1.25.2008

Baby Boom


[it is NEW YORK CITY in the 80s]
Diane Keaton: I am the tiger lady! I work 80 hours a week! I love it!! My hair is decidedly un-Working-Girl-like!
James Spader: Smarm. I will take your job somehow!!
Harold Ramis: Good thing we both work 80 hours a week and only have 4 minutes of sex. But 4 minutes is better than 3 minutes, right? Heh heh.
Boss Man: Listen, we want to make you a partner.
Diane Keaton: Hooray! I have everything I could ever want! Nothing could possibly go wrong now!
Middle-of-the-night Phone Call: You have inherited an unspecified thing from your distant relative. Please come to the airport tomorrow.
[she goes to JFK and the THING she inherited is a BABY]
Diane Keaton: I have a lunch meeting! I can't take this baby! Oh, what wacky hijinks!
[she FEEDS the baby SPAGHETTI with SAUCE and the baby THROWS it at her, HILARIOUSLY]
Diane Keaton: I'm giving this kid up for adoption. But first I will buy her a million things at FAO Schwartz to assuage my guilt.
[she meets the ADOPTIVE PARENTS, who are CREEPY MINNESOTA CHRISTIANS]
Diane Keaton: You can't name her Fern!! Gross! I don't know how to delegate! I CAN have it all!!
Harold Ramis: Well, that doesn't include me.
Boss Man: And that doesn't include your promotion.
James Spader: Suckaaaaaa!
Diane Keaton: FINE! You can all SUCK IT. I'm moving to Vermont.
[she buys the MOST DILAPIDATED HOUSE in the WORLD and picks, like, A MILLION APPLES]
Plumber: You're going to have to fix everything in this house, and it's going to cost a lot of money that you don't have.
Diane Keaton: [high-pitched FREAKOUT that ends with her COLLAPSING in the snow]
Sam Shepard: Hey...you okay?
Diane Keaton: Gahhhhh! I can't live here! I haven't had sex in a long time! You're really hot! Gahhhhhhhh! Um...why is there a horse here?
Sam Shepard: I'm a veterinarian.
Diane Keaton: Gahhhhhhhhh!!!! I'm so embarrassed! I hate you! I have to get back to New York!
[she makes a LOT of APPLESAUCE to CALM her NERVES]
Yuppie Tourists: Oh. My. GOD. Gourmet baby food! This is amazing! We live in such luxury! Give us more! MORE LUXURY!!!
[the BABY FOOD is a HIT because YUPPIES are IDIOTS and will buy LITERALLY ANYTHING]
Diane Keaton: Yeah, bitches! I'm BACK! Shit, I got a flat tire.
Sam Shepard: Allow me to help you with that, and also to ravage you on the side of the road.
Diane Keaton: I needed that. Now I like you.
[they DANCE at a WHIMSICAL LOCAL GATHERING to the strains of the PLUMBER'S BAND]
Boss Man: We want to buy your company. Here's a ridiculous amount of money.
Diane Keaton: You know what? Thanks, but no thanks. My veterinarian boyfriend and my baby and my wacky, dilapidated house are enough for me now. I have learned a lesson: you CAN have it all, but only in Vermont.

6 comments:

Emily Sue said...

I'm moving to Vermont, if only to try to hook a youngish Sam Shepard-looking veterinarian.

Laurie Stark said...

she should have sold the business. suckaaaaa!

Anonymous said...

I totally watched some of this last night. I enjoy the montage of the making of "Country Baby" applesauce, with the labels flying at the screen like in an old-timey newsreel. I also enjoy fact that the movie takes place over like, 3 years and the baby doesn't age at all.

John Das Binky said...

About half way through reading this I went "wait, aren't Lily Tomlin and Bette Midler in this movie?", but then realized that was some other you-can-have-it-all-go-sister! women's business movie. Except with Fred Ward as a mini-golf pro instead of Sam Shepard as a vet. And no James Spader or baby. Which really makes it kinda nothing like Baby Boom.

Also, that baby in the poster has gotta be at least 2. So it should be Toddler Boom.

Man, I miss the late 80s. Back when Harold Ramis could feasibly snag Diane Keaton.

Movie Maven said...

Oddly, I was just saying how my sister was obsessed with this movie as well as Big Business as a child; I referred to both as "alliterative 80s women-in-business-related comedies." It's a small, but important genre.

John Das Binky said...

It's a small, but important genre.

When my life falls apart and I enter a spiralling depression only to somehow emerge at film school where I was truly meant to be, I've now found my thesis topic.

Socio-economic effects of the Latter Reagan Years as expressed in mainstream Womyn's Comedy