All of Me

Come on, I've been baking. Is it Steve Martin's emo to just be in movies where like it's music in a like a musical title because all of me pennies from heaven. Well, he's a big music I mean he started playing fanjo. Yeah, he was starting like he was accordian guy, comic guy on the street, Like he's tours here playing bluegrass like music. And I was like, okay, he's I mean, that's what the last five albums of his had been.

And he just uh co wrote a music musical um fairly recently that just was on Broadway right start with uh okay. It's weird to me because I don't I mean again, as someone who is in their thirties, when I think of Steve Martin, I prim and this is gonna be terrible because I didn't grow up with and I didn't see the Steve Martin SNL stuff. I saw it after the fact. I've seen the Wild and Crazy Guys thing with Dan Ackroyd. I have seen the King Tut thing as an adult.

But I I that's for me when I think of Steve Martin, and this is gonna be terrible, and it's gonna date me, and it's gonna make me seem like a complete blood I go for. I think of the Pink Panther, yes right, like that's gonna date me by saying, as do my kids. That's that's what I think of. And I don't know if it's also going to be terrible. I've never seen the original Pink Panther, so I don't know if the new one is.

The new one's funny, but the new what's funny? For what it is, I don't know how it compares to original. I'm sure it is a four, if not awful, facsimile of the original. So here's the thing. They both are very representative of their time, sure, and for their time, I think they were very successful in in the comedy, like Steve Martin is genuinely funny in the Pink Panther.

Yes, movies, I would like to buy a handdicket like that. Shit's like it could not be funny, but Steve Martin makes it funny, you know, Like I don't know, I haven't even seen the second one. The first one's funny, I don't know. The second one's probably bad, but I don't remember the second one as well. Although my kids watched both, but the original films also very funny for the time.

I haven't revisited them. But what we also grew up with was the Pink Panther cartoon. Do you remember the pink Panther cartoons? Is that where the pink panther is the character, where the pink panther is the character, And there was like a pink panther cartoon. I'm sure, and I'm saying that, and now I'm like, maybe, I'm I think not like the character.

No, there was an animated series that ran from nineteen sixty nine to nineteen eighty. Holy cow, okay, seventeen years of Pink Panther cartoons. Yeah, that's what I know Steve Martin from and like his various other comedic roles as like a dad in stuff like again, this is gonna be terrible. Cheaper by the Dozen was another movie that came out when I was probably a teenager, sure, but huge Cheaper by the Dozen one and two it's complicated as well as another interesting movie that's the Meryl Streep Alec Baldwin movie where he plays like I forget, I forget what the deal is with that movie, but it's like him and Alec Baldwin and Meryl Streep and like a love triangle. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

But that's not what we're here to talk about. We're here to talk about a movie from nineteen eighty four. And if you're listening to this episode of the Culture Cast, I bet you're not wondering who I am. I am still your host, Chris dash you, but I am joined it once again by my good friend. She has a show on the weirding Way Media network that is extremely successful and if you haven't listened to it, you should.

She is the host of one of the hosts of eighties TV ladies. Your friend and mine, Susan Lambert had him. Hi. Thanks for having me, Chris. I'm so happy to be here, so happy to be here.

Here I get to talk about movies, which is also really fun as opposed to talking about television and only televion. Yes, with women a television, Yes. And this's a broader medium, isn't it. I think television's a broader medium than than film in a lot of ways. Oh well, I mean yeah, because it covers.

But they're both. They're so interesting now because they used to be very separate. They used to feel very separate, and now movie people are doing series, and series people are doing movies, and it's it was such a huge, huge deal when you know, Bruce Willis did die Hard, like they just that seemed impossible that he would be a movie star, even though he a huge TV story, right, but it seemed impossible. It seemed like a joke. Well, I mean, you know, we're living now in the post streaming era where people like Julia Roberts have been in streaming shows like Yeah, at this point, I think the I think we're farther along than we ever have been with the kind of the line being very blurred obviously, like you said, between the two.

But that's not the case. In nineteen eighty four when this movie came out, this movie being a little film if you've never heard of it, directed by Carl Reiner called All of Me. Roger cub was a rising young lawyer whose first big case, Guess what I'm going to do, What I'm going to come back from the dead, was a basketcase. What am I missing here? You see?

Thanks to his hole in a bragolaza, my soul is going to leave my body forever and become one with the universe, which time my soul will into her body. A good plan. They put a soul in a bowl, but things got out of control. I lost term that then it worked. Oh my lord, why I can't believe this.

I can't even die right. Please tell me this is not happening. We obviously have mutual control over all body. My body. It's my body.

I'm gonna train my body with anyone who's gonna be real disappointed. Now, Eduena Cutwater is dead and live it in Roger Cobb's body. You know you have a great deer to learn about making someone feel welcome. It's got something straight here. I never liked you when you were in your body.

I certainly don't like you in mine. Kee's spoiling his love life is water. She died today? Did it was a dead woman. He's ruining her afterlife.

I get going there. That's the men's room shot. Say she's getting under his skin. Excite you when I go away? Will you?

You have no right? You have no right. It's two o'clock. I want you out of me by three fifteen. Now where's the swamp?

Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin in all of me? It's like I mentioned. The film is directed by Carl Reiner, based on a screenplay by Phil phil Alden Robinson, and it stars the applerementioned Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin, who was in another movie that Susan and I talked about recently. Steve Martin plays in Yeah. Steve Martin plays an attorney who is also a jazz guitarist who also has a dog that follows him around, and he becomes the attorney of a bedridden, eccentric millionaire played by Lily Tomlin who drops dead, and in the process of dropping dead, her spirit gets conferred into Steve Martin's body, which was not the intention.

She was going to be conferred into the body of Victoria Tennant who plays Terry Hoskins. And what ends up happening. Excuse me, no, right, no, no, am I right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, you're right on, okay, I'm just making sure I got the characters. I got the characters confused the two female characters in the movie, and throughout the film, Steve Martin attempts to get Lily Tomlin's sole spirit what have you into the right body and out of his body because guess what now she controls half of his body, Susan, you picked this movie because we kind of wanted to do some movies after nine to five, because I had not seen well, I hadn't seen most of the women in that film and anything outside of that movie up until that point.

So this was one of the movies you wanted to talk about, Susan. So I will turn the floor over to you, and you can tell me all about why we're watching this movie. What you thought about this movie the first time you saw it, because I know this was not the first time you saw it, And what you thought now sitting down to rewatch it for the culture cast, Well, it was a treat to rewatch this movie because it had been a while. This was a huge hit. I remember it as a huge hit.

I remembered it as a Lily Tomlin movie, which is why I picked it. I knew Steve Martin was like I think it was like kind of co starring them was what I remember it being. The thing is is that Lily Tomin's actually not in it's a Steve Martin movie. She's in the movie a ton and she co stars with him. But this is a Steve Martin movie.

However, I would say it is a Steve Martin movie at the height of Steve Martin. It may be one of the best Steve Martin movies only because he is also playing Lily Tomlin half the time, right, And that's a really spectacular sort of a reminder what a physical comedian he was as well. This is like the hardest kind of acting role to do, right. I'm not an actor, but I have to imagine, Okay, playing somebody else and getting into that mindset is one thing, but playing somebody else who then has to have another character interfere into their character while playing yourself and that person that seems like a tall order, right. It's the Jim Carrey like.

It's there's such elasticity in the performance that it really does feel like you really do believe that Lily Tomlin, or at least a woman is inside him, right, And most of the time you truly believe it's Lily Tomlin, Like I just remember her being more in the movie simply by his performance where he's playing her and all you're hearing is just her voice or seeing her in the mirror, or seeing her in the mirror. They do the quantum leap trick, which I love and again throw back to eighties television Quantum leap. Uh, that's their that was their trick from the eighties, quantum Leap, which was, you know, uh, he would figure out who he was by looking in the mirror and see who he really looked like.

Um. And so she doesn't. She's not presenting as him. He's presenting as himself when he sees her, he's just seeing I guess that's the only thing. I didn't get what he's seeing her inside of him and no one else sees her.

