I Just Watched "Baby Boom" (1987) for the First Time. What a Piece of Shit.

^Apologies for the formatting errors.

😂 It was considered relevant in 1987 and probably was funnier when seen in that time frame. But, like a lot of topical movies it can look pretty lame almost 40 years later. I vaguely remember it and probably thought it was funny back then. I like Diane Keaton and often find her comedies enjoyable

OP many of the most revered movies of the 80s are nonsensical trash. 48 Hours was the movie that started Eddie Murphy’s career. It was a HUGE movie.

Watch it today. It is a piece of garbage.

A big hit for Keaton. But didn't age well. 1980s yuppies are quaint. Nostalgic.

Suspension of belief required to get through it

You got what you deserved op

This executive was supposed to hire a full-time live in nanny. End of story

And who cans their own baby food? I mean, really. (Eye roll.)

You should have seen the TV show they tried to follow it. Kate Jackson was a real piece of work. This interview with Winifred Hervy (award-winning writer - did some great Golden Girls work), is interesting - if you're bored.

I also couldn’t figure out why she didn’t hire a nanny. But then there would be no plot, so there you go. Any sentient creature is asking this obvious question though, which makes the premise so stupid.

Anytime something romantic was about to happen the 80’s dinky a dink music came on, it was so corny. But I laughed a few times. I liked it when she was at the doctor and a horse (the next patient) started neighing in the background as she was spilling her guts about being celibate.

Also why does every country bumpkin have a southern accent? They were supposed to be in Vermont and talking as if they were in Tennessee. They don’t allot much budget for fact checking in Hollywood, that’s what it all comes down to.

Some of these themes, related to the Yuppy era, aged badly. Working Girl, in spite of Sigourney Weaver and Joan Cusack, seems pretty corny by today’s standards.

Another in the Women in the Work Force series on TCM was "Bachelor Mother" with Ginger Rogers.

The poor woman finds an abandoned baby, attempts to turn the infant over to a foundling home, and they keep claiming Ginger is the real mother.

This poor child keeps getting shuffled around from person to person, including being taken to a bar for a dance contest at 11:00PM at night.

Didn't anyone think of the children back in 1939?

You could interpret the poor carrying technique as JC Wyatt being bad at mothering, but it's probably because Diane Keaton had not yet held a baby at that point. She didn't become a mother until she turned 74, and by then, she could hire one of Mia Farrow's nannies to do the lifting.

Part of the joke with the Huggies is that there are indeed many educated people who struggle with 1980s-style disposable diapers. They were the family version of airplane peanuts, and plenty of hacky comics made jokes about how complicated they were. And buying the house and orchards in Vermont, sight unseen, was unwise but a good comedic choice. Had she moved to a solid house with no troubles, she wouldn't have drained her bank accounts or had any motivation to market her cabinet full of canned baby foods. And by the way, plenty of snowbound people can the shit out of their fruits and vegetables while stuck inside all winter (especially in the days before cable and Netflix). By February, they were lucky if they weren't canning their quilts and cats. It would've been a boring and pointless movie had she lived off her savings for the rest of her life in that town.

The film took place over a year, but was filmed in a matter of weeks. Of course the child actors didn't age that much in that time. It would've been quite expensive to hire a second set of child actors (usually twins at that age) just for a few scenes of a slightly older Elizabeth. If you'll notice, the movie doesn't really show much of her. The movie isn't about her, is it?

And Elizabeth does indeed learn to talk. The emotional little button at the end of the film has her speaking to JC, who has just returned from tanking a business deal so she could return to the rural life. The baby's word at the end validates all that she's just gambled on that triumphant trip to NYC, and shows her (and the audience) that she did indeed make the right choice.

Nonetheless, one of Keaton's best roles. The scene where her panic attack ends in her falling in the snow is brilliant.

"She didn't become a mother until she turned 74"

Diane Keaton adopted her kids when she was in her 50s, but you're right - she may not have held a baby by the time of that movie.

R9 She tried to hire a nanny. There was a whole sequence of interview scenes. Did you not watch the movie?

She hired the moron who ended up fucking an anonymous sailor behind her couch, and then had to hire the frosty German who probably had a prison record. It's not easy to find a decent nanny, even with money to spend on the effort.

I watched it for the first time this week as well......I have to agree with the original poster.

Working Girl is excellent.EXCELLENT. A Cinderella story with great retro costumes.

I like Baby Boom a lot. Diane Keaton isn’t terribly convincing as a big business executive, but she’s quite winning in the role, reminiscent of a screwball comedy performance from fifty years earlier.

