Amy Poehler and friends are back with a friendship-based comedy, Wine Country, which will be housed on Netflix. The comedy film is highly anticipated by social media users, who are already applauding Poehler for her creative directing, just from the trailer. Here's everything you need to know ahead of viewing. How to Watch Wine Country Wine Country will be available on Netflix Friday. It can be streamed anytime by subscribers to the online media platform. Plot The film focuses on female friendship, and how that can change over time. A group of long-time friends adventure to wine country for one of the members' 50th birthdays. While, it's an exciting, girl trip, the group begins to question their bonds as the wine flows and the trip runs on. Cast Poehler is directing, as well as playing one of the leading friends, Abby. She'll be joined by Rachel Dratch, Ana Gasteyer, Paula Pell, Emily Spivey, Tina Fey, Liz Cackowski and Maya Rudolph. What Poehler Says Poehler explained she doesn't want viewers to get the wrong idea, ahead of watching the film, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly on Wednesday. "It's not a movie about a bunch of old ladies acting inappropriately," the comedian said. She also commented on the fact that all leading actors are real-life friends. "I'm proud of the fact that all of us are really good friends that support each other's work and I think we all try to give and provide opportunities for women especially and that we work in an industry that is constantly making us have to advocate for ourselves," she said. Poehler noted there isn't much of a comedic pressure in the film, either. She said improv techniques ruled the scenes, rather than one actor at any given time. "I know that we all pick projects that matter to us and in that way we try to curate good stuff…Once you're in it, you really just have to go back to your improv rules and commit, you can't comment on it while it's happening, you have to just commit to it and see where it goes, hopefully trust the captain who's leading you."<doc-sep>Amy Poehler's directorial debut dropped on Netflix today, and it's a gem. In case you missed the promos, Wine Country follows a group of friends celebrating a 50th birthday in Napa Valley and is loosely based on experiences had by Amy and her fellow funny friends, including Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph, Paula Pell, Rachel Dratch, Ana Gasteyer, and Emily Spivey. Despite the fact that millennials are dragged hard in several parts of the film, I found the whole thing to be extremely relatable, and not just because they're drinking wine in almost every scene. Below, eight times I felt personally connected to the cast of Wine Country—and if I had to guess, you might, too. 1. When picking out an Airbnb was...difficult. In the movie, Amy Poehler's character is the uptight, stick-to-the-itinerary friend. It's no surprise then that she's the one to pick out the Airbnb. Even if you're not super Type A, you know this is a hard task. Will everyone have a room? Is there a pool? Does it really look like the pictures? Later in the movie they find themselves struggling to use the fancy coffee maker. Been there, done that...in a much less fancy house. 2. "I'm going to unplug." Ahh yes, the famous last words spoken by all. If you're a human whose job sometimes exists outside normal working hours, you too have uttered this phrase, or at least thought it, at some point. 3. "Let's take a group picture!" Spoken five minutes into the trip. Sry, it happens. 4. When they spoke the truth about pizza. The workaholic friend, played by Ana Gasteyer, is a semi-famous chef looking to land a Food Network-type show. She founded a restaurant called Cutie Pie's that also sells personal pizzas—something Tina Fey their Airbnb host appreciated. "If I prep a full size pizza, I'm gonna end up eating a full size pizza." As the actual sign hanging in this office says, any pizza can be a personal pizza if you try hard enough. 5. When Brené Brown showed up. Okay, if you haven't watched this TED Talk, please go do so. Then, you will understand the group's excitement when Brené Brown—not Kesha, not Hillary Clinton, not Dua Lipa, but Brené! !—was at the same restaurant as them. 6. When they post-gamed with McDonald's. After a long night with both a fancy dinner and lots and lots of wine, the group rolled up to their Airbnb with bags of McDonald's in hand. While I didn't see evidence of a McFlurry, I certainly hope one was involved. 7. "Y'all, what did I say last night?" Please step down from your high horse. You have said this, too! ! 