They're seeing him, right, We're right, right, okay, And that was what was interesting. They're not trying to mirror and they're not doing a mirror trick with their performance in the mirror. They just use it to to have scenes together, right, But they do a whole lot of the mirror mirror thing. There's a lot of them having to do the whole like mirror gag over and over again, which I think they more or less nail it. But again, this is a hard movie to make.

I feel like this movie was not easy in a lot of ways. Obviously, no technically, I think it was again a challenge, particularly for the eighties and before there was just such easy easy access to computers, right and uh and computer imagery and digital fixing. Um so I the the you know the the but the mirror twak has been around for a while, right, but since we do Charlie Chaplin, I think it's like it's it's that old, but there's just it totally works. And what I love about this movie is how much chemistry the two of them pull off, where most of it they're not in the same room, right, Like, I mean, I'm assuming they filmed them together, but they didn't have to because she's in the mirror doing her thing and he's in the scene doing his thing, and so it's just and yet you really I found it surprising how much I cared about their relationships still, Like I remember that from the original, Like I remember being a little bit and you know, spoil alert, I remember being a little bit disappointed because you're like, you kind of want them to end up together, and they kind of do.

But as much as ever is in as much as they ever could, right, as much as they ever could, right so, because she's dead, so fully her spirit can go. But I just I thought it was very funny. I just enjoyed the performances a lot. It is, it is a bit dated. It's a little little kind of racist.

Oh Ubertini's entire character, which is a shame because I love Richard Libertini. I love him, I love him and I love him in this and I remember literally and the back end bowl is like has stayed with me from the first time I've seen this, that little and it's and it's terribly racist, right like it's yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean Richard Libertini is you know last Yeah, I guess I was gonna say, like his last name would lead me to believe he might be Italian. I Oa and you that's your last time, you're the last amends, and that you might be Italian. Um I, he's not broadly Southeast Asian, I'll tell you that much. I think that goes about and he is playing I is it Tibetan like or broadly Southeast Asian.

He's playing a shanan mystic who go to actually transfer yes, uh, Praca Lassas and how you pron we're looking for Praca. I just remember. Um. So he's playing a shaman mystic who is going to transfer the soul Lily Tomlin's soul into Victoria tenant uh and uh, and then acts accidentally gets halfway into Steve Martin and again this movie is whackadoodle right, like it is just it is that old fashioned comedy where you just like it is loopy and you know, again, he literally says the words he's a lawyer. He's trying to be taken seriously as a serious lawyer.

And he literally says, it's like I might be taken seriously. So then they cut to him driving his dog to meet with the fancy client at the mansion because he's taking his dog with them. Well, that's what one of the characters says. He's like, hey, you know, like, uh, he's acting weird today. He's like, he drives with his dog, he brings his dog into the office.

When is he not acting weird? Like that's I know, but that comes later like it's all I kind of appreciate that. That's how they kind of hang a lantern on him being acting weird with her in his body is just by being like, well, he was already weird, because you could have had it be the kind of shaggy the shaggy DA type thing where he's a straight lace dude. And then now he's being weird and everybody's he's already a fucking weirdo. Like, and I appreciate that the movie just is already like, no, no, he's a weird anachronistic dude who does his own thing.

He plays in a jazz band, that whole thing. Like, I appreciate that he's not mister straight lace, Like there's a little bit of wiggle room to his character where everybody's not just taken aback by him acting weird all of a sudden. Yeah, No, the story is about him, you know, Like, if you want to go to like the emotional heart of the story, it is not like, oh, this straight lace guy who needs to learn to loosen up, right. It is a guy who's trying to fit into a you know, sort of straight lace lawyer world, but who really, um, you know, is a musician and an artist and uh, you know, and wants to experienced life. But he's also trying to be a successful lawyer.

Um, and that that's not a that's not you know. They're very clearly painting this guy who is running around with his dog everywhere. It's one thing to bring the dog into the office where like, you know, your secretary can take care of the dog, but it's another thing to literally drive that dog to your client meeting. Was a dog in the car the whole scene, Like, I didn't under and here to be honest with you, outside of making Steve Martin seem like and be a kind of weirdo, the thing with the dog doesn't well doesn't. But there's no payoff, there's nothing to it.

You You kind of like there was a draft where she went into the dog. There's there's gotta be right, like, yeah, she had she had to go unto the dog. The dog there, I mean, there's a dog at one there's a dog. I thought she was going to be in the horse at one point, like they kind of tease it and well that's the horse, right, that's the ending, right. But but I think she went there's a point in the movie where they're trying to figure out where she went, and I figured that she went into the horse by accident, you know.

Yeah, the climax of the movie kind of right, which is which is I think obviously funnier I think in the grand scheme of things. So I had never seen this movie before. I had seen a couple Steve Martin comedies. I've seen The Man with Two Brains long time ago, seeing The Jerk a longer time ago. So I haven't seen again.

Like I've mentioned, I already mentioned the Steve Martin comedies that I've seen, and they're not you know, they're not They're not his classics. They're more contemporary. Like I said, Pink Panther, it's complicated, Cheaper by the Dozen, you know, those aren't bad movies. Movies, Yeah, they're made for the mid two thousands, Like when I think of Cheaper by the Dozen, like, I know the kind of jokes that are going to be in that movie even without remembering that movie. And you know, I probably saw at one point.

I probably saw Sergeant Bilko at one point. But for the most part, I have not seen a whole lot of Steve Martin stuff. The thing that sticks out for me that I've seen that's probably my favorite Steve Martin thing is Little Shop of Horrors or Three Amigos, if you want to talk about like a cameo roll. His cameo and Little Shop of Horrors is great, But I mean he's a main character in Three Amigos. He's one of the titular three Amigos, and can we talk about Three Amigos for a second and how great that movie is.

I like it a lot, but you you would be a surprising amount of people I have talked to that don't like it, that are like annoyed by it, or have like a very like strong opinion about how much they don't like it. There's a huge divide. There's a famous story in my family over Three Amigos, where because I saw it, I was in. I mean, Three Amigos would have been a six eighties, mid eighties eighty two years after this movie. Yeah, cheers after this movie.

I mean, okay, So it's Steve Martin, Martin Short and Chevy Chase, right right. Two of those people are good people. But they're good people. And again I love Chimp Chase. But I'm not gonna sider and pretend like we haven't all heard story.

No hot messes, unrepentant hot mess all right, but Steve Martin absolutely like that movie made me laugh so hard. I thought it was brilliant. I thought it was funny. I literally um For Thanksgiving, my dad and my sister and I would have this tradition of watching a movie together and I insisted that we had to watch Three Amigos because they hadn't seen it, and I was like, Oh, my god, you guys are going to love it because my dad's an actor. My dad is a big hamdbone.

My sister's in theater and also an actor, and and I just thought they're gonna freaking lose their minds over this movie the way that I did. And they hated it. They hated it so much that literally this Thanksgiving, my sister told a story about how I tried to shoot for Three Amigos. Oh man, that Lauren Michael's, Steve Martin Randy Newman's script just really wasn't doing the form. What weird fucking array of people to write a script together, Like, I know, but come on, the Singing Bush.

I'm a fan of Three Amigos. I like that movie a lot. That movie's is rent free in my head. The My Little Buttercup musical number, Yeah, Little bus It's great. He's Martin's hilarious, and so is Jeffy Jason, so is Martin short.

But all of that being said, I think the the oldest comedy from Steve Martin that I have seen is I guess his Penny's from Heaven's not really funny, though Penny's from Heaven is very dark movie, pretty dark. Yes, I guess it's this. Then this is this is the oldest Steve Martin comedy I've seen. Well, the thing about this era, this era, these early Steve Martin is they they are kind of pretty whacked out and dead Men don't rere plaid very which is another movie of this era. Like they're He's there's something very almost like artistic, uh going on in them, even though they're also these you know, very very high concept this one being a very high concept lackadoodle comedy.