As stated above, she went through more than one nanny before opting to opt out of her career to raise a child. Her fumbling with everyday basic skills was a high point for me, a commentary on how the wealthy often lack the wherewithal to function on an elemental level.

I thought the film sank somewhat after she went to Vermont, but at least she found an outlet there for her business acumen.

It’s one of my favorite eighties comedies that I have no issue watching again. Not as fun as Working Girl, but a bit sweeter.

I've worked with alot of successful, high powered executives who were actually pretty dim and couldn't tie their own shoelaces so I had no problem believing Diane as one of them.

I loved it then. I love it now. It’s sweet, funny, and unassuming. It wasn’t aiming to be Sophie’s Choice. Jesus Christ, some homos got no life and just pick pick pick. Try getting laid, OP. At least once.

Even with OP's criticisms, a lot of which are valid (particularly the developmentally-frozen baby), Keaton rocked in this. She made us see her character falling in love with this child and making a more meaningful life.

The quaint house in the country being a money pit, rings true. The former higher powered executive with o.c.d overcooking a batch of baby food, also rings true although it is more likely cocaine would be the source of the excess of energy.

I admit I wasn’t paying attention to the beginning when she tried to hire Nannies. I did think parts of the movie were really funny, especially in regards to that house and the locals.

The moron who fucked the sailor was Victoria Jackson wasn't it?

Always good to remind ourselves that things like laughing are very threatening to many DLers.

1980s and 1990s romcoms always end up with the woman marrying a rich man and/or becoming rich herself. Money solves everything. Even Roseanne made her family rich on her show.

Working Girl holds up VASTLY better than most 80s cultural-moment movies do.

I love movies like this. Ones that were popular at the time, but have aged poorly. Always fun to watch them again. One of my favorites is "You've got Mail." Even back then it felt dated.

R24. Yes but that was before she became a moron.

Speaking of Roseanne, I still can't believe I went to see "She-Devil" on opening night.

I thought She-Devil was pretty funny. Meryl's character was hilarious.

Is that the one where she made gourmet baby food?

I was a senior in high school when this came out, steeped by my vert smart lesbian teachers in the very particular brand of no-nonsense feminism that characterized the 80s outside of Hollywood, and Baby Boom seemed silly to me--and, more importantly, not funny--but I'll confess I loved Diane Keaton's wardrobe in this movie and for that reason alone I watched it more than once.

She-Devil was no The Life and Loves of a She-Devil.

She hasn't made a decent movie since Reds.

OP, you’re vicious and mean.

[quotes]1980s yuppies are quaint. Nostalgic.

1980s yuppies are hated and blamed for a lot of the awful shit we're still living through today.

WORKING GIRL never goes out of style. It’s brilliant!

The baby in that movie would now be just two years younger than middle-aged Diane Keaton was when the movie was filmed.

How old does that make you feel, eldergays?

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie.

Working Girl still holds up, and what a time capsule. IMHO that is the movie that best captures the "look" of NYC in the late 80s. That's exactly what it was like, as I remember it.

[quote]This poor child keeps getting shuffled around from person to person, including being taken to a bar for a dance contest at 11:00PM at night.

Did the kid win?

[quote] And by the way, plenty of snowbound people can the shit out of their fruits and vegetables while stuck inside all winter (especially in the days before cable and Netflix). By February, they were lucky if they weren't canning their quilts and cats. It would've been a boring and pointless movie had she lived off her savings for the rest of her life in that town.

Yeah, in the 1900s. In the 1980s the roads were plowed and cleared within a few hours. Nobody was snowbound.

R24 Do you have access to Google?

[quote]in 1987...it can look pretty lame almost 40 years later.

r2 Yo. Chill. Some of us 80s babies are NOT 40 yet.

Damn it.

The movie was not trying to be something more than a contemporary comedy. I’m trying to think of what current movies do that better. Unless they are in the military or law enforcement, women now are generally portrayed as more personally independent but far less professionally competent than in the 80s. In fact, when you see movies of the 80s, you are really seeing the embers of the 70s before feminist became a slur.

I liked BABY BOOM when it first came out. What stand out today as dated: (1) Linda Ellerbee's narration and (2) the cheesy music.

Working Girl : I love to watch the scene of a six foot tall Sigourney W striding down the corridor to her corner office and all the secretaries scurrying to their cubicles. It is a mere thirty seconds of footage that tells you that character is a dragon lady who is feared and disliked by other women.

