brother and sister is no help, and though Miss Wagner's camera comes in for some tactful close-ups of flesh in the love scenes, they are singularly unerotic. One has the impression that these two lovers would prefer to be doing something else." Variety wrote that the film "has to rate as one of the major disappointments of 1978. What seemed like inspired casting on paper, the teaming of John Travolta and Lily Tomlin, fails badly in execution." Gene Siskel awarded the film 1.5 stars out of 4 and called it "a thoroughly awkward, frequently laughable love story that Travolta would do well not to defend, but to simply forget and move on to his next project. Chalk it up to working with the wrong people at the wrong time." Roger Ebert said on their TV show that the movie wasn't just bad—it was a "disaster." Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote: "The circumscribed nature of Jane Wagner's screenplay and the hazy nature of her direction tend to divorce the film from any semblance of reality, both social and erotic. For all practical purposes 'Moment by Moment' is a two-character idyll, concentrated at a location—the heroine's Malibu Colony beachhouse—that seems imaginary." Gilbert Adair of The Monthly Film Bulletin stated: "Critics are fond of attributing a film's badness to some hypothetical computer; this truly terrible movie might have been made by HAL in his most maudlin 'Bicycle-built-for-two' mood, as the plugs were being pulled out." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times was more positive in his review: "There have been many complaints that there is a lack of chemistry between the stars and that their dialogue is banal in the utmost ... Yet for those of us who respond to the intense concern Wagner projects for Tomlin and Travolta, there actually is chemistry between them and what they have to say to each other sounds lifelike rather than merely trite. At any rate, Tomlin and Travolta clearly have trusted in Wagner completely, giving themselves entirely to their roles, with Tomlin underplaying to Travolta's engaging projection of vulnerability." Moment by Moment holds a 25% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on eight reviews. Legacy The film has found popularity with some for its camp value, and the producers of Mystery Science Theater 3000 unsuccessfully attempted to obtain the rights to broadcast and mock the film on their show. Release Kino Lorber released