Good/Bad Chick Flicks

[Chuck]

How are Bridesmaids, Clueless and Mean Girls hybrids? I really liked Clueless and Mean Girls, and I think Bridesmaids is one of the most overrated movies in recent years. It is pitched as a women's The Hangover, but it is actually just depressing, the plot is ridiculous, and there is at least 20 minutes of filler that could be cut out. That is one of those movies that I also think should have been better because there was a strong cast and the characters were interesting, but the writers didn't know where to take it.

Hybrid because most of the entries have been date night Romcoms. Clueless and Mean Girls could fit into the Teen space (like Sixteen Candles), but they were geared towards women / girls, which makes them different. They were both great.

I called Bridesmaids a hybrid because it's really a Buddy movie (a category described in this thread), but the buddies are women. I agree with you that the Kristen Wiig character is an insufferable loser, but there were some side splitting scenes. Also, there was probably some fluff that could be removed, but you can say the same about most buddy films. Finally, I don't care about the plot. It's not like Tommy Boy and Anchorman should win best screenplay.

Separately, the Woman Buddy movie is something that the movie industry should focus on. I haven't gone to see a movie with my guy friends since I was in my 20s (He Got Game with some UConn friends), but every woman in my suburban town went to see "Bad Moms" and they're all planning to see the sequel. They sell well and they're cheap to make.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I think Bad Moms is a lot better than Bridesmaids. It is stupid, but it is also just funny. They don't bother with the dramedy that Bridesmaids had, and the pace was much better. When a scene doesn't work, it doesn't drag it out for 20 minutes.

Bridesmaids only truly good scene was in the dress shop. The airplane was so awkward it was painful to watch. I thought Kemper, McCarthy and the mom from the Goldberg's were really interesting characters, but was stuck watching Rose Byrne, Wig and Rudolph whine for 2 hours. The movie should have gone more ensemble.

 

[dbmill]

My 2 cents limited to movies not mentioned:

Good:
A League of Their Own.

Bad:
Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion. Terrrible!

Hybrid: If a "chick flick" is a movie aimed towards a female audience:
Bridesmaids
Clueless (teen... but teen girls)
Mean Girls
Cruel Intentions (just kidding)

My 2 cents limited to movies not mentioned:

Good:
A League of Their Own.

Bad:
Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion. Terrrible!

Hybrid: If a "chick flick" is a movie aimed towards a female audience:
Bridesmaids
Clueless (teen... but teen girls)
Mean Girls
Cruel Intentions (just kidding)

A League of Their Own has gotten a few mentions. It’s a good but not great movie, entertaining with no real dull spots. It is a movie with for better or worse lots of formulaic elements, and I wish they had found some female extras who could throw a baseball decently. Also, Lori Petty’s kid sister role can get rather annoying. On the big plus side are the performances of Geena Davis (she does look convincing in catching gear) and the luck of having Tom Hanks in the cast right before he hit big time stardom. And remember, he delivers one of the all time sports movie lines, “There’s no crying in baseball!”. And thankfully, a romance does not develop between the Davis and Hanks characters. For me the plusses outweigh the flaws, and I find myself often watching it to the end if I happen to come across it while channel surfing.

This movie came out in during a time period when a number of good baseball movies where released. Two wonderfully great films, Bull Durham and Field of Dreams, had both come out a few years earlier. Also, the John Sayles directed Eight Men Out came out in 1988, and that one isn’t too shabby either. There are baseball movies from that time that could be mentioned as well, but those are the high points for me.

 

[Waquoit]

Can one call Battle of the Sexes a chick flick? The screening I attended was 95% women. I give it a solid B, an enjoyable couple of hours at the movies.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

500 Days of Summer, with Zoey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon Levitt is not completely awful.

I saw the thread title and was scanning for this movie. Not ashamed to say this is literally a top 5 in my favorite movies ever. The music is incredible. The cinematography is beautiful. I found JGL painfully relatable ( I had pretty recently ended a 4 year relationship and was just 21 when this movie came out so it definitely hit home. ) Plus Zooey Deschanel as crappy as her character is in this movie is very very very easy on the eyes.

 

[Fishy]

I think Bad Moms is a lot better than Bridesmaids. It is stupid, but it is also just funny.

