My Review of Sex and the City
Updated ... read this from the Observer. And - this is good news for those of us that like chick-flicks ... SatC was top at the box office. Which means women viewers can carry a movie. Granted, it's not the $80+ that Ironman got it's opening, but it's a solid $55.7 million. We will see more films geared towards the gentler sex because of this.
Though I don't like this ...
"This is a blockbuster for women," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media By Numbers, which compiles the box office statistics. "This was to women what Indiana Jones and Star Wars, let's say, are to men."
Um ... I love Indianna Jones. I bought tickets on line for the latest one of those. And I believe I saw the Star Wars prequel (1st one) at midnight the day it was released. I'm an action adventure kind of gal. And I enjoyed both of those movies, more than I enjoyed SatC. I would say SatC is to women what Rambo is to men.
I think that works better.
---------------------------------------------------
Please don't read this if you haven't seen it, I will be spoiling it for you. And please, dear friends of mine, don't hate me for what I'm about to say.
I did not like it.
I did not have high expectations. I knew it was not going to be what I wanted it to be. It wouldn't miraculously take me back in time to 22 when I was just discovering Sex and the City and sitting around with my girl friends drinking cheap wine and going over and over what went wrong with any of our relationships, past or present. It won't bring me back there. And I've discovered, things that I loved - LOVED - at an earlier age or a different time, I don't so much love anymore. My favorite book for years was White Oleander. It was just so beautifully written and angst ridden and just ... well it spoke to me at that particular time in my life. I don't think it would do the same now. I think I would find it depressing. (Not taking anything away from the author, it's still beautifully written.)
I think it's the same for me and Sex and the City.
To begin, the clothes were fabulous, the girls looked awesome ... but ... and this is a big but. But they do look over 40. And 40 and single and talking about sex all the time ... it's not all the cute. The show used to be more real. And maybe not real in the sense that real people buy $400 shoes but then don't have money for rent, but real in the sense that the relationships were real. At least between the women. Those didn't feel real to me, not in this movie.
And since when is Carrie - I have a panic attack in a wedding dress - Bradshaw, ready to walk down the aisle in wedding couture? Since when is Carrie - it's closer to my heart this way - Bradshaw, even wanting to get married?
I know the reason put to us is that Big was buying her apartment, and therefore she wouldn't have any legal ground or ownership if they did not get married. I can agree with that statement, but it's not something I think the Carrie I knew would have ever said / or decided to do.
And Big ... Big was always emotionally retarded. For him to have some sort of emotional breakdown as to why he couldn't marry her ... it just didn't fit. Him looking out the car window, "come on baby, turn around, let me see you," I just ... eh. It's not something that fit with his character.
The only scene in the whole movie that moved me, was after he's told her he can't make it, he can't do it, and they see each other in the street. And she gets out of the car and hits him with her bouquet over and over again.
But - in reality, I don't think this would happen. Okay, let me rephrase, I wouldn't do that. My first reaction if someone I had loved for 10 years did something like that would be to say, "what happened?" And I would listen. If I didn't like their answer, than yeah, I would pelt them with the flowers. Or possibly run them over with my car. But having never been jilted at the alter (thank you God) I can't say with 100% certainty what I would or would not do. It just seemed ... odd.
And irritating. The whole season finale had been to wrap them all up in neat little bows. The movie unwrapped all that for the sake of 2 hours and then re-wrapped them at the end. It was emotional warfare.
And why did we introduce a new major character - Jennifer Hudson? It really seemed to me like her agent pushed, pushed, pushed and made a deal with King to get her in the movie. She's not that good - and to a point that THESE girls made in their column in New York Magazine - she stole scenes from the other three. Emotional conversations that should have taken place over lunch with Miranda and Charlotte and Samantha were had with Hudson's character.
And apparently, after 5 years, Carrie is uber successful now and spends money on different things. Like, as previously mentioned, the personal assistant Hudson. Which felt so out of left field to me. Faced with the daunting task of returning gifts and unpacking her house, she decides she needs a personal assistant? Now granted, I'd have turned around and walked out had I had to look at boxes from Tiffany's and white wrapping paper with little brides and grooms on them, had I been jilted. So maybe ... I dunno ... it just didn't work for me.
Charlotte didn't get enough attention. For the 6 years that the show ran, she wanted to have a baby. Her only ambition in life was to get married and have children, for a really long time. And road block and emotional episode after episode she discovers she can't have children. At the end of the season, they adopt a baby from China. And now in the movie, she discovers she's pregnant. And it's given approximately 10 minutes of attention. I didn't like that much. And Harry, poor guy had 3 lines, all of them at the end.
The clothes were fabulous, and if that's what it was all about, than yes. It was a winner. Miranda was stupid. And it just seemed so obvious she was being stupid that it was ridiculous. Why didn't she realize her own stupidity? She wasn't typically a stupid person. Stubborn, yes. But stupid? It seemed to me, reading between the lines, that she had been looking for a reason to leave him. To get back into Manhattan, and what I learned was that living in the city was more important to her than her family.
