He Hits My Hair: The John Travolta Poll

By my count, I've seen 12 of these.

SNF vs. Pulp Fiction

Those two plus Blow Out for me. I would think Get Shorty and the John Woo films would get votes too. (I can't remember how big his role in The Thin Red Line is...which probably means not too big.)

http://gs1.wac.edgecastcdn.net/8019B6/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lltqsirn5E1qa7bh4o1_500.jpg

massive oversight:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgesL8cVgmI

Not an oversight--I even issued a preemptive apology.

He has no surprises that i know of, but I've seen nothing in this century. And never Urban Cowboy?

Not completely sure what you mean by surprises--I think SNF (the Vinnie Barbarino guy), Blow Out (the Saturday Night Fever guy) and Pulp Fiction all overturned however he was perceived at the time.

If anyone younger has never bothered to see Saturday Night Fever, I strongly urge you to do so. I honestly believe it's almost as brutal in its way as Taxi Driver.

I mean retrospectively.

SNF is classic but i have a lot of personal love for Grease and i don't want it to get no votes

Carrie vs. Perfect

Best hair poll would be tough, but I'd go Pelham

Best crotch:

https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/6891398400/h840CC281/

I thought you'd be a Blow Out vote for sure, Eric.

His best 5 or 6 are damn near universally agreed on, and goddamn he always made a lotta shit, so I wouldn't expect to be taken offguard by Michael or Moment by Moment.

I recall Moment by Moment as one of the bigger actor-driven flops of the decade. (Baffled as to why there was no chemistry there.) Unless I'm missing it, seems to be completely unavailable on Amazon.

clem w/ the 35-year-old "gay people can't act" joke

Grease is the vote.

Lily Tomlin's fantastic with Keith Carradine in Nashville, but that works within the context of that character and that film. I just find it difficult imagining her carrying a big-deal film as a romantic lead. But I haven't seen it, so I won't say any more.

Jane Wagner could imagine it and did.

Rock Hudson had no problem selling it...

also *cough* Joan Crawford...

Carrie is a better performance, a better movie and a better hairstyle.

and a better Sissy.

http://lebeauleblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/carrie.jpg

Prom or pig sty? I don't remember him looking so serious in Carrie--I mostly think of his excellent banter with Nancy Allen in the car.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g11CHMEefbg

'get shorty' is a contender imo

^^this. On a semi-related note, I was recommended this comp clip of one of his recently departed costars the other day on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ry0g4W0_ZI

never got the love for Get Shorty; amusing, self-satisfied.

Also: Entertaining.

li'l bit. that Hollywood "oh, we're so big for mocking ourselves" vibe.

Get Shorty christ that was terrible. God alone knows how bad the sequel was.

Travolta and Hackman are fine in Get Shorty; the DeVito scenes drag.

Between SNF and Blow Out for me -- boringly.

I don't think I ever watched it a second time. I liked it okay when it came out, but a lot of the attention it got seemed to be residual goodwill from Travolta's reemergence in Pulp Fiction. (Culturally or whatever--I know the talking-baby films made a lot of money.)

It was also an entertaining 90s-hitman movie in a sea of bad ones.

Get Shorty is a minor thing, and I've never quite felt the need to own it on DVD or anything, but its one I'll watch whenever I come across it on TV. Love Farina in that one.

clemenza's equation of SNF and Taxi Driver feels appropriate. When I finally got around to watching SNF a few years back, i was struck by how grim it was and just how little I was enjoying it. I should give it another look one of these days.

I know that Grease is beloved, but those horrendous songs have kept me away from the movie itself all these years. Sorry.

get shorty is def a minor cousin to out of sight and Jackie brown in the '90s Elmore Leonard revival game but I think it's good. I think sonnenfeld did a decent job directing it but I also think it veered into OTT camerawork on occasion too. Travolta was great and likable (tho the role has warning signs of oncoming smugness taking over), gandolfini was great, farina was Oscar-worthy, Hackman was good.

Travolta has never impressed me in anything and strikes me only as barely acceptable as an actor, but then I've never been able to watch SNF all the way through, either.

snf, blowout, pulp

lots of these i havent seen though (urban cowboy, stayin alive), but for some reason i doubt my faves would change.
i kinda liked get shorty! havent sen it since college tho

Re cryptosicko: I should clarify that I meant brutal as a compliment--brutal as in vivid, and completely up-front, especially with regards to race. When I saw it as a teenager, I was either oblivious to that stuff or I'd forgotten it by the time I saw it years later. Eye-opening: I was amazed that the film had more or less been reduced to Travolta walking down the street as "Stayin' Alive" played.

Also eye-opening was a long-ago party I went to given by another teacher. She and all her friends were in their mid-late '20s; I was getting close to 40. When they played the Grease soundtrack, all of them were ritualistically singing along word for word and re-enacting stuff from the movie--it was like that film was to them what The Godfather was to me and my friends.

I think the reason I responded negatively to the very grittiness that you praise the film for is because I'd put off seeing it for so long that I got to know it solely through its reputation courtesy of the soundtrack, Travolta's iconic moves and all that. Also, I seem to remember Ebert's (strongly positive) review painting it as a straight up teenage romance. Wasn't really prepared for how unlikeable the characters were, or how little actual disco music there seemed to be in the film.

All of this is definitely pointing towards me needing to take another look at the film.

