Rating: 
Summary: a joyous comedy
Review: One of the most delightful films of recent years, "Calendar Girls," a distaff version of "The Full Monty," is the true story of a group of middle-aged English women who became international celebrities when they designed and posed for a nude fundraising calendar that sold millions of copies worldwide. Julie Walters and Helen Mirren head a wonderful cast, with Walters as a woman whose husband dies of leukemia and Mirren as her best friend who comes up with the idea of the calendar as a way of both honoring his memory and raising money for the local hospital. The risk for any "feel good" comedy is that it will become cloying, coy or cutesy. Luckily, "Calendar Girls" boasts an enormously witty screenplay and first-rate performances by its highly gifted cast. Each of the "girls" is given her own unique personality so that we see them not just as a group, united in this inspiring endeavor, but as individuals working through their own personal demons on the rode to the project's completion. The women face the expected roadblocks and snafus in the form of "shocked," disapproving voices in the community, but their belief in the rightness of their cause brushes all such problems aside. This charming film provides more genuine, out-and-out laughs than almost any comedy of recent times. "Calendar Girls" is heartwarming, touching and inspiring - and what more could one ask from a "feel-good" film than that?
Rating: 
Summary: Poignant, funny, and touching
Review: When Annie's husband dies of leukemia, her friends, led by her best friend Chris, rally around her and decide to raise money to fight leukemia by producing a nude calendar with them and their friends as models. To say that they are a bit older than most pin-up girls is to understate the case, and they approach the actual day of the "shoot" with fear and trepidation. However, they soon overcome their reluctance and the result is a fantastic success which they never dreamed could happen. They are beseiged with newspaper reporters and camera men and they even end up going to Hollywood to appear on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Their sudden success is not without its downside, however, as marriages are effected and children are thoroughly embarrassed by their mother's "exposure". This movie is a delight and the subject matter is handled tastefully and always with wit and good humor. The women are all members of the WI, Women's Institute which was a stuffy organization before they lightened it up. This film is highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: A Contemplative, Warm and Caring Comedy...
Review: In the western society, ageism is becoming more prominent as people fear growing old and miracle nip and tuck solutions are steadily growing. TV shows and commercials spew out an abundance of messages of staying fit and healthy, which is often related to youth. In times such as these it is essential that people are enlightened that maturing is a normal and healthy aspect of life. The film Calendar Girls does a brilliant job getting this message across to the audience as women in their 50s and older undress in front of a photographer for the good cause of fighting leukemia.
The story takes place in a small town in Northern Yorkshire where the Women's Institute (WI) holds regular meetings that often consist of some slumber-inducing lecture. Two of the WI members are best friends, Chris (Helen Mirren) and Annie (Julie Walter), who attend the meeting just to get away from home. Not that the women don't like their home life--they just do so in order to get away and gossip. However, when Annie's husband, John (John Alderton), discovers that he has leukemia, which also leads to his unfortunate death, it changes everything at the WI.
John's departure changes the perspective on life for Annie, and also for Chris who comes up with the idea of making a unique calendar in honor of John. The calendar is to have the theme of a sunflower, which was John's favorite flower as he described it as a satellite dish that sought sunshine. The satellite is an analogy for life and what was important to John. This is what the women want to capture through the calendar as they decide that they will undress in the honor of John.
Nudity is often something that is considered dirty, naughty, and often is the reason for a film to get a stricter rating by the MPAA here in the United States. However, in many European nations nudity is often consider normal and cultured, as it does not affect the rating in a harsh manner as long as the nudity is projected in a natural manner. For example, a natural manner would be such as a taking a shower without sexual meaning. Calendar Girls has some similarities with Full Monty (1997) and one of these similarities would be the decent manner of depicting nudity. Here, the nudity is natural as the women struggle with their own awkward feelings about it, but the photographer is the one who feels the most awkward.
Calendar Girls is a warm and caring comedy by the director Nigel Cole who is not foreign to depicting mature women as his heroines. In Saving Grace (2000) Cole depicted a middle-aged woman finding a financial solution through growing Marijuana in her house. This time Cole brings a film based on a true story where 11 women made a calendar in order to raise money for a hospital. The cast also provides a solid performance, which is to be expected from skilled actors such as Helen Mirren and Julie Walkers among others. Despite some similarities with other films Cole succeeds in directing a unique story with several subplots that holds the audience's interest while being amusing and contemplative.
Rating:
Summary: Very good movie, however......
Review: I won't bother you with how good I thought this movie was. Others have done that quite well already. I do have one question about the widescreen presentation, though: Why is the ratio for the movie itself different from the ratio in all the deleted scenes? Makes you wonder if the movie is presented in the so-called "fake" widescreen. Anybody know why there's a difference?
Rating:
Summary: The Most Extraordinary Stage of the Flower.....