That wasn't what the writers or the movie people intended. They just wanted her to appear broken hearted. She has never played that role well. And things are different when you are married. The show has always played fast and loose with monogamy and marriage. Carrie wore the engagement ring around her neck, Miranda laughs at Steve when he proposes when she's pregnant, and Charlotte (the only one who saw value in it) gets divorced not for any real reason, but because they don't agree on having children (he wants to give up, she wants to keep trying). And Samantha ... well at the end of the series, she couldn't even tell Smith, a man who had stayed with her through her cheating on him, and her cancer, that she loved him.
Which made it even weirder to me that Samantha gave up her career and presumably other clients in New York and moved to California. This woman didn't want to hold his hand in public. And now she's following him to Cali for his TV career?
So the plot was thin. Not a shock. So marriage is discouraged and scary and not necessary. That was true of the show all along. And I have enjoyed Sex and the City for many, many years. But the reason I enjoyed it was the female companionship, the coffee klaching, the shopping, the friendship. I did not enjoy the flagrant cussing or nudity (which the nudity in the movie ridiculous and so unnecessary) of the show, and I really did not enjoy how Carrie treated Aidan, though I understood it. Aidan was leaving the show. No matter how well it worked with those two characters, it had to end because he was pursuing other avenues.
My sister enjoyed the movie, and the other girl I saw the movie with liked it too. So maybe I'm just not in the right place. Like The Family Stone. I didn't like that movie at all in theaters. But I've seen it since and I love it. Things change. I think maybe I've changed. Whereas Sex and the City spoke to me earlier in the my life, it doesn't now. And am I the only one who in the final scene where they are having a birthday cake for Samantha wondered ... "What am I doing seeing a movie about 50 year old women?" And worse yet, why are these 50 year old women acting like their 25-30?
I couldn't relate to it as well as I related to it in the past. Which is funny because I can still watch the TV show and enjoy it. But I didn't enjoy this. The storyline was ... bad. They made better stories in 30 minutes. Why couldn't they just do that, about 4 times?
I didn't like Carrie's final comments either. About how why do we try to label things so much, and labels aren't who we are. While I agree that labels aren't who we are ... I am a wife. I am a daughter. I am a sister. Those labels carry meanings that I cherish, and I really wish that instead of harpooning all labels as bad, maybe they could have found a way to say this is a label I'm putting on just for me, or just for us. I don't know. A show that loves labels like Manolo Blahnik, Chanel, Prada, Vera Wang, Louis Vuitton, Upper East Side, Brooklyn, 347 v. 917, shirks the labels that should mean the most.
Though I don't like this ...
"This is a blockbuster for women," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media By Numbers, which compiles the box office statistics. "This was to women what Indiana Jones and Star Wars, let's say, are to men."
Um ... I love Indianna Jones. I bought tickets on line for the latest one of those. And I believe I saw the Star Wars prequel (1st one) at midnight the day it was released. I'm an action adventure kind of gal. And I enjoyed both of those movies, more than I enjoyed SatC. I would say SatC is to women what Rambo is to men.
I think that works better.
---------------------------------------------------
Please don't read this if you haven't seen it, I will be spoiling it for you. And please, dear friends of mine, don't hate me for what I'm about to say.
I did not like it.
I did not have high expectations. I knew it was not going to be what I wanted it to be. It wouldn't miraculously take me back in time to 22 when I was just discovering Sex and the City and sitting around with my girl friends drinking cheap wine and going over and over what went wrong with any of our relationships, past or present. It won't bring me back there. And I've discovered, things that I loved - LOVED - at an earlier age or a different time, I don't so much love anymore. My favorite book for years was White Oleander. It was just so beautifully written and angst ridden and just ... well it spoke to me at that particular time in my life. I don't think it would do the same now. I think I would find it depressing. (Not taking anything away from the author, it's still beautifully written.)
I think it's the same for me and Sex and the City.
To begin, the clothes were fabulous, the girls looked awesome ... but ... and this is a big but. But they do look over 40. And 40 and single and talking about sex all the time ... it's not all the cute. The show used to be more real. And maybe not real in the sense that real people buy $400 shoes but then don't have money for rent, but real in the sense that the relationships were real. At least between the women. Those didn't feel real to me, not in this movie.
And since when is Carrie - I have a panic attack in a wedding dress - Bradshaw, ready to walk down the aisle in wedding couture? Since when is Carrie - it's closer to my heart this way - Bradshaw, even wanting to get married?
I know the reason put to us is that Big was buying her apartment, and therefore she wouldn't have any legal ground or ownership if they did not get married. I can agree with that statement, but it's not something I think the Carrie I knew would have ever said / or decided to do.
And Big ... Big was always emotionally retarded. For him to have some sort of emotional breakdown as to why he couldn't marry her ... it just didn't fit. Him looking out the car window, "come on baby, turn around, let me see you," I just ... eh. It's not something that fit with his character.