This is what happens when someone with no discernible sense of humor tries to review a comedy. It's like asking someone who's colorblind to paint a rainbow.

 

[shizzle787]

This is the cuckiest thread in history. It has grown men talking about chick flicks...and Spartacus.

 

[intlzncster]

This is the cuckiest thread in history. It has grown men talking about chick flicks...and Spartacus.

One and the same man...one and the same.

 

[huskyrob1]

Casablanca and O&G are not chick flicks. Just because there is a romance plotline in a movie doesn't make it a chick flick.

I agree with your choices on the bad side with the exception of Sixteen Candles, which was really a teen movie more than chick flick. Anthony Michael Hall is as much of a star of that movie as Molly Ringwald. I thought it was pretty good too.

Kate Winslet shows her knockers in Titanic, which automatically gets a movie to B+ in my book.

Working Girl was painfully stupid. I can't believe it was so successful.

Corny but people loved it, I still remember the long lines outside the theater. 9 To 5 was another big hit, Dabney Coleman steals the movie though. My favorite chick flicks...

Places in the Heart
The Turning Point
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

 

[nelsonmuntz]

This is what happens when someone with no discernible sense of humor tries to review a comedy. It's like asking someone who's colorblind to paint a rainbow.

You are more wrong about this than you have ever been about anything. Bad Moms is better than Bridesmaids, and it isn't even close.

 

[John]

Just saw Silver Linings Playbook, thought it was really good. Great scenes of Jennifer Lawrence shaking her moneymaker too.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

I’d rather eat a poop sandwich than watch bridesmaids again. A real poop fest of a movie.

 

[Bliss]

Made of Honor may be a chick flick but it sure has some hot women in the cast.

 

[Dove]

I’d rather eat a poop sandwich than watch bridesmaids again. A real poop fest of a movie.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

My problem is that if you watch a trailer or any promo it’s marketed as “The Hangover: Starring...Women!” which is a complete lie. Its about a woman with a horrible life in her mid 30s who is one mishap from suicide. The poop scene and the plane scene are the only things I think are even trying to be funny.

 

[Deepster]

My problem is that if you watch a trailer or any promo it’s marketed as “The Hangover: Starring...Women!” which is a complete lie. Its about a woman with a horrible life in her mid 30s who is one mishap from suicide. The poop scene and the plane scene are the only things I think are even trying to be funny.

And there's the fact that, well, women just aren't funny.

 

[Dove]

My problem is that if you watch a trailer or any promo it’s marketed as “The Hangover: Starring...Women!” which is a complete lie. Its about a woman with a horrible life in her mid 30s who is one mishap from suicide. The poop scene and the plane scene are the only things I think are even trying to be funny.

The scene where Wiig was doing the drive-bsy trying to get the cop's attention.
The scene with the puppies.
The country club toast-off.
Chris O'Dowd.

Whoever said "The Hangover...starring women" was way off.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

My problem is that if you watch a trailer or any promo it’s marketed as “The Hangover: Starring...Women!” which is a complete lie. Its about a woman with a horrible life in her mid 30s who is one mishap from suicide. The poop scene and the plane scene are the only things I think are even trying to be funny.

That movie sucked on every level. If you look at it as a drama, it is an unorganized mess. Is the movie about the wedding, Wig's crashing life, or Wig's feud with the friend? No matter which one or ones it is, it is hard to care about any of them.

I think the marketing was actually brilliant. There was no reason for anyone to see this movie on its own merits so the studio had to be deceptive.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

The scene where Wiig was doing the drive-bsy trying to get the cop's attention.
The scene with the puppies.
The country club toast-off.
Chris O'Dowd.

Whoever said "The Hangover...starring women" was way off.

That movie sucked on every level. If you look at it as a drama, it is an unorganized mess. Is the movie about the wedding, Wig's crashing life, or Wig's feud with the friend? No matter which one or ones it is, it is hard to care about any of them.

I think the marketing was actually brilliant. There was no reason for anyone to see this movie on its own merits so the studio had to be deceptive.