Review: What happens when something that smacks of "unfairness" happens to one of your closest friends? The natural response is to want to do something - to somehow make it better. In "Calendar Girls" Chris sets out to do exactly that for her beloved friend, Annie, when Annie's husband, John, dies quickly and almost without warning from leukemia.
There are certain aspects of this film which really spoke to me personally: the women doing Tai Chi together on a glorious, sunny hillside; the deep friendships and compassion -even from the chair person of WI (who had the markings of initially being an adversary); the impact of one's action upon our families; the beauty within each stage of life and finally the grief process itself.
This movie is neither fast paced nor is it "sound bite friendly" - it lingers and speaks to you later as you remember and appreciate the subtle nuances of the characters and appreciate their freshness, candor and for some of them, their reawakening to their beauty.
I highly recommend it - especially as a movie to be savored repeatedly, perhaps slowly after the first viewing. Admire it as you would gladly drink an excellent cup of tea or a glass of fine wine.
Rating:
Summary: Very good movie
Review: I thought this movie had it all ,it's one of the ones that will make you cry, and laugh it's just a great movie all around ..
Rating:
Summary: Pleasant Diversion!
Review: A pleasant movie depicting small town life in England, and perhaps in other places as well. The friendship of the women is laudable, and that kind of thinking and action is missing from so much of life here in the US. Women who have known each other for many, many years and who obligate themselves to regularly attend scheduled meetings of the Women's Institute, despite boredom and disinterest of many of them with the meetings' agendas. The women still attend, and maintain their contact with each other . . for what? . . for friendship! The nude calendar, where the women are not really shown nude, is a pleasant diversion for them, compensating them for years of listening to experts on broccoli and the vagaries of toast, etc. How realistic is the story??? . . . I hope that places like this do exist.
Rating:
Summary: Good first half
Review: The first half of this movie is really entertaining, funny but with heart. Helen Mirren is great--as usual--in the lead role. Towards the second half, however, things start to drag, and then there's a pointless conflict, along with some unnecessary subplots (such as the son's "drug problem" ehh...).
It's a fun, fine movie though, I just wish it had hung on to its original... gusto (?) through to the second half.
Rating:
Summary: BEAUTY KNOWS NO AGE LIMITS
Review: Based on a true story, Nigel Cole's CALENDAR GIRLS is a whimsical, touching, but sometimes trivial movie. Trivial only in that there are many moments when nothing of any real importance happens, and the crisis points are predictably maudlin and overdone. But a delightful cast still manages to entertain. The idea of 50+ ladies a la natural is hard to fathom, but these ladies are so elegantly attractive and the calendar poses so tastefully done, one can't help but get caught up when the calendar becomes an international success.
Helen Mirren, long overdue an Oscar, brings her role as Chris, the instigator of the calendar, to a marvelous fruition. Ciaran Hinds (Sum of All Fears, Lara Croft Cradle of Life) is very good as her husband whose off hand comments to a sneaky newsman causes a rift in their marriage. Julie Walters (Oscar nominated years ago for Educating Rita) matches Mirren in her role as the widow whose husband's death inspires the calendar. The other ladies, Annette Crosbie and Penelope Wilton especially, are all very accomplished in their performances.
Not an earth shaking movie, but an uplifting one in that it proves that beauty is not relegated to the young, maybe the young at heart.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Fabulous ;)
Review: What a great movie! Touching, witty and well-acted. Based on a true story, Calendar Girls is the story of a group of members from a somewhat starch-collared dried-up women's fellowship club deciding to raise money to buy a comfy couch for the relatives room at the local hospital (where one of the club members husbands recently died from leukemia). Rest of the review is in the extended entry.
In previous years, they had done calendars with pictures of cakes, jams, flowers, etc - those calendars netted less than 100 pounds profit. They needed to do something different this year. Something that would make some money.
They are inspired by the dying husbands speech he had written to give at a future club meeting:
:::: "The flowers of Yorkshire are like the women of Yorkshire. Every stage of their growth has its own beauty, but the last phase is always the most glorious ... Then very quickly they all go to seed." ::::
One of the women comes up with the idea of doing an arty-nude calendar - the catch being that all the women are in their later years and all their "bits" are covered with buns, watering cans, knitting needles, or their choir books.
The ensuing story is hilarious as the husbands find out what their wives are up to, the photographer is chosen, the actual photo-shoot takes place (who could forget ... "We're going to need considerably bigger buns"!), one of the women's children getting caught smoking a joint (of oregano!), and of course when the media finds out - it gets crazy!
We see the women blossom ... friendships are strengthened ... and LOTS of money is raised for leukemia research (approximately 1 million American dollars) and of course for the new couch in the hospital waiting room.
It's a feel good movie - it will have you laughing, crying and thinking about whats really important in life! It gets a rating of 5 stars!!
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