Hope Springs (2012)

Directed by David Frankel
Starring Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, and Steve Carell

by Joshua Simpkins

Have you been married for decades? Has your marriage become stale, boring, or uneventful? Is the magic gone? Was there ever any magic to begin with? Do you and your spouse live different bedrooms? Is it time for a change? Do you want something more from your marriage? If you answered “Yes” to all these things then it just might be time for you to schedule an appointment with renowned marriage counselor, Dr. Feld (Steve Carell), in Hope Springs, Maine. He can help you turn your stuffy, worn-out marriage back into what it used to be, when you were young and in love. Run through those fields again, letting your hands brush through the tops of wild grass…wait? That’s sounds like that herpes commercial…Hmm…forget about that. Anyways, Dr. Feld can bring back the magic.

Kay (Meryl Streep) and Arnold (Tommy Lee Jones) have answered "Yes" to all the above questions. They have been married 31 years, sleep in different bedrooms, and barely speak to one another. They are in a rut. Kay is tired and wants something new. Arnold is unresponsive. She is unsure of what to do, until she discovers a book written by Dr. Feld (Steve Carell). Desperate to find something that works, she schedules Arnold and herself for an expensive week-long couples therapy with Dr. Feld in Hope Springs, Maine. Arnold is resistant to everything at first, but reluctantly agrees after Kay declares that she is going with or without him. Couples therapy begins and the hilarity ensues.

But, wait! You mean to tell me that there is not that much hilarity? That's not what the trailer, or marketing had me believe. I thought this was going to be hilarious! Where is the hilarity? Where is it? The truth is, this is a character study. This a simple movie about two people in a relationship. It is a movie about people talking. There are no bomb threats, no explosions, and no GGI, and not much hilarity. So, that is something that you should going into it. If you don't expect it, you might be disappointed.

A movie about people talking has got to have great acting for it to work and Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones are excellent in Hope Springs. Both actors come across as totally believable Midwestern middle-aged couple. Meryl’s performance is nuanced and subtle while Tommy Lee Jones really is that grumpy old man we see on the screen. It is perfect casting. Steve Carell is really great as the therapist, and for any "The Office" fans out there, you might find it hard to believe his performance when you see it. Somehow he pulls off not being Michael Scott. It is a tribute to his acting skills, as well.

FORCE THE BOYFRIEND: 5 out of 10 (Tough call.  If you plan on going to actual couples therapy with him in the future then let him skip it)

Beer Pairing Recommendation

(It's brewed in Maine and its strong.  For couples therapy you're going to need it)

For more about the chick flick, visit IMDB 

For more on Allagash Black, click here

Music of the Heart (1999)

Directed by Wes Craven
Starring Meryl Streep, Angela Bassett, Aidan Quinn, Cloris Leachman, with Gloria Estefan, and Josh Pais

From the critically acclaimed, award-winning master of horror film director Wes Craven comes the heart-stopping, shock filled, terror-inducing, Music of the Heart. See Meryl Streep survive a ghastly divorce! Gasp as Meryl Streep moves into Harlem! Scream as she comes face-to-face with inner city children! It is a film so frightening, so terrifying, so bone-chilling, that it changes the face of modern horror! Wait, the music isn’t scary? And, the heart isn’t bloody? You mean to tell me this is a chick flick! Now, I’ve seen everything!

For those of you that don’t know Wes Craven, he is the writer/director of such films as The Hills Have Eyes (1977), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), and Scream (1996). So, it is rather odd to find an “inspired by real events” chick flick lodged into the middle of his resume. Music of the Heart, stars Meryl Streep as Roberta Guaspari, a recently divorced mother of two young boys who must take a part-time job in Harlem teaching elementary students the violin. The job isn’t easy, but Roberta is tough, and stubborn and willing to make it work. She quickly learns that to survive in Harlem, and to protect her boys, she has got to stay strong. As time passes, she creates a very successful violin program that is beneficial to the community.