The only scene in the whole movie that moved me, was after he's told her he can't make it, he can't do it, and they see each other in the street. And she gets out of the car and hits him with her bouquet over and over again.
But - in reality, I don't think this would happen. Okay, let me rephrase, I wouldn't do that. My first reaction if someone I had loved for 10 years did something like that would be to say, "what happened?" And I would listen. If I didn't like their answer, than yeah, I would pelt them with the flowers. Or possibly run them over with my car. But having never been jilted at the alter (thank you God) I can't say with 100% certainty what I would or would not do. It just seemed ... odd.
And irritating. The whole season finale had been to wrap them all up in neat little bows. The movie unwrapped all that for the sake of 2 hours and then re-wrapped them at the end. It was emotional warfare.
And why did we introduce a new major character - Jennifer Hudson? It really seemed to me like her agent pushed, pushed, pushed and made a deal with King to get her in the movie. She's not that good - and to a point that THESE girls made in their column in New York Magazine - she stole scenes from the other three. Emotional conversations that should have taken place over lunch with Miranda and Charlotte and Samantha were had with Hudson's character.
And apparently, after 5 years, Carrie is uber successful now and spends money on different things. Like, as previously mentioned, the personal assistant Hudson. Which felt so out of left field to me. Faced with the daunting task of returning gifts and unpacking her house, she decides she needs a personal assistant? Now granted, I'd have turned around and walked out had I had to look at boxes from Tiffany's and white wrapping paper with little brides and grooms on them, had I been jilted. So maybe ... I dunno ... it just didn't work for me.
Charlotte didn't get enough attention. For the 6 years that the show ran, she wanted to have a baby. Her only ambition in life was to get married and have children, for a really long time. And road block and emotional episode after episode she discovers she can't have children. At the end of the season, they adopt a baby from China. And now in the movie, she discovers she's pregnant. And it's given approximately 10 minutes of attention. I didn't like that much. And Harry, poor guy had 3 lines, all of them at the end.
The clothes were fabulous, and if that's what it was all about, than yes. It was a winner. Miranda was stupid. And it just seemed so obvious she was being stupid that it was ridiculous. Why didn't she realize her own stupidity? She wasn't typically a stupid person. Stubborn, yes. But stupid? It seemed to me, reading between the lines, that she had been looking for a reason to leave him. To get back into Manhattan, and what I learned was that living in the city was more important to her than her family.
That wasn't what the writers or the movie people intended. They just wanted her to appear broken hearted. She has never played that role well. And things are different when you are married. The show has always played fast and loose with monogamy and marriage. Carrie wore the engagement ring around her neck, Miranda laughs at Steve when he proposes when she's pregnant, and Charlotte (the only one who saw value in it) gets divorced not for any real reason, but because they don't agree on having children (he wants to give up, she wants to keep trying). And Samantha ... well at the end of the series, she couldn't even tell Smith, a man who had stayed with her through her cheating on him, and her cancer, that she loved him.
Which made it even weirder to me that Samantha gave up her career and presumably other clients in New York and moved to California. This woman didn't want to hold his hand in public. And now she's following him to Cali for his TV career?
So the plot was thin. Not a shock. So marriage is discouraged and scary and not necessary. That was true of the show all along. And I have enjoyed Sex and the City for many, many years. But the reason I enjoyed it was the female companionship, the coffee klaching, the shopping, the friendship. I did not enjoy the flagrant cussing or nudity (which the nudity in the movie ridiculous and so unnecessary) of the show, and I really did not enjoy how Carrie treated Aidan, though I understood it. Aidan was leaving the show. No matter how well it worked with those two characters, it had to end because he was pursuing other avenues.
My sister enjoyed the movie, and the other girl I saw the movie with liked it too. So maybe I'm just not in the right place. Like The Family Stone. I didn't like that movie at all in theaters. But I've seen it since and I love it. Things change. I think maybe I've changed. Whereas Sex and the City spoke to me earlier in the my life, it doesn't now. And am I the only one who in the final scene where they are having a birthday cake for Samantha wondered ... "What am I doing seeing a movie about 50 year old women?" And worse yet, why are these 50 year old women acting like their 25-30?
I couldn't relate to it as well as I related to it in the past. Which is funny because I can still watch the TV show and enjoy it. But I didn't enjoy this. The storyline was ... bad. They made better stories in 30 minutes. Why couldn't they just do that, about 4 times?
I didn't like Carrie's final comments either. About how why do we try to label things so much, and labels aren't who we are. While I agree that labels aren't who we are ... I am a wife. I am a daughter. I am a sister. Those labels carry meanings that I cherish, and I really wish that instead of harpooning all labels as bad, maybe they could have found a way to say this is a label I'm putting on just for me, or just for us. I don't know. A show that loves labels like Manolo Blahnik, Chanel, Prada, Vera Wang, Louis Vuitton, Upper East Side, Brooklyn, 347 v. 917, shirks the labels that should mean the most.
Comments