Um so, but there's there's something really interesting going on. And then you get into where I think again for me, Three Amigos, Roxanne, a La Story, the movies that sort of come after this that he wrote or co wrote are really strong. I remember them. I again, I haven't gone back and rewatched all of them, but I Roxanne was just a real beauty of a movie at the time that it came out, very heartfelt. Now I would probably look at it now with a whole other gender politics, I would assume.

So given what it's it's the Syrano DISI Syranh No, right, which is I've always had a problem with Syrano, so I think a lot of people have, myself included, which is why I've probably it's not been on the top of my list of things to watch. But the Roxande just his performance and the sort of the love that's in that movie, the sincerity that's in that movie is really, you know, sort of I think you see shades of it in All of Me. I think one of the things that sort of the moments I loved the most were even when they felt a little contrived, and they did, were those moments that Lily Tomlin and Steve Martin Martin shared a sweetness uh together. Um And you know, I just there's something that still feels very charming in all of Me.

Um. And there's a lot of charm in Roxanne La story. I remember loving at the time that it came out. It was in nineties and ninety one, and I loved it because it's It's also one of Sarah Jessica Parker's first breakout She's character actress in it, and she is I just remember her being like just a lightning bolt of of sort of a personality in that moment. The Talking Billboard.

Right, it's the one with the talking billboard. It just it felt so very la and being a person living in LA at the time and a young person, I was like, Okay, I recognize all sorts of this movie. Um, I would be curious to look back at that again. I might go check it out, but I would too. I saw it.

I saw it probably in like twenty eleven. I don't remember much other than Sarah Jessica Parker and the talking billboard. That's it and Steve Martin and kind of like you know, nineties Steve Martin. Yeah, and the good for him looking Salton Pepper gray hair has never looked better. I'm sorry.

Steve Martin. Well, I mean he's been, he's been. I know it. But it's but it's great, Like what's great is like it for me? Steve Martin's always looked like Steve Martin, you know what I mean, Like he's it's he's never got old.

He just kind of always lives looking like Steve always looked about the same. Yeah, right, yeah, which I mean again, like you know, when I was what I was expecting from this movie again, having never watched it, sitting down to watch it, I thought that was there going to be the reverse. I thought Lily Tomlin was going to have Steve Martin's soul in her body. And I think this is the better idea for a number of reasons. But I think that movie could have worked too, just as well as this work.

Yeah, because Lily Tomlin is as good as it is. I think Lily Tomlin is as good a comedic actor sometimes you could even say better than Steve Martin is. And I think she would have brought something uniquely Lily Tomlin to it, because, like you said, this is a Steve Martin movie with Lily Tomlin's performance kind of grafted into his performance. I would like to have seen a Lily Tomlin movie with Steve Martin's performance grafted into it. I think that might actually have been the more interesting movie.

I don't think it's the more financially viable at the time, at least not what the studios think, which I think is unfair, But I think it would have been a more interesting movie as opposed to what we get. Not that I think there's a bad movie, there's a good movie, but I think it would have been a more novel movie for the time, especially well and I think that is you would have lost a lot of the basically the dick jokes, right like which like that don't we aren't great anyways, Like they're not great anyway, but you know, and that's that weird thing of like that's we much we much more easily accept and find hilarious a broad a guy portraying a woman broadly, right, then we do a woman portraying a man.

There's not like you know, in terms of like you know, you know, sort of what are those comedy performances. There's a there's a really interesting um. Sharon Bless did a television show in the Steven D's Um where where it was a body switching of a husband and wife that switched bodies and then they have to um sort of you know, and so she was portraying her husband inheriting her body, and she inherited her husband body who was and I'm going to remember the actor in a minute, but anyway, those things are so they sort of the sort of male female switch is very interesting. Um. I think that we're at the time we were it was much more um enjoyable to love watching you know, uh, Steve Martin be a little more like feat yes, yeah, and even that was a good way to put it.

Yeah, Lily Tomlin, it wasn't that a feat right? Well, And that's the that's my problem here. It's like Lily Tomlin is not Steve Martin. Is this character the character that Lily Tomlin is playing is against type, like sot against Yeah, and I would have I would have preferred if it had been Lily Tomlin just doing not the Lily Tomlin thing, but doing the Lily Tomlin thing. That's what I like about Lily Tomlin.

Lily Tomlin at this time was doing a lot of she was doing characters right right, right, he was doing a lot of different characters. And even though we know what Lily Tomlin sort of means now, at the time, she was much more of a character character act right, who had a sort of stable of characters that she did kind of like you know, she was in Laughing right, right, right right, but this is not the kind of character she was playing on laughing though, right. No. But she was also she's from the stage, so she was doing a ton of interesting stage stuff. Um and uh, you know so, but but so you know, I love I think the beginning the very meeting first meeting of them where she's in the wheelchair is absolutely Lily Tomlin.

And then yeah, and that is was just I just like was so it was really lovely, Like I thought that was a really lovely scene. Um, well, like you said, I mean, you know, normally these kinds of movies are a straight laced guy or woman who gets, you know, the opportunity to learn how to live. And this is not that. It's written in a way that it's more about Lily Tomlin being the one who's not learning how to live, but more being given the opportunity to have a life. And I think that those the moments that you've talked about already, we're the moments where the movie is the most successful, and that's where all the comedy is just dropped away and it's Steve Martin literally standing in a mirror talking to Lily Tomlin and she's talking to him, and those are some of the better moments in the movie.

Again, it's a great movie, but it's those moments where you get to see what it means for Lily Tomlin to be dead, what it means for her to not only be dead, but understand and rationalize the scenario that she's in while Steve Martin is trying to tell her how things are going and how things are going to be and what he can do to help her. I appreciate that almost more than the comedy because it's this weird emotional through line that so many funny movies from the time don't have. That they would greatly appreciate having an emotional core and not just a yuck fest for forty five minutes of your movie, because again, like there are plenty times in this movie where there's not funniness happening, there's not any comedic value, but you're invested because of the emotional core of these two characters, and that's not easy to do.

Even now. Comedies don't necessarily put a lot of stock into making you care about the characters. It's just about well delivering the laughs, which is why we have the horror movie problem, which is you don't care about the characters, You only care about getting them killed. Comedies kind of have the same problem if you look at it, it's, you know, make them laugh, but don't make them care, Just make them laugh. The movies that make you care and make you laugh are the ones that I personally think still have value, something like Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

That movie has an emotional core and it's talking about something universal. There are plenty of other movies that have come out since that are doing the same thing that just don't have that emotional core. Same with this movie, because it's a body swapping movie at its core. And we did a month of body swapping movies twenty twenty and this didn't make the cut, and I'm kind of disappointed that it didn't, but I'm glad it didn't. But I'm disappointed because this would have been the best best movie we watched that month, without a doubt.

What did you watch? U? I can tell you the people that were swapped in the movies. So we watched the one where Kirk Cameron swaps with Dudley Moore. We watched the one where George Burns swaps with forget the young actor's name, and then I remember we watched the it was a recent one where Vince Vaughan swaps with uh, it's called I forget what that one's called freaky?

I think is that's the It's like a horror movie. It's a bloomhouse movie. And there was one other one in there but you didn't do Freaky Friday. Like what is there to say about Freaky Friday. It's a good movie, you know, Hey there's two of them.

Yeah, but you know what I mean, Like you know what I mean, like Freaky Friday. It's like Freaky Friday is the one. So you know, like you I'm more interested in talking. I'm more interested in talking about the things that people aren't talking about. Like nobody's talking about nobody's talking about any of these other movies.

Nobody's talking about that George Burns movie anymore. But people are talking about Freaky Friday. I've remade what ten fifteen years ago and Jamie Lee Curtis, I think a month ago was like I want to do more of ease, like Lindsay Lohan, come do more with me. So I've seen that movie. I like that movie.

You know. Then I thought every bit was pretty good. It is good. It is one of my best friends literally says make good choices whenever we are done hanging out, and that I know what that comes from. That comes from that movie.

