It's tough to imagine a guy who won't squirm through this tale of 1950s housewife Evelyn Ryan (Julianne Moore), whose knack for winning jingle contests comes in handy when her booze-hound husband, Kelly (Woody Harrelson), drinks away his machinist salary instead of using it for the care and feeding of their ten kids. Director Jane Anderson, who adapted the script from a memoir by Evelyn's daughter Terry, clearly wants to show how one woman used her talent and optimism to break out of the pumpkin shell that society trapped her in. Sadly, Anderson's screenplay lacks the bite that distinguished her 1993 HBO movie The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom. The prize in this movie is Moore, a first-rate actress who finds layers in Evelyn that the script fails to investigate. Moore is the genuine article, finding the secret heart of a movie that is content to stay on the sappy surface.

“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.