Also, I'd call this the definitive review of Moment by Moment, but I doubt there are even that many reviews of it still out there at all. Still very much worth reading, though.

Thanks for that link. Funny--I felt bad for not choosing my words more carefully yesterday, and here's Rabin using the word "chemistry" in his very first sentence, and then three more times in his second paragraph. Anyway, it appears that something went grievously wrong with that film--it's like it's been erased from film history. I want to find a copy of it now.

via Fandor:

Glenn Kenny recalls going to the party after the premiere of Jackie Brown (1997) and bumping into Abel Ferrara: “Feeling sufficiently emboldened by the festive vibe, I asked Ferrara how he, who had made a movie, the ill-fated 1989 Cat Dancer, from an Elmore Leonard book some years prior to Tarantino’s film… thought Quentin had done by the maestro. ‘He did great. Got the tone just right. Did you see Get Shorty?’ He rolled his eyes. ‘God. So studio-ized. Every time they shoot Travolta from a low angle they’ve got the fucking key light giving him a halo.’"

lol @ "Tratomlin"

dude's CV is largely an abomination, and although he's in a handful of great films there's only a couple I think he carries all by himself. And I think he's good in PF even though on the whole I don't like it and consider it QT's second worst film. But his storyline+character are the one thread that really works imho. If I was going just on films I'd vote Carrie without a moment's hesitation, performance-wise though it's boringly either PF or SNF.

I'll watch anything with this guy. He is such an oddly compelling presence. His bombs are more fun than many supposedly good films.

Came across Urban Cowboy] in a sale bin today. I've never seen it--will try to watch within the next couple of days. Everyone who's saying SNF/PF, I think you're underrating how good he is in Blow Out. I feel like this poll may have sent some bad karma Elmore Leonard's way.

damn. his career from 2000 forward worse than his 'wilderness years' from '83 - '93 y/n?

He's definitely annoying in Swordfish.

From Paris with Love was hideous, as was Travolta in it.

I like the new thing where Travolta is bald & I like him in general. I wish he wasn't a dumb Scientologist. Tom Cruise is creepy, but I just get the sense that Travolta got duped and now feels way too deep into it to get out. Kinda makes me sad.

Travolta didn't get duped he made a deal

Punisher was a treat on some levels

10 year old me would vote for Two of a Kind. However I was

but my vote will probably go for SNF because that's the Travolta I see when I think of him. But there's at least 5 contenders so I need to ponder.

Travolta & Pinter & Altman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYV0sbzEIJQ

Shit, that one's not it.

Here it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MKcSPh7vB4

When I was drawing up the list, that one intrigued me--cut it, though, with the other TV stuff.

Don't think I'll get to watch Urban Cowboy tonight. I'll vote for Blow Out--I think he's as good in that as in SNF/Pulp Fiction, and I prefer the film as a tie-breaker.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

ahhhhahahaha

The Dissolve's "Forgotbusters" on the Phenomenon/Michael twofer, a pair of films that look even more unwatchable to me than Battlefield Earth (though I've never seen any of them):

http://thedissolve.com/features/forgotbusters/939-a-1996-double-feature-looks-at-the-year-of-john-tr/

christ Phenomenon is a crock.

I've never seen it, but people fucking loved it when it came out.

Michael is my dad's favourite movie.

I was hoping Michael would make it -- classic nominee.

all i really remember about michael is that andie macdowell and william hurt's voices realllly grated against each other, and that randy newman's music was goofy. barely any memory of what i saw though.

and the mullet

I would not call this a sign of confidence...given that the movie is supposed to come out in ten days.

http://www.tracking-board.com/lionsgate-drops-john-travoltas-mob-drama-gotti-sells-rights-back-to-producers-exclusive/

sorry to be late here

🎬'Staying Alive' starring John Travolta premiered in theaters 35 years ago today, July 15, 1983 pic.twitter.com/1fyqcdLxmr

— RetroNewsNow (@RetroNewsNow) July 15, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6qR2K7NLhs

boy this really looks like something....his voice is starting to sound pretty odd.

there’s very little about latterday travolta that is not pretty odd tbf

the trailer is trying to build up some major Wolf of Wall Street energy.

idk i think Travolta's charisma remains effective when he's in the right role, i could see this being completely cheesy fun.

but man his hair..."hair" rather

If I had voted in this poll, I would have voted for Welcome Back, Kotter.

So, is Moment by Moment funny/interesting/weird bad, or just bad bad? There's a 1080p blu-ray rip up on YouTube for the time being.

Interesting by default--Travolta's follow-up to SNF and Grease, so the absolute zenith of his popularity--but plodding, as I remember it. If I'm counting correctly, he's been in 14 films since I put this poll up.

Actually 11--I counted some TV/video work.

Watched Moment by Moment last night (thanks for the tip, cryptosicko). Hard to figure how this got an R rating. I found Lily Tomlin's home decor and the background views of Malibu, Beverly Hills & elsewhere more interesting than the characters. "Plodding" seems accurate. There's a pair of lap dogs that get too much screen time.

There's a scene in it where Tomlin is holding Travolta's head and says, "I think you have a fever."

And I'm screaming at my TV, "It's a NIGHT Fever!"

Yeah, Tomlin's beach house was definitely the best thing about this. Otherwise, I suppose there is some pleasure to be had here for bad movie aficionados--the matching haircuts, the banal dialogue, Tomlin and Travolta's legendary anti-chemistry--but mostly I thought it was just dull.