I I was I would have been the right age to see that movie. That movie came out in the late nineties early two thousands. I probably saw that movie in theaters. But like, again, that's it's a good movie, you know, for the freaky Fredis are good. What do you say, like it's a good movie.

Okay, Um, well, I'm interested also to look at the incredible Shrinking Woman, which I don't remember as strongly. Um, that's a star. It's a Lily Tomlin, like a star, literally Tomlin. It's nineteen eighty one, so it's before this movie. Um and uh, and it was.

It was a big success, and I remember in my mind being a big success. Um, but I don't know. I remember some of the scenes, but there was more of a technical more like she was great, but it was also more of like, oh my god, the technical aspects of that movie were also like kind of you know, a big deal at the time. Joel Schumacher, I think, right, oh my god, maybe yeah, but I eat anyway, I eat. Um.

So I'm very curious. I'm now ready to dive back into Steve Martin and back into Lily Tomlin of those days. Um, because like you said, there's that there's like two scenes where he's trying to have sex with Victorious Tennant or Victorious Tennant is trying to have sex with him. Well by the way he was seeing like they got Mary Mary, Well, they weren't, but they ended up getting married after the facts they were they were basically together, I think, right right, right, yeah, So it's a little bit like there's that weird moment where you're like, oh my god, cast my girlfriend in this movie, right, and she's she's fine, she's good, she's a beautiful actress. What's interesting is at the very end where she is being Lily, she has Lily Tomlin in her, and you really start that's when you really appreciate how great Steve Martin is and you're like, oh, Steve Martin's Lily Tomlin was better than Lily tom You don't.

You don't see it until you see the mirror shot, and then you're like, oh my god, why isn't that that? I just I remember that from watching it when it came out the very end of the movie and watching the two of them, and you're like, I want a movie with Lily Tomlin and Steve Martin being joyful together, right, as opposed to this kind of like mad cap dash to fix the problem. Yes, I mean it is. It is a mad, mad mad Mad Switching Bodies movie. Yeah, And I'm actually the thing I was more surprised by than anything else is that they didn't do the body swapping gimmick more.

They kind of kept it to the end of the movie. I mean, you know, in some of those body swap movies they swapped bodies two or three times type thing. This is this, it's it's used obviously for a kind of a plot conflict thing at the end of the movie. But I was expecting there to be more body swapping throughout because again, I got it. I'm so glad they didn't, because it gave us this, It gave us this amazing chemistry, like the thing that's pretty stunning.

And there's these two again sort of trying to have sex with Victoria Tenant while Lily Tomlin is in his body or controlling the right hand side of his body, Yes, controlling the right hand side of the body. Just like, um, conceptually, those are so interesting if you to go down the road of that, right like, And at the second time, he's really trying to convince her to let him have sex and to enjoy it, and you're like, God, this is getting weird, right Like, You're like, are they gonna are they It gets weird for a minute because you're like, are they really going to do this? And and but it's also one of the best chemistry movements where you're like, oh, they're kind of very cute together, where he's basically explaining what tingles are, and you know, because she's not ever had sex, You're like, this is so cool and also very creepy a little bit.

I'm a little bit I don't know how to feel about what's about to happen. Now it doesn't right they pull back from it, you know, before you know they actually have to coit us interrupt us a little bit of it. But it's pretty amazing because you're like, I want this to happen, door not want it to to happen. What does it mean? Like well, and in a less successful movie, it would have been literally the opposite.

It would have been he's never had sex before and she's walking him through it. And it's so smart that that's not what they do here. I mean, look, they're using a source material as their guide, an unpublished novel, but the decisions that were made in the script really speak to someone who understands how to write a funnier version of this movie than we would have gotten if it had been just some workman script. You would have had Steve Martin being the straight laced one and Lily Tomlin being the free Spirit and all of the kind of conflict that would have rose out of that. And I'm glad that's not what this is.

It really is this kind of weird, this weird thing about her not having ever lived, and that that's what her whole purpose in life is is to escape being wheelchair bound her entire life. And yes, it's a cute story. I mean that's that's a cute story. It wouldn't have been cute the other way. It would have been fucking creepy.

It would have been the conventions of what the movie is setting down that people are in, that you can have a spirit in your body that can can control you would have been weird. If it had been Steve Martin as the strait laced one and Lily Tomlin as the free Spirit, it would have been it would have been kind of weird, right, It would have had a twinge of weirdness to it that I wouldn't have been okay with the twinge of weirdness in some of these scenes where it's you know, oh, you know, just kind of get into the mood with me. You know, that's less weird. It's weird, like you said, but it's less weird than it would have been if Lily Tomlin had been like egging him on throughout it, that would have been stranger than it needed to be and off more off putting.

Frankly, I'm not sure I would have been as onboard with that conceit. Yeah, you know, yeah, it's just there's a lot of interesting things going on there. But I just I also, again, I keep coming back to their chemistry together and being like, you know, why didn't they do another movie where it was more of a romantic comedy. Well, that's the thing that's weird is that they don't work together again in this capacity. It's never them as the leads of a movie again and again, by my approximation, clearly by your approximation, I think they have a hell of a lot of chemistry together.

I would have watched another movie with the two of them as the leads in an actual on screen capacity. I would have watched that. But I don't I don't understand why we didn't get that I'm assuming it's just they were too busy. Their schedules never sync back up. There was never a project worth working on.

Yeah, I think, you know, I assume that, Like I feel like there must be some movie where, like one of those movies where everybody's in it, Like I don't know, there was a couple of those, not Parenthood, but kind of like where people are doing. There must be some movie that there are cameos in, right, Um, but yeah, I got that too. I don't know if you've ever seen a brother where arn't thou? Yep? And so Holly Hunters in that movie for five minutes right at the end with George Clooney, and I swear I was like, when are we getting the Holly Hunter George Clooney movie?

Right? I want that movie so bad because they're so fun in that in the two scenes they have or the one scene that they have. It's so it is sort of interesting. I think sometimes, you know, like she's supposed to like, you know, because she doesn't end up in the body of Victoria Tenant. There's something really creepy about that.

It's like, oh, I I kind of am in love with you, but you're going into the body of the woman that tried to kill me and you. Yeah, it's kind of I'm going to stare at you. It's kind of a weird ending to the movie. I mean again, you know, with a body swapping movie, there's always going to be these kind of hinky fucking concepts that they're batting around, like, well, she's in a pail of water now, which ends up not really coming to fruition. But well, sir, right right.

I just I appreciate that the movie doesn't get bogged down in all of that because I've seen don't care about the rules right at all the switch, which I appreciate, like I don't. I don't need that as an audience member. I understand that there are plenty of people that need to have these kind of things really fleshed out and explained and one of the tenants and don't break the rules and whatever. Fine, I don't need that, And I think the movie works better for not getting bogged down in Steve Martin having to sit and explain to people, like having a scene where their exposition dumping all of this. I think that goes back to the idea that Richard Libertini's character is, you know, not particularly well written.

Again, it's not it's not a matter of being well written. It's just like listen, it's offensive, but I'm not offend. I'm not personally offended. It's in bad taste, I guess is the best way of putting it. Yeah, I mean, we're not trying to offend anybody.

I didn't feel not. And it's so like it's it's a very sweet performance. It's it's a very funny performance. Right, The performance is fantastic. It's it's the slapstick performance of the movie, performance of the movie.

And it's a very um, you know, it's really just uh, you know, they could have just made him a generic mystic from New York, like right, and you could have a weird accent and the same rance. Fisher Stevens did it in um short circuit, you know, like watched an episode of Twilight Zone eighty five where or Midnight was Night Gallery where Jackie Vernon did the same thing, where he put on a turban and did brown face. Like, yeah, they're not trying to be offensive, not in good taste. Yes, it's of the time. It was the our sort of undefined racism that just allowed us to you know, I mean they're still not casting Southeast Asian actors and things now, so it's not like things have really changed.

