Movie Review: Moment By Moment (1978)

Genre: Romance  

Director: Jane Wagner  

Starring: Lily Tomlin, John Travolta  

Running Time: 105 minutes  

Synopsis: In Los Angeles, socialite Trisha (Lily Tomlins) is pursued by beach bum Strip (John Travolta). She is lonely, going through a divorce, and staying at a beach house. Strip comes around frequently, and eventually they start an affair. Strip is a low-level drug dealer, younger than Trisha, and a misfit among her friends, resulting in predictable relationship problems.

What Works Well:  A couple of dogs hang around Trisha's beach house, and they are cute. For fans of ogling, Travolta spends most of the movie shirtless, and is often only wearing tight black bikini briefs.

What Does Not Work As Well: A leading contender for worst romance ever made, this is an excruciatingly bad example of tone-deaf writing colliding with shallow and unlikeable characters. The script by writer and director Jane Wagner grinds away with fingernails-on-chalkboard subtlety, Strip's pursuit of Trisha much closer to stalking than romancing. His child-man behaviour underlines the age difference, resulting in her imbecilic embrace of an affair with an annoying, homeless, and immature vagrant. Their chemistry-free, charisma-free, and charm-free relationship unfolds to a generic midnight jazz score, without any character contexts outside the claustrophobia of their dumbfounding interactions. 

Key Quote:

Strip: See, the thing is, most of my friends are undependable. Except for Gregg, and Gregg is in jail now.

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Movie Reviews: The Beverly Hillbillies (1993)

A limp comedy, The Beverly Hillbillies contains maybe two laughs and a lot of wasted talent.

In rural Arkansas, massive oilfields are discovered on the swamplands owned by widower Jed Clampett (Jim Varney). He sells the land for $1 billion, and moves with his tomboy daughter Elly May (Erika Eleniak), doofus nephew Jethro (Diedrich Bader) and crusty mother-in-law Daisy May (Cloris Leachman) to a massive mansion in Beverly Hills.

Banker Milburn Drysdale (Dabney Coleman) and his assistant Jane Hathaway (Lily Tomlin) quickly swing into action to ensure that the Clampetts remain good clients. As a result Jethro gets an undeserved position at the bank, and Jane attempts to satisfy Jed's quest for a new wife. Meanwhile, bank employee Tyler (Rob Schneider) tries to plot a way to get his hands on Jed's fortune, and sends in his girlfriend Laura Jackson (Lea Thompson) disguised as a French teacher of manners to infiltrate the family.

Based on the 1960s television sitcom, The Beverly Hillbillies is a dumb exercise in milking a familiar property well past the expiry date. Directed by Penelope Spheeris with a script mushed together by four writers but containing barely any ideas, the film is devoid of charm, humour and wit. Instead the attempted jokes remain at the sub-juvenile level, the antics maybe somewhat funny for the sheltered sub-10 year old set.

The entirety of what passes as plot is made up of bankers Drysdale, Hathaway and Tyler tripping over each other to either suck-up to the Clampetts or steal from them. The family are stock rural simpletons straight from the hinterlands as imagined for 1960s television comedy, and what may have been funny on the small screen in decades past - granny totes a shotgun! daughter is an animal loving tomboy! - has long since gone stale. Acknowledging the pathetic bankruptcy of actual ideas, Spheeris throws in some Benny Hill-style fast-forwarded group chase idiocy.

Respected actors Lily Tomlin, Cloris Leachman, Dabney Coleman and Lea Thompson generally embarrass themselves with varying degrees of over-acting, and are joined by braindead comedy regulars Varney and Schneider, who are more comfortable in these kinds of gutters. Dolly Parton, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Buddy Ebsen contribute cameos.

The only good thing that can be said about The Beverly Hillbillies is that it is mercifully short. The film comes and goes in about 90 minutes, leaving nothing behind except the stink of a talentless money grab.

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Movie Review: Grandma (2015)

A drama-comedy character study, Grandma is an engaging story enhanced by provocative characters and excellent performances.

Elle (Lily Tomlin) is a fifty year old (or so she claims) grandmother, ex-poet, unemployed academic, lesbian and staunch feminist. Following the death of her long-time partner, Elle is now breaking up with the much younger Olivia (Judy Greer) after a four month relationship. Elle's granddaughter Sage (Julia Garner) shows up unexpectedly seeking help: she needs more than $600 to pay for an abortion scheduled later that day.

Elle is also broke, but she decides to help by trying to collect money from a variety of sources. The pair visit Sage's boyfriend Cam (Nat Wolff), Elle's bookstore owner friend Carla (Elizabeth Peña), tattoo artist Deathy (Laverne Cox) and Elle's lover from a long time ago Karl (Sam Elliott). Finally, Elle and Sage have to gather up their courage to also seek help from Elle's daughter and Sage's mother Judy (Marcia Gay Harden), a perpetually high-strung businesswoman.

