Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Big Business (1988)

Sadie: Do you want one of the board members to see you?

They'll say you're a sniffling hysterical pre-periodic twit!

Rose: I have a right to my own feelings Sadie and I am not

a twit. I may be pre-periodic and I may be hysterical. So what?

Sadie: So there are drugs for those things
and we make most of them!

A very happy 83 to Lily Tomlin today!

Make It Huckabees Two

Y'all think I love famous people -- well wait til you get a load of the director David O. Russell. He's always been known for gathering up big casts of name actors -- he might not have had the clout with his first film Spanking the Monkey but what clout he had off of Spanking the Monkey's small success (and I remember that movie being pretty buzzy when it came out in 1994) he immediately threw into casting with his next flick, the road-trip comedy Flirting With Disaster...

... which starred Ben Stiller, Tea Leoni, Patricia Arquette, Alan Alda, Lily Tomlin, Mary Tyler Moore, George Segal, Richard Jenkins, and Josh Brolin. (Plus bonus points for Celia Weston, of course.) And his casts have only grown starrier from there, reaching probably their apex with American Hustle back in... 2013? Is that movie really seven years old? WTF.

This shot of Christian Bale on the set of the new David O. Russell movie is speaking to me in a language I don't understand pic.twitter.com/qVeHQUxtcM

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 13, 2021

Anyway we might have thought that was the apex, but his new project is putting all of those movies to shame. We don't have a title, we don't know what it's about -- except it's based on "an original idea" from Russell himself -- but we just got nine new names added to the already insane cast in the past 24 hours so let's list off the people who're signing up to get berated on set by him. First we heard about Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, and John David Washington. That's already a big movie right there. Then a couple of days ago they added Rami Malek and Zoe Saldana. But then! Last night! Last night the cast added (deep breath) Robert De Niro, Mike Myers, Timothy Olyphant, Michael Shannon, Chris Rock, Anya Taylor-Joy, Andrea Riseborough, Matthias Schoenaerts, and Alessandro Nivola.

Russell has of course worked with a few of these people before -- Nivola and Bale and De Niro, of course -- but, I mean... did his casting people just come here to MNPP and start grabbing names after that? It's like that meme that says "We're gonna give the gays all that they want" but it's not "We're gonna give JA all that he wants." Olyphant, Riseborough, Shannon, Taylor-Joy and Schoenaerts in one place is literally breaking my brain. Literally. I would take a picture with my phone and show you my brain oozing out of my ears but my brain just oozed out of my ears and so I don't remember how to take pictures with my phone any longer. I am broken. Right, Andrea? 

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Big Business (1988)

Sadie: That's what the French call a bee-day.

Rose: Well those French must be taller than me.

Two tons of happy birthday fun going out to the wonder of Lily Tomlin today as she turns 81 years young! There's really no competition for me when it comes to Lily Tomlin movies as Big Business was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid and I have seen it so many times I can recite it from memory at this point, but I ask y'all -- What's your favorite Lily Tomlin? Do you prefer Serious Lily like in Nashville? Or perhaps her Romantic Stylings are more to your favor...

Sometimes I think I will just lock myself in a room with MOMENT BY MOMENT until one of us dies pic.twitter.com/X42KPvsm3I

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) August 24, 2020

How Much Is That Miley In The Window

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I had to miss a screening of Isn't It Romantic (watch the trailer here) last night because my boyfriend's got a bad cold and I had to take care of him -- so the answer to the question is yes, yes I am romantic -- but that's okay because apparently Liam Hemsworth himself was also sick and missed the premiere last night. You guys... has Liam Hemsworth been my boyfriend all this time and I just... never noticed? Even more existentially troubling -- does that mean I have been Miley Cyrus all this time and never noticed? Now I'm afraid to look in a mirror - what if Miley is looking back at me? Z'omigod.

