Have I Reached the Party to Whom I Am Speaking? (The Lily Tomlin Thread)

There’s like a dozen Lily Allen threads, and even a Lily Munster thread, so there ought to be one for Lily Tomlin, no? I taped The Late Show years and years ago, but never watched it--it’s packed away downstairs somewhere. Ordered a DVD a few weeks ago, and now I’ve finally seen it. Good stuff. Altman co-produced it (Robert Benton directed, a couple of years before Kramer vs. Kramer), and you feel his stamp all over it. It’s almost like The Long Goodbye with a touch of The Shootist. (I sound like I’m pitching a script in The Player.) Morbius took me to task for something I posted about Moment to Moment on another thread, so I’m happy to say that Tomlin is very sweetly (and California-flakey) flirtatious here, the object of her affection being Art Carney. Eugene Roche, who I recognized from the great All in the Family draft-dodger episode, is excellent as the Ron Popeil of fences. I want to try to track down Going in Style, a Carney film I saw way back when and quite enjoyed.

http://thestalkingmoon.weebly.com/uploads/1/1/5/4/11544757/8602052_orig.png

prob haven't seen it in 20 years; both stars terrific.

and she and Jane Wagner got married on New Years Eve.

three Ernestine blackouts from Laugh-In

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9e3dTOJi0o

super in The Late Show, awkwardly directed in the pre-possession scenes in All of Me (which I happened to rewatch this weekend), a standout in just about every movie I can think of (Nashville, Short Cuts, Prairie Home Companion, a few more).

I'm sure her most viewed YouTube clip these days is the David O. Russell meltdown, which is unfortunate (though something that ought to be seen once, just for the sheer insanity of it). Would much rather it be the "I'm Easy" clip.

Prior to being Laugh-In, Tomlin was a member of the cast of Music Scene, ABC's attempt at an evening Pop Music/Comedy show. She, along with the rest of the cast excepting host David Steinberg, was fired halfway into the shows 3 1/2 month run.

The Opening Credits:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvXoQNakyA8

Helping Introduce Tom Jones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUU8Vc76X6M

Playing a Medium in a Three Dog Night Clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcVrZwVSORA

I have both of the series' 'best of' DVDs, and it's kind of odd watching Tomlin before she'd really established her image and got famous.

that's right, she didn't join Laugh-In until well into the run. thx for those

There's a great CSNY TV clip of "Down by the River" on Archives that must have come from that show (David Steinberg introduces).

Yeah, that CSNY was from the first episode, which is also where that credits sequence came from. The episode is included on the dvd, but The Beatles were edited out, presumably due to licensing.

Kennedy Center honors! along w/ Al Green (righteous) and Sting (urg)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/04/us-people-kennedycenterhonors-idUSKBN0GZ22U20140904

I presume Sting is being honored for his self-proclaimed tantric mastery.

not sure if i should be afraid of this Netflix series w/ Fonda...

I mean I’ve smoked on and off over the years. I like uppers more than something soporific that makes you a little mellow. But I don’t take anything anymore. Recreationally, I mean. I never “took it” or was addicted to and used it every day at all. I do know people who smoked every day and did stuff like that. I’m too wacky and nutty and foggy anyway. I don’t need to get too blissed out. I do like uppers though, but I don’t do that anymore. I never took those regularly, either. I was too interested in working and being. I might do it with friends hanging out. But it has to be a special mood or a special occasion. Oh my, I’m telling you everything.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/05/the-unbreakable-lily-tomlin-on-weed-uppers-and-finally-taking-the-lead.html

Lily Tomlin, at age 75, is leading a feature film for the first time

uh what?

She mentions it in the interview; as in, co-star billing doesn't count. (I guess Charles Grodin got co-billing for Incredible Shrinking Woman?)

