Welcome to the most sexually charged review of B-Movie Enema ever.

This week, I’m going to review 1978’s Moment by Moment from director Jane Wagner. We’ll talk about Wagner momentarily, as she is the writer, collaborator, and wife of one of the stars from this infamous movie. But when it comes to Moment by Moment, there are two guys we need to focus on first. That would be the leading man of the movie, John Travolta, and producer Robert Stigwood.

Travolta’s rise to superstardom was already well on the way in 1978. Sure, he was already famous for the sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter. In 1976, he had a strong supporting role in the Brian De Palma horror masterpiece Carrie. But it was his leap to taking lead roles in 1977 that really made him a household name and one of the great movie stars for a few years to come.

And it was Robert Stigwood who launched that superstardom.

Stigwood made his name in musicals. The Aussie produced major stage musicals like Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Pippin, and Evita. When he transitioned to film, he produced a film version of Jesus Christ Superstar as well as the rock opera Tommy. He served as an uncredited executive producer on the 1976 all-kids gangster musical Bugsy Malone, directed by Alan Parker, who, himself, would go on to make Pink Floyd: The Wall some years later.

This set the stage for the string of films that would make Stigwood famous, for better or worse. That starts with 1977’s Saturday Night Fever, starring Travolta. This movie would be a massive hit on multiple fronts. Travolta got nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor as Tony Manero. The film was a gigantic box office hit, and one of the highets grossing R-rated films of the 70s, and probably, if you adjusted for inflation, ever. It was a huge cultural success, highlighting disco culture in New York City. Travolta’s white suit is one of the best looks ever in a film, and something that film critic Gene Siskel actually purchased to own as memorabilia from a film he adored. It also revitalized the career of the Bee Gees as their music was heavily featured in the film’s soundtrack, which itself was one of the biggest-selling soundtracks in film history. It was a big deal.

Stigwood followed that up with Travolta and Olivia Newton-John in 1978’s Grease. That was an even bigger success, with an even wider appeal, and sold more soundtracks than Saturday Night Fever. That’s a movie that, to this day, is watched by every generation that followed since its release. So much so, the thought of remaking it seems unlikely and would be universally hated (just ask Fox when they aired a remake of it on TV in 2016, or Paramount+ in 2023).

It’s not long after this that the cracks started to show in Stigwood’s seemingly iron-clad career as a film producer of the biggest blockbusters. One month after Grease came Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a rock opera using the back half of the Beatles’ musical catalogue. The movie grossed more than it cost, but it is largely considered a failure. However, Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees’ versions of the Beatles songs are pretty solid. It’s also a movie that I grew up on watching quite frequently. Before the end of the year of 1978, Stigwood’s next film, and the movie we’re going to be going into much more detail momentarily, Moment by Moment, came out and was a giant dud and was largely met with universal dislike from critics.

Aside from producing the soundtracks for Fame and The Empire Strikes Back, the 80s were not much better for Stigwood. 1981’s The Fan was not well-received as a thriller. The same year had Gallipoli, which helped continue acquainting American audiences with Mel Gibson, but it was not a major success. Grease 2 and Stayling Alive were a one-two punch of disappointing sequels. It wouldn’t be until 1996’s film version of Evita starring Madonna that Stigwood would ride off into the sunset as a box office champ.

But let’s circle back to 1978’s Moment by Moment. The other co-lead in this film is Lily Tomlin. At this point, Tomlin was THE BIGGEST female comedian in the country. She had successful TV specials, all penned by Jane Wagner, herself someone who is an accomplished writer outside of her work with her wife. Moment by Moment would be the only film Wagner would ever direct. The only other thing she would direct would be an episode, starring Tomlin, of the TV series Standing Room Only in 1979. It’s entirely possible the direction of this film was part of the problem in the end result but we’ll have to see.

