ago and once again delivers a powerful, understated yet rawly emotional performance. Because this is based on a real story that was never properly concluded there is a sense of heart wrenching, open ended pain here. The police investigation was never carried out properly, their response time to her daughter calling 911 the night she disappeared was unforgivable and as a collective result a heinous serial killer went uncaught. You’ll leave the film feeling sick and depressed, but it’s important that we pay attention because this shit probably happens every day. There’s a strong desire here to shirk the media’s portrayal of victims as deserving it because of their lifestyle and showing them as meaningless numbers in tv reports, while the families are out their mourning the human beings they remember so dearly. It’s in that the film finds it’s one ray of light, an important sentiment to take away. Not an easy watch, but perhaps the publicity now given to this tragic case will one day lead to the arrest of those responsible. Great film.

-Nate Hill

Indie Gems: Dennis Brooks’ Goodnight Joseph Parker

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Some independent films are just so amazing, heartfelt and original it pains me they’ve never found a larger audience or made a bigger splash. Dennis Brooks’ Goodnight Joseph Parker has the kind of script, acting and execution that would probably have attracted Oscar attention had it been done on a bigger budget or had more marketing, but this thing is a barebones indie despite having a fairly well known cast and remains to this day a long buried treasure. Somewhere in New Jersey is a run down, behind the times bar run by Charlie (Paul Sorvino), staffed by waitress Rita (Debi Mazar) and frequented by drunkard Frankie (Richard Edson). This is a humdrum, low income barfly existence in a part of town that never changes save to continue to its own beat, until estranged regular Joey Parker (Nick Chinlund) returns to town in a “900 dolla’ suit” with tales of making it big and going on Jay Leno soon. His return sparks many feelings and long repressed things from the past, in paternal Charlie, in Rita who has always loved him and local junkie Muriel (Kim Dickens) who he loves and foolishly plans to propose to with all his new flash and swagger to back him up. But flash and swagger is what barely masks the pain, sadness and regret in all these characters, that and the booze they constantly swill. This isn’t so much a story as it is a quick snapshot of collective lifestyles in the Jersey area, but even though it’s a ‘small’ story, the emotions and character dynamics couldn’t feel more immediate or affecting. Chinlund is one of the most underrated actors of his generation, mostly saddled with supporting villain roles in his career, but when he’s given a lead like this he really and truly shines. Joey is a man who lives in his ego and when he’s forced to shed it, to confront himself and where he stands in his old community, well Nick’s performance is something to see. Sorvino has always been one of the greats and he’s heartbreaking here as a man who constantly tried to do the right thing and is haunted by the consequences, it’s a manic, playful, compassionate and comedic bit of acting genius. Mazar is another one who constantly gets stuck the ‘snarky bitch’ character and for sure she’s great at that, but give her some breathing room, let her play a more sensitive type girl and just watch what she can do, her work is spellbinding here. As if all that talent isn’t enough we also get a recurring cameo from Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler as a sleazy, hyperactive ladies man who runs in and out of the plot like a tornado. In the credits it says this film is ‘inspired by the music of Tom Waits’ and indeed he can be heard rasping away on the soundtrack faintly from time to time. The film really captures the day in, day out nature of this part of town, and the human beings whose drink, laugh, fight and live within it. It takes place over the course of one night and the following day only, but in that window of time I felt all the joys, sorrows, triumphs, downfalls, regrets, passions and hopes in this group of scrappy individuals and cared for each one deeply. Brilliant piece of filmmaking.

-Nate Hill

Peter Berg’s Spenser Confidential

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

I was honestly expecting a lot more from Spenser Confidential considering the creative forces of Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg, like come on dudes. It’s an update of an old PI tv show which I’ve never seen so all I have to go on is what they’ve done here, which is honestly not much more than a predictable, humdrum B movie that just happens to have A list talent on-board kicking back and not trying too hard. Wahlberg is disgraced Boston cop Spenser, incarcerated for kicking the shit out of his scumbag superior officer (Michael Gaston, the dude who shoots dogs in The Leftovers lol). Upon release he hooks up with his former friend and mentor (a nicely crotchety Alan Arkin), who is now also friend and mentor to an aspiring boxer (Winston Duke) and they all live together as roomies in one of those classic flat roofed, 3 story Southie housey things, how cute. Pretty soon Spenser is back to his corruption busting ways, sniffing out a hidden conspiracy involving his slimy former partner (Bokeem Woodbine, who I always love to see in anything), a pathetic fat-ass thug called ‘Tracksuit’ (James Dumont) and shady real estate development deals. Spenser also has a girlfriend (Iliza Schlesinger) who is one of those foul mouthed ‘BAW-STAHN’ skanks and I guess she’s meant to be charming but comes across as just fucking obnoxious. Oh yeah and that weirdo Post Malone is in it too, and isn’t half bad as a nasty Aryan Brother nazi boss, anyone out there who dislikes this dude will get a nice kick out of seeing Wahlberg not only one punch him but blackmail later by threatening to run a train on his wife. It’s a bit frustrating because all this really should have been something fun with the talent attached, like it’s a great idea for a story. Unfortunately the execution comes across as cheap, lethargic and boring. The fights are decently staged but don’t pack the bloody punch that the R rating should warrant, the profane Boston banter comes nowhere close to being a snappy and comedic as it should and it all feels lazy, tired and cheap. If you want a much better crime buddy comedy thing starring Wahlberg check out 2 Guns with him and Denzel Washington because that one really slaps. There is one scene here that does in fact slap, when Spenser drives a jet black 18 wheeler semi right through a convoy of Cherokee jeeps at full throttle, it’s a fun moment and briefly raises a pulse, but unfortunately it’s the only ten second interlude that does so in an otherwise meh film. Big meh.