This was one of the first (maybe the first?) movies by Nancy Meyers, who's been making variations on it ever since. A creaky and unlikely romantic comedy plot, cheesy "adult contemporary" soundtrack, lots of house porn, and of course, Diane Keaton.

r4 This was never a big hit. It was a modest hit: $15 million budget, $26 million at the box office. Personally, I thought it was quite gloomy for a comedy.

Obviously R43 hasnt been to Vermont lately.

One of my go-to comfort movies. There's nothing like a yuppie 80's rom-com when you're in desperate need of a 120-minute vacation from our current late-stage capitalist hellscape. Everything feels so accessible in that time bubble—jobs, homeownership, families, retirement. It's like a guided meditation.

^*feels so attainable

OP, I agree with you and could easily come up with a dozen more things wrong with it but I watch it anyway. Its flaws don’t annoy me the way, say, Working Girl’s flaws did because I could believe she truly loved the baby more than anything else and would always put her first.

But I always felt that eventually Tess would turn into the exact same kind of boss that Weaver’s character was. There was just no way she wouldn’t because that’s the environment she wanted to be in.

I also think there is no comparison between Baby Boom and Bachelor Mother, one of my favorite movies. David Niven and Ginger Rogers had so much charm together, charm that was pretty much non-existent in the other two movies, along with a more down to earth story.

[quote] (1) Linda Ellerbee's narration

Jesus Christ there’s a name from the past. I remember her very eccentric news program that aired after Letterman in the mid 80s with Lloyd Dobyns. I was in college, and worked at a job from 5:30pm until 11:30pm. Got home just about in time for letterman, then watched Ellerbee’s show.

It was a world ago.

r51 I'm a New Englander and even in Vermont they plow the roads.

Linda Ellerbee was the first real lez on mainstream tv, right?

You're right OP, it was kinda Nancy Meyers bad as only it could be. Me, I don't hate her, just never that big of a fan, and I saw Father Of The Bride on the big screen all by myself for fucks sake so I sorta pay attention to details in those cases. It was however a great example of two separate tv categories - shitty TV versions of meh at best movie source material and shitty sitcoms with stronger support characters in Behar and Essman than in Kate. And there, it was more of the character being unlikable.

also the 'Shit I expected to be better yet may have still liked based on my feeling towards the leads. Sam Sheppard. Annie Hall.

R3- A perfect example of this is the movie Raiders Of The Lost Ark ( 1981). I saw it in a theater back then and enjoyed it as a kid but I watched it again sometime last year on my computer- the movies SUCKS now. What a clunker.

You hush, OP. I like this broad stroke 80s romcom. I've lived my adult life as an ad exec wishing that one day I could quit the rat race and buy a house in the country where I'd fall in love with some local hottie. I love that unrealistic feel good 80s stuff. Two more are"Working Girl" and "Doc Hollywood".

Doc Hollywood! I really liked that movie! thanks for the reminder.

If we're gonna go lightweight ephronian like romcom, it at least ends with Housesitter, 92, before the Norapocalypse with Peak Meg Ryan ruined everything until Heigel and Kate Hudson corpse-fucked the genre.

it's the same phantom vaginal itchiness/dryness I feel when watching Grey's Anatomy

It does have a young James Spader

I don’t know if at any time, or at least in the recent time of that movie one could be ‘gifted’ a baby even if it was from a relative. I always wondered why more wasn’t made of that.

But I always like Diane Keaton so just went with it. Obvious plot problems aside….

TV show episodes on Internet Archive.

I liked the song “Ever Changing Times” Siedah Garrett did for the movie.

The version of “Ever Changing Times” Aretha Franklin and Michael McDonald did in 1992.

I'm not difficult to work with!

So Diane Keaton's character buys a house in Vermont and there's a cow in the barn when she moves in?

Sure.

Why did 80s power women characters always seem to work in mergers and acquisitions?

Because M&A was the major business trend in the 80s.

Why did Sam Shepard never get his teeth fixed? He was good looking, but every time he opened his mouth, he looked like Clem from the trailer park.

R73- He was so good looking in that movie.

His looks were at their peak at that time.

R52- By the 1980’s our manufacturing along with our standard of living were already plummeting.

Not really the good old days.

I liked it.

[quote] A perfect example of this is the movie Raiders Of The Lost Ark ( 1981). I saw it in a theater back then and enjoyed it as a kid but I watched it again sometime last year on my computer- the movies SUCKS now. What a clunker.

You are insane.

