Sex and the City 2: The Sexening

[Custard]

Ms Raincoat's review had me in fits here.

That's all I've got.

[kidsick5000]

Finally I can visit this thread. I wrote a column on SATC2  for the paper's movie section this week.
I wish I could have employed the bile and language Ronnie applied here. Mine seems awfully restrained now

[SOTS]

I could read the terrible reviews for this movie all day. The only downside to them is that i'm kind of desperate to go and see it now. It sounds completely unmissable in just the WORST way possible.

[SavageHedgehog]

It does sound pretty intriguing, I'm tempted and was never a fan of the series (found it unlikable but acceptable occasional channel flicking fare back in the day, saw an episode the other day and thought there was really only one funny line). I really am beginning to wonder if they weren't deliberately trying to piss people off.

[kidsick5000]

For all the moaning about how bad the film is, no critic could look you in the eye and truthfully say "I did not enjoy getting to write about it".

[samadriel]

For all the moaning about how bad the film is, no critic could look you in the eye and truthfully say "I did not enjoy getting to write about it".

Your point being...?

[Artemis]

It gave them an excuse for a good rant.

It's still shit, though.

[kidsick5000]

Your point being...?

It gave them an excuse for a good rant.

Exactly.
It gets tedious writing about films that are okay. And while seeing a good film is great, writing a positive review just isn't as much fun as discovering a film that has no defence, and wanders in like  like a young zebra unsteadily totting down to the crocodile infested water.

It's a vile film but it has provided a suitable and justifiable release. I sometimes think that  critics can get into a feeding frenzy, no matter how bad the film, like if a actor/director is out of favour. I thought that was the case with Speed Racer which was nowhere near as bad as was projected about.
But then I didn't believe what I read about Gigli and had to see it myself. WAHHHHH They were right. They were right all along.

[Ronnie the Raincoat]

I could read the terrible reviews for this movie all day. The only downside to them is that i'm kind of desperate to go and see it now. It sounds completely unmissable in just the WORST way possible.

Same here, I spent hours gleefully reading it being hacked to bits then had to see it myself.  But really, the big thing the reviews mostly miss is that it's very boring.  The reviews are more entertaining than the film.

[Ronnie the Raincoat]

Another good one:

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/06/sex_in_the_city_2.html#more

Sex And The City 2 is not the worst movie ever made, because it is not actually a movie, it is a 2.5 hour Bin Laden tape entitled, "Why