8. When they went to wine country...but did not want to learn about wine. While this movie will make you want to book a trip to Northern California, it won't leave you any more knowledgable when it comes to wine. And that's fine! The point is to enjoy, and make bad Pinot Egregious jokes in the process. To conclude, here is an adorable throwback of some of the cast courtesy of Jimmy Fallon. May we all have as much fun with our friends on our next vacation/birthday/Wednesday night. This content is imported from Instagram. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. Madison Flager Lifestyle Editor Madison Flager is the Lifestyle Editor at Delish.com; she covers food news and trends, travel-worthy food experiences, and the products you need in your kitchen right now. This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io<doc-sep>Having thrived as an actress, comedian, writer and producer, directing may seem like a natural next step for Amy Poehler. But as she told Variety at the world premiere of “Wine Country,” she decided to take the plunge for one reason: “The ladies said yes. The end. Period!” Once it was suggested, all of the women felt instinctively that this was a story they wanted to tell. “We were really excited to show what female friendship looks like at a certain age, and to show old friends and how they interact and what they talk about,” she explained. “And just to have a chance to work with these legends — they’re all amazing.” With Poehler behind the camera, an all-star ensemble of sketch actresses in front of it, and fellow “Saturday Night Live” alums Emily Spivey and Liz Cackowski writing the screenplay, the gender breakdown for “Wine Country” was very different from the average Hollywood film. For the “Parks and Recreation” star, that was an advantage. “When you have a lot of women working together on a project, there’s a certain energy that permeates if things go well, and I loved it,” she said. “I mean, Paper Kite, my production company, is all women. I work with women all day long — it’s awesome!” The genuine intimacy between the cast and creatives was also key. “We were all truly friends and we all had this trust with each other that was really special,” Paula Pell told Variety. In fact, that bond was what inspired the film in the first place. “It’s a 100% based on a real trip we took to Napa [for Rachel Dratch’s 50th birthday], and another one with Ana Gasteyer for her 50th to Palm Springs. Both trips were s—shows,” Pell said, laughing. “The first day, I got so excited about seeing everyone that I drank a little too early, at about four in the afternoon, and I lost about three hours. I just went and got sick in the bathroom like a sad teenager, went to bed, and woke up to a dog licking me and a guy making our paella. I felt so embarrassed; I had immediate, like, high-school shame that I was the one who threw up at the party. But that did not make it [into the film] — thankfully!” Maya Rudolph echoed Pell’s excitement at seeing the rest of the team face to face. “For us, you know, we don’t always get to be in the same city — we’re sort of split on both coasts — and so we started doing these trips as a way to get together. We text each other every day and keep tabs, but getting to do what we learned how to do in the beginning together — I wish we had thought of this a million years ago, because now I don’t want to work any other way.” Asked how “Wine Country” stacks up against those real-life reunions, she agreed that screenwriters Spivey and Cackowski made the right calls when adapting their adventures for the big screen. “They got the good ones. They got the big zingers. I mean, there’s raunchy s—, but I think they tried to keep it together. There were a lot more topless moments,” she said, grinning. For Spivey, the only challenge was ensuring that every woman got the time in the spotlight she deserved. “We wanted to service everyone properly — we wanted everyone to feel like they were having fun and had funny stuff to do — but it was just a dream come true otherwise.” The care they took in crafting these moments for a murderers’ row of female comedians had an unexpected side effect: no two men talk to each other over the course of “Wine Country’s” 103-minute running time. “It wasn’t conscious in terms of breaking the story,” Cackowski said. “But then once we were filming and were more aware of it, we had fun — almost every man is told to shhh a little bit, like, ‘Stop, no, no, this isn’t for you,’ which made us laugh.” The pair also saw the film as a chance to showcase a different side of the “SNL” vets. “They’re amazing sketch actresses, so there are characters or impersonations you see them play, but you might not know what they’re really like. It was exciting to get to write something closer to who they are. And then Tina, on the other hand, who usually plays herself, and was known on ‘Weekend Update’ as Tina Fey, gets to play a character,” Cackowski explained. “Hopefully it’s a new way of seeing them that the audience hasn’t gotten to see before.” That shared history on “Saturday Night Live” was what made working together on “Wine Country” feel so necessary for Gasteyer. When the women reunited for the Betty White episode in 2010, she said, “We’d all gone off and done our things, but we came back and it was this instant, mutant, ‘Avengers’-level, like, ‘Do you have webbed toes, too? !’ It’s so second nature — these women are so smart, they make such good choices, it’s just a deep, deep connection. So, any opportunity, I would take it. I would follow these guys to the moon.” They have at least one more earthbound trip to plan before then. “We’re brainstorming. We’re going to do a retroactive one for Paula Pell, who seems to be having her coming out party at 56 — America’s finally realizing the genius comedian that she is, so we want to go celebrate her,” Gasteyer told Variety. “There’s some talk about Hawaii, some talk about Mexico City…” She paused, then grinned at the thought. “The options are endless.” “Wine Country” is streaming now on Netflix.<doc-sep>I n Wine Country, the new Netflix film co-written and directed by Amy Poehler, six girlfriends go on a trip to Napa in order celebrate one of their number ­– a psychoanalyst named Rebecca – turning 50. Rebecca insists her birthday is no big deal. “You’re only as old as you feel, right?” she says. “Why stress about it?” Except that she’s deeply stressed – they all are. These middle-aged women self-medicate with wine and prescription pills, and pass merciless judgment on one another while privately wallowing in disappointment and regret. If they were Snow White’s dwarfs, they would be called Bossy, Needy, Lonely, Creaky, Frightened and Overworked. Let the record show that there is no Happy. Similarly aggravating is their disdain for the younger generation, whom they loudly dismiss as entitled and over-sensitive. Wine Country stands both as a narrow and mean-spirited portrait of older women and a dispiriting reflection of how they are represented in popular culture. Wine Country is a narrow and mean-spirited portrait of older women (Netflix) (Netflix/Colleen Hayes) We live in an age in which all of us can expect to live and work longer and yet, in the eyes of the entertainment industry, women are washed up by the time they hit middle age. If they’re not forcibly retired from our screens at 40, then the storylines in which they are placed see them dwelling on myriad disappointments, or transformed into “gorgons and dragons”, as Meryl Streep once put it, or that time-honoured classic: the crazy cat lady. These archetypes reside in everything from Disney’s evil stepmothers to The Simpsons’ Eleanor Abernathy and the sentimental midlife depictions in the likes of Calendar Girls and Shirley Valentine. There are, of course, some notable exceptions – series such as Nurse Jackie, Happy Valley, Better Things and Mum (which returns to BBC2 next week). These ­have broadly steered clear of the usual cliches – though such nuanced portraits are few and far between. Film posters with men removed make an important point Show all 10 1 /10 Film posters with men removed make an important point Film posters with men removed make an important point Captain America: Civil War These are ten of the highest grossing films of the past decade Screaming Frog Film posters with men removed make an important point Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 Screaming Frog Film posters with men removed make an important point Iron Man Screaming Frog Film posters with men removed make an important point Star Wars: The Force Awakens Screaming Frog Film posters with men removed make an important point Screaming Frog Film posters with men removed make an important point Transformers Screaming Frog Film posters with men removed make an important point Toy Story 3 Screaming Frog Film posters with men removed make an important point Film posters with men removed make an important point Avatar Screaming Frog Film posters with men removed make an important point Black Panther Screaming Frog More ruthless still is the pop industry in which women have a habit of disappearing in a puff of smoke at roughly the same time as their fertility falls off a cliff. Should they have the temerity to stick around, they are invariably humiliated for it. See Madonna, who is shortly to release her 14th album and is waging war on the scores of detractors – among them that heroic guardian of female decency, Piers Morgan – who reckon she’s too old to be doing the job she has done for the past 35 years. “People have always been trying to silence me for one reason or another, whether it’s that I’m not pretty enough, I