Word: jobeth
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...remake of John Cleese's classic '70s British sitcom, Fawlty Towers, Payne (Wednesday, 8 p.m. E.T., CBS) stars Larroquette as a cranky, stingy hotelier undermined by his dominating wife (JoBeth Williams) and his own incompetence. If Payne serves any purpose at all, it's to show what a genius Cleese is. In the wrong hands the characters are badly drawn cartoons, the jokes offensive stereotypes and the plots a bad cross of the Keystone Kops and Three's Company. Sure, Fawlty Towers was also based on silly misunderstandings and coincidences, but it carefully built toward a manic, slapstick conclusion...
...film, directed by veteran TV producer Linda Yellen, grew out of improvisations at Robert Redford's Sundance Institute, so a wary male critic is at least prepared for the film's politically correct earnestness. One of the group, Natalie (JoBeth Williams), is a movie critic who raises money to make a film about homeless women. Another, Maggie (Talia Shire), is a nun who faces a spiritual crisis after she helps a woman get an abortion. There are lesbian revelations, a discussion of the Anita Hill hearings and rampant man bashing. Rheza (Lindsay Crouse) has been dumped by her husband...