-Nate Hill

HBO’s The Outsider: Season 1

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

I love stories that question the parameters of humanity’s collective ancestral belief, faith and reason, tales that dredge up ancient horrors and turn them loose on a modernized, very ill prepared and unsuspecting world. We’ve all turned the lights out to go to sleep at night and shuddered at the thought of something supernatural in the bedroom with us, pondered the presence of beings beyond trees and wildlife watching us when in the woods at night and entertained the ideas of the irrational, esoteric and unexplainable. HBO’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel The Outsider has concluded its first season and my god what a stunner, a darkly gorgeous, oppressively uneasy and wholly human treatise on everything I opened this paragraph with and more.

This story starts routinely enough: in a small US community a young boy is found savagely murdered and sodomized in a rural area. All signs seemingly point towards local math teacher, little league coach and family man Terry Maitland (Jason Bateman displaying a startling level of gravitas I didn’t think him capable of), with multiple witnesses and various security cameras all over town implicating him pretty cut and dry. Lead detective on the case Ralph Anderson (Ben Mendelssohn, fantastic as ever) makes his arrest, the DA viciously prosecutes and everything seems to be wrapping up pretty neatly… until it doesn’t. Bit by bit evidence starts to not add up, unease creeps into the procedural and something increasingly otherworldly hovers on the fringes of everyone’s awareness, some quick to believe and others skeptics until the last second. That’s about all I’ll say in regards to plot because every viewer deserves to have this tantalizing, shocking mystery furl out unspoiled for them.

This show is so effective because of how counterintuitive it feels compared to many other King adaptations. Because he’s predominantly a horror writer there’s a lot of gory effects, heavily dramatic performances and special effects employed when bringing his work to life in film and television, but not so much here. Yes, there is a supernatural element and yes there are gruesome aspects to it but there’s a lack of obvious FX and subtlety infused into each one of the human performances, all of which I genuinely cared about and felt each arc hit hard. Mendelssohn and Bateman are brilliant, the latter not getting as much screen time but using it for maximum impact in a soulful performance that goes against the grain of his largely comedic career. Others are wonderful including Paddy Considine, Bill Camp, Max Beesley, Julianne Nicholson, Mare Winningham, Marc Menchaca, Yul Vasquez, Derek Cecil, Jeremy Bob, Hetienne Park, Michael Esper and more. My favourite performance and character is Cynthia Erivo as Holly Gibney, a slightly clairvoyant private investigator who sees the world just a bit differently and is the perfect person to have as head needle on the compass of this hunt for a heinous killer. Erivo got an Oscar nom this year, has been steadily producing brilliant work and I look forward to whatever she’s going to do next with great interest, her Holly is a sharply intuitive, subtly emotional, determined woman who is always just ahead of the curve and blends fierce pragmatism with empathy buried just below. Overall this season is a spellbinder, a dark story with touches of folk horror, well drawn characters, eerie music, haunting visuals and a real sense of place as is the case with King’s work. They have hinted at a second season and I’d be pumped if such is indeed the case but as it is this first instalment speaks for itself as a well crafted piece. Terrific stuff.