don’t sing well enough, I’m not talented enough, I’m not married enough, and now it’s that I’m not young enough,” she told Vogue. “Now I’m being punished for turning 60.” In her book, How to Be a Woman, Caitlin Moran reveals the series of questions she asks herself in order to judge whether “some sexist bullshit is afoot”. The questions run thus: “Are the men doing it? Are the men worrying about this as well? Is this taking up the men’s time? Are the men told not to do this, as it’s ‘letting the side down’?” For male actors and musicians, the answer is nearly always: no. With their stately silver hair and characterful wrinkles, they are able to continue their careers unimpeded; the longer they keep working, the more respect they are given. Next month, Nick Cave, a man in his sixties who dyes his hair and wears shirts split to the navel, brings his Conversations tour to Britain. His career has spanned four decades and seen him go from heroin-addled punk outsider, to screenwriter and novelist, to arena-filling rocker and all-knowing sage. To be clear, Cave is excellent and deserves all the praise that is heaped up on him. It’s also worth noting that no one is suggesting that he retire. In a 2016 sketch by the US comic Amy Schumer, the myth of a woman’s sell-by date is brilliantly skewered. In it we see Schumer stumbling on a picnic in which three actors – Julia Dreyfus, Tina Fey and Patricia Arquette – celebrate the last day of being “believably f**kable” in the eyes of their industry. “If you shoot a sex scene the night before your birthday, everyone’s, like, ‘Hurry up, hurry up, we’ve got to get it before midnight’ because they think your vagina’s going to turn into a hermit crab,” says Fey. That women are often faded out in midlife has nothing do with ability and everything to do with sex and the male gaze. No longer an object of desire, they suddenly become meek, mean, sad or embarrassing – never mind the talent, accrued wisdom and brilliant stories they may offer. It’s particularly disappointing given the influence that film, music and TV exerts on how we collectively think and feel. Popular culture is failing women who are still in the prime of their lives. It’s time to put this right.<doc-sep>
Every week, new original films debut on Netflix and other streaming services, often to much less fanfare than their big-screen counterparts. Cinemastream is Vox’s series highlighting the most notable of these premieres, in an ongoing effort to keep interesting and easily accessible new films on your radar. Wine Country The premise: Six middle-aged women who have been friends for decades gather in Napa for a celebratory weekend away. The result: mishaps, mayhem, revelations, and a lot of wine. Rating: 2 out of 5 vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark What it’s about: The cast is why most people will watch Wine Country, because it’s stacked with women who were writers, cast members, or both on Saturday Night Live. Directed by Amy Poehler, the film was co-written by Emily Spivey and Liz Cackowski, based on a story the three of them cooked up. Poehler stars as the ringleader of the group of women, which includes Spivey, Maya Rudolph, Rachel Dratch, Paula Pell, and Ana Gasteyer. (Tina Fey has a bit part, of course.) And it’s clear the movie draws inspiration from the women’s ongoing relationships with one another. The characters met when they worked at the same pizza place in Chicago; many of the actresses got their start at Second City in Chicago. That’s no accident. Wine Country is a pleasant enough comedy about friendships in middle age and learning to embrace change. It’s surprising, though, that the film isn’t more fun. The pacing feels oddly slow, which blunts the edges of some of the jokes. For a group of actresses with improv comedy chops, it feels labored at times. And it doesn’t have the zany, unpredictable energy of a movie like Bridesmaids. Perhaps it’s a little unfair to ask a movie to be what it’s not, but I found myself wishing Wine Country were a documentary about these six women — the actual women, not the characters — traipsing their way through wine country together, or just spending a weekend talking about their lives and their friendships, like a version of Tea With the Dames. Yet there’s still pleasure to be had from Wine Country; a cast this great can’t go totally wrong. Watch it on the couch, a glass of chardonnay in hand. Critical reception: Wine Country currently has a score of 68 on Metacritic. At the Wrap, Yolanda Machado writes, “Wine Country shows that women in their 50s are in one of the best phases of their lives, a time to be celebrated, welcomed, and enjoyed with good friends and good wine.” Where to watch: Wine Country is streaming on Netflix beginning May 10.