I mean, they're of the representation in Hollywood right now. I mean, I know that Asian actors and actresses have hard have had the hardest time in getting representation, so it speaks to a larger problem. But Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin and Carl Reiner, we're going to fix that by casting someone in their movie. I'm glad Richard Libertini is in it because I love him and everything that he's in. He's in Fletch Has Fletch's Boss.

That's where I first saw him, and I've seen him in so many things since, and he's just him too. Yeah, he's great. He's a welcome addition to the cast. I will say, outside of Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin and Richard Libertini, not much else to talk about cast wise. I mean, everybody else is good enough, But the lion share of the movie is really Steve Martin, which obviously you've got Steve Martin and you're moving in eighty four.

What do you do but to say, Steve, let's do your thing, Like just do the Steve Martin thing, and he delivers. I think Steve Martin is a very funny actor, but he doesn't need to be funny. That's the thing. I've always appreciated that anything I've seen Steve Martin, and he's not one of those actors who needs to be funny, you can tell. And he's perfectly okay with sharing the funniness with other people, which is again not a thing that I would constantly pin on comedians, as I'm sure you wouldn't either.

Sometimes they got to be the center of attention, They got to be the center of the room, which I get. Steve Martin has never struck me that way professionally or I guess outside of the business. Yeah, I think he is so good at you know, comedians often get underrated as actors, right. And there's a moment in this movie. There's this one moment that I think again carries that weird emotional truth where Steve Martin like, so we've been you know, they've been having this relationship in the mirrors of things, right, in the reflection of things, and after he you know, she's left his body and I think is currently in the in the water.

Um, I think so there's just a small moment he's doing something else and he looks in a mirror and there's no Lily Tomlin and he's missing it, and we're missing it. It's literally like, you know, and then we move on. It's just this moment and you're like, that's such a beautiful moment because we know exactly, like we know exactly what's happening, and it's and it's an emotional loss that the audience feels because he feels it, and that's all acting. You know, he's looking at himself in the mirror and he's a little sad one. I mean, I agree, you know again, I think frankly, the most muddle headed part of the movie is the climax.

The last ten minutes of the movie just that needed one or two more go throughs, like it really did, because it's it's pretty convoluted the corner that they paint themselves into at the end of the movie. So at the end of the movie, like we've kind of mentioned, Lily Tomlin has been removed from Steve Martin. Then he's in she's in Steve Martin's friend and then he so Lily Tomlin goes into the water right, and then she goes into his friend and then and then and then he's trying to save her, so he runs and uh and takes the bucket of water that she's in, dumps the water into like a picture, a clear picture so you can see that there's water in it, then runs it to his friends who's in the band and who's blind uh and uh um uh Jason Bernard Tyrone, his blind musician friend, because that's you know, again, makes him more interesting and wacky.

Gotta be blind, well the whole blood well, him being blind as a whole. That's a plot contrivance, right, So they can have him kiss my hand scene yes, and then uh, and so that when he's like, oh, you handed me a thing, said take good care of it, and I thought it was Jen, so I drank her. So he ends up drinking her and gets half possessed by her the same way that Steve Martin did by getting hit on the bowl, getting hit on the head by her essence in the bowl that is the transference unit, which we no longer have, and apparently water works just as well. But then later if he thinks that she's been poured into the flowers and he's all sad by the flowers and that's a lovely moment. Yeah, where he's sad by the flowers, which again you're like, Okay, Steve Martin's gonna pet some flowers and we're gonna feel something.

And you're like, how is that possible? Because it is Steve Martin, because Steve Martin. And then so now she's in tyrone. Then she goes back into Steve Martin, right, which I think is where the movie. That's where the movie kind of starts.

It's where it hits the wall. It's just like, okay, that she doesn't need to go back into Steve Martin again to get this resolved, Like they're has to be a better way than the three of them barging into the bedroom and holding them. It comes a little bit like then and they're then they're they're also the whole time, even though she's evil and bad, we know she's doing this for bad reasons. She still has changed her mind about being inhabited by a soul, which she signed it. But they're like, she signed a contract, she owes it, and you're like or maybe, just like again, it's hard, because how are you going to get her out of the you know, she got all the money, right, But at the same time, it also is very weird when Steve Martin is physically assaulting her and restraining her, trying to force her soul, pointing a gun at her, like hey, you're gonna do well because she has she has she has the guns, the gun, but it's still all weird because she pointed the gun at him, like you that's yeah, go find somebody else under his chin, like you know, you're yeah, okay, so it's not going to work out for you, and you have all the money.

But really, all we're trying to do is get like Lily Tomlin into something. You know, we're trying to replace your soul or trying to replace your soul here, that's it. We're just trying to give someone else control of your body so you don't have it anymore. Is that okay? That's fine, You're fine.

You said you would be the fucking the way the way the film ends is cuckoo bananas, but it works. But they I just thut but yeah, I feel like they could have gotten there in a less Honestly, it feels like they just threw their hands up at the end of the movie and We're like, we just got to get her into the body of the horse as quickly as possible. What's the easiest way to do it. Force her is what it feels like, like you're going into the body of this horse, like yes, but no, thank you. It sort of becomes her decision, right, she willingly does it, like I have believing that, well, because she's otherwise she's going to jail for her third strike at a time of the third strike, which you may not know what the third strike was, she has enough money that she could keep herself out of jail.

Well, yes, we are taking away the whole thing, but that problem is overly rich person. Well that's the problem. Though, It's like that would have been my response in the writer's room would have been, she could just pay to not be in jail, like in the eighty four people were doing that. It's not like a it's not a new thing. So it's like that would have been in the script.

I've been like, and then she says, I have enough money, it doesn't matter. And that's that's the thing that they don't get at, which is why I feel the end of the movie is a little kind of wonky. It's because there, there's an obvious retort that she has to all of what's happening, and instead she goes, no, I'd rather be in a horse like and and and here's the funny thing. Well she did. She did fire at two people with like a lot of people in the room.

Again kind of an accident, but she held someone at like under the chin right at gunpoint, and then fired the gun at two other people. Yeah, having an affair in bed, But that's another story. But I will say that that whole what you just said is actually at the beginning of the movie because when Lily Tom at the beginning of the movie is trying to explain to Steve Martin, like when Edwina Cutwiler is going, oh, I'm going to come back from the dead, and he's like, what makes you think you can do that? And she's like, because I'm rich, right, which is like, that's my point. Like, they've already hung a lantern on it, why not hang a lantern on it again at the end of the movie.

Again, it's just it would have made narrative sense for it to return to that right at the end. I don't I don't know why they didn't. It's whatever she goes into the horse willingly. She's like, I'd rather be in a horse than be in prison. Well again, if she has been in prisoned twice, right, sure, bird strike jail forever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, first strike, Like do you we even like do you know that that like some of most of thos gone away. But this was the time, yeah, in the eighties when habitual Yes, I sat on a jury that was technically considered a felony even though it was just literally a guy that basically wrote he basically printed up checks for bank accounts that didn't exist and wrote them, you know, to a plumber to you know, fix his bathroom. And but it was a felony conviction because of the amount, and he was very clearly guilty. He was very clearly not the brightest bulb because he did this for plumbing in his own house and helped the guy the plumber. The plumber knew where he lived the boom and then went you know to the other room and just printed up checks that didn't exist and handed them to him.

And all the plumber wanted was his stuff back. Literally, the plumber sat there and said all I want is I just want to get the stuff out of there and this you know, I don't That's all I need is to get the stuff out of there, and for some reason that our justice system couldn't handle that. Instead, they're like, Okay, this guy is guilty, and we declared him guilty because he was. Then we were held and then we were told, oh, this is this guy's third strike. Led with that, I feel, and he's now going to jail for like ever, Yeah, who was writing bad checks for plumbing in his own house?

And you're like, that's not okay, that's not what we and literally we're all like, we don't want that. Jury was like we don't want that to happen, and they just doesn't matter. Well, it's I mean, look, you know, a lot of this could be handled by just you know, dealing with these as parole violations as opposed to like taking people and sending them into the chokey for life. But I mean again, like the movie kind of yeah, the movie brings it up because, like you said at the time, using it as the thing. Yeah, and let's listen, I'm putting a lot of weight on that one line that they threw it out to make sense of the thing.

