Jump to content
This Site Uses Cookies. If You Want to Disable Cookies, Please See Your Browser Documentation. ×

Recommended Posts

I went to see it on Friday night and loved it. The only show available on the premiere night was at 1:00 a.m, and it was showing in 5 different rooms at that hour at the same time, all jam packed...The theater was filled with tons of girls wearing high heels "a la Carrie"-(well, nothing different than a regular night in South Beach)-and people applauded enthusiastically at the end of it. I had a great time.

Any other confessions...?

Link to comment

Thank you for reporting, cubanmiamiboy. It seems to be most popular, to understate considerably.

I was a regular watcher of the show, and from what I’ve heard and read the movie is for those who thought the series got better or at least maintained a high level as it went along, whereas I thought it began a steady decline after the decision to get Miranda pregnant and have her keep the baby. (In television comedy, a pregnancy is an infallible sign that the writing staff is beginning to run out of ideas.) I kept on watching, because it was still better than a lot of stuff, and also there was a ghoulish fascination in speculating on how much worse it could get. By the time it finally staggered over the finish line, it wasn’t comedy or soap opera but something that mostly failed to be either IMO. In my view this material, as good as it often was, was never meant for the big screen and I don’t see how it can be made to work there. (This is not intended as a putdown.) None of these actors are true movie stars, and although all four of them are fine comediennes only Cynthia Nixon can really carry straight drama.

It is nice that a feature film is starring four middle aged women who are shown as being still attractive and sexy. I just don’t have the stomach right now for any more bad puns, brand name dropping, and product placement. If it were only ninety minutes or so I’d probably go, but not two hours plus.

I liked the early seasons because although they weren’t without strong elements of fantasy, they weren’t totally distant from real life problems -- the story of Carrie and Mr. Big was at one point a pretty realistic account of a certain kind of bad affair --

and they were really funny.

(I must say, though, I don't care for some of the finger waggling going on in some of the reviews. Anthony Lane should hush up and go back to drooling over Angelina Jolie.)

Link to comment
Any other confessions...?

I have nothing but confessions, but Sex and the City (the movie, that is) is not one I'll be making. I only saw 3 episodes of this on VHS and didn't like it. I don't ever like Sarah Jessica Parker-- not ever :dunno: , especially when they let her sing (it is worse than Glenn Close.) I have liked Kim Cattrall once in 'Wild Palms' the phenomenal mini-series by Oliver Stone and Bruce Wagner (and Angie Dickinson brilliant in it), from 1993, so maybe that constitutes one guilty pleasure I'll report. I also re-watched 'Dillinger' from 1973 with Ben Johnson and Warren Oates for the second time Saturday night, and I love this film, even though it is along the lines of 'Bonnie and Clyde' and perhaps 'Thieves Like Us.' By 1973, we were getting photography as beautiful as it is today--and the photography of the Midwest is simply perfection in this film, and perfectly combined with the very old Western American folksongs like 'Skip to my Lou', 'Turkey in the Straw' and especially, 'Red River Valley'.

Link to comment
I thought it began a steady decline after the decision to get Miranda pregnant and have her keep the baby. (In television comedy, a pregnancy is an infallible sign that the writing staff is beginning to run out of ideas.)
Wasn't Miranda's pregnancy in the show a concession to Cynthia Nixon's in real life? I guess they were willing to schedule shooting around SJP's pregnancy, but SatC wasn't Miranda's story, so CN's circumstances dictated Miranda's storyline.
Link to comment

I have no idea.. I don’t think it matters - it's still a good rule. If they’d considered it was a bad story move they’d have thought of something else instead of committing the character to a baby. Terrible idea.

Link to comment
Terrible idea.

I don't agree. I always thought that one of the most beautiful episodes of the whole thing was when Miranda decides to keep her baby, while the rest of them would support her, no matter what her decision was...included conservative Charlotte, who showed up to bring moral support not even knowing that the abortion didn't occurred...

Also, Miranda calling herself a "flotation device" while being frustrated about having gasses all the time was hilarious...

One out of four middle aged women getting pregnant...?, good ratio.

Link to comment
You could slice and dice a few years I guess, but she was hardly 'middle aged' at the time, at least by our more flexible contemporary standards. :)

Oops, didn't intend to be "non-flexible"-(although i know i am, and very often)-but you're right dirac. So reconsidering my words, "One out of four mature women getting pregnant...?, good ratio." :)

Link to comment
Also, Miranda calling herself a "flotation device" while being frustrated about having gasses all the time was hilarious...

Well, I never said they still didn't come up with a few good lines now and then. :)

I think my favorite late episode was the one in which Carrie goes a little bananas after Berger breaks up with her by leaving a Post-it, and she meets several friends of his at a club and loses it completely. One of Parker's best moments.

On the other hand, the Baryshnikov episodes tanked completely IMO. I understand he's in the movie - does he have a lot to do?