Lily Tomlin is one of the biggest names in entertainment over the last 50 years, and I don’t think she gets talked about enough. I could write an entire article just about her career, but I’ll do some highlights before getting into the movie we’re all here to talk and read about. Early in her career, she was popular for appearing on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, playing several characters across several skits. Her first real film appearance was in Robert Altman’s Nashville, which got her the only Oscar nomination of her career. Aside from her stand-up and variety show specials, it was her movies after her appearance in Moment by Moment that I would know her best when I was growing up. Back to back to back, she appeared in the wonderful 9 to 5 with Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton, and Dabney Coleman, The Incredible Shrinking Woman (a sort of parody, sort of remake of the 50s flick The Incredible Shrinking Man), and All of Me alongside Steve Martin. 9 to 5, in particular, would be one I would watch a ton as a kid. Her Snow White scene putting the rat poison into her rat of a boss’s coffee is something I can still vividly recall in my memories. In the last decade, after still making movie and TV appearances after another, she hit another gear with the TV show Grace and Frankie, once again alongside Jane Fonda. In fact, all of her projects in the last ten years have been with Jane Fonda, her longtime friend.

This is a movie that might seem like it would be a slam dunk, right? You have the hot young John Travolta attracted to the middle-aged socialite who is in the middle of a separation from her shitty husband, looking to regain her mojo… What could go wrong? Well, as we’re about to find out, everything. Maybe it’s the way it was directed. Maybe it’s not a very interesting script. Maybe it was the absolute lack of chemistry between an actor who was known for playing one type of hot young thing and a woman who, I’m pretty sure most people even knew then, is a lesbian. It’s time to find out…

Oh, before we dig in, this was 100% going to be the review I did for Valentine’s weekend. You know, to really spice things up for all the hot and heavy lovers out there, but I opted to do Melissa Joan Hart Month instead. So… There ya go. A peek behind the curtains, if you will.

We are first introduced to Tomlin’s Trisha Rawlings. She’s a well-to-do Beverly Hills socialite. We know she’s well-to-do because she’s dressed somewhat fancy and walking along Rodeo Drive as the fancy storefronts fade in and out over her. That’s real class, you know? Then, we see Travolta’s Vick Harrison. Vick goes by the name “Strip,” so you know he’s a bit of a tramp. We also know he’s not so much of a well-to-do socialite because he wears a casual blue shirt and blue jeans.

The first time we see these two on screen together is at a pharmacy where Trisha is picking up some prescriptions before heading off for an extended stay at a beach house. Strip is there to simply ask if one of his buds showed up to work today. He was supposed to meet the guy the night before, but he didn’t show up. Strip interrupts the pharmacist trying to help Trisha, which leads to her reminding the pharmacist she was there first and wants to complete her transaction.

Right away, we see that these two have the smoldering chemistry of a pot of cold tomato soup that’s been left out for days. Trisha, correctly, wants to be served since she was the first to arrive. Strip is an impetuous and inconsiderate drifter. Why he would see this as an emergency simply because his buddy didn’t show up to hang out with him, is kind of beyond me. Shit happens. Also, it’s 1978, it’s not like they had cell phones to text if something came up. So Strip showing up at the guy’s place of work to find out what’s going on is… odd. Save that thought for a moment.

Anyway, Strip’s friend, Greg, was fired for stealing from the till. This pisses Strip off because… Actually, I don’t know what Strip’s deal is. He gets mad that the pharmacy fired Greg for stealing from them. He walks out and does his typical Travolta strut made popular by Saturday Night Fever. He then sees Trisha walking to her next stop on her way out of town, and follows her.

When she sees this young guy has followed her, Trisha is not exactly excited. He explains that he once did valet parking for Trisha and her husband when they threw a big party at their beach house. She does not care. At all. He then says that he “decided” to be nice to her today because he remembered something she did for him back then. You see, she’s being stand-offish with him today, but she was so cool back then. Her husband accused Strip of denting her Mercedes and accused him of being high. He admits to being high, but that’s besides the point. Anyway, she defended him by saying she made the dent in the car.

But here’s the thing… Strip has kind of blown this out of proportion in his head. He thinks she had every chance to hide her own goof and blame him anyway. He was a perfect scapegoat for her husband’s accusations. However, she didn’t, so that must mean she liked him for some particular reason. She tells him it never crossed her mind to blame someone for damaging her car when she did it herself. You know, like a good person? When she tells him that he’s really read way too much into that brief interaction, he acts somewhat offended. He says he could have just left well enough alone, thinking she did something nice for him and never said anything to her at all. In fact, no matter how much he liked thinking that a high-class socialite did something nice for him, maybe he won’t anymore.

