Rating: 
Summary: Uh-uh on Ya Ya
Review: Under misfire, there should be a picture of this movie's poster.
A great cast was assembled, and a book that had some edge to it and should have made an excellent film (that perhaps a lot of men would have hated anyway) is de-fanged and turned into an Sunday Afternoon Lifetime Movie. Not for one minute did I believe Ashley Judd or even Sandra Bullock were playing flesh and blood characters. The rest of the cast is stranded as the editor and director cut short any non-verbal moments that might have resonated. Ellen Burstyn and Maggie Smith manage to grab a few good moments, but not often enough to save this poorly scripted, predictable, overly melodramatic film from being very entertaining to women who read the book. Of course maybe the fact they got the book made into a movie and Callie (Thelma and Louise) Khorie got another paycheck is reason to rejoice. I hope women want movies better than this one directed at them. This one is so mediocre I started to get angry at all the missed opportunities. I mean James Garner was supposed to be under-used and yet he was so mis-used, one felt like he was being abused when he is given such thankless things to do throughout the film. Yep that's how wrong this film get the book. It feels like a bad Neil Simon play. If you can sit still for mediocre cable t.v. movies, then you might really appreciate what how the cast attempts to over-come the limitations of a dull screenplay. There are a few good lines of dialogue but far too many flat ones. It's hard to believe these women have much genuine rapport with each other. Misfire. If you haven't see the film, rent rather than buy this one. Men? Make sure it's your dish night.
Rating:
Summary: Missing the Letter P
Review: ...The "Divine Secrets of the Yap Yap Sisterhood" DVD Get Outta Da Doghouse for Free idea is quite possibly the worst I have ever come up with (I fear I am going to have to locate my wife's lost (and very annoying) tabby Bobo before I make up for this one). To start, the film is apparently not nearly as amusing as the book. Bessie (my current bride) couldn't help telling me every two and a half minutes how much funnier the book was. Normally her opinion is of little worth, but I watched this movie (didn't read the book) and even the most hideous scientific textbook would have to be more amusing than this film. It's basically a film about a bunch of dysfunctional, annoying, yapping females. It's not funny, clever, or even enjoyable. There's no drama and to be honest, I found myself wishing two things: First, that all the characters in the film would suffer some horrible tragedy, and second, that I'd stayed in the comfortable doghouse with a good scientific textbook. If you like movies, you won't like this one. If you think you might like it because you like what's known in the bizness as "chick flicks", you won't like this one. If, however, you enjoy wasting 116 minutes of your life, go for it. But don't say I didn't warn you.
Rating: 
Summary: I'll never get the time back!
Review: I love Sandra Bullock, but I hated this movie. First, the timeline doesn't seem right. These women are too old to have a daughter Sandra Bullock's age, but too young to have been old enough to attend the premiere of Gone With the Wind. Second, Ellyn Burstyn's character is selfish and hateful. We are supposed to feel sympathy for her when we learn how her childhood was, but it really wasn't made out to be that terrible. The Ya-Ya's take alcoholism and insanity too lightly, and are just annoying. I guess they are good friends, friends from childhood, but they don't seem to be in the picture when she is having her breakdown(s). I found the film to be pointless and boring with very few funny moments.
Rating: 
Summary: Surprisingly unhateful.
Review: ...I'm not ashamed to admit, I kind of liked this movie, despite the fact that I tried hard not to, and especially despite the fact that I'd heard such horrible things about it. Drunken southern women aren't my bag, but I found--as I did with the book--the whole relationship between Vivi and her husband, whatshisname, sad and sweet. Hmm. I guess I liked it more than I didn't, but Sandra Bullock's try at a southern accent was stalled at throwing "y'all" into every other sentence. Heh, heh. --This text refers to the DVD edition
Rating: 
Summary: Mom's wish
Review: My mom went and saw the movie with her gal pals and when she came back she kept on raving on and on about. Well since she liked it so much I'm going to give it to her for Christmas!
Rating:
Summary: Wretched, wretched, wretched!
Review: This was soooo awful. Nothing makes me angrier than movies like this, which remind me that Hollywood thinks women want to see saccharine, schmalz and overdone emotional histrionics. Even though I didn't like the book, for some dumb reason I thought the film might be able to improve on it -- especially with this great cast. But no. The first ten minutes give you a pretty good idea of how dumb this is going to be: the adolescent ya-yas' irritating secret ceremony, followed by Bullock and Burstyn screaming at each other over the phone and then smashing their cordless phones against countertops. As one of the other reviewers said, to call this a "chick flick" is insulting to all chicks!
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing, to say the least...