I saw Baby Boom in the 2000s soon after loving Something’s Gotta Give. I found it boring.

R60, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" does NOT suck now. It's still great. The sequels may suck but the original is still great.

Mr Mom was another one of these "Baby Boom" type movies.

"Working Girl" is dated, but not offensive. It's a time-capsule. The movie is great, even today.

"Baby Boom" not so much.

Keaton was so bad in this. She took her "Annie Hall" flightiness and ditziness and turned it up to DEFCON 1.

The scene in front of the house with the handyman where she's having a breakdown was particularly awful.

This movie requires huge suspension of disbelief. Like we're supposed to assume that she's so inept when it comes to things like diapering and feeding a baby, yet can somehow manage to learn how to create homemade applesauce that's so delicious everyone in the tri-state area has GOT to have it.

I guess guardian standards were pretty loose back in the '80s.

You could just hand a kid to a perfect stranger in the airport with no background check and no identification requirements.

Those were the days!

R83 Ben Carson was a brilliant neurosurgeon, but an abject failure as a presidential candidate and HUD Secretary.

Expertise in one area of life is no measure of success or failure in another area of life.

R85 There's not any evidence that Ben Carson was a "brilliant neurosurgeon" at all.

R83 LOL! That's a good one!

I think this “Baby Boom” thread has taken a bizarre turn.

89 posts in, and no one has commented in the bizarrely sexless pairing she had with Harold Ramis.

R89 Yeah, what was that all about?

And when he tells her can't be with her anymore because she decided to keep the kid, she's just like, "Oh, okay Bye." Like he was someone renting a bedroom from her, not her partner.

Look I know that these movies aren't great works of art. But they remind me of a good time in my life. So I'm not letting you meanies ruin it for me.

I feel like watching "Baby Boom" again after reading this thread. Probably streaming on Tubi.

Relationship of convenience, I guess. Equal partners but just that. Both worked constantly and didn't seem to have a life not involving business schedules.

I recall Rex Reed praising Diane Keaton’s performance to the heavens in his review.

In the R8 video Winifred Hervy comments that Shyer and Myers had a miserable experience with the Private Benjamin TV series. But they did not produce or write it. And it ran for 3 seasons as opposed to the Baby Boom series which only had 1.

Sam Shepard was HAF.

I remember seeing this in the theater as a gayling. This movie is a total comfort watch for me. And I love the theme song, Everchanging Times, by Siedah Garrett.

R94. I think Pauline Kael raved too.

Keaton gives a smashing glamorous performance that rides over many of the inanities.

Gene Shalit has this hanging up in his living room.

United Artists had a national sneak preview two weeks before opening that was such a success, they scheduled another the weekend right before the Wed opening.

James Spader, when he was hot, has a small supporting role.

This had a hot Shepard and Spader. That was about all you could ask for in the 80s.

This and Father of the Bride are the last time I remember seeing her legs.

Kael liked Keaton a lot. She heaped a lot of deserved praise on her for her performance in Shoot the Moon.

R104 And a lot of undeserved praise for her performance in Baby Boom, it seems.

R103 She shows a lot more in "Something's Gotta Give."

[quote]You could just hand a kid to a perfect stranger in the airport with no background check and no identification requirements.

You could also walk up to the ticket counter with no luggage, buy a ticket for a flight that was leaving in ten minutes, and pay cash. With a lit cigarette hanging out of your mouth.

Ah, the 80s!

Her freak out is great and I admit I always cheer internally when the evil corporation offers her a huge amount of money for her applesauce venture. She has it all!

R108 Rural America is littered with the corpses of cute little organic startups that were the brainchild of some big city transplant. Scaling production and distribution to match the national brands is a fatal roadblock to most of these businesses, and they end up being bought precisely as The Food Chain offered to buy Country Baby. Or as the Callahan Auto Parts Company was almost bought out by Dan Aykroyd in the movie Tommy Boy. All the corporation is really buying is the cute little box/jar - the brand.

Ben and Jerry's is one of the few exceptions. Country Baby probably went the way of Paul Sorvino's pasta sauce within five years.

But she says no to the evil coroporation so she can have it all r109.

Obviously in reality they would hobble her distribution and squeeze her out of the market but in the movie version, Diane with her business smarts, love and apples, wins the day!

R60 I stand with the other posters who think you’re insane. The first Raiders is awesome.

Reviving this tread to say that Baby Boom is on Tubi for the rest of March.

I love 80s flicks like this, even if some of them are beyond cheesy by today's standards. The 80s was sort of when comedies stopped being funny for me. Starting in the early 90s and beyond there were very few comedy films that were actually funny, in my opinion.

