Word: burnetts
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...Carol Burnett seeks $10 million from a sensation-monger...
...since the Lee Marvin "palimony" case has a Hollywood courtroom drama attracted such attention. As an expectant crowd lined the corridors at Los Angeles County superior court last week, Actress-Comedian Carol Burnett arrived for the first day of proceedings in her $10 million libel suit against the sensationalist weekly tabloid the National Enquirer (circ. 5.1 million). Said a determined-looking Burnett: "I'm very happy to be here. It's like a five-year-old toothache and I'm finally at the dentist...
...Burnett's suit arises out of a 1976 Enquirer item. "At a Washington restaurant," it said, "a boisterous Carol Burnett had a loud argument with another diner, Henry Kissinger. Then she traipsed around the place offering everyone a bit of her dessert" and "accidently knocked a glass of wine over one diner and started giggling instead of apologizing." Burnett demanded and got a retraction, in which the Enquirer admitted that the "events did not occur." Unsatisfied, she compared the Enquirer to "a hit-and-run driver who, when you're in the hospital, sends you a bouquet...
...conspicuous consumption - a bizarrely anachronistic target in the '80s, when every Jane Doe scrutinizes her biodegradable cereal box to make sure it has enough vitamins and minerals. So the film's first half mines the comfy-cozy, utterly on-pitch humor of an old Carol Burnett skit. In the happy California suburb of Tasty Meadows, every room is decorated in the pastels of progressive kindergartens, and the residents' chief concern is ring around the collar. In this cheerfully sterile atmosphere, where brains are not only washed but presoaked, Tomlin's goofy, blissed-out smile serves...
...Since Jeffrey Bloom served as both director and author, blame is easy to place. For instance, a bag lady watches over the beach. She is an overblown caricature (with so much paraphenalia that she needs a huge shopping cart, and looking about as crazy as the washer-woman Carol Burnett did at the end of her shows), but with no real purpose. She makes mysterious soothsayings, but remains aloof during times of crisis. But is she a parody of a God-figure, or simply an underdeveloped character...