Best movie of this year hands down!

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Roger Cobb (Steve Martin) is a struggling musician and the bottom rung lawyer in his firm. One day he's called in to change the will of dying wealthy Edwina Cutwater (Lily Tomlin). She is transferring her soul and her wealth into the stablehand's daughter (Victoria Tennant). Only once her soul is transferred into the magic bowl, it falls on Roger's head and her soul is stuck in Roger's right half.Carl Reiner really lucked out to have Steve Martin inject his physical talents into this body sharing slapstick. However this could still have been a one-joke wonder. It's Lily Tomlin that gives it the chemistry the film needed to provide heart for the story.

So Steve Martin is funny? Not in this film he isn't. Nobody is funny in this except the dog (the sole reason I gave this 5 stars instead of 3). It just lacks any kind of entertaining value, it is an utter cliché from the first opening sequence (great guitar solo Steve! I'm kidding...). It doesn't even seem to be making a joke about being a cliché, it is just awful. I fell asleep 3 (three) times trying to watch this film and in the end I just gave up because it was going nowhere fast. Avoid this hiccup in Steve Martin's career like the plague that it is. You get the impression that nobody knew what they were doing while making this as the direction doesn't seem to have any idea of where it is going or any sense of the viewer at all. It just bumbles along, minding its own business until it happens to stumble (umble umble) into a plot point. And WHAT A PLOT! This film should never have been made, it adds nothing to cinema history apart from a stain on the carpet.

Sometimes it's a pure joy to revisit some films and All Of Me is one of them. Made some 16 years ago, the story is about Edwina Cuttwater, an eccentric but dying millionaire, played by Lily Tomlin who has devised a plan to stay alive by transferring her soul to a younger woman's body. Steve Martin plays Roger Cobb, a lawyer who inadvertently becomes the host instead after a mishap with the transfer. Now with the Edwina's soul controlling his right hand side, Cobb, must figure out a way to get rid of her.The film actually starts off very straight, there's barely a laugh to be had and it isn't until the transfer of the soul that the fun begins. There are some very funny moments thanks to the excellent physical comedy of Steve Martin, with the idea that half of Cobb's body being control by Edwina- i.e. - a woman made very realistic with an array of comic movements, gestures and vocal changes all perfectly timed. Martin is a fine comic actor, but I think this is a really excellent performance from him as it shows what a comic he is. Lily Tomlin does well, even if she is just voice for much of the film, but the combining of the two leads works extremely well.The film does move at break neck speed, which helps, I still struggle to understand why more films can't be made at the 90 minute mark. Despite it's age the film's special effects are very good, if in indeed there are any: when Cobb looks in a mirror he sees Edwina and whether this is done, literally with the trick of mirrors or with special camera effects it works very well and I couldn't pick it at all. This is a perfect reminded of how good some films from the 80's are and it still remains a standout and funny film.More of my reviews at my site: iheartfilms.weebly.com

"He's in conference with Miss Cutwater, also with her doctor, her nurse, Mr Mifflin, an English girl with no bra and a Hindu holding a bedpan on a stick. I don't think you should go in there." And with that little speech from receptionist Selma Diamond, All of Me finally gets going. The plot, somewhat reminiscent of I Married a Witch, sees friendless, dying millionairess Lily Tomlin enlisting a Swami with a poor grasp of English to transfer her soul to a sparky young blonde (Victoria Tennant). As you might imagine, the plan gets botched, and Tomlin's griping newly-dead becomes housed in the body of unhappy lawyer Steve Martin - whose soul is in there as well.The first 20 minutes are pretty dry, but once Diamond starts drolly lecturing, Dana Elcar begins two-facedly badmouthing his wealthiest client and Martin takes to bickering with 'himself', it settles into a fun - if unexceptional - groove. There's one absolute gem of a sequence in a courtroom, which is set-up with panache and expert timing and builds to a dizzyingly absurd climax. The rest of the film skirts by on the talents of Martin - very good and indulging his fondness for outlandish physical comedy - and Tomlin, with her Kate Hepburn-ish delivery. I rather like Tennant as a romantic lead, too, and her line: "I love it when you talk like a beer commercial."