James Spader was once again a preppy twink shit in this movie.

I never miss a Sam Shepherd comedy.

[quote] Reviving this tread to say that Baby Boom is on Tubi for the rest of March.

So nice of you to post this.

I enjoyed the film.

A lot of highly regarded movies from the 80s were actually trash. Watch the smash hit “48 Hours.” Absolute garbage.

It was a trash decade full of trash people. If it weren’t for Spy Magazine I would have gone crazy.

R115 I posted as soon as I heard. Forgive the fuck out of me for not living on Tubi AND on Datalounge.

You've got 90 minutes to watch it this weekend. The donut shops are all sold out by noon, so you'll have your evenings free.

It was a joke. Get fucked.

Most of those business movies of the 80s were shit. The secret of my success with Michael J. Fox is another piece of garbage.

I resented it. Big City woman moves to small town and there’s Sam Shepherd already in place. No, that does not happen. There are no Sam Shepards waiting for you in small towns.

I remember being happy to see Keaton in a comedy again, after a string of heavier roles. She made me laugh back then, but I've never rewatched it.

Bachelor Mother which is shown on TCM really holds up well. It’s very funny and it’s nice to see how much support a supposedly unwed mother and her illegitimate son get in the film from all the other characters.

[quote] Most of those business movies of the 80s were shit. The secret of my success with Michael J. Fox is another piece of garbage.

That was a great movie. I suppose you think Working Girl is shit too.

(R124) I actuallylove Working Girl. I bet you’re a fan of Mannequin and Short Circuit

Mannequin, fuck yes. Short Circuit no

I never saw Baby Boom as I was busy booming babies myself. I did, though, make all the baby food from scratch (piece of cake). I did it to save money and to make sure the food was fresh & unadulterated.

As someone who wanted to avoid sickening infants inadvertently, I never canned - I used the freezer for any extra or made-ahead portions. Yes, R7. Canning? No, not home canning, sorry, infant systems are simply too sensitive to risk any type of spoilage.

If I hadn't been working full-time, then maybe, with a lot of time and attention to be proficient and safe in doing so. The canning part mentioned seems wildly unrealistic but it sounds like a lot of the movie was as well.

R127 Mia Farrow, is that you???

Mia is bitch.

I had a good run with my ad career and ended up finding a husband along the way. Chased that damn career back and forth across the country. Now out of the rat race and husband and I are enjoying life back in my hometown. Quieter life. Still trying to earn money consulting. No Country Baby baby food fortunes to lean on, unfortunately, for me.

That canned baby food would have been brimming with botulism.

R131 Dead yuppies during Leaf Peeping Season. I love it!

But it has a young Chris Noth in it!

R133 And a young Annie Golden.

[quote]Big City woman moves to small town and there’s Sam Shepherd already in place. No, that does not happen. There are no Sam Shepards waiting for you in small towns.

Despite abundant evidence supporting your statement, R121, this particular storyline (by now almost a genre unto itself) is still going strong on the Hallmark Channel. I wonder how many women and men have relocated to small towns only to be disappointed by the local scarcity of hot veterinarians/doctors/farmers/cowboys/ranchers/poets etc.

[Quote] There are no Sam Shepards waiting for you in small towns.

And count yourself lucky for that!

Keaton is so charming in this. Brilliant.

Sam Shepherd, Sam Wanamaker, James Spader didn’t hurt.

I dodge almost every romantic comedy, but Baby Boom so sweet🩵

Stop writing 'Shepherd.' It's 'Shepard.'

Hated it!

I would much rather watch a movie from the 80s-90s than 90% of the crap movies of today. Movies back then had an innocence that’s lacking today.

[quote]R13 Nonetheless, one of Keaton's best roles. The scene where her panic attack ends in her falling in the snow is brilliant.

I was never a huge fan of hers back in the day, as I didn’t consider her beautiful, and I was really fixated on glamour.

Seeing her in MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY changed my impression of her, as I realized how naturally funny she is. And she’s that way in BABY BOOM, too - just a very charming light comedienne.

Ugh. I think her best job was in Reds. OK in Annie Hall.

Because I Said So

I love how modern the New York apartment is. It looks more 1991 than 1987 somehow.

R9 so many 80s movie plots would collapse if the person did what people of their socioeconomic status what do in real life.

at least the little girl looked like a little girl.

[quote]WORKING GIRL never goes out of style.

The Twin Towers are SO OVAH!