But that's why she makes the decision that she makesion. But again, I feel like, you know, up until the last ten minutes of the movie, I've I'm on board with it, But when it gets to the way it kind of resolves itself and the final scene, I think it really should have. They should have done a better job of conveying that it's Lily Tomlin and Steve Martin in that scene and not Victoria Tennant and Steve Martin. I have a problem with that. I do too, and you totally do.

You're like, this is weird because you don't buy when in the Victoria, when Victoria Tennant is sitting there next to Steve Martin and we're supposed to be like, but that's really Lily Tomlin. You literally don't believe it until you see the mirror shot right where she is dancing with Steve Martin in a vastly different way than Victoria Tenant was currently dancing with him, and he's dancing with her in a vastly different way. It's the one place where I actually think they really directorially messed up. I mean, like, there's all sorts of other little things, but that moment, because you're like, oh, this is not fun, and then they spend a lot of time watching them dance in the mirror, so you can see how much fun they are having.

For the entire corred horrible for the entire credits because you had to they had to win us back, which I don't get. It's like, the movie is really good, but the last ten minutes do almost everything in their power to ruin it. Yeah, it really does. It makes it really tough. You're like, wait, I don't like this.

This is making me very unhappy. Well, I thought, there's just two times in the movie where Steve Martin and Lily tom Lennard together, the first ten minutes and the last ten minutes, and that's it. And all of that feels like the biggest shame of all of me is that it is a body swapping movie. That's the biggest shame of this movie is that they're not able to be together, and it's not the kind of body swapping movie where they're on screen opposite one another. They you know, this must have been pretty easy day on set for Lily Tomlin.

Let's just put it that, really, Tomlin may have spent more time in the sound booth than she did on set. I would go as far as to say, that's got to be the case because she is in the movie. What would you say, Ballpark fifteen minutes of an hour and a half movie, twenty minutes tops total. No, I would say, because she is in the mirror, but she's not. Like what's weird is because those mirror shots are they feel like they're all sound stage.

They don't feel like she's there, which is kind of a little bit weird. I figured that's like a green screen or a blue screen. A green screen, Yeah, I had to. I guess it had to be a green screen something. But they so I would I would put it at twenty five minutes out of the hour and a half, right, And if it had been just like a traditional body swapping movie, it would have been the whole movie.

Yeah, you know, if they if it had been like so much more like I literally picked this as a great Lily Tomlent movie. I thought she co starred with Steve Martin. But it's so clearly like I was like, oh, this is like I remember so much more Lily Tomlin in the movie. Her audio is in there a lot throughout more Yeah, through she's essentially a narrator, like but I think I remembered it more because it feels because she feels present in those scenes because Steve Martin is so good at portraying there's two people inside him, right and that like in those scenes it's really and and um, and even when the audio doesn't really like sometimes the audio like it would be cleaner. Now this if you did this movie now, which I'm sure has been discussed at some point.

I think two times under politics, two times okay, once in twenty twelve and once in twenty fifteen, they were going to do a TV show and they were going to do another movie, a remake. I think they're really challenging things for a TV show because I think gender body switching these days carries so much politics with it. That's that's it's not as funny as it used to be, and it because it's not even as easy as it used to be. It's not as easy and um, but technically you could do it in a heartbeat right then, would be so easy to do this, And so there's a couple of times where you're like, oh, that audio should have been just it's just not quite in sync with his performance. Uh um, it's close and it's close enough, but his performance is so good that you buy it right like, so you're right there, well and that and that is for me.

You know, you look at this movie, you look at all the other kind of body swapping movies. Kind of holistically, the thing that's important about a body swap movie is getting the right actors cast. Because again we've kind of talked about it now, this is a Steve Martin movie through and through, and he has given the bulk majority of the work to do in this movie. He has to play himself, he has to play himself as someone else as well, and that's all on him. There's no camera trickery with any of that.

That's just Steve Martin in a role. And that's whenever we talk body swap movies, it really does come down to can the two main actors nail it, and in this movie they do. I just think that the convention of having Lily Tomlin be dead and a ghost and a spirit and in his body and never on screen. I would have preferred just a fucking body swap movie with the two of them, like a straightforward body swap movie, but it would have had the two of them in it, and that would have elevated. It passed just a body swap movie could put some high concept bullshits around him, but this is not the high concept bullshit that these two actors needed to be involved in because they're too If you cast Steve, who would you cast in this movie as Lily tom and where it would be okay that they're not in the movie that much.

That's the question, because it's as someone who has as iconoclastic as Lily Tomlin is doesn't need to be second fiddle to Steve Martin. She deserves to be first fiddle next to him. And that I think is the ultimate problem for me in this movie is just give me more of what I want, which is the two of them, and less of just Steve Martin doing the Lily Tomlin thing. It's good, but it's not as good as it was just Lily Tomlin or Lily Tomlin pretending to be Steve Martin, which is effectively what it would have been otherwise. And that like that, because this is not a body switched to movie.

This is a body possession movie, right, It's more like like yeah, like you said, it's you know, to call it a body swap movie is unfair, but there's there are very few other movies like this one other than just a quote body swap movie unquote. And that's the thing, like, can give me, give me a movie like whatever the hell that Dudley Moore m Kirk Cameron movie is? But what the two of them just do something? Because like it would have been better if Lily Tomlin had just been on screen like as much. And again that dancing scene when they're dancing together at the very end, that's just credit role.

It goes on so long because it's you're like, I adore them, right, they know what, they know what the positives of the movie were. Why are you leaving it for the last ten minutes? Because I think they started the movie and they thought it would be funny and then they're like, oh wait, this movie is some could be something else, right, And they couldn't get to something else because they had already sort of greenlit this movie right, Like the conceit is it's a possession movie. Like you can't get around that. There's nothing you could do to change that.

But who who would act? Who would have been another good person to cast? Is my question? Opposite Steve Martin, Opposite Steve Martin, in that role, but not kind of kind not kind of like giving up the fact that they're also a talented actor, like someone who maybe as talented as Ali Tomlin, but not as iconoclastic. And that's why I've been trying to rack my brain when I was watching it, like who could do what she's doing, but me not be as disappointed that she's not given as much to do, do you know what I mean?

Yeah, I know, I mean, but then it wouldn't be as interesting, like and still, like the great thing is is just how powerful that that character is, right, is part of I think why the movie is successful. Like you even though she because she's she's a terrible person, right, Like she's she's a terrible person. She's mean, she's selfish, you know. Her big revelation is you know, uh, you know, two thirds of the way through the movie where she's like, oh, I'm saying you should just put me like, don't put me back in your you know, let's get you get me out of your body. Like she's willing to give up and die so that he can basically have his life back, and which is a huge thing, but it's pretty like she notices that her she's all proud of herself when she didn't realize that she did that, and he's like, no, we're gonna get you back on your body, in the body that you bought right right from someone.

It might have been interesting if if I know she was working a lot with Gean Wilder at the time. But Gilda Radner could have been interesting in this. Gilda Radner could totally have done that. She would have burned movies screen to the ground. She would have been so good.

She would have been as good as Lily Tomlin is frankly, for sure, for sure, and you'd be equally disappointed, right, yeah, exactly. I'd probably be more disappointed, frankly, given that Gilda Radner, what would pass away like two years after the Yeah, yeah, yeah, my god. This did remind me of a movie I do want to revisit two called Heaven Can Wait, which is on bet from the seventies. Right. That's again more of a body possession movie than a body switching movie, but has a similar like people fighting over the rich man than you knows.

Warren Beatty is, he's the spirited Warren Beatty is a football player and he is uh, he's on a run and he basically there's a there's basically a bus accident that um uh looks like it's going to kill him. So but it looks like it's going to be a brutal death. So the angel pulls him right before because he's They're like, he's going to die, and they're like, oaps. It burns out. He wouldn't have because he's such a great athlete.