Anyway under the umbrella of "less disturbing things I could be talking about" we have the trailer for another Rebel Wilson movie, this one with Anne Hathaway, getting dropped today -- click on over to The Film Experience where I posted the thing. Now I am going to walk slowly towards the nearest mirror and see if anything makes any sense any more...

Good Morning, World

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I missed this yesterday so a belated happy birthday to the ever adorable Nicholas D'Agosto (click through our archive for more) who just turned 38 - these images are from the first season of Grace & Frankie, which I do not watch but don't hold it against you if you do. (There are many shows I do not watch that I do hold it against people for watching; too many probably.) Jane Fonda & Lily Tomlin deserve all their legend status, so watch away. Anyway Nick was only on one episode of that - he's been playing Harvey Dent on Gotham more recently, and he's also on something called Trial & Error which... I have no idea. I would probably hold it against you if you said you watched that, but I have no idea what it is. Maybe it's secretly a show about Nick trying every week to cum on his own face. That would be awesome. On that note, ahem, good morning everyone! And hit the jump for the rest of the G&F gifs...

5 Off My Head: Siri Says 1978

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It's Tuesday and you know what that means - yes, that we will See You Next Tuesday, but before then let's go ahead and do what we do each week on this day (as long as we're being productive) and hit up our "Siri Says" series. If you're new here's what is happening - we ask the voice that lives inside of our telephone to give us a number between 1 and 100, and then we pick our 5 favorite movies form the year that corresponds with that number. So today she gave us the number "78" and so today we will pick our favorite movies from The Movies of 1978. And a fun time will be had by all!

I managed to come up with my five favorites from this year pretty easily - they're probably exactly what you think they would be if you've spent more than five minutes here at MNPP - but what surprised me, looking through this year's films, was how many 1978 movies I have heard good things about but never seen. So that portion of our list below is longer than normal, and I guess I have some work to do. Until then, let's see what we have here...

My 5 Favorite Movies of 1978

Eyes of Laura Mars

(dir. Irvin Kershner)

-- released on August 2nd, 1978 --

Halloween

(dir. John Carpenter)

-- released on October 27th, 1978 --

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

(dir. Phillip Kaufman)

-- released on December 22nd, 1978 --
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Dawn of the Dead

(dir. George A Romero)

-- released on September 1st, 1978 --

Midnight Express

(dir. Alan Parker)

-- released on October 6th, 1978 --

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Runners-up: The Deer Hunter (dir. Cimino), The Fury (dir. De Palma), Watership Down (dir. Martin Rosen), Heaven Can Wait (dir. Beatty), The Swarm (dir. Irwin Allen)...

... Superman (dir. Donner), The Boys From Brazil (dir. Franklin J. Schaffner), Autumn Sonata (dir. Bergman), A Wedding (dir. Altman), Moment By Moment (dir. Jane Wagner), Long Weekend (dir. Colin Eggleston), Piranha (dir. Joe Dante)

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Never Seen: An Unmarried Woman (dir. Paul Mazursky), Up In Smoke (dir. Lou Adler), California Suite (dir. Herbert Ross), Ice Castles (dir. Wrye), La Cage Aux Folles (dir. Molinaro)...

... The Driver (dir. Hill), Magic (dir. Attenborough), Killer of Sheep (dir. Charles Burnett), Death on the Nile (dir. Guillermin), Harper Valley PTA (dir. Bennett), Coming Home (dir. Hal Ashby)

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What are your favorite movies of 1978?

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I Am Link

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--- Yes Sir Alex Sir - Picture this: You're a soldier and Alexander Skarsgard is your squad leader. Basically you'd do any horrible thing he told you to do if he let promised you a barracks cuddle afterwards right? Well save the barracks cuddle thing (probably) that's the plot of The Kill Team, a movie that's just been announced that's adapting the documentary of the same name. And yes this being based on a real-life doc about soldiers doing horrific things to people really dampens the sexiness quotient. It's still Alexander in uniform. It can't be totally dampened.