Meryl Streep, as Roberta, successfully carries the weight of the film on her back. She is in every scene, and as always is great. Surprisingly enough, with Wes Craven at the helm, this film does not carry too many surprises. At its “heart” it’s nothing more than a feel-good movie with a predictable plot and ending. But, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie. Sometimes we want to watch a positive film about people that doing great things. This is that type of movie.

So, to all the Wes Craven fans out there, unless you want to be scared, or chick flicks frighten you, don’t expect to be scared. Some chick flicks are pretty scary, though. I hear some people are scared of Meryl Streep, so go figure. I even heard she played the Devil, once. Maybe, Wes Craven was up to something after all.

FORCE THE BOYFRIEND: 4 out of 10 (He probably won't like it, unless he wants to be inspired)

Beer Pairing Recommendation

(It's a neat music inspired pale ale)

For more on the chick flick, visit IMDB

For more on the brew, click here

It's Complicated (2009)

Directed by Nancy Meyer  
Starring Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, and Alec Baldwin

by Tim Rousseau

Having struck a seedy back alley deal with the missus, I found myself sitting down in the theater to watch "It's Complicated." This is the newest film modern menopause cinema has to offer and who better to bring it to us than Nancy Meyer, the poster girl of the movement. With her last outing "Something's Got to Give", I was surprised by the humor and relieved by its wit. By the end of the movie I was sold into wanting for these characters. Not the case with this one. The setting is similar, beautiful home and countryside, swap east coast for west coast, everyone walks around eating pastries and drinking white wine. Money doesn't seem to be a problem. In fact, there aren't really any problems with these people.......and that's when things get COMPLICATED.

Meryl Streep is the cougar with the heart of gold and Alec Baldwin is the douche bag, absent, full of sh!t father who somehow isn't responsible for any selfish thing he does. Steve Martin is the nice guy doormat. Well, you can see where I'm going with this, it's time for a fifty-something love triangle! They've been divorced for 10 years. He's remarried to the mistress, she's lonely but oh so brave and independent. They screw, she feels guilty, he doesn't. All sorts of hijinks ensue, and all the while she's kinda sorta dating Steve Martin. Most of the screen time is dedicated to Alec Baldwin bullshitting his way into Meryl Streep's granny panties and it only gets thicker and more absurd. Ladies, imagine your man laying in bed with you on a Sunday morning trying to get some nookie. You know, just laying it on thicker and thicker till you just give it up to shut him up. Well, there's 2 hours worth of it here, just in case you ever wanted to know how divorcee's get down.

This may sound like the ranting of an angry boyfriend forced to watch a chick flick, and well... it is...but it's also the voice of someone trying to reach out. I want to like these films, comrades, I do but the chick flick is a subtle art. When done properly it will persuade and move the male to see more Romcoms, even oddly looking forward to the next one. Characters are everything and this one didn't have any that I even cared about. I have a feeling this film is more realistic than I want to admit. About divorce, about growing older, about re-discovering social rites in a world that has changed. Maybe I judge it too harshly. It wasn't a bad movie by any stretch. There was even a funny marijuana sequence involving Steve Martin being, well, Steve Martin which unlike Alec Baldwin's schtick will never get old.

FORCE THE BOYFRIEND: 6 out of 10 (men will like this more than they think but will grow tired of Alec Baldwin)

Beer Pairing Recommendation
It was so complicated I couldn't chose a specific beer...much like Meryl had a hard time picking a man

For more on this chick flick, visit IMDB

The Top 7 Chick Flicks of the 2000's -or- How Us Guys Learned to Stop Stressing and Just Watch The Chick Flick And Possibly Learn Something

If I've learned anything from watching all of these chick flicks it's that (Surprise!) some of them really aren't that bad. And, that some of them are really, really bad. Guys have been subjected to all kinds of horrible chick flick torture, and I know that secretly many of them ended up enjoying the movies that they were forcefully subjected to. So, in honor of 2010, I've compiled the Top 7 Chick Flicks of the 2000's and included a couple things us guys (and girls) may have learned from watching them.

