This is my entry in the Love Goes On Blogathon hosted by Moviemovieblogblogii






 There are certain things that just don't mesh.  One of those is men and women have differences in the ways they approach life, which explains why some marriages are rocky.  And that's just when men and women co-exist in the same household.  Imagine them trying to co-exist in the same body...

The premise of All of Me is just that.  The comedic talents of Steve Martin are put to the test in this underrated gem.  Imagine a guy whose real dream is to be a jazz musician but having to perform duties as a lawyer because being an artist just doesn't pay the bills.  Not only that but having to kowtow to rich people because, after all, money is what really makes the world go 'round.

Martin and Lily Tomlin are a perfect match in this film.  Martin is the aforementioned layer and jazz musician wannabe and Tomlin is a rich spoiled brat who is dying and wants to transfer her soul into the body of her stable master's young daughter.  No comments here about soul transference from this author, just in case you are one who believes such a feat is possible.

The whole set up, however, depends on you believing such a feat is at least possible.  Martin's character is a realist who thinks Tomlin is bat shit crazy, at least until the accident that puts her soul in control of half of his body.




All of Me (1984):

Roger Cobb (Steve Martin) works as an attorney in a law  firm, but he is dissatisfied with his lot in life.




For one thing, his boss, Schuyler (Dana Elcar) is dragging his heels in making Cobb a full fledged partner in the law firm, even though Cobb is his imminent son-in-law.  He is dating the boss' daughter, Peggy (Madolyn Smith, familiar to those of you who have seen Urban Cowboy as the rich woman Bud hooks up with when his marriage is on the rocks).





Also Cobb really doesn't like the penny-ante duties to which he is assigned.  Not to mention that his real love is when he gets to sit in on the jazz music sessions where he plays guitar with his friend Tyrone (Jason Bernard).

One of those unappealing jobs he gets with the law firm is helping rich heiress  Edwina Cutwater (Lily Tomlin).




Edwina wants to transfer her vast wealth into the name of Terry Hoskins (Victoria Tennant), the daughter of he estate's stable master (Eric Christmas).





She isn't doing this out of a beneficial desire to improve the life of Terry.  Rather she has plans, with the help of a mystic, Prahka Lasa (Richard Libertini), to transfer her soul into the body of Terry after she dies.




Roger thinks the whole idea is nuts, but he is just there to perform the legal duties.  But when he tells Edwina her idea is stupid Edwina responds with telling him to get out and goes to Schuyler to try to get him fired.

During this session she does indeed die and her sould is transferred to a bowl in preparation for the transfer.  But an accident knocks the bowl out of the window where, guess what, it conks on the head of Roger.  Now Edwina's soul inhabits Roger's body.  Not his whole body, however.  Roger still has control over one side and Edwina has control over the other.

The rest of the movie involves an attempt by Roger to get this unwanted presence out of his body.  The fly in the ointment is, now that it has proven that the whole idea was feasibly possible, Terry is not in the mood to follow through.  Which leaves Roger to scramble to find a way to get rid of Edwina.

Roger's initial disgust with Edwina does transform over time, however.  Eventually he and Edwina come to terms where she is willing to let Prahka transfer her soul into some flowers just to let Roger have back full control of his body.  But Roger's new found respect and even growing love for Edwina have him trying to get the original transfer to come to fruition.

The best parts of the movie involve some of Roger and Edwina trying to cope with the co-occupancy, including a rather funny scene where Roger has to go to the men's room.  Also at one point Edwina has to take over full control of Roger's body as he has actually fallen asleep during the divorce trial he is administering for his boss.

In recent years Martin has distanced himself from these kind of wacky performances.  But if you loved The Jerk, you will be glad to know that this was still during that screwball phase of his career.  Tomlin herself relies mostly on her vocal abilities since she is not a physical presence for most of the movie.  But she can pull off the annoying spoiled heiress pretty well even without the phyisical presence.

Time to head home.  Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

 

This is my first entry in the Blizzard of Oz blogathon hosted by Me


 


There is absolutely no logical reason why I should like this movie.  It's a romantic comedy, for one thing and I'm not enamored of romantic comedies in general.  I'm not entirely sure if "love" even exists.  (I'm a 57 year old jaded single man, if that helps...)  Also it involves a lot of dancing.  I have yet to watch a Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie simply because I'm not interested in classic dancing (although, give me Saturday Night Fever and I'm hooked for the next 2 hours...)

But I must admit the movie captured my interest one dark night back in 1994 when I saw it on cable.  And, although unlike the reviewer in Videohound's Independent Film Guide, I haven't seen it a dozen times yet, every time I watch it I'm entranced by it.  Peopled by several actors and actresses who are making their debut in film, including stars Paul Mercurio and Tara Monice, and being the directorial debut of Baz Luhrmann, the film has an attraction that will draw many into it's web.

