The Hot Flashes

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!

''A group of middle aged women play basketball and prove a point.'' And that is, with not many other words, the entire movie. The entire 90 minutes you sit there, there are no other plots, no other events, no other nothing. Just that. 5 middle aged women playing basketball to raise some money for charity. The first half of the movie seems a bit interesting, as the actions happen in different places, the dialogs are varied, but then , in the second half of the movie, things become, let's say, static. It only focuses on the gym where the games are played and that's it. Quite boring for 45 minutes. And even worse, the ending is ridiculously predictable, it doesn't give any thrill. Important is that there are no useless scenes, everything that happens, matters. All in all, if you are just trying to waste the next hour and a half, I am quite sure that you can find something more thrilling than this.

Go in with low expectations and you'll find this unexpectedly enjoyable. It's a low budget old ladies finding new meanings movie. The acting ranges from good to bad and the story moves at a moderate pace. I actually quite enjoy watching this as a background noise while doing some work. Doesn't require much brain power and has a couple of good laughs.

"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 are a lot of movies that get released that sport a cast of known actors but for whatever reason gets shoved straight to video. Sometimes it's obvious why but others end up being really entertaining and make no sense they didn't get a bigger push. The latest The Hot Flashes features Brooke Shields, Daryl Hannah, Wanda Sykes, Andrea Frankle, Camryn Manheim, Virginia Madsen, and Eric Roberts and is sponsored American Cancer Society but does it make for a good film?

The Hot Flashes follows an under-appreciated group of middle-aged women, all former high school champs who challenge the current arrogant high school girls' state champs to a series of games to raise money for breast cancer prevention. This movie is actually pretty entertaining for what it is, but is never really able to step out of feeling like some sort of Lifetime movie. That isn't such a bad thing, but given the cast involved you would kind of expect more. Everyone here delivers some fun performances and seems to be having a great time but the movie itself just seems to struggle to really find its footing. Some of the film is a drama while other aspects are a comedy, but never really commits to either. Most of this film is pretty predictable, but thanks to the cast it entertains in somewhat of an awkward way at times as they try to pull this team together. There are all the clichéd characters for this kind of film and they build up numerous situations, but only some of them are resolved at the end. There are some you just let go or let your imagination fill in the gaps but there are others that have a pretty strong build up and they seem to get lax and rush the resolution.

This is one of those movies that will find a particular audience that will love it and others that will probably skip it all together, but no matter which of these categories you fall in, you are sure to be entertained in this quirky comedy. It plays most things safe, but still tries to craft a story in recognition of some important subject matter and the film deserves its shot for that alone.