He was actually going to survive that. And uh. So now he's in heaven and he's like, no, I have a life. I want to get back. I'm I'm at the prime of my life.

You gotta put me back on another body. And so they put him back into a you know, old rich guy who other people have been trying to kill and so the u for his money and uh and so um. But it's weird because he comes. It's a very weird thing. So he's coming back.

I guess he's in possession of an old man's body. But then he gets a better body later or something I can't remember, which is fucking weird. In and at like all of these things in these movies are so straight because you have to remember the conceit always is there's already somebody in that body that's being displaced, and the writers of the movie often go out of their way to make them seem like the scummiest piece of shit. But but you have to remember, when that person goes into that body, there's still that person, Like even though it looks like they're the different personality, still looks like them. And that's that's I guess that is what they could not get my head around at the end of this movie is finding a way for me to be on board with Victoria Tennant's and I just couldn't get it.

I couldn't get I couldn't get there because that scene before is just so close to the other scenes happening. That's like she was just gonna kill him, Like come on, and let's let's talk about how weird it is that again, she's actually dating Steve Martin at this time, they're about to get married. They're gonna get married a few years later, right, weird, And so she's you know, that's that I've always like fascinated when when actors are in relationships and playing opposite each other, and particularly playing sort of we're in a relationship, but you're the bad person. You're like, this is interesting, This is just fun, you know, like, uh, it's fun for everybody involved. Every involved.

Um yeah, I will say though I did. I did enjoy this movie a lot. I don't think that there needs to be a remake of this movie. I don't know what what is there to remake. You could just make this movie again and not call it all of me like again, like the I'm not saying that the movie's conceit is not unique or interesting, but it kind of isn't.

I mean, it's yeah, it's really more about who is being body swapped, less the body swapping. I mean, that's kind of what I was getting at with, like, make sure you cast the right actors in your movie, because you really have to cast the right people in these kinds of movies because if they're not able to capture and evoke and I guess evoke and invoke the performance of the other actor to the t, these movies just don't work. And they and I know some of those body swap movies that I saw that was the case. They did not work because both actors have to be committed to studying the other actors performance like a hawk and figuring out the things that they want to take from it. And incorporate into their acting.

And as someone who's not an actor, I wouldn't want to do that. That seems like an uphill battle big time. It's pretty fascinating to watch actors do that. It's really neat. I've written a piece that has kind of a body switching, and it's more unique in that it's like it's um, I mean, just it's different because it's whatever I think I heard.

But it was fascinating to watch the actors find those little things. This was a much This was a more serious. It's fun. It's done with fun, but it's not about the physical comedy of that so much as it is about the concept of of of playing a different person and um, and so it was much more subtle. What the what the?

But the you know the actress as an actor and an actress, and they went sort of they would sit aside and go, okay, let me, you know, how would you do this scene? How would this scene have happened? And then let me find something that I feel like I can grab as an actor and then put in there. Right. It's pretty amazing when you see it working well and again to your points, watch this movie and you will see Steve Martin doing it really really well.

M right, like just just that like the and and it's and it's very broad, and then other things are really small, right, That's what I love about it. There's so the physical comedy of him walking, uh you know, your foot, my foot, your foot right right, you totally buy it, you totally are buying it. And and it's on you know, his performance, his physical performance. Um. But then there's also those moments that are smaller, that are and just how quickly he switches.

It's really yeah. Well, and I think the scene in the courthouse is a really good example. Yes, that's probably like a microcosm of the movie in a in a hole. In that scene, you get to see her him, how she's affecting him, how she's affecting the world outside, how the world outside is reacting to this guy effectively looking like he's just going nuts in front of them. I think that, you know, of all the scenes in the movie that are really trying to mind the comedy of the situation, I think that is the funniest scene in the movie from a what can we do with this conceit that we're operating under?

I feel like that is where the movie really is hitting and firing on all cylinders. The movie again, it's successful overall, but when they put themselves in that kind of constraint of it's in the courtroom. He has to nail this case, but she doesn't want him to. Like that, that's where the movie really shows, like, this is what we can do with this conceit if you just give us the opportunity to set all the pieces up and then knock them all down perfectly. That scene, for me is where the movie's really singing.

I would agree it's it's a pretty amazing scene because you also get the microcosm of all right, I'm gonna I'm gonna try to help you, and first I'm making and making it worse, and then I come up with something to make it better. And then I wake you up because I get stuck again and because you know, he's fallen asleep in the body right, really tell him his full possession. And then she's like act like a man, Act like a man. And I wish they had done more with that, you know, like, yeah, like that was interesting where he's like he's asleep, she's controlling his body like frankly, the fact that they did it only once is kind of surprising, right, Yeah. Yeah, they did it where he had his body back for a minute, so they sort of introduced the concept so that you would buy it more.

It was really that was a really nice like planting and payoff, But you did sort of want to be like, oh, I want more because here's the joke. You actually were like, it's hard to not be thinking Lily Tomlin is controlling Steve Martin's body right in that scene. You totally buy it because Steve Martin's so good. Yeah, oh yeah, Like I forget that he's in the scene. That's how good he is.

Is you just you forget that he's the one acting like he's possessed and you just believe that, yeah, she has possessed him, and that is Lily Tomlin in his body. And again, I think you kind of really hit the nail on the head, Like this makes me want to go back and watch more Steve Martin's stuff, especially some of the things that I have never seen and some of the things that people aren't talking about all the time. I mean, what's frankly the biggest shame about this movie. This movie is available on DVD from two thousand and three in low rez three four transfer and that's it? What all of me?

Yes, it's it's on streaming, but I'm talking about a physical release a DVD from two thousand and three, that's it. How is that possible in this day and age? And also how is it possible that's only on two B. It's a Steve Martin, it's a Lily Tomlin movie, their iconic class of comedy in their own rights, both of them, and yet it's on t B. Again, nothing against TB, but how this hasn't gotten some sort of reappraisal by Shout Factory or Arrow or somebody is kind of surprising, just given the star power in the lead roles, like two thousand and three A three to four transfer?

Really, what the fuck? Because that's a version we're watching now. It's just you know, it's yeah, it's a three four transfer just on two B. I've sub shocked when I when I learned that, because that that is yeah, But you I want to watch much Steam Bartin. I want to watch more Lily Tomlin because now I want to go back and look at Shrinking Woman.

I want to look at the Search for Intelligent UH, for signs of intelligent life in the universe because there it was a It was a play that she co wrote and co created with her both like creative partner and her life partner, Jane Wagner. Uh. It was off Broadway, huge success off Broadway. Uh or again right around this time, and then they did do a filmed version of it and it's now just been touring again with um Cicily with Who's the SNL. But she was just in the streaming uh Schmigadoon, which is a streaming musical comedy.

Uh that is very cute, uh and sort of a spoof of musical of musical comedy. Interesting written by Sinco Paul and Ken uh Dario who wrote like the Minion movies The Oh Okay got Um and Kegan Michael keel Key, Keegan Michael Key and Cicily Strong Starr in it. Huh. It's a it's a really interesting it's but it was it was on Apple? Is it on Apple?

Yeah, it's on Apple. I'm gonna one thing on Apple that's Ted Lasso. I don't even watch it on Apple. You watch it on lex server because Yeah, the thing that I want unmentionable thing I want to go look at Carl Reiner films, that's right. Other thing like Carl Reiner like this even the fact that it's a Carl Reiner movie and it is not getting more appreciation.

I mean, I guess did Rob Reiner kind of outshine his father? Is that why? I mean a lot of ways, right and in some ways, but but I mean not in terms of like I mean, Carl Writer, ye, Rob Ryaner wouldn't you know, wouldn't right right right right right right. But we also just don't like, you know, you know, to to my generation, Carl Reiner, Rob Briner will not outshine Carl Ryner because sure and because of uh like watching most of his movies again I repeat on television and you know, with commercials and stuff for the most part. But and I love where this.