Luhrmann, who also gave us Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge, Australia and the recent remake of The Great Gatsby has been on the scene for over 25 years now, but hasn't got a very long credit list.  The 5 movies mentioned here comprise his entire output of theatrical releases (although he has several "shorts" in his repertoire).  But I think it's pretty significant that those 5 are well remembered by any fans.  Strictly Ballroom, along with the aforementioned Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge comprise what is known as his "Red Curtain trilogy". 

"Trilogy" is a bit of a misnomer to those who think that "trilogy" means they are all related in plot.  Instead, "trilogy" here means that all three use a certain motif of theater: (Strictly Ballroom: dance, Romeo+Juliet: language, and Moulin Rouge: music.)





Strictly Ballroom (1992):

Scott Hastings (Paul Mercurio) is the son of ballroom dancers.  His mother (Pat Thomson) has dreams of her son achieving the glory of being the king of ballroom dancing, something that she never quite achieved.  But Scott has his own ideas about dancing, including incorporating some rather outre moves that don't quite fit in with the standard rules for ballroom dancing.

Scott

Mom and Dad

In a contest against the undisputed current king, Ken (John Hannan) and his partner Pam (Kerry Shrimpton), Scott not only disqualifies himself with his rather strange moves, but he manages to piss off his partner, Liz (Gia Carides), who bemoans that she wishes her partner was the rather egotistical Ken.  "What do I want?  I want Ken Railings to walk in here and say 'Pam Short's broken both her legs and I want to dance with YOU!'"  Which is exactly what happens.

Ken and Pam

Liz

Now Scott not only has his illegal dance moves but he has no partner to do them with.  Enter Fran (Tara Morise), an amateur, who has a secret love for Scott and asks him to dance with her.  At first Scott is rather reluctant.  Not only does Fran not have the extensive training needed to perform at the professional level, but she is rather plain looking to boot.

Fran

Fran convinces Scott to give her some lessons which, after seeing her perform some of her own creative moves, he agrees.  Meanwhile Mom frantically searches for a new partner for Scott.  The deadline for the next dance contest is only a few weeks away.  But most of the partners that Scott tries out with are unacceptable.

Gradually Scott and Fran work out enough that Scott is convinced that she is the acceptable partner, and wants her to be his partner.  She turns from the ugly duckling into a swan, especially after she removes her glasses and lets down her hair, and revels she's a pretty damn good looking woman after all, and she can dance too.  The trouble will be convincing Mom and Dad to allow such a thing.  Because while Scott has been training Fran, Mom has worked out a deal in which the top female ballroom dancer, Tina Sparkle (Sonia Kruger) will agree to being Scott's partner.

Fran and Scott

In all this time, Scott has finally met Fran's father, Rico (Antonio Vargas) and her grandmother (Armonia Benedito),  Fran's family is Spanish, and Scott tells them he wants to dance the Paso Doble with Fran.  But Rico sneers at Scott's attempts to prove his ability.  Grandma insists that Rico teach Scott how to do it with feeling.  Eventually he becomes a fantastic Paso Doble dancer with Rico's instructions.

But Mom has insisted that Scott take Tina as his partner, much to the disappointment of both Fran and Scott.  See, in all this time Scott has fallen in love with Fran.  But he reluctantly goes along with Mom and dances with Tina.  Mainly because he has been told that his parents missed out on their chance at a championship because Dad (Barry Otto) had, like Scott, insisted on using his own unconventional dance moves.  But that was a lie just to get Scott to play ball, as he later finds out.

So will Fran and Scott finally get to dance in competition?  I think you know the answer to that.  Check out this film, and if you are not at least enthralled by it, I'll gladly refund your misery so you can watch a depressing movie instead.

Time to head home.  Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

This is my entry in the "Meet-Cute" Blogathon hosted by Phyllis Loves Classic Movies.




Unless you are close to my age, you probably don't remember the early 80's.  In the late 70's through to about 1985, country music took on a huge popularity.  I think it was a backlash to the disco era myself.  But the fact of the matter is that every so often a new fad in music takes hold, and people who might have been dismissive of the genre a few years before suddenly take an interest.  The era of "Studio 54" and the disco music fad faded away and the era of "Gilley's" (a legendary country music dance hall in Houston) stepped in to fill the vacuum.

Of course, country music had evolved over the previous 50 or so years (and it continues to do so).  My opinion is the so called "outlaw" generation had a lot to do with it. Formerly an unapproachable frontier, country artists like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and the Charlie Daniels Band were now cracking into the top 40 radio, bringing in new devotees who had previously dismissed the genre.  Since I had grown up listening to country music and had only recently started listening to pop music in 1978, I was a devotee of the genre going years back, but suddenly I wasn't the only "roper" in my clique.