--- Camp California - Even though I've posted about the movie a couple of times I still haven't seen the infamous flop Moment By Moment, which tried to pass off a romance between Lily Tomlin and John Travolta, much to my chagrin. And my chagrin just got chagrinnier, because writer-director Bruce La Bruce just wrote up a terrific piece on the film as intentional camp a la Sirk, and now I cannot put it off any longer. There was a copy floating around the internet recently (the film's long been buried) so I'm on it.

--- Sex Them Bots - When I posted those pictures of James Marsden naked on Westworld the other day I asked y'all if you were watching the show and it seems like y'all are, whioch is good, it's worth watching and discussing, I think - and I like that I've seen a lot of questioning this week going on about the sexuality of the male robots, and if the show intends to gay itself at any point, because these questions plague me too. This piece at Fusion on this subject is pretty keen on the subject. I don't understand how the James Marsden Robot isn't getting fucked every second he's, you know, turned on.

--- World War Buffy - Joss Whedon has finally opened his yap about what he's working on! I'm glad to know he's working on something, anything, honestly, and not just playing Shakespeare with Amy Acker in his backyard all day long. But this, via this interview with him at Complex, sounds pretty damned exciting!

"I'm in the middle of a screenplay that I am extremely passionate about, and I am going to be extremely passionate about it again on November 9. It’s definitely a departure from the things that I’m known for. It's as dark as anything I've ever written... I just said, "OK, id, your turn." I would write scenes and be like, "Oh this is great! I shouldn’t be allowed near people." It’s a historical fiction slash horror movie about a time when the world was going insane, World War II."

--- Shrinkage For Shackleton - Many a Brit fella has played Sir Ernest Shackleton, famous Antarctic explorer, in small TV projects - fellas like Derek Jacobi and Kenneth Branagh. But somehow there's never been a big movie about the man, and that's about to change - Tom Hardy is set to play him in a movie from the writer of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I'm sure Shackleton's adventures will be veddy cinematic and all but it's depressing to think of Tom Hardy buried under all those winter clothes. But hey it's not like we've never seen Tom Hardy roll around butt-naked in the snow before, so hope lives!

--- Save Crake - Westworld out of the way, what the heck are the dopes at HBO thinking: Darren Aronofsky says that the studio's not making his series MaddAddam, based on Margert Atwood's brilliant trilogy of books that began with Oryx & Crake. Aronofsky says he's not giving up though and he's hoping some other studio will snap up the project, and I second third and fourth that shit. Hey Netflix, you've got your next great big thing right here! One thing I didn't know about the project - the scripts were written by Joss Whedon's sister-in-law Eliza Clark. She's worked on Animal Kingdom & Extant previously. I wanna go to the Whedon house for Thanksgiving!

--- Have Patients - Did you see the picture of The English Patient stars Kristen Scott Thomas & Juliette Binoche & Ralph Fiennes at a 20th anniversary screening in Rome this past weekend? Good grief it's like all of heaven stuffed into a couple of inches - it is ravishing, ravishment, ravishillisimo, so forth. I know I was watching the Oscars before 1996 but it's Binoche's win that's my most vivid Oscar memory from youth. I was transfixed by her immediately, in her dramatic crimson velvet dress. And I never let go!

---  And Finally I hadn't heard anything about this out of Toronto but it sounds perfect for Halloween - Ruth Wilson stars in I am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (that's a great title), which is about a young nurse who goes to an isolated house to care for an ailing horror writer (a character based on Shirley Jackson!) played by Paula "The Stepford Wives!" Prentiss, when things start going bump. I really like Ruth Wilson and I welcome the opportunity to watch her in something that's not The Affair, which i had to stop watching because I can't stand Dominic West on that show. Anyway the movie is being dropped on October 28th on Netflix, and below's the trailer. I hope it's spooky!
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Thursday's Ways Not To Die

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Carrie (1976)

It's John Travolta's birthday today so it seemed pretty clear that I'd either devote today's Ways Not To Die to either this delight of a scene, or I'd devote today's Way Not To Die to the death of romance itself that his rom-com with Lily Tomlin called Moment To Moment represented... and since I couldn't find a copy of Moment by Moment, here we are.

