Alphabetical film festival: A into B

AUSTIN POWERS: THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME: Yes, I'm a little surprised and embarrassed that an Austin Powers movie is on my favorites shelf. The first one was clever in places, but seemed to be crammed with every joke that Mike Myers and company thought of, with no editing or crafting. The third one, Goldmember, felt tired. But this second Powers film, like the 3 Bears' porridges, is just right. You can tell they still left in lots of stuff that maybe should have been edited for a sprightlier pace--my single favorite joke in the movie, when Dr. Evil, spinning around in a chair, chants, "The power of Christ compels you" (an Exorcist reference), seems improvised. Some gags go on too long (like the shadows in the tent when Powers is bending over and it looks like Felicity is yanking all manner of things out of his ass). And now that I’ve seen it several times, I can sense a kind of slapdash feel to the production and editing.

But damned if the 12-year-old boy inside me still doesn't raise a ruckus when Fat Bastard comes on the scene with his shit jokes ("I got a turtlehead pokin' out" never gets old) and gross appearance and his unwarranted ego ("I'm dead sexy!"). Normally a character like this would make me tune out, but it's become a classic bit in my head, maybe because Meyers seems to get such joy out of doing the part. I also like Seth Green, the Alan Parsons Project joke, the swingin' 60s bachelor pad, and the perfect casting of Rob Lowe and Robert Wagner as the young and older Number Two--and the crowning joke might well be the deleted scene (present on the DVD) of Lowe and Wagner in bed together. In this case, the everything but the kitchen sink approach to humor actually works--the 2001 shot, the movie stopping dead for Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello to sing, the Jerry Springer opening. Myers may never make another movie I'll want to see, but I do have a soft spot for this one.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: Like most academics, ex-academics, and would-be academics who actually enjoy overthinking their consumption of books and movies, I have a love/hate relationship with Walt Disney. The Disney studio is perhaps the most obvious pop-culture propaganda machine in the world, in terms of setting the bar for children’s behavior, gender roles, and middle-class family patterns. (I rush to note that Hollywood does this all the time, but for a long time, from the 50s through the 90s, Disney was best--and most obvious--at it because all of their product was aimed at two specific audiences: kids and their parents.) I like the craft of Disney movies, but am not always so happy with their content; though I have fond memories of Disney films from my youth, the only other one likely to be on the favorites shelf is Fantasia.

But this film, made at the peak of their 90s comeback, is sheer delight all the way through. It certainly helps that the propaganda messages are less retro than in earlier films. Belle, the Beauty of the title, is a relatively strong female figure who likes books, doesn't like the macho bullshit of her would-be suitor Gaston, and takes it upon herself (without even the help of mothers, fairies, or guardian angels) to save her father, who has been imprisoned by the Beast in his lonely castle. Instead of cute forest animals, the castle scenes are peopled by animate objects (a candlestick, a teacup, a dresser) whom we discover are people trapped as objects, put under the same spell as their master who was turned into a Beast for his unkindness to a witch.

But it's not the plot or characters so much as the musical score that makes this movie special. The music and lyrics, by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, feel as if they were written for a Broadway musical, not a kiddie matinee (and indeed the film has become a hit stage musical), with memorable melodies, clever lyrics, and songs that explicate character or move the action forward, which didn't happen much in the earlier animated Disney musicals. The "Gaston" number is especially witty: "No one hits like Gaston/Matches wits like Gaston/In a spitting match, nobody spits like Gaston (I'm especially good at expectorating!)" "Be Our Guest," the song that the castle’s furniture and objects sing to Belle, has become a sort of unofficial Disney theme, and the title song actually became a top 40 hit, but my favorite song from the movie is the opener, "Belle," which introduces the everyday life of the town and the character of Belle as a smart but frustrated person (among the mostly happy and funny lyrics, Belle repeats, "There must be more than this provincial life"). This was the first Disney film to incorporate some CGI in with the hand-drawn animation, but I must say on the big HD TV screen, it was a delight to see traditional animation style bursting with color and style. A charming movie that leaves me humming its songs for days afterward.