Here is the official trailer. Looks like a romp focused on all the bridesmaids equally having wacky adventures. The non-Wiig characters get as much character development in the whole movie as they do in this trailer. Everything from the GD name and movie poster (which every lame girl to get married in the last 5 years has so originally copied) is just a joke. I HATE everything about this movie.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Another issue with Bridesmaids is that while trying to be a dramedy, all the characters are completely unrelateable. Ellie Kemper, Melissa McCartney and Wendi McClendon-Covey have some good lines, and may have been relateable with more screen time, but they are hard to connect to. The three main characters are totally unrelateable, and actually just unlikeable in a boring way. All the characters are two dimensional, despite a running time of over 2 hours. That is a lot of screen time to flesh out the characters, but it is wasted on drawn out scenes with weak payoffs.

There is also something kind of manhater about Bridesmaids that gets under my skin. The cop is a tool, and Jon Hamm's character is a stereotype. I have problems with both characters because A) I know it is a women's fantasy movie, but a loser like Wig's character would NEVER get someone like Hamm's character, even just as a booty call, and B) I hate chick flicks where the woman treats the guy like dirt (as Wig did with the cop) and he keeps coming back for more (see the Notebook). Women may like that plot line, but I hate it.

This is why I think Bad Moms is so much better than Bridesmaids. Bad Moms is EXACTLY the movie you think it will be, and it delivers on that level.
ALL the characters in Bad Moms are relateable, even Applegate's sidekicks. As silly as the premise is, I did end up caring about the characters. They are vulnerable without being pathetic, and they are trying to make the best of things rather than wallowing in their own pity. Even the male characters are more interesting in Bad Moms.
​

 

[Husky25]

I can't believe you people are debating Bridesmaids as if it is supposed to be a masterpiece of American cinema.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I can't believe you people are debating Bridesmaids as if it is supposed to be a masterpiece of American cinema.

See thread title

 

[Husky25]

See thread title

Exactly my point.

 

[EdgewoodNHV]

Another issue with Bridesmaids is that while trying to be a dramedy, all the characters are completely unrelateable.

That's pretty much tons of buddy comedies. Did you actually like any of the characters in the Hangover? Cause they were all jerks and idiots.

Still an entertaining movie, though. Part of moviemaking is making hilarious, unrelatable characters somehow lovable by the end.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

Another issue with Bridesmaids is that while trying to be a dramedy, all the characters are completely unrelateable. Ellie Kemper, Melissa McCartney and Wendi McClendon-Covey have some good lines, and may have been relateable with more screen time, but they are hard to connect to. The three main characters are totally unrelateable, and actually just unlikeable in a boring way. All the characters are two dimensional, despite a running time of over 2 hours. That is a lot of screen time to flesh out the characters, but it is wasted on drawn out scenes with weak payoffs.

There is also something kind of manhater about Bridesmaids that gets under my skin. The cop is a tool, and Jon Hamm's character is a stereotype. I have problems with both characters because A) I know it is a women's fantasy movie, but a loser like Wig's character would NEVER get someone like Hamm's character, even just as a booty call, and B) I hate chick flicks where the woman treats the guy like dirt (as Wig did with the cop) and he keeps coming back for more (see the Notebook). Women may like that plot line, but I hate it.

This is why I think Bad Moms is so much better than Bridesmaids. Bad Moms is EXACTLY the movie you think it will be, and it delivers on that level.
ALL the characters in Bad Moms are relateable, even Applegate's sidekicks. As silly as the premise is, I did end up caring about the characters. They are vulnerable without being pathetic, and they are trying to make the best of things rather than wallowing in their own pity. Even the male characters are more interesting in Bad Moms.
​

Plus anything with Mila Kunis and Kirsten Bell is instantly watchable.

Did anyone see Sisters? A complete throwaway movie with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler but another good recent example of a well done female buddy comedy.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

That's pretty much tons of buddy comedies. Did you actually like any of the characters in the Hangover? Cause they were all jerks and idiots.

Still an entertaining movie, though. Part of moviemaking is making hilarious, unrelatable characters somehow lovable by the end.

How do you not relate to the characters in the Hangover? They are like every male group of friends that I know, and there is always that one guy in the group that has some sketchy friends (like Chow) that you probably shouldn't be hanging out with as an adult.