At their most exasperating, the films of writer-director Henry Jaglom (A Safe Place, New Year's Day) can still pull you up short with flashes of wit and insight. Eating features thirty-eight women (and no men) at a birthday party thrown by forty-year-old Helene (Lisa Richards). Martine (Nelly Alard), Helene's house guest from Paris, uses the occasion to shoot a documentary about female obsession with food. The talk soon extends to sex, love, jealousy, men and each other.

This long day's conversation into night is by turns lively, erotic, instructive and maddening. Even when the pace lags, the actors stay spirited, with Frances Bergen outstanding as Helene's mother. Men are given no chance to defend themselves; some may find that food for thought, others a cause of indigestion.

“Everyday People”

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.