Ugh, you guys I want to see Moment by Moment SO BADLY (see my previous speedo-filled post here) but it's been entirely buried from what I can tell. If anybody knows where a copy is in the world, I will give out hand-jobs in exchange for it. Or John will anyway. Just pretend you're his masseuse and that's a bingo.

Hit the jump for links to all of the Previous Ways Not To Die

Good Morning, World

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If the sight of Lily Tomlin mounting John Travolta doesn't wake you up, I don't know what possibly could. How about if I boil that gif even further down to its divine essence?

Yeah that's what I'm talking about. These are of course from the infamous flop Moment By Moment, which starred Lily as a cheated-upon rich lady who finds romance and passionate, passionate lovemaking at her Malibu home with a young hirsute drifter. Can you believe this movie's never been released on any format? Somebody was nice enough to upload some scenes on YouTube though...

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What I would give to see this movie! Have any of you seen it?

Well til then after the jump some John Travolta speedo pics...

Sniveling Hysterical Pre-Periodic Twit

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I'm back! And you look like a blood clot. As I said last week I would be back "Monday-ish" and here's what I meant by that - I have posted a new round of "Beauty vs Beast" over at The Film Experience today, this time for one of my favorite comedies Big Business (which, as an aside, is crazy cheap on blu-ray on Amazon right now) in honor of Lily Tomlin's 75th birthday today. Oh sure I could've chosen something more honorable from her filmography but y'all know how much I love this movie, I don't care what anybody says. Anyway that's all I am posting today since it's a holiday and damn why are any of us even online at all right now? Head over there, vote, and then stuff a hot dog in your face. See you tomorrow!

Do Dump or Marry - The Ladies Of Consolidated

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In honor of Dolly Parton's 66th birthday today - happy birthday Dolly! - I ask you to look back upon the classic silly 1980 comedy Nine to Five for our first all female edition of Do Dump or Marry. I figure Dolly and Lily and Jane are the movie itself are all gay enough to overcome any funny feelings their lady business might inspire.

This query involves their characters - the mousy newcomer Judy (played by Jane Fonda), the manic yet efficient Violet (played by Lily Tomlin) and the busty and bubbly Doralee (played by Dolly). Which would you drop the pencil in your office for some afternoon delight with, which would you give their pink slip, and which would you chain up in an elaborate system of cords and pulleys to keep  forever?

Hit the comments with your answers!

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Which Is Hotter?

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Lily Tomlin as the bracelet-shaking hillbilly Rose Ratliff or as the hysterical pre-periodic twit of a city gal Rose Shelton in Big Business?

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poll by twiigs.com

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See my lengthy ode to Big Business here. It's Lily Tomlin's 72nd birthday today and sure there are tons of other movies and performances I could/should celebrate her for, but if I have a chance to post about Big Business I always have to take the chance. It's part of my DNA! Happy birthday, Lily!

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Quote of the Day II

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I totally forgot that Paul Reubens was in Nailed too! God this just makes the sting of the film's loss even harsher. Plus it gives a little past to that video of Jake hanging out with Pee Wee from the other day. Anyway The Playlist chatted with Mr. Reubens about the film and he had some interesting things to say - he's always a good interview; I wish he got interviewed more often (or at least I caught his interviews more often) - including some big praise for what he saw from Jake and Jessica Biel in the leads, plus this fun bit:

While the shoot itself was marred by financing woes, the project also came on the heels of the infamous viral video of O. Russell losing his shit on the set of “I Heart Huckabees” and in particular, at actress Lily Tomlin. And Reubens says, he wasn’t spared the director’s wrath.

