Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
There's enough irresistible, grimy vaudevillian comedy here to recommend the film. As a hopeless James Bond fan, I noted all the loving references to the series, including steals from the pre-title sequence of Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice. A parody of the chess game in the 1968 film The Thomas Crown Affair is an instant classic, and there's a delightful cameo by Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach performing "What Do You Get When You Fall in Love?" A car ride through "rural England" (Mulholland Drive) spurs Austin's suave, out-of-nowhere comment "One thing about England--it doesn't look like Southern California." The sight of a London phone booth, perched shamefacedly by the cliffside next to the chaparral and eucalpytuses, was the funniest gag in the whole movie.