In 1980, a friend of my mother from her high school showed up for a visit.  She and her 17 year old son were going to go see Urban Cowboy that afternoon and she invited me to go along.  The movie was the latest in a string of movies that had been addressing the popular music culture (and the third music oriented film that had starred John Travolta.  The previous two having been Grease and Saturday Night Fever.)  I went along even though, at that time, I was going through a phase of listening to pop music and wasn't particularly gung-ho about country.  The result of seeing the movie was that, instead of going to the disco I started going to the country music nightclub.

(As a side note:  Christmas 1981 was a memorable one. A few days before Christmas we were going shopping as a family.  My mother asked what I wanted for Christmas.  I said "A cowboy hat.  But it would have to be black.".  Christmas Day I got my black cowboy hat.  That in itself would have been memorable, but it turned out that she had bought it already.  And she thought I had seen it.  My mother and I didn't always see eye to eye, but she had me down pretty well that year...)




Urban Cowboy (1980):

Bud Davis (John Travolta) is packing for a trip to move from his small town of Spur to Houston, where he plans to get a job on the pipeline.  He says goodbye to his family, climbs into his pick-up truck and heads off into the wild blue yonder.  (BTW, there actually is a Spur, Texas.  When I first saw the movie I thought they made it up.  Red McCombs, former owner of the San Antonio Spurs professional basketball team was one it's former residents. It's in northwest Texas, making it about a 500 mile trip for Bud).




Bud arrives at the home of his Uncle Bob (Barry Corbin) and Aunt Corene (Brooke Alderson), where he plans to stay until he can get settled.  Bob and Corene take Bud to Gilley's his first night in.




There Bud meets Steve Strange (played by James Gammon, but is based on the real co-partner of Gilley's), who hooks him up with two honky-tonk sweethearts.  But he also catches the eye of Sissy (Debra Winger).




Bud gets a job as a flunky on the pipeline, which the line boss says he's only getting because Bud's Uncle Bob is a well-thought-of worker with the company.  That's OK with Bud because it's at least a job.  Bud spends his days working and nights at Gilley's.  He eventually meets up with Sissy, which leads to the "meet-cute" first meeting.  Sissy spots Bud leaning against the bar and approaches him.

Sissy: "You a real cowboy?'
Bud: "Depends on what you think a real cowboy is..."
(Awkward pause)
Sissy: "You know how to two-step?"
Bud: "You bet.."
(Really long awkward pause)
Sissy: "Wanna prove it"
Bud: "OK."  (Bud is a bit dense, as you can see.)





Love blossoms and Bud and Sissy get married.  But Bud still has a lot to learn about modern women.  He thinks that there are certain things a guy can do that a girl just shouldn't do.  This includes riding the new mechanical bull that Gilley's installs.  But since Sissy is an independent woman, she goes behind Bud's back to start taking lessons on how to ride it.




 That in itself would be enough to send Bud into a funk, but there is also an added feature.  Wes Hightower (Scott Glenn), a former convict out on parole, has just gotten the job of operating the mechanical bull.  And jealous old Bud thinks Wes's motives are not entirely altruistic.  He thinks Wes  is trying to put the moves on Sissy.




When he learns of the subterfuge Sissy pulled, they break up and Bud moves on to Pam (Madolyn Smith).  Sissy, although still in love with Bud, decides to move on herself and shacks up with Wes.




The ultimate goal is that both Bud and Wes become entirely competitive as both enter a mechanical  bull-riding  contest.  (Wes is fired from his job, thus he can enter the contest, and he has experience since he was an expert at real bull-riding when he was in prison at the prison rodeo.)




Bud is the epitome of the anti-metrosexual, in my opinion.  He thinks women are inferior, often berating Sissy for trying things that he thinks should be a man's domain, including that of riding the mechanical bull.  Sometimes its hard to like Bud, but he is definitely a better catch than Wes, who is just a full blown jerk.  Bud does get a lesson from his uncle on how to be a real man, although you might wonder if it came along a little too late.


Will Bud win the contest?  Will Bud and Sissy make up and get back together riding off in the sunset?  If you don't know the answer, you are definitely a novice to romantic movies.  I have often professed I don't care for romantic movies, but Urban Cowboy (as well as The Princess Bride, another romantic movie I like) have a lot going for it on the side that make them interesting, even with the romance aspect.

Well, folks, time for me to do my own riding off into the sunset.  Any Sissy wanna-bes out there that want to go along?  Drive safely folks.

Quiggy