Written and directed by Paul Weitz, Grandma is a compact 79 minutes delving into the world of a fading scholar. The film is a showcase for 76 year old Lily Tomlin, who dominates the screen with a caustic performance as Elle. This grandma is bitter, foul-mouthed and proud of it, her life reduced to no debt, no apologies, and not accepting nonsense from anyone, and Tomlin brings her to life with gallons of bravado.

With no wasted scenes, the story is small and personal but also elaborate enough to explore relevant themes for Elle's generation, from the abortion question to the status of feminism and exactly where the battles for women's rights have landed. Weitz steers a delicate course, avoiding any sense of moral high ground or preachiness. Elle may have lived on her own terms, but her life is cluttered with the wreckage of her decisions, including an unfulfilled career and, closer to home, broken relationships with daughter Judy and former lover Karl. Elle achieved independence, but far from triumphantly.

The film cruises through the interactions Elle initiates in her quest to find the money Sage needs, and  grandma's world is revealed through the eyes of the granddaughter, oscillating between resigned, panicked and horrified by grandma's behaviour. Weitz challenges the millennial to assess whether the paths paved for her by the warrior women of the 1960s and 1980s are worth following. Julia Garner is excellent portraying a young woman forced to understand, all too closely, where she came from, but still inquisitively looking for her own trajectory.

Sharp and feisty, Grandma is worth knowing and does not overstay her welcome.

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Movie Review: Nine To Five (1980)

A workplace feminist comedy, Nine To Five features an infectious sense of fun and a trio of terrific leading ladies having a blast.

Judy Bernly (Jane Fonda) is entering the workforce after raising a family and being abandoned by her cheating husband Dick (Lawrence Pressman). Judy joins Consolidated Companies as a secretary and makes friends with her supervisor Violet (Lily Tomlin), who has hit a low glass ceiling and is being bypassed for a promotion into management by her insufferable boss Franklin Hart (Dabney Coleman). Meanwhile Hart is lusting after his buxom assistant Doralee (Dolly Parton). She repeatedly fends him off, but Hart nevertheless ruins her reputation by spreading rumours that they are having an affair.

Judy, Violet and Doralee finally conclude that Hart is a "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot", and over wine and a joint take turns fantasizing about revenge. But when their dreams of retribution suddenly and unintentionally seem to come true, the ladies first believe that they may have committed murder, then have to deal with a hostage situation while keeping the office functioning.

Financed by Fonda's production company and propelled by Parton's infectious hit title song, Nine To Five has serious fun with an important topic. Directed and co-written by Colin Higgins, the film takes on gender politics at the office with a smile, exposing the hypocrisy of a hostile environment where women are fully dependent upon and completely held back. The film is brisk, full of snappy one-liners and unafraid to speak its mind.

Sexism, harassment, no opportunities for advancement, the lack of flex time, and the absence of a daycare all make their way into the story. But Nine To Five succeeds because it avoids any sense of preachiness, keeping the mood light and allowing the issues to speak for themselves. The revenge theme hints at the boiling rage, and the missed opportunities where women's energies are burned on lamenting lack of fulfillment rather than contributing to corporate achievement.

The three women's fantasy sequence is a turning point from reality-based comedy to something resembling outright farce, and the film's second half is fully invested in a false murder sub-plot, complete with a dead body stuffed into car trunk, followed by a wild and prolonged hostage taking premise. Nine to Five strides into wacky cartoon territory, and does so triumphantly but with some compromise in the focus on the core social message.

Fonda, Tomlin and Parton create an excellent trio. Fonda as Judy is the more serious debutante into the working world, and she provides the fresh eyes into the perverted office environment. Tomlin as Violet is the veteran sufferer, perfecting her frustrated eye-rolling at the abject unfairness of a male-dominated world. Parton, in her film debut, is a revelation, finding the perfect role as the sassy target of out-of-control harassment who fights back but loses the reputational battle anyway.

Dabney Coleman's career highlight as Franklin M. Hart Jr. contributes immeasurably to the film's tone. There is nothing subtle about Hart, he is a first order management boor, and Coleman plays him as a villain worthy of lusty booing and fully deserving of the female blowback finally directed his way. Sterling Hayden makes a late appearance as the firm's chairman of the board, and Elizabeth Wilson adds to the jungle politics in the role of treacherous spy.

Humorous and ridiculous, Nine To Five delivers a prescient message: women will be innovative and successful, whether inside the office or outside it. The men will just have to decide if they are talent partners or targets.

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