SATC Spoiler Alert: and yet the only things sour are my grapes.

Allow me to backtrack.  Originally, I never liked Sex and the City.  I watched it a few times during the second season and found all the women to be caricatures of femininity.  I thought Sarah Jessica Parker’s acting was horrible and the gratuitous sex talk seemed a  little ridiculous.  But when the cable company accidentally hooked me up with a year long service to HBO (likely one of my creepy neighbors in my old building were stealing the service and they somehow hooked me up as well…), I suddenly became a Carrie quoting guru. 

 

It was the last season of SATC and I found myself suddenly transfixed by the outlandish fashionistas.  The one liners were smart, the philosophical tone that finished off each episode was thought provoking, and the shoes…oh, the shoes, made my heart pitter patter.  And though their dating lives rarely mirrored mine, I could relate.  I could see that each character was a composite of what’s in all of us: the salacious harlot (Samantha), the romantic perfectionist (Charlotte), the logical cynic (Miranda), and the closet romantic looking for all the answers (Carrie).  Every woman I know has/had a favorite character they identified with.  The smoking writer always intrigued me the most, yet a few men I dated saw me as Miranda minus the Harvard Law degree.

 

So when it was announced that SATC, the movie, was set to launch at the end of May, I waited with baited breath.  Last night I finally shelled out the $10 to see it, though I probably should have just lit a match to the ten dollar bill.  Please, if you’re a SATC fan, just wait for it to come out on DVD.  Sarah Jessica Parker’s growth on her chin is cute on TV, but borders on nauseating on the big screen.  For the first hour, I recommend hanging out at the popcorn counter, (better yet, go drink cosmos with your friends).  The first half gave me the same feeling I had when watching The English Patiet…borrrrrredom.  I mean, I’m all about love and romance, but keep the stories moving, would ya?

 

By the time the first hour was over, my ass was starting to hurt, and I was trying hard not to close my eyes for a little catnap.  This is what I had waited months for?  One too many making out close-ups, lots of yelling women, and men looking jilted with eyes of despair?  This was NOT the show I had come to love.  It completely lacked the quirky humor that the show had.  Here’s a breakdown of the pros and cons, a la Miranda. 

 

Cons:

1. Jennifer Hudson was horrible.  Watching her act was like watching a high school actress.  Her character placement, along with a few scenes were she talks to her ex at an all African-American cocktail party seemed like a pathetic attempt to diversify SATC.
2. Within minutes we learn Big’s fullname.  Didn’t we wait YEARS just to get his first name? 
3. Within the first hour, Big kisses Carrie’s nose twice…and nearly has an entire nostril in his mouth.  Ew?
4. Some of the acting just isn’t up to par with the original show.  Maybe the hiatus caused a break in the vibe, since there are only a few scenes were you genuinely feel that SATC comradery that we’ve come to love.
5. On occasion, I’ve been known to watch reruns of the show, snorting and laughing so hard that I’m crying.  With the exception of Charlotte pooping her pants in Mexico and Samantha’s humping dog, none of it was really that funny.  They took a quirky comedy TV show and turned it into a friggin’ romantic comedy, the bastards.
6. There really were one too many scenes were the female characters were screaming, emotional, and just straight up hysterical.  After Big stiffs her at the alter, Carrie proceeds to beat the shit out of him with a bouquet of flowers, then takes off to Mexico with the girls and sleeps for days.  What happened to the poise, ladies?  Could it be that a male wrote the movie script?  Though we came to love the drama of SATC, I don’t recall any of the women having such extravagant hissy fits.
7. Though I love sex scenes, there were a few odd ones that just didn’t seem necessary.
8. Big is still kind of old and ugly.  Then again, I never really liked his character. 

 

Pros:

1. We get a rare glimpse of a shadowed penis while Samantha ogles her showering neighbor.  I don’t think I’ve seen penis on the big screen since The Crying Game.
2. Kristina Davis (Charlotte York) performs better than she did in the TV series.  Her facial expressions were one of the sole reasons I laughed.  And when Big tries to go to Carrie after ditching her at the alter, Charlotte’s point-and-scream banishment of said jerk reduced me to a few tears.
3. All actresses have bodies to die for.
4. There were a few glimpses of the old SATC humor: Miranda’s overgrown pubes, Charlotte having diarrhea in Mexico, Lilly (Charlotte’s daughter) putting Carrie’s cellphone in her little flower girl purse…but it still falls short.
5. David Eigenberg (Steve Brady) will always be on my list of strangely attractive men.  I don’t know why I think he’s hot, but he is.
6. The end is just like SATC fans have come to expect: realistic.  There is no typical happy ending….there’s life.  This is what I tend to think helped make the show so successful—with all of its over-the-top fashion and unrealistic jobs in Manhattan (that few of us will ever have), each show ended in a way that truly reflected life– with all its smooth paved highways and jagged roadblocks.   

 

 

Carrie Bradshaw: What makes you think something bad is gonna happen?
Charlotte York: Because! Nobody gets everything they want! Look at you, look at Miranda. You’re good people and you two both got shafted. I’m so happy and… something bad is going to happen.
Carrie Bradshaw: Sweetie, you shit your pants this year. I think you’re done.