"Austin Powers International Man of Mystery"

“Austin Powers, International Man Of Mystery”

I discovered the first Austin Powers movie when I was working at the movie distributor. It hadn’t done a huge amount in the theaters but it became HUGE on video. I brought it home and put it on the to be watched pile. We popped it in the VCR a few weeks later. We loved it.

It made it easy to sell.

Mike Myers was hilarious as Austin and Dr. Evil.

One of my favorite memories of this movie is when my son watched it with my sister. It was a little bawdy but we’d talked about some of the things Austin liked to say. I had explained that the term horny was when you really liked someone and wanted to kiss them. It isn’t a big lie! It was mostly the truth just a little incomplete. I also let him know that it was kind of an adult word.

When he was four and wanted to know where babies came from, I told him they were made with love. Know your audience. I still tell myself that most of the movie went over his head. Let me have my delusions!

So my son was watching the movie with my sister. It got to the scene on the plane between Austin and Miss Kensington.

Austin Powers: Do I make you horny? Randy? Do I make you horny, baby, yeah, do I?

My son turned to my sister with complete innocence.

Son: Aunt, what does horny mean?

Sister: Uh, um, ugh. Ask your mom.

And my evil son thought her obvious discomfort was fantastic.

There are a lot of great moments in this movie and all it’s sequels. It made my son go through a pretty significant James Bond phase.

To my delight, his favorite Bond was Sean Connery. He has good taste.