I love Rob Briner. I'm like a you know, the biggest Princess Bridner ever and the same with them stand by me and forget about it. But you know, he was such a comedian giant. You know, he's like Lauren Michaels and mel Brooks level right, so um yeah, different different different levels, right hey, Rob Bryaner is like right here, I think Carl Carl Reyner is one of those people that, like you, you can't mention his name with that, Like you can't not mention his name when you're talking about comedy in the sixties and seventies and fifties, Like you can't avoid mentioning Carl Reyner's name. And again we were talking before we started recording, you know, the two thousand year old man in the year two thousand type stuff.

I mean even just all of all of that. But yeah, it's it's weird that this movie has kind of not gotten a reappraisal. Not that it needs a reappraisal. I just think it needs a better release somewhere, not on TWOV, not on DVD. It needs a blu ray.

Lily Tomlin and Steve Martin are still around. You could have them come back and do a commentary, or you could go and pound on their door and say, give me five minutes of your time to talk about All of Me, which is a movie that I believe Steve Martin likes and Lily Tomlin probably likes. So I don't know, I just it's weird to me that this movie is not more well remembered. Maybe it's not more well remembered because Lily Tomlin's not in it as much. I don't know.

It's just it's strange, like like, uh, you know, I mean, and Carl Reiner and Steve Martin were basically just working to you know, it was the Jerk, Dead Man Don't Reply, the Man with Two Brains, all of me, like you know, those were all Carl Reiner directed, right, and and so he was basically sort of inventing the Steve Martin movie. Um, Steve Martin, yeah and uh, and yet very uneven movies like you know, Man with Two Brains and Dead Mendota Platter are not you know in you know to me, I don't remember them the same way I remember all of me, and even the jerk and the jerk I don't even know where how you look at the jerk now? Um, I mean that movie open, the movie's opening alone. Yes, yeah, I don't know whoa Yeah, Like, I don't know how you look at that movie now, like, um.

But at the same time, uh, the physical comedy and that they're just um yeah. But it's so interesting to realize he directed all of those, um as well as I mean again, Carl Ryner directed so much and create and was sort of wrote and directed so much that some of it was amazing and some of it was was good. Yeah, does everything doesn't have to be a number one hit. And he was also acting and stuff because he was in All of the Oceans eleven, twelve, and thirty. Yeah, he's he's an actor, he's a stand up comedian.

He's a writer. I mean time in the day to sleep. Yeah, like and just and again Dick Fendyke showing alone. I don't know, books like twenty nonfiction books like Carl Reiner and Rob Reiner, like the work ethic of them alone is just yeah. Yeah, I can't say enough.

So yeah, So final thoughts Susan on all of you. Um, love Lily Tomlin, loves Steve Barton, loved them in this movie. And I love that, uh that. I love Lily Tomlin's line, how dare you say penis to a dead person? That was a good line, that wasn't great her delivery too.

Just yeah, I just wanted more Lily Tomlin. And yeah, yeah, I'm so offended. Yeah, no, I'm with you. I I enjoyed this movie. Thank you for bringing this movie to the show.

I just I wanted more Lily Tomlin. I'm with you like, that's that is the shame. It's just I want more of the other actor in the movie, Like they're she's on the poster. I know she's in the movie, she's talking a lot, but give me more of that goddamn charismatic woman, Lily Tomlin, because I feel like she probably would have outshone Steve Martin if she had been given the opportunity, which I think is also the thing. Maybe there's a little bit of that, like, you know, she'll probably do better than Steve if we give her the opportunity.

So maybe not. I don't. I think they just were like, I think they were making a Steve Martin movie, right, and they're like, holy crap, I think they wish they were making a Steve Martin. Lily Tomlin. I agree, I agree with you.

I agree with you. Yeah, And you know, I don't I don't know why this movie doesn't have a better release. I think, you know, we've run into this a couple times now in the last couple of years on this show where it's like, why are people sleeping on this? Why has nobody just gone and said, can we release this place? Because it's a universal movie, this is distributed by Universal.

This is not some new what was it in like New World Films or whatever the movie that released the Elvira movie then then just put into like a week later like this Universal still around, So stop worrying about the next Fast and Furious movie and maybe reappraise your giant library of movies that deserve to be somewhere other than to be of all places, this movie is too good to be on tub you know what I mean? Like, I don't want to be that guy about Toby, but wow, additional tub Tubi is great, but Toby's great for a certain kind of content. We both know that we all know what's on to be. The things that are on to be are the things that the studios have essentially said, we don't care, so we'll put them on our streaming free service and not charge for it.

Here's what I'm surprised at that this hasn't been turned into a stage musical. Yeah, I would agree with you. There Susan calling it's calling you, Susan. Listen. There's that.

There's other things I'm like, I would I would try to track that down. Uh, the amount of people that way way bigger than me that would happen so I would be the last person. I don't know. No, again, this movie sitting on DVD, nobody's talking about it, nobody, but again, like why would again? You could just make a body swap movie and call it, you know, whatever the fuck you want it.

It wouldn't have to be all of me. It's not even all of me holds any cachet anymore. Like oh that song does from Like the song is so meaningful and now it's tied I think forever too, that sure, But I mean, like for an audience now that had like you say all of me, and they'll be like, you know what I mean? Like in in eighty four it did, but in the in twenty twenty two, like you call it something else, Steve Martin's Good Time Happy Body Swap Adventure. The people who tuning in for Lily Tomlin's Body Swap Adventure with Steve Martin and Mark There here you go.

Yeah, So, when you and I aren't talking about Lily Tomlin movies or Jane Vonda movies, or Dolly Parton movies or a movie with the three of them in him, three of them in it, where can people find you, Susan, Well, they can find me at Eighties tv Ladies and they can find me at Susan Lambert Hatham dot com. So Eighties tv Ladies dot com and Susan Lambert Hatham dot com and listen to Eighties TV Ladies on all your favorite podcast platforms. What to say, you can find me my show, this show, Susan Show, and a whole host of other shows overt Weirdingwaymedia dot com. That is the podcast network where you can find all of those shows. And you should because there's plenty to listen to.

And if you can get through all nine hundred plus episodes of mic show, and all ten fifteen plus episodes of your show and all five hundred episodes of my show, then maybe you've listened to everything. But you're not there yet, dear listener, Unless you are, and then congratulations, you have more time on your hands than I do. So we'll buy you a steak. Yeah boy, I'll buy you something more than a steak if you listen to If you can prove you listen to everything, Oh yeah, time traveler or something. I don't know how you can find the time.

As for me, c Stashie dot com is my link tree for all the stuff that I work on, but weirdingway media dot com is going to be the best place to go as for this show, culturecast dot com, Patreon dot com, slash culturecast, all those things. Social media sucks right now, as if it didn't to begin with. So we'll just ignore posting about social media for right now because I'm not going to tell anybody to go to Twitter, not of sound mind, I'm not u. So yeah, so that's where you can stay the better end. I'm staying.

I'm staying to the bitter end, but I'm not telling anybody to go over there. I refuse to give them any more pressed than they're already getting every day. So, and what's funny is this episode will be heard so far in the future that Twitter may just be a long, long distant memory or hopefully a public utility. Yeah, well, something other than what it is now, which would be you know, anything other than what it is now would be an immense upgrade. So, and Susan, thank you so much for joining me.

It's been fun as always. Thank you so much for having me. It's really been fun. I love talking about this stuff. And I'm glad, I'm glad.

I'm glad that you know, we can keep talking about movies where the female actresses should be in them more. Listen that in my mind, Yeah, I believe. I believe you if I looked at the poster of the movie and I thought it was something else completely, so I, like I said, I enjoyed it at least. So there's a crazy poster and I don't know whether it's from the DVD or not, but it's like this crazy soget. I mean, it's got the whole plot.

I'm gonna drop it. Yeah, you understand the entire movie from the poster. It's probably like a foreign poster or something. It's something and I'm like, I don't understand who maybe who made this, but I found it and I was like, that is hilarious. Um.

Anyway, thank you for having me and yeah, yeah, and um, thank you for you know, weirding ray video supporting a of course of course, and as and as always, well we'll catch on the next episode.