Comedy/Spoof

For anyone who's wallowed in the inanities of 1970s disaster movies, The Big Bus is not only witty but downright endearing. Instead of an endangered airliner or a capsized cruise ship, this dippily deadpan parody features a block-long, atomic-powered, luxury super-Greyhound setting off on its first transcontinental run with a garish cross section of humankind programmed for redemption, retribution, or just sublime ridiculousness as they roll toward Doom--or Denver, whichever comes first. Writers Fred Freeman and Lawrence J.

Contrary to popular rumor, this 1987 collection of comedy skits is not about a group of female employees from Amazon.com on a mission to the lunar surface. It's a series of unrelated spoofs and sketches designed to resemble an aimless night of TV channel-surfing, and the satirical targets include grade-Z science fiction films of the 1950s, sex films of the 1930s, hospital soap operas, and Playboy video centerfolds. There's a charity drive in which legendary bluesman B.B. King pleas for donations to help "Blacks Without Soul," and Ed Begley Jr.

Despite symptoms of sequelitis, Austin Powers in Goldmember is must-see lunacy for devoted fans of the shagadelic franchise. For every big-name cameo and raunchy double-entendre, there's an equal share of juvenile scatology and pop-cultural spoofery. All is forgiven when the hilarity level is consistently high, and Mike Myers--returning here as randy Brit spy Austin, his nemesis Dr. Evil, the bloated Scottish henchman Fat Bastard, and new Dutch disco-villain Goldmember--thrives by favoring comedic chaos over coherent plotting.

First he fought for the Crown, now he's fighting for the family jewels! Mike Myers (Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery) returns as the world's grooviest superspy in his latest comedy-adventure! Intent on world domination, diabolical genius Dr. Evil travels back to 1969 and steals Austin's "mojo." Now Austin must return to the Swingin' Sixties, recover his mojo and stop his terminally square arch nemesis from liquidating the world.

Back in 1967, buck-toothed, crushed-velvet-wearing, mop-topped Austin Powers worked as a swingin' fashion photographer by day and a groovy super agent for a British organization the rest of the time. His chief nemesis was the bald-pated, cat-loving, megalomaniacal Dr. Evil. Just before Austin Powers catches him once and for all, Dr. Evil has himself place in a cryogenic capsule and blasted into space. Not wanting to be outdone, Powers volunteers to have himself frozen, too. Thirty years pass, and Evil eventually returns to London to continued his wicked machinations.

The 1982 sequel to Airplane! is basically more of the same class-clown ironies but with a more forced feeling to the jokes. In the first film, veterans such as Peter Graves, Robert Stack, and Lloyd Bridges were feeling their way through self-parody, and the air of experimentation was part of the fun. By this film, however, everybody knows what's up, and the assuredness of new cast members Raymond Burr, William Shatner, and Chuck Connors is almost counterproductive. Still, there's lots to laugh about.

The quintessential movie spoof that spawned an entire genre of parody films, the original Airplane! still holds up as one of the brightest comedic gems of the '80s, not to mention of cinema itself (it ranked in the top 5 of Entertainment Weekly's list of the 100 funniest movies ever made). The humor may be low and obvious at times, but the jokes keep coming at a rapid-fire clip and its targets--primarily the lesser lights of '70s cinema, from disco films to star-studded disaster epics--are more than worthy for send-up.