-Nate Hill

B Movie Glory: Big City Blues

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Burt Reynolds did a lot of, shall we say, odd films throughout his career but the weirdest by far has to be Big City Blues, and the experience of sitting though it is akin to dunking your head in a bucket of piss and raw concrete. Ugly, murky, choppily edited, clumsily acted and shot through with more lens grain than aforementioned concrete bucket, this is the definition of leaving a bad taste in your mouth. Burt and character actor William Forsythe are Connor and Hudson, two mafia hitman in some shit-hole urban nightmare of a city. They find themselves in various jumbled misadventures presented in ramshackle vignette style, including their boss potentially betraying them, freaky underground sadists, a devil worshipping cult, psychotic doctors, duplicitous transvestites and a strange hooker (Georgina Cates) who believes her doppelgänger is somewhere out there in the city and won’t stop obsessing over the notion. Giancarlo and Balthazar Getty also show up here and there but don’t really have much to add. Reynolds gives one weird performance here, shambling about like a hungover Bassett hound and mumbling like he’s already ten drinks into hair of the dog, he seems listless, hilariously disinterested and looks like he just wants to collect his paycheque and go for day pints in a brighter, less depressing city than this (it was filmed in Miami, but you’d never guess and no other film out there has managed to make that colourful hub look as drab and run down as here). Forsythe has a bit more edge to his work and at least tries, but he’s always game no matter the material, even so he can’t save this thing from rolling into the gutter. There’s just too much bloody, gross shock value stuff that seems to have come out of left field in the script and I couldn’t tell if the psycho aspect was disturbing in itself or because it seemed to have ran in from another film and rudely hijacked this one. It also really tries to do the episodic Sin City/Pulp Fiction shtick where stories overlap, intertwine and wrap around each other seamlessly but it fails there too and these random, unpleasant and boring encounters just trip all over each other like they’re as many drinks in as Burt. This is the first film he made after his legendary turn in Boogie Nights and I wonder why, you’d think he’d have gone for something with a little more pedigree. More like Big City Poos.

-Nate Hill

Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

It takes a lot to make a truly effective horror film these days. Between fan desensitization, cynicism, employment of rampant jump scares and gore the genre often has a tendency to go off track. And then there are efforts like Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, which is not only an unbearably suspenseful, well drawn shocker with a stunning lead performance from Elizabeth Moss but a beautifully crafted, simplistic yet hard hitting piece of filmmaking. Moss is Cecilia, who makes a daring, hair raising escape from her evil, abusive husband Adrian (Oliver Jackson Cohen) in an atmospheric opening sequence that sets the tone nicely. Adrian later kills himself… or does he? Considering just how nuts this guy is and how far he was willing to go to control his wife, it isn’t a stretch to believe that he’d fake his death and start stalking her like the repulsive creep he is. It doesn’t help that he’s also a millionaire optics innovator with the skills and money to build a suit that renders him invisible. It’s a lean, mean concept that has endless potential for tense, highly uneasy scenes and that’s exactly what we get. Cecilia is in a tricky spot because everyone thinks he’s dead and only she knows him well enough to believe he’d go to those lengths to keep making life miserable for her. We feel her hopelessness as each scenario plays out and when she’s finally had enough and decides to fight back… boy do we ever feel that too. Moss is utterly fantastic, never playing up drama or going into scream queen territory but rather making Cecilia a resilient, believable tough cookie that we feel for and root for. The first half of the film is the most effective, when Adrian is subtly haunting her and playing cruel tricks from beyond her field of vision, despite being right there in the room with her. The original score from Benjamin Wallfisch is a terrifying, dread filled piece that mimics the sound of blood rushing in one’s ears when confronted with danger, anxiety or trauma bubbling up. Like I said it takes a lot in a horror film to truly get to me these days, but this one pulled it off. As I left the theatre and headed home I felt like someone or something unseen was watching me, and no film has had that effect of following me out of the cinema since… well since It Follows. One of the best horror films of the past decade or so.