Review: I don't know, maybe there's something about this movie that I just don't get. I didn't read the book because, quite frankly, the "cutesy" title turned me off. However, when the movie came out I noted (as others have) that the cast was quite respectable. I thought James Garner, Maggie Smith, and Ellen Burstyn weren't likely to waste their time appearing in a negligible vehicle. Having watched the movie, I will say that I definitely don't get how such old pros got themselves involved in making it. In fact, I would suggest a much more descriptive title for the movie (one that might help others understand what they are in for before they sit down to watch it): "Southern Gothic Meets the Stoogettes in Self-Indulgence Land." If that sounds good to you (and everyone is certainly entitled to their own tastes), you probably will enjoy this movie. If not, you might enjoy Steel Magnolias, Fried Green Tomatoes, or Driving Miss Daisy a heckuva lot better--I know I did.
Rating:
Summary: Not much "divine" here
Review: **1/2 "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" will remind you of how much fun "Steel Magnolias" was. This latest helping of deep-fried Southern cornpone does have a few pertinent observations to make about dysfunctional mother/daughter relationships, but the artificiality of the whole enterprise robs the film of any real significance it might have had ("Steel Magnolias" was artificial too, but at least it had a hell of a funny script to render the absurdity enjoyable. "Sisterhood" is not nearly so generous in the laugh department). Sandra Bullock stars as Sidda Walker, a successful playwright whose relationship with her mother - the fiery, temperamental and mercurial Vivi - has been anything but smooth sailing. After Vivi reads Sidda's comments about her in a TIME Magazine interview - in which she appears to blame her mother for her unhappy childhood - a serious rift develops between mother and daughter. In an attempt to heal the breach, Vivi's three lifelong pals - the girls with whom she helped found the secret order of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood - decide to perform an emergency "intervention." They "kidnap" Sidda for the time being and force her to confront the truths about her mother in the hopes that Sidda will understand her better. This set-up paves the way for the film to go flashbacking all over the map, as Vivi, Sidda, her father and a whole host of other people conjure up the memories that ultimately reveal the true picture of Vivi's troubled life. "Ya-Ya Sisterhood," despite the best of intentions perhaps, has phoniness stamped all over it, starting with the whole cutesy Ya-Ya Sister nonsense. Any film that features four grown women gathered in a candlelit circle, wearing makeshift bejeweled hats, making blood pacts and periodically yelling out "Ya-ya" to one another is already pushing too hard to try to win us over. I also guess we're supposed to think it's cute when these three older women spike Sidda's drink in a bar, drag her unconscious onto an airplane (with her fiancé's full approval, apparently), and hold her "hostage" in a home in Louisiana. That Sidda doesn't just tell them all to go to hell and run out the front door is the strangest mystery the film has to offer. In actuality, "Ya-Ya Sisterhood" does have a few meaningful moments. These occur most frequently when the characters are allowed to settle down and do some quite reflecting, most notably Vivi herself, either in her current incarnation as harridan supreme (brilliantly enacted by Ellen Burstyn) or in her previous one as a well-meaning young mother coping with personal tragedy and mental illness (Ashley Judd plays her in these scenes and one is struck by just how easily, in facial terms at least, she might well grow up to be Burstyn. It's a good match). Some of the flashbacks, in particular, are searing in their portrayal of actual emotional pain, so much so that we feel further demeaned every time the film foists another of those cutesy, folksy moments of eccentric humor on us - which happens far too often I'm afraid. When all is said and done, the serious message of the film simply becomes buried under all the funny hats, mumbled incantations, phone banging, pie throwing, drug imbibing that end up defining the métier of the project. "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" feels like two movies actually - the quiet one which wins us over with its subtlety and charm and the loud one which repels us with its self-consciousness and corniness. Sorry to say it's the second movie that ultimately emerges victorious.
Rating:
Summary: a well-done adaptation with an incredible cast
Review: These Ya-yas are wonderful as they try to put together Siddalee (Sandra Bullock) and her mother Vivi (Ellen Burstyn) who have had a major falling-out after Sidda's interview with Time magazine after her play opens on Broadway reveals some less-than-flattering quotes about Vivi. The Ya-yas will not take No for an answer, and whisk Sidda away from her fiancee Connor for a weekend of bonding and telling her about Vivi's colorful past, as they have all known each other since they were young girls in 1937. Oscar winner Maggie Price and Oscar-nominee Ellen Burstyn are incredible as the booze-soaked high-flying latter-day Southern belles, and the story has been well-crafted to show patterns in Vivi's behavior and its effect on Sidda's adult life, as well as reveal a long-hidden secret that holds the key to all the misery and give way to happiness. I do have one criticism ---- Ashley Judd should not have played the teenaged Vivi, although she did a fine job as the young adult Vivi. She does not pass as a teenager and netiher did any of her friends. They should have cast another set of girls for those scenes. Otherwise, the movie exceeded my expectations as a fan of the books.
Rating:
Summary: The Worst-
Review: This entire movie was such a disappointment- it had such a wonderful cast - but the writing was very poor. I really like Sandra Bullock and Ashley Judd - but not in this movie.
| 
