Movie Review - Sex and the City
Victoria Alexander
FilmsInReview.com

It's not a fashion romp it has a strong emotional texture. The SATC women are still making bad choices.

My weekly column, "The Devil's Hammer," is posted every Monday. The Devil's Hammer on FTB. If you would like to be included on my distribution list for a weekly preview, just email me at masauu@aol.com.

On Tuesday, I went to the Las Vegas Regal Theaters at Village Square to see over 1,000 people lined up for a promotional screening of SATC. The movie was shown in 2 theaters to accommodate the huge crowd. After a half hour wait though fans must have been waiting on line for hours the boring, excruciating New York City Red Carpet event was shown live. There was an on-screen countdown.

You'd think Jesus was walking the Red Carpet. It was a punishing half hour. Then, finally, SATC began. I don't know if it was the projectionist's fault but for the entire movie we saw a boom mic over the actor's heads. We only saw half the screen, as well as the overhead white sheets. It was awful, especially since the audience kept laughing every time the microphone moved from one actress to another. It takes the magic away when you see the boom mic.

Celebrity interviewer, Steven "Cojo" Cojocaru, go home! You beat the odds by taking 2 kidneys one was donated by your best friend (then failed), and then another from your mother. Sit in a deck chair and bask in the sun. Why do I know your name but I don't know the name of your best friend who gave you his kidney?

I loved the HBO series and writer/director Michael Patrick King has done a terrific job of piecing together the highlights of the 6 seasons while the opening credits play.

More significantly, King has kept the emotional texture that made SATC such a cultural phenomenon. Yes, the clothes were fabulous, the hair styles, the sex scenes, and the quick-witted dialogue but more important it has the underlying sadness and emptiness of these women's lives that resonated with its HBO female audience. King has kept this emotional subtext intact.

For all the $750 stiletto heels they had, the real pearls, size 1 outrageous wardrobes the SATC girlfriends were desperate women in their late 30s and we felt sorry for their very poor choices.

We pick up where the series left off: Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is a famous author and does not have a newspaper deadline anymore. She still has her rent-controlled apartment. She is happily involved with Mr. Big (Chris Noth - looking contently fat as only a wealthy man can) again. She is about to be 40 years old!

Law firm partner Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) moved to Brooklyn and living with her bartender husband Steve (David Eigenberg) and red-headed young son. Miranda is miserable and she should be. She married down and now is in Brooklyn. Steve could care less about her stressful job. He's still happy-go-lucky but what happened to their sex life? They haven't had sex in 6 months! He's not happy and Miranda isn't interested in him anymore.

Samantha (Kim Cattrall) has moved to Malibu where she has engineered the A-list stardom of her lover, Smith (Jason Lewis). Even though Samantha is 20 years older than him, Smith worships her. Samantha is resenting all the time she spends thinking and working for Smith. She longs to be selfish and vain again. She is tired of being monogamous especially since there is a hot, sexy guy next door always having loud sex with one-night stands.

Socialite Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is in bliss with her short, bald husband, Harry (Evan Handler), and the adorable little girl they adopted from China.

When Big and Carrie find the perfect penthouse mansion, Carrie knows she needs marriage or she might, someday, be tossed to the curb without an apartment. Big agrees to marriage, and that means a wedding extravaganza that rivals the wedding London-based Indian-born steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal threw for his daughter. That wedding cost a reported $55 million. How's that for vulgar ostentatious display of wealth?

The pressure of the wedding finally kicks the story up and, respecting my readers, further details of the plot must end here.

The overall sentiment of SATC is sadness. And it is intentional. Carrie and her girlfriends are supporting each other's concept that the right way to live is in pursuit of shoes and handbags. How can Mr. Big make Carrie really, really happy? He builds her a huge closet.

The ladies keep making the wrong choices and in my mind, all of them, even Charlotte, will soon have to face disappointment. And then they will be 50!

King has written a witty script and gives each actress a lot to work with. And then there is the outdoor, full frontal shower scene of Gilles Marini. In fairness, I must applaud and make note when a director chooses to show the penis it's about time.

Victoria Alexander lives in Las Vegas, Nevada and answers every email. You can contact Victoria directly at masauu@aol.com.

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