The Hot Flashes (2013)

This movie is like comfort food to any (intelligent) woman going thru menopause. How many movies can say that? Progressive and interesting on a number of different levels. Real life with no pretense, no plastic surgery. The cast is fabulous. Brooke Shields, Wanda Sykes, Daryl Hannah and Virginia Madsen, they are all interesting and should have been more developed as characters. And Mark Povinelli as the ex-veterinarian/coach? Kidnapping dogs to clean their teeth? Yes! Moonlight rescue! So progressive, pro tolerance, pro kindness. Of course the idea of charity basketball games to fund the mobile unit screening for breast cancer is great, but there is so much more here. Eric Roberts is a very believable character but he was a little obsessed with his hair. I mean, what man plays with his hair like that? Whatever. This movie is specifically wonderful from a human kindness/tolerance prospective. Bravo!

"Anyone who says menopause isn't the most divine time in a woman's life is a pessimist." Beth Humphrey (Shields) is a mother who is going through an early menopause and is not happy about it. She is trying to figure out what to do with her life when she finds out that the local free breast cancer screening truck is in danger of closing. She decides to get a team of women together to take on the state champs in a basketball game to raise money. I will open by saying that I am not the target audience for this movie. I am mid-thirties male but I will say that I didn't think this was that bad. I did find some of it funny but again the jokes weren't really for me. The message of this movie is inspiring and does leave you feeling good even though the movie is very predictable. The one thing I can say about this is that it would have been very good as a Lifetime movie instead of a direct-to-DVD movie. Overall, better then I expected but I think if you are the audience this is going for you will really like it. I give it a B-.

There is a sharp comic satire buried beneath the clichés and underwhelming effect Susan Seidelman's The Hot Flashes leaves on a viewer. Despite a capable directing effort on her part and the cast's evident enthusiasm for the material, this is a comedy that plays things safely and one that never is funnier than the idea of a basketball team called "The Hot Flashes." There's enough in the film to hold interest but not enough to cordially recommend.The plot centers around Beth (Brooke Shields), a middle-aged woman currently going through menopause, and her family, made up of her husband (Eric Roberts) and her daughter. When Beth, who is known to take up numerous hobbies, however, not known to carry them out in a meaningful way, realizes that the local mammogram unit will be closing due to lack of financing on her part, she decides to form a basketball team called "The Hot Flashes" with several girls from her quiet Texas town named "Burning Bush." The goal in mind is for the team to play the championship school basketball team and raise $25,000 to save the mammogram unit.As upsetting as this will be for some people to hear, the thematic idea that "women can do more than men" is hardly as subversive as it was so many years ago. While films should exist that show off a strong central female or more, having a film predicated off that idea and nothing more is beginning to become tiresome. The Hot Flashes even manages to downplay its central premise of menopause, offering little comedic or dramatic points about the inevitable, life-changing stage women must go through, only offering the redundant piece of optimism that despite menopausal setbacks they still have game.I recently watched a film called Coffee Town, which was a simple, pleasant comedy centered around three characters who spend their days at the local cafe, using it as a free-office with Wi-Fi, coffee, and all the baked goods they need. While a tad vulgar, the film managed to disregard the idea that a film needs to be oppressively raunchy in order to be funny. The Hot Flashes does something similar to Coffee Town, which is make most of the characters possess wholesome morality, or at least a moral compass. Not to mention, their southern drawl is a sweet diversion from the city-slicking bawdiness that has been commonplace in cinema recently. And it's always nice to see a film maturely explore the reality of age as well as the optimistic way of looking at it.But that doesn't excuse the idea that The Hot Flashes feels like Bridesmaids without a bite and that isn't because of the lack of language, sexual content, or gross-out humor. It's because Bridesmaids manages to try and make its characters come to life, using real-life situations and bittersweet reality. The characters in The Hot Flashes know they're getting older and there's no true reality to face since they're constantly reminding themselves they still have it. Not to mention, it doesn't help that the team itself is composed of the good mother, the sassy black lady, the chubby girl with the foul-mouthed, the town tramp, and the simple cowgirl.Starring: Brooke Shields, Daryl Hannah, Virginia Madsen, Wanda Sykes, Eric Roberts, Mark Povinelli, and Camryn Manheim. Directed by: Susan Seidelman.

Saw this last night at the USA Film Festival in Dallas. Wasn't aware of the director's background until she was introduced before the viewing. But she is impressive! The PSA encouraging women to get their annual mammogram is really funny as is the movie. The whole theater laughed and actually cheered during the basketball game sequences. My husband had to shush me when I kept cheering the great shots made by the Hot Flashes. These five women put in lots of hard work to become so proficient on the court, although there was probably a lot of footage left on the editing room floor. If it were not for a brief "sex" scene and the hilarious off color jokes, I would love to take my 11 year old granddaughter to see this to encourage her budding career!