7. My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)- This was a sleeper hit that no guy in his right mind would have ever wanted to see but when we did it actually wasn’t that bad. Like, Bridget Jones's Diary (see no. 5), hopefully, you women realized that guys perceive you differently than you might see yourselves. But, this movie was necessarily about the couple’s relationship with each other as much as it was about their relationship with her family. And, what a big, fat, greek family it was. This movie had a big heart which I think is necessary to any successful chick flick. See my review here.

6. Devil Wears Prada (2006)- The reason this movie is so good is because by the end of it we forget that its Meryl Streep acting. She’s that good. Maybe, us guys learned that you gotta let a girl go out there and do her own thing. Maybe you girls learned that you can’t please everyone all of the time. Hopefully, all of us learned to stand up for ourselves a little bit. Personally, I think the devil really does wear Prada.

5. Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)- If there is anything us guys learned from Bridget Jone’s Diary it was how cute and fun a girl with a “little extra meat on her bones” could be. Hopefully, if it taught you girls anything it’s that guys aren’t as picky and finicky about your body as you think we are (not most of us anyway). This movie was all about personality and it had a lot of it. It spawned a not-so-great sequel and we’ve been wishing Renee would go ahead and eat something ever since.

4. How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days (2003)- If anything can be said about Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson its that they can be really hit-or-miss (for bad Kate Hudson see “Bride Wars”; for bad Mr. Matt see, “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past”). But, whatever the case, the planets must have aligned and brought them together for HTLAG10D because they are both at their absolute best. Maybe both sexes learned that games aren’t funny. Or, maybe we didn’t learn anything. Doesn’t really matter, this movie is pure entertainment.

3. Legally Blonde (2001)-This movie was a cute comedy with a heart of gold (cheesy, I know…I thought of that myself) and made Reece Witherspoon a superstar. It schooled us guys to not judge a book by its cover and really taught everyone that blondes really do have more fun. Two horrible sequels have followed (the most recent called “Legally Blondes”) but we’ll just all try to remember Elle Woods as she was in this original chick flick. You go girl.

2. Love Actually (2003)- While this was an extremely well written movie with an amazing ensemble cast I think it was the underlying message, “Love actually is all around,” that made it such a great film. There were many lessons to be learned from this film (for both sexes). Maybe it was to appreciate the love your already have in your life. Or, for us guys, maybe it was just to verify that if we go to a different country we become exotic, immediately meet 3 amazingly hot roommates, and get to have the best sex of our lives. Whatever it was, I think the scenes of couples embracing at the airport, that bookend the film, really show what this film was all about.

1. The Notebook (2004)- This chick flick is great for so many reasons (see my review). One, the trailer looked horrible and made me throw up in my mouth. It looked like overly sentimental trash. And, maybe it was overly sentimental. But, in all the right ways. What did we guys learn from this? Maybe it’s to never give up on our dreams. Or, possibly, we don’t have to fight the fiance to get back the girl. He’ll be gracious about it and give her up without a fight. I’m really not going to go into why this movie is so great. If you don’t know why it’s great then you haven’t watched it…I mean really watched it. See my review here.


Runners Up (and why they didn't make it);

Sweet Home Alabama (2002)- because I hate movies with bad southern stereotypes

Mamma Mia (2008)- because not everyone loved it as much as I did...and that's understandable. See my review here.

Sex and The City: The Movie (2008) because I didn't learn anything from it...because I couldn't make it past the first 20 minutes. See my review here.

The Sweetest Thing (2002)- because while it is the first female "gross out" comedy. Well, I just didn't like it enough. See my review here.

Notting Hill (1999)- because it's actually from the 90's.

The Holiday (2006)- because...well, actually...I'm not sure because I really like this movie so maybe I should have included it. My bad.