“When I got South Carolina where we shot the movie, I kept wondering, ‘Who’s seen that video of him screaming at everybody?’ And when I got there I felt like every single person that was connected to the movie had seen that video already. And by the way, my first day on the movie, he was screaming at me at the top his lungs. I couldn’t believe it. I was sitting there, and he was cursing and screaming on the first take,” Reubens says adding quickly that the heat from the director didn’t diminish his impression of him. “And I asked Lily Tomlin… after that movie, ‘So, I’ve done a movie now with him. What do you think?’ And she said, ‘I’d work with him again.’ I mean he’s brilliant. He’s a brilliant director, writer and he screamed at everybody and everybody would still love to work with him again so I don’t know what that says about us.”

As for why O. Russell lost his cool, Reubens isn’t quite sure. “I don’t think it was reality based [laughter]. I don’t why he screamed at me. I did my first line in the first rehearsal and he started screaming like, ‘What do I have to do to get the performance I want out of you!’ And I was like, ‘Not that.’ [laughter]’

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Makin' Love in the Back of Recreational Vehicles

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How odd that my waking thoughts today would be devoted to the 1988 Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin comedy Big Business, right? Off the record (ha), it's a comedy I've seen dozens of times, I was addicted to it when I was a kid and I could quote it from start to finish at you if I was backed into a corner and the only way to save myself was to quote lines from a 1988 Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin comedy, which could obviously happen.

Anyway I've laid bare my love for 80s Bette Midler movies before, once in an epic post devoted to Stella - still one of my favorite posts I've ever done - and several times I've coughed up the truth about my embarrassing devotion to Beaches. But save one brief instance I've never said much about Big Business, which is weird. I need to go revisit all of Bette's big comedies from this period - that sound you hear is my boyfriend packing my belongings and throwing them into the street - for some posts is what I need to do. Outrageous Fortune! Down and Out in Beverly Hills! That one where Danny Devito has her kidnapped! (Oh right Ruthless People is what it's called.) It's been a very long time but I worshipped them all when I was a kid.

All that aside, now that I'm actually doing a post focused on Big Business, I'm not actually even focusing on Bette. This post is devoted to Lily Tomlin's sly double performance in the movie, because it's one I never give enough credit to, and it's her that was weirdly on my mind when I woke up this morning. Bette's broadness - that word goes in several directions, all of them apt - always gobbles up in hindsight the very funny work Tomlin's doing here. So here are five of my favorite Lily moments in the movie.

Wrestling with a wandering shoulder pad in the first meetin'

Also during the first meetin' - muffin, meet tooth

Sadie Ratliff (Bette Midler): That's what the French call a bedet.

Rose Ratliff (Lily Tomlin): Well those French must be taller than me.

Bette gets to do the whole funny mirror routine in the bathroom when the two sets of mismatched twins finally meet each other, but I always loved Tomlin's reaction on the left above where she seems to be trying out for an insanely exaggerated Excedrin commercial. If (When!) I ever meet my long-lost identical twin in a bathroom at the Plaza, this is exactly how I plan on reacting.

And finally, the classic snake-fangs / bracelet-rattle hand shake.
The best part is when she does it while she's sleeping:

[ETA I just posted one of my favorite Bette moments over at The Film Experience. I couldn't help myself.] Alright, so one more thing about Big Business that was integral to my love for it when I was a kid? Fred Ward as the hot hick Roone. His scene sharing a hotel room with the two mincing queens that work with Big City Bette & Lily, Graham (Edward Hermann) and Chuck (Daniel Geroll) - one of the first times I can remember being exposed to gay men in a movie too, for better or worse - left a pretty large imprint on my brain. So cute.

Roone: Hey, I like your kimono! D'ya get that in 'Nam?


Chuck: Uhhh no. Fire Island.

Roone: Don't tell me you two guys
are sleeping in the same bed together?
Graham: Uh... yes.

Roone: Gee I feel awful about that. Now if ya want,
one of you can take the couch and I'll share the bed!

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