Link to comment

Finally caught this on cable. Fulfilled my less-than-great expectations. As a writer Michael Patrick King is still out of ideas for these characters and as a director he has no clue how to handle the larger canvas of the big screen. It’s not bad up until the wedding disaster, if you can stomach all the product placements, but after that it has nowhere to go. Kristin Davis and Kim Cattrall supply what zip there is although their material is terrible. Cynthia Nixon does not transcend her terrible material but it ‘s hardly her fault. It’s sad in a way, because anyone coming to this movie cold will never get any idea of how good the series could be. (On the other hand, the film doesn't seem to have been aimed to appeal to outsiders - it's for those already initiated into the cult, like the first Star Trek feature film.) Jennifer Hudson is in it.

On the other hand this movie was a big hit and raised Hollywood interest in the female audience, and there’s no reason why the ladies can’t have a few of their own mediocre buddy movies. It was also nice to see women clearly identified as being over forty shown as interested in sex and sexually interesting to others.

Link to comment

A sequel is in the works.

Yep, an open call for future scene-chewers made its way to the masses, and since it doesn't even require a SAG card, we made sure to give it our best. Sure, they were looking for "Fashion Models"—and this reporter is only 5 feet tall. They seek "Upscale Socialites" and we only watch them on Real Housewives and NYC Prep. They want "Professional Soccer Players" and we can ice-skate. They'd also like to see "Celebrity Types." We type about celebrities—does that count?
Link to comment

I would be curious to hear from anyone who's seen the sequel (or checked out the reviews). As my last post indicates I was no fan of the first feature film but I confess to being stunned by the vicious critical reception of SATC 2 and stunned especially by the unpleasant overtones of some of the reviews. I may just go out this weekend and plunk down my money to show sisterly solidarity. Anyone?

Link to comment

I haven't seen it but I did read an interesting comment online. The poster wondered why, in a time of great economic distress, people weren't responding to the glamourous escapism of Sex and the City 2 when people in the 1930s responded eagerly to the glamourous escapism of, say, the Astaire-Rogers movies.

Link to comment
I haven't seen it but I did read an interesting comment online. The poster wondered why, in a time of great economic distress, people weren't responding to the glamourous escapism of Sex and the City 2 when people in the 1930s responded eagerly to the glamourous escapism of, say, the Astaire-Rogers movies.

From Matt Zoller Seitz's review on ifc.com:

The movie's privileged cluelessness reaches an early zenith when Miranda impulsively quits her cushy job at a law firm because her boss is sexist, and springs the decision on her husband (David Eigenberg) during her son's grade school recital. "Good for you, honey!" he exclaims. "I'll get another job, a better job!" she assures him. "I already called the headhunter." They should have ended the scene by having a giant bag of money fall out of the sky and land at her feet.

Very rarely, if ever, do the characters, much less the filmmaker, suggest that they're all living in a bubble -- which is something that even the most wealth-obsessed escapist comedies produced during the Depression somehow managed to do with regularity, as a means of preserving their implicit agreement not to take the masses' hard-earned money and slap them across the face with it.

Link to comment
I haven't seen it but I did read an interesting comment online. The poster wondered why, in a time of great economic distress, people weren't responding to the glamourous escapism of Sex and the City 2 when people in the 1930s responded eagerly to the glamourous escapism of, say, the Astaire-Rogers movies.

The economic downturn was well underway by the time the first movie arrived in theaters and there was some comment at the time that the designer name dropping wasn't terribly appropriate. I'd say in response to that poster that the Art Deco luxe of the Astaire-Rogers pictures -- and not all of them; the studio was careful to acknowledge Fred and Ginger's essence as dancers-of-the-people by casting them downscale as well as up. were about escape but SATC has always been to some degree about consumerism and brand names, not quite the same thing. That may account for some of the difference (although it was odd to see A.O. Scott of the Times flaying the film for its materialism - never has the NYT been more gentrified and upscale than it is now). I was thinking more of the hostility towards the actresses expressed in relation to their age and the anxiety of some of the male critics to announce that "they're not the target demographic for this movie." True enough, but you usually don't see that driven home quite so emphatically.

Link to comment

Regarding age of the actresses, I only ever saw 3 episodes on some vhs's from the library, and automatically thought Kim Catrall was the only obvious one playing a person, say, 8 years her junior? Is that correct? I had liked her very much (along with the rest of the cast) in the 1993 Oliver Stone/Bruce Wagner miniseries 'Wild Palms', which I think is a visionary TV masterpiece still (amazing venomous perf. by Angie Dickinson), but seems to be largely forgotten (it was very sinister and made you a little sick; there were books at B & N continuing the story, somewhat like a Scientology brochure, one of its themes, but the phenomenon quickly fizzed). Actually, I never saw Catrall in anything but these two things, but that was the only interest in it for me. I can't say I enjoyed the series at all, but that there was one single scene I liked, only one.

Link to comment

Samantha was always supposed to be older than the rest, just as their portrayers are in real life (Nixon: 44, Davis and Parker: 45, Cattrall: 53, birthday August). In 1998 when the series opened, Carrie, Charlotte, and Miranda were supposed to be in their early 30's, and Samantha 40 or slightly older, the actresses' ages at the time, or at least within a year or two.

Link to comment

I'm planning to see this as it was filmed in Marrakech where I holidayed in January, only SATC had better weather than me so I'd like to see the place in the sunshine. I read that the film is set in Abu Dhabi though, so don't get the logic of filming it in Morocco instead. Interested to see if their experiences there match up to mine in that crazy place.

Link to comment
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...