Mamma Mia! (2008)

Starring Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and Amanda Seyfried
Directed by Phyllida Llloyd

Let me start by saying, I loved this movie! Now, with that being said…

When I first saw the trailer for “Mamma Mia!” I thought, “Wait a minute? Is this a musical about a woman who can’t determine who the father of her daughter is? WTF? Wait, let me rephrase that. So they made a musical about a woman who had so much sex she doesn’t know who the Dad is between three different guys? And, it’s based on a Broadway musical? And, Meryl Streep is playing the Mom? And, Pierce Brosnan is dancing? And, its based on the songs of ABBA? I'm not judging but...Again, I say, WTF?

This is not the type of chick flick that I would ever have any interest in watching by myself or forced by a female...Girlfriend, Wife, Cousin, Sister, Mom, or otherwise…I would rather watch 14 hours of a Creed/ Limp Bizkit reunion tour than watch this. I would rather listen to Gilbert Godfrey read me passages from the bibles than watch this. And, I hate to admit it, I would rather watch “The Sex and The City” movie before watching this. Actually, No, I take that back…I would not rather watch SATC (apparently its longer than the Lord of the Rings Trilogy). And, I saw the "Mamma Mia!" trailer before I watched the George Clooney/ Renee Zellweger dud, “Leatherheads”, which proves I will watch just about anything. So, what did I do? I watched it. Not just for the sake of my blog but because, as I said, I will watch just about anything including Gilbert Godfrey read passages from the Bible. The movie opens in a small seaside town along the Mediterranean as a girl quietly mails three envelopes in the middle on the night. Mysterious. We quickly learn, in song if I’m remembering correctly, that this girl is getting married and these three invites are secret wedding invitations. She has lived her whole life fatherless and after recently discovering her Mother’s old diary she learns that it could possibly be three different men. One of these men is played by Pierce Brosnan…and he sings. Yes, that is right, I said it… James Bond sings and it is very weird and melodramatic…but still very entertaining. Another one is played by Colin Firth, who is in every British chick flick ever made. He sings and then turns out to be gay…I think…well, he dances off with a hunky Greek guy. And the third is played by this Swedish dude that you’ve seen in like 800 other movies as the intense/ stubborn guy. What else was he in? Oh yeah, he was the intense/ stubborn Professor that discovers Matt Damon in “Good Will Hunting”. He also plays an intense/stubborn security guard in “Angels and Demons” which I saw last weekend…not bad. Enter Meryl Streep….Oooooh….need I say more? Anyways, the daughter wants to figure out which one her father is so he can walk her down the aisle. And they sing;

Mamma Mia! Here we go again. My, My How can I resist you?

Remember these lyrics because they will get stuck in your head!

The music is what made it for me. First of all it is ABBA so you have songs like “Dancing Queen” which is probably the most familiar. I’m not really a fan of ABBA and I have to admit I actually thought one of these songs was by Fleetwood Mac. What the hell does ABBA stand for anyways. (Ok, so I just wiki’d ABBA and apparently it is an acronym of all the band members names). I like the name Bjorn. What is that? Japanese?

The beer I chose to accompany “Mamma Mia!” was Weihenstephaner: Heff Weissbier (pronounced “Wei-hen-step-han-er”) and I think it’s German. The label claims it is from the World’s Oldest Brewery. I poured it into a frosty pint glass and it looked deliciously golden. It was fairly strong and since I have the tolerance of an 8-year old Geisha in training I was quickly buzzed. I think the buzz helped me get into the mood and into the musical. So, did the wine that followed the beer. I felt like Pirouetting around my apartment singing "Dancing Queen". Great song.

All in all, this was a great film. In fact, I was hesitant to mail it back to Netflix. I had resist the urge to run back and throw it back into the DVD player. Wait, I just added it back to my queue maybe next time I use the Sing-Along DVD feature…Mamma Mia! Here I go again.

FORCE THE BOYFRIEND:  4 out of 10 (You'll like it, but he probably won't)

Beer Pairing Recommendation

It's hard to pronounce but tastes pretty good.  It will get you
buzzed enough to sing along