-Nate Hill

Francis Lawrence’s Constantine

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

So they chose a dark haired, American Keanu Reeves to play John Constantine instead of some sassy blonde British Sting doppelgänger, big whoop. I mean if that really cheeses you off as a fan of the comics to the point where you can’t enjoy this wonderful film then fair enough. This iteration of Constantine makes its decided departure from source material and opts to give us a gorgeous dark LA Noir fantasy full of striking imagery, genuinely frightening set pieces, intense character work from a host of cool actors and a slick, oily visual feel that accentuates the supernatural tone beautifully. Keanu is basically an icon of cool, between The Matrix and recently introducing John Wick to the world this guy is kind of a cultural talisman of epic genre films and for me this stands with the best. Constantine is an exorcist, detective, damned soul, chain smoker, extreme ghostbuster and all around cynical badass, here solving a mystery with biblical implications relating to an LAPD officer (Rachel Weisz), her ill fated clairvoyant twin sister (also Weisz) and a fearsome series of events that could spell the end of the world. John has allies in snarky cab driver Chaz (Shia Leboeuf in his ‘back in the day’ phase), mysterious club magnate and sorcerer Papa Midnite (Djimon Hounsou), eccentric entomologist Beeman (Max Baker), hard drinking clergyman Father Hennessy (Pruitt Taylor Vince) and demonic concubine Ellie (Michelle Monaghan). He’s up against some gnarly foes of this world and others including nasty hellhound Balthazar (Gavin Rossdale channelling Harvey Dent), a possessed Mexican immigrant (Jesse Ramirez), the treacherous Angel Gabriel (Tilda Swinton in mercurial androgynous mode) and big baddie Lucifer himself played by a kooky, darkly dapper Peter Stormare in what has to be one of the coolest and most captivating portrayals of the devil cinema has to offer. Director Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend, The Hunger Games) has big budget, flashy effects sensibilities and while there is a fair amount of visual sizzle and large scale spectacle here the tone is often one of suffocating darkness, unseen dread creeping down narrow hallways stifling both light and space, eerie close quarters settings and a claustrophobic aesthetic that refracts the hellish elements of this story into the forefront brilliantly. John’s trip to hell with assistance from a cat is one stunner of a sequence, as is his explosively violent, gory n’ gooey showdown with Balthazar and an opening exorcism that launches a full length mirror, demon trapped inside, onto an LA street in broad daylight. His flippant confrontation with Stormare’s Satan has to be my favourite scene though, it’s such a classy, stylish, well acted and creepy-funny bit that caps off this story not with a huge bombastic action sequence but rather a clipped, ironic and altogether biting exchange of dialogue between these two great actors, who would go on to have another priceless little Easter egg scene together in John Wick 2. So say what you will about this film and I hear ya with legitimate grievances regarding fealty to the comics but that don’t bother me, I love this dark, unique, creepy, baroque jewel of a film too much. Great stuff.

-Nate Hill

Austin Powers in Goldmember

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

There’s two questions I get asked a lot when discussing films and they’re a) what is the scariest movie you’ve ever seen (to which I usually answer Blair Witch Project) and b) what is the funniest movie you’ve ever seen. It’s interesting how subjective these two specific genres are, and how impossible it is to please an entire demographic with just one film. Anyways that second question is a tough cookie but after some thought I’d most likely go with Austin Powers In Goldmember which really is solid gold and probably the most fucking funny thing in existence. It’s my favourite of the trilogy and arguably the best, right down to the little moments that seal the deal. It opens with a stunning Bruckheimer’s Bond type action sequence where we get the hilariously meta sight of Tom Cruise as Austin, Gwenyth Paltrow as (snigger) ‘Dixie Normous’, Kevin Spacey as Dr. Evil and best of all Danny Devito as Mini Me. It’s that kind of inspiration that one ups the other two films and goes the extra mile in making this the literal gold standard. Also… how effing hot is Beyoncé in this? Foxy Cleopatra is by far the best Powers babe and even puts a bunch of 007 vixens to shame. Honestly though the funniest part for me is Dr. Evil, a sublimely funny character whose speech patterns, ADHD shenanigans, bizarre recounting of his childhood and relentless abuse of his awkward son (Seth Green) just steals the show, man. Not to mention Fat Bastard, also played by Mike Meyers doing quadruple duty this time around. His in-depth analysis of an enormous fart has to be the pinnacle: “Even stink would say that stinks.” Off the top of my head I can think of countless elements that play part in making this my favourite comedy: Mini Me’s massive schlong (“It’s like a baby’s arm holding an apple”), the disturbingly raunchy shadow puppets, Dr. Evil’s MTV motivated prison break, Steven Spielberg doing cartwheels, Meyer’s uproarious ‘Dutch’ accent, Michael Caine’s super horny mega spy Nigel Powers and everyone laughing hysterically at Austin when he fails to show up to his knighting ceremony, the running montage of dick jokes that now pivots into boob jokes narrated by a host of silly celebrity cameos too abundant to check off here, Austin’s groovy hit single ‘Daddy Wasn’t There’, Britney Spears as a FemBot, a sneaky John Travolta, man the list just goes fucking on and on. The film has a loose way about it and is pretty off the wall regarding any sensible plot and as such I’ve kind of just made this a stream of consciousness thing about how dope this movie is rather than an actual review, plus I’m tired and lazy as shit today and don’t feel like writing any kind of structured review. So there you go, the funniest movie I’ve ever seen. The next big question I always get is ‘Will they ever make an Austin Powers 4?’ Well I’m not involved in Hollywood whatsoever and as such have no fucking clue. But never say never, I mean in this age of nostalgia we’ve gotten sequels to Dumb & Dumber, Bill & Ted, Bad Boys, Men In Black and more decades after the fact, so we’ll see. I will say that if Meyers & Co. do decide to go for it, they’ve set the bar intimidatingly high with Goldmember and better all bring their fucking Eh Game.

-Nate Hill