Lily Tomlin and John Travolta's brilliant "Moment By Moment"!

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 9:08pm

This article complete with clips, sums up everything that's so wonderfully perfect about this film treasure http://www.avclub.com/articles/concluding-case-file-37-moment-by-moment,97167/

[Dollypop]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 9:55pm

I don't see many movies, but I did watch this one once on TV. My favorite moment is when Tomlin is on the phone with Travola (whose character is named "Strip") and she utters the immortal line, "Oh Strip, Strip, Strip..." without bringing any conviction to it.

Was it meant to be as hilarious as it plays?

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 10:05pm

Seeing as writer/director Jane Wagner (who has done some very great work with Tomlin including writing The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe) is Tomlin's wife (if not, I don't think in the legal sense) I seriously think it was done in all earnestness. Or maybe it was some big meta-joke about closeted actors having to try their hardest to sell any sort of on-screen romance... :P Who knows.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 10:10pm

I think Jane may have bought into the false notion that "we're all exactly alike except for who we like to have sex with!".

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 10:44pm

I get that feeling from the movie, as well. A sorta "love, no matter who it's between can cure you problems" thing. As the link says though, I hope part of her thought on that wasn't connected to the undeniably weird incestual vibe.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 11:12pm

It is no hyperbole to say this is the worst movie ever made.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 11:21pm

Wha? Even the opening credits down to that beautiful font used for the titles is brilliant. :P

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 6/16/13 at 7:53am

Apparently, there's so bad it's good, and then there's so bad it's brilliant.
Eric, is that your feeling?
Updated On: 6/16/13 at 07:53 AM

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 6/16/13 at 9:20am

...this is so bad it's unwatchable. Tomlin bears an eerie resemblance to Travolta...they even sport similar hairstyles. There is absolutely no chemistry between these two people...I can't believe this even looked good on paper. Even the Yvonne Elliman warbled theme song is painful.

[Addison D.]

Posted: 6/16/13 at 9:21am

One of the most spectacularly bizarre films out there.

Travolta's sexual identity may have been unclear to audiences back in 1978, but was Lily Tomlin **ever** a plausible cougar?

The epic lack of chemistry veers into the truly creepy when the idea hits you--and I think it hits everyone within the first 15 minutes of the film--that they are far more plausibly mother/son or brother/sister than the alleged strangers the movies wants us to take them for.

That Jane Wagner should have been involved just makes the whole thing surreal--perhaps this is the other half of some Faustian bargain that Jane & Lily made in exchange for a life of brilliant creative collaboration?

I like the article's statement that 'Moment by Moment' is "a movie that literally does nothing right, one so bizarrely off that it borders on avant-garde." I would love to learn that the project was some profoundly insightful surrealist farce or, as Eric suggests, a meta-joke delivered in a profoundly deadpan style--like one of those incredibly uncomfortable Andy Kaufman nightclub performances.

I've read that Tomlin squashed any idea of releasing the film on VHS/DVD etc. due to her deep mortification about what an epic mistake the project was, suggesting that there probably are no deeper layers--just a tragic mistake by one of our most brilliant performers.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 6/16/13 at 10:41am

Kathy Griffin showed the still of Lily and Travolta kissing when Tomlin was on her talk show. She responded completely flatly, she wasn't going to out Travolta, she wasn't going to dis the movie. And they moved on.

[madbrian]

Posted: 6/16/13 at 11:05am

Anyone ever notice the uncanny resemblance between Tomlin and Travolta's older sister, Ellen? Ellen Travolta is 14 years older than John, almost the exact same age as Tomlin. Creepy.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 6/16/13 at 11:11am

Something tells me they were trying to capture the "relationship" dynamics of Travolta's one true love, Diana Hyland.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 6/16/13 at 3:34pm

I would class it in the so bad it's brilliant category--but the few times I have watched it I have not been sober, which probably helps (as it is SLOW.)

I remember Ellen from Charles in Charge, and the similarities are unmistakeable. I love Addison's suggestion that it was a Faustian deal for how great most of Jane and Lily's other work was.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 6/16/13 at 7:38pm

This is the worst acting I have seen from either of them.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 6/16/13 at 8:46pm

Ewwww!!! Gross!!

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 6/16/13 at 8:54pm

That hot tub scene made me feel dirty and wrong.