(or the movie version of The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life)

finally, she is the most famous person in a movie

anyway she's great, will watch both

altho I expect the Fonda thing to be pretty stupid

guess what it is pretty stupid

on the one hand you want to applaud Fonda and Tomlin for being willing to bump and grind to "Get Low" but on the other hand you don't actually want to watch it

Martin Sheen looks bloated and pickled, trying hard to "play" gay

friend saw Grandma with his wife and daughter last week, liked it; thought it might've been stolen by Sam Elliott

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0hJ7NHDglU

I'm more interested in that than the tv show

the show is labored and awful.

She and Parton were the best things in 9 to 5, otherwise an atrocious movie that almost made me straight (I hadn't seen it).

Grandma was in and out in a weekend last month. A shame – it was the right length.

show feels like 3rd-rate Almodovar or something...? just all this exposition + family melodrama

Yeah, an awful lot third-rate blather.

I only caught up with 9 to 5 within the last couple of years, and though it never threatened to turn me straight (??), I found it surprisingly sloppy and unfunny.

Colin Higgins very overrated as a writer-director btwn 9 to 5, Silver Streak (in which Richard Pryor rewrote/improvised the good scenes) and Harold & Maude -- the best thing he did might've been Foul Play

this is the best scene in 9 to 5

http://media.giphy.com/media/ApoNQTfFtXz1u/giphy.gif

Years and years ago, Walter Mondale was running for the Democrat party, and I did an industry benefit for him. And I do a monologue in the character of Mrs Beasley who is a middle-American housewife. Jane my partner had written a piece where Mrs Beasley proselytises about vibrators. Unless you were a real raunchy kind of performer, people just didn’t want to hear about that. So Mrs Beasley just has this brilliant monologue where she says [adopts posh Southern accent]: ‘Hello I am not a professional actress, I am a real person like yourself. About a month ago I was shown some products designed to improve the sex lives of housewives. I got so excited that I just had to come here to tell you about them. To look at me you’d never suspect that I was a semi non-orgasmic woman. This means it was possible for me to have an orgasm but highly unlikely. To me, the term “sexual freedom” meant freedom from having to have sex. And then along came Good Vibrations, and was I surprised. Now I’m a regular cat on a hot tin roof.’

And she goes on with it for a couple of minutes… So when I did this monologue, Warren Beatty was there and a whole bunch of people like that. In the trades the next day, they said: ‘Lily offended by doing some blue material’. That was so ridiculous.

http://lwlies.com/interviews/lily-tomlin/

saw Grandma last night - not bad, a little too pat in its general construction. The most rewarding sequence is easily the bit with Sam Elliott.

Colin Higgins very overrated as a writer-director btwn 9 to 5, Silver Streak (in which Richard Pryor rewrote/improvised the good scenes) and Harold & Maude -- the best thing he did might've been Foul Play

― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, September 29, 2015 3:23 PM (5 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

colin higgins is... not rated at all, by anyone, anymore.

Lily turns 80 next weekend. Lincoln Center is doing a retrospective of her and Jane Wagner's films next month... I would've asked for inclusion of Moment by Moment!

https://www.filmlinc.org/series/two-free-women-lily-tomlin-jane-wagner/#films

Mrs Beasley drops in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWh99jdovyY

What's the deal with Moment by Moment, has it always been hard to find on video? It's seems so obscure for being a product of peak-Travolta time.

it's been hard... maybe forever. I've never seen it; defenders are hard to find.

Moment by Moment is insane, every scene is poorly conceived

^not a defender

Lily is visibly older than she even appeared in Grandma, but she and Jane (4 years older) are walking and talking OK. Lily kept lifting Jane's mic to her mouth.

The Search for Signs film was shot on video and transferred to 35mm, so it kinda looks crappy on the nig screen. Still among LT's key works, maybe #1. Obviously a more impressive performance triumph seen on stage, but the text (while a little "dated" re '80s history-of-feminism last act) and Lily's gallery of personae carry it. (I was waiting for someone to bring up the two uses of 'tasteful' blackface but it didn't happen.)

uh, big screen

https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2019/09/12/amanpour-lily-tomlin-jane-wagner.cnn

from the '73 TV special I saw tonight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZezHl51-f5U

and here's a dupe of the entire show (ive posted the Pryor sketch before)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMi87H3iLFw