She tells Strip that he caught her on a bad day and is curious what he could possibly want from her. He asks for a ride in a direction she is not going. When she says she is going to the beach, Strip says that maybe he’ll see her out there. He has friends who own a house near hers down the beach. She glares at him as if she is trying to assess whether or not this guy is a fuckin’ creep.

Seriously, this is their “meet cute.” Is Moment by Moment actually a horror movie? Should it have been a horror movie from the get-go? Out of the goddamn blue, this guy spotted her at a pharmacy, followed her to the next shop, then followed her to her car. There, he concocts this bizarre fantasy about how she did something very nice for him that she never thought about again. She rebuffs his obvious invasion of her privacy and plans to never see him again until she mentions she’s going to the beach. That’s when she realizes she cannot shake this younger man who seems to be singularly focused on her.

Smash cut to her being on the beach, where she even states she was enjoying her time alone, and this guy fucking shows up, saying he’s got a gift for her.

This is very weird, and we’re only ten minutes in, people. If there was anything ever said about this movie that made it at all memorable to people 45+ years later, it was that this was intended to be a romance where the two actors chosen had zero chemistry. That is on full display here in these opening scenes. Both Tomlin and Travolta speak in hushed, mellow tones with hardly any kind of inflection in their line delivery. Yeah, they are strangers, but in any romance that we’re supposed to believe as an audience, there needs to be some sort of heightened emotion from these two.

Instead, we’re dropped into a situation in which we do not know why Tomlin’s Trisha is being a bit stand-offish. It could be she’s a bitch. It could be that she really is having a bad day. We’re given no indication why she wants to be alone. Strip is even less established. He’s some young buck who seems to be hyper-focused on an older woman who wants nothing to do with him. We don’t know why he likes her outside of a cockamamie story that could have just been a complete fabrication. Without any kind of setup for his character, how can we understand why he’s fascinated with a woman who is clearly older than him (rough estimate would be that she is twice his age, based on what I think this movie wants us to believe). If he were a schemer, we could understand that he thinks he can scam her a bit by showing a possibly lonely woman attention. It would be understandable if he actually was intending on robbing her, but then later ended up liking her. But no… That’s not what this is. He just likes her because she was nice to him when her husband wasn’t. That’s some really immature reasoning to bring these two together.

And yes, yes… Let’s not ignore the elephant in the room. These two actually do look similar. They have basically the same color and style of hair. They almost come off as mother and son. It’s so fucking weird. Everything about this movie is so fucking weird.

So, how does Strip think he will ingratiate himself with Trisha? Well, he overheard the conversation between her and the pharmacist, because, you know, he was standing, like RIGHT ON TOP OF HER at the counter, that she wanted sleeping pills, but the pharmacist could not fill that order for her. So thanks to his buddy Greg, the same one who got fired from that same pharmacy, he had some downers and gave her some narcotics to help her sleep. She… is not impressed. But she can’t get rid of this jackass. Even after she tried to tell him before that she wasn’t treating him with any special consideration months ago at her party, that she doesn’t want him to be around anyone, that she doesn’t want his pills, and even, at one point when he’s holding onto her dress to see that there are little crystal-like mirrors sown into it, to say “let go of me.”

This is not a romance. This is a goddamn horror film.

I cannot explain to you how disturbing this movie’s setup is. This guy will not leave this woman alone and even looks irritated that she wants to be left alone, and when he leaves, she draws the drapes for privacy and to try to send a message to this asshole. It’s such an unsettling movie that is, by all accounts, meant to be a love story between an older woman and a younger man. Instead, this is all creepy shit. Ostensibly, this movie would be telling a 20-year-old guy that the way Strip is going about winning Trisha is okay. It. Is. Not. Nothing about what he’s doing is giving off the vibe of him being a “good guy.” He’s a pest and he’s stalking her.

But… what is Trisha’s problem? Why did she take off for the beach house to be alone? Well, she discovered her husband was having an affair with another woman. One fairly decent thing this movie is putting out there is that Trisha is deciding to take control of how this will play out. He opted to ruin the marriage, so she is opting to divorce him. She is proud enough to take charge to rid herself of her shitty husband, but still human and upset by what is happening to her life.

And then Strip shows back up again in tiny ass drawers after going for a swim. He asks her to borrow a towel. He then tells her about how his friends left, and he had to sleep outside. She gives him a towel so he doesn’t dry out on the beach in front of her. She gives him chicken and wine from her own lunch. She again tells him she would like to be left alone, and he pouts about being humiliated. He then comes back to give her more of the sob story about how his friends left him with no place ot hang out. She tells him he’s being an intrusion, always showing up like he does.

He talks more about his friends locking him out of their house and leaving him with no place to stay. She says he should go home. He retorts that his car broke down. He’s coughing, so she suggests he put on a sweater. He retorts that his things got stolen. This guy is a fucking nuisance. While he goes on and on about how his backpack got stolen, the phone rings, so she just goes inside and leaves him out on the porch. He’s about to leave, but she stops him and gives him something to drink to stave off getting sick, a sweater, and a blanket he can use to sleep in his car. She checks to see if he has a fever. He says maybe he should sleep inside tonight. She scoffs and simply says, “…No.”

Now this is where Strip’s annoying tendencies really come off as fucking reprehensible. He guilt-trips her (guilt-Strips her?). He tells her she’s naturally suspicious. He’s never met a rich person who wasn’t this way. He wasn’t going to take anything from her or do anything to her. He rejects her drink, sweater, and blanket and leaves, making her feel bad for how she’s treated him. This is textbook negging. Strip is the personification of every shitbag YouTube manosphere guy out there. SHE’S the problem here. He’s just being a nice guy. Why can’t she see that?

What really irritates me, and anyone who has half a sense of decency, is that Trisha is in this situation with this negging fuckface while at the lowest point in her life. She’s getting a divorce. I’m sure her husband has had plenty of opportunities to emotionally manipulate her while he cheated on her or during this whole process of separation. This plot is putting her in this situation where, at some point, she is going to cave in and reciprocate Strip’s come-ons. This movie was written and directed by Tomlin’s longtime partner. A decision was made to put her character in this obviously vulnerable position. Was it possible that this movie was this bad on purpose? Did Jane Wagner and Lily Tomlin conspire to make this movie in this way so that Tomlin would never be in another heterosexual romance movie? I can only imagine that was the case because this movie sucks.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I understand there are elements of this movie that are absolutely worthy of exploration. The idea that society has gotten to the point that a middle-aged woman can take control of her life and divorce her husband is the main theme that does get explored in the long run. That’s a good thing. There is something there about that middle-aged woman feeling attractive again by way of this man half her age being attracted to her. There is the concept of how she can feel some sort of youthful fire by acquiescing to that attraction and having some fun with this guy. There is even something to explore in terms of class perceptions. She doesn’t trust him because of her class, and he’s got a chip on his shoulder about how he’s viewed by people who are older or in the upper class. These things could all be explored and expanded to make a much better movie. Instead, it’s all in the same blender, and some of the stuff that could expand on these topics is lost in the mix, leaving us with scene after scene after scene of Strip showing up and impeding on Trish’s personal growth alone time.

Anyway, the next interaction between Trisha and Strip is just as shitty as the previous ones. She sees him trying to fix a car on the side of the road. Strip gives her all sorts of fucking attitude. She apologizes for how she treated him the day before and invites him to lunch. She has nothing to apologize for, but whatever, that’s what we’re going with.

At lunch, Strip talks a lot about Greg. Like, he talks A LOT about Greg. Strip even carries a picture of him with him. I’m beginning to think Strip would rather sleep with him than her. She even asks him if the two guys are lovers. (Considering the writer and leading lady are, themselves gay women, there is a point of view thing that might be at play here, but close male friends are not really this way at the age that Strip and Greg would be, so this is maybe a fault of the mindset of the writer of the movie?) What does start to happen in this portion of the movie is that she appreciates spending time with Strip. Why? I cannot say. It’s clear that she is curious about how he and his friends spend their days.

There is actually one smart line that Strip says in this section of the movie, but unfortunately, it’s too underplayed and doesn’t really have the impact it should. Strip asks about her husband. When she doesn’t respond, he says that he always feels like he’s overstepping his boundaries with her. She gives him a look as if to say, “You don’t say?” However, two skilled actors couldn’t make more of this line than it being a brief exchange lost in the toilet of a shitty movie.

Strip shows up at Trisha’s house drunk, and she chastises him for it, which irritates him. So they are back on the “this isn’t a good relationship” train. This comes right after them having a good relationship. Later, after Strip sobers up, he returns to get the address book that he left there the other day. He tells her that Greg is dead. He was bailed out and then apparently made to look like he overdosed on pills. She lets him inside and helps get him warm and dry while he talks about the loss of his friend.

However, you see what this means, though, right? He’s wet and cold and needs to, um, strip, so she can take care of him and get him warm and dry. While he is not directly emotionally manipulating her, the script is allowing Strip to make her sympathetic to him, which then turns into a more tender moment where she cares for him while he is trying to hold her while he grieves. They ultimately sleep together, in the non-sexual way, all night.

This is kind of icky. It’s so immature in the way that younger guys attempt to show vulnerability to a girl they like in order to put her in a somewhat compromising position as they show the guy tender sympathy. I understand that this is an element of Strip being depicted as a young and fairly immature guy, but it really does a disservice to Trisha’s character. She’s older. She should be seeing right through this. There’s nothing wrong with her finding a 20-something John Travolta as attractive or sexy, and even maybe being interested in him, but she should be smarter than this. He effectively manipulated her into what comes next…

A sexual relationship.

Yeah. After waking up that morning, she decides to put the moves on Strip, and they make love. They begin carrying on like a couple. It’s… not great. And not in the ways I have detailed already. It’s just not sexy. Look, Lily Tomlin is an attractive woman. John Travolta is an attractive man. They have no actual chemistry in this movie together. I wonder what they were like on set together. Did they interact with any kind of chemistry while the cameras were turned off and just couldn’t convey that same thing when reading their lines when the cameras were rolling?

You know how this movie could have been made better? If this were a romantic comedy. I mean it. Travolta had comedic chops already at this point and Lily Tomlin is one of the greatest comedians ever. Then you could have had more playfulness in their interactions. Strip could be purposely trying to seduce an upper-class older lady to, you know, have a bit of a sugar momma. She could be getting revenge on her husband for cheating on her by doing the inverse of what is so common in the world, and replacing him with a younger, more strapping guy. Then you have a reason for these two to be on a crash course with one another. Instead, you have two people who you cannot understand one iota of why they are actually attracted to each other enough to carry on with a sexual relationship.

But no. This is a movie that takes itself deadly seriously, and it’s killing me.

Things get a little rocky again when Strip reveals he is “in love” with Trisha. She can’t say it back to him. This offends him. This guy gets offended pretty easily. Again, I know this is playing off his age because he is confusing love and sex, but this movie is completely unable and uninterested in actually exploring this. It’s just aggro Travolta and an overly patient Tomlin constantly having to apologize for every time she offends this little jerk.

Have I yet to mention that this movie sucks? Yes? Well, too bad. I’m gonna say it again. This movie sucks.

All is going swimmingly… I guess. I mean, this is a relationship between two people who have nothing in common; they are completely and totally uncharismatic. This all comes crashing down when Trisha’s socialite friend, Naomi, shows up to invite her to another friend’s photography exhibit. When Strip arrives with the groceries, she is embarrassed to simply own up to him being her boy toy in front of her high-class friend. She pretends he is the grocery delivery boy, and he leaves, once again, offended. She and Naomi follow after him to apologize to him.

This leads Trisha and Naomi into the red-light district, where Strip lives, and where he plays.

This sequence has some ideas. Again, this movie is not devoid of possible ideas, but none of them are handled in any kind of satisfactory way. Obviously, there’s a class difference between Strip and Trisha. There’s something there in how Trisha could be trying to look outside her socialite circle. So add that to the pile of other things you could have had a ton more exploration of. There’s class, there’s age, there’s a potential manipulation from both sides, but the movie just isn’t interested in doing anything with that, and it’s baffling.

Again, is this movie purposely written to be bad so that Lily Tomlin never makes another movie this seriously misguided again?

And, yes, the movie’s poster uses this scene of Lily Tomlin shoving her hand down John Travolta’s jeans to jerk him off before fucking him to put on the one-sheet poster.

Anyway, Trisha and Strip go to her friend’s photography exhibit. Unfortunately, Trisha’s husband, Stu, is at the gallery too. Naomi wants Trisha to parade Strip in front of Stu and the woman he cheated on Trisha with. Naomi is all about the drama. Strip asks her if she’s bothered by the people looking (and probably) talking about them. She says no. He then asks if she invited him to make Stu jealous. She responds by saying she doesn’t think she did. This irritates Strip because, of course, it does. Stu then tells Trisha that she managed to embarrass both of them.

The next day, Strip overhears Naomi and Trisha talking about the complications of their relationship. She’s got a son that she will need to explain this to. She never thought their relationship would last. Their friends will no longer trust her around their sons. She pitied him, etc. He returns to the beach house later that night to tell Trisha that they are done and he’s splittin’. He tells her that he never had a chance to begin with, and, besides, she’s soon going to be old enough to be his grandmother (that math ain’t mathin’).

So, yeah, we get a classic third-act breakup, because naturally there would be one in a romance of any kind. Now, Trisha is now alone, as she intended to be originally when she came to the beach house. Before leaving, Strip said he intended to go to Las Vegas, where he thought he could do pretty well monetarily. After finally deciding that she does want to be with Strip with no further concern over what their relationship would look like to others, she uses the address book that Strip perpetually left at her place to track down Greg’s mother’s house.

She finds Strip there. She tells him that she knew he would rather go to Greg’s parents’ to see them than to go to Vegas. She wishes him a happy birthday (it was a whole thing he told her about when he decided to leave home after his parents forgot his birthday), and they reconcile on the spot. The movie ends with a series of polaroids of various moments in their relationship to remind us just how much they REALLY should not be together.

Yeah. Everything I ever heard about this movie is true. It suuuuuuuuuucks. Like… real bad. Look, John Travolta and Lily Tomlin are great in their own separate careers. However, together they are absolutely stiff, boring, and have almost zero chemistry. No, scratch that last part. They have negative chemistry. Neither character is given any kind of charisma for them to be able to use that to play off each other. The first twenty minutes of the movie is Tomlin’s character desperately wanting Travolta’s to leave her alone.

The movie is a trainwreck from moment one. Then, moment by moment, the trainwreck gets worse and worse as each car of the train stacks up on the one before it, leading to death and destruction of all that is good in romance movies bleeding all over the tracks. Waitaminute…

Moment by Moment… Oh, that’s why the movie is called that. “You won’t believe how bad this plays out moment by moment!”

Anyway, I’m not too sure I can say anything more here. This movie has every red flag two people who can ever possibly be attracted to each other can possess. Strip is a stalker. Trisha is not willing to tell people that she doesn’t care what it looks like having such a young boyfriend; she’s happy and feeling desirable once again. Shit… That’s something that does come up. Naomi calls out the fact that Trisha has confirmed to herself that she still has desirability. That’s something that women of a certain age struggle with, especially in 1978. That’s a hell of a thing that could have, and should have, been explored much more deeply. But nope. The movie flirts with the idea, but way too late in the film’s runtime for it to be compelling in any way.

Alright, I’m done. It’s time to leave the beach and finally get the fuck away from Strip. Next time, I’m going to review one of those all-time great titles for a movie. A movie, I might add, which is one of the horror/thrillers that premiered as a TV Movie of the Week. Join me next week for KILLDOZER!

Until then, I’m gonna pop some pills I got from some kid who hangs out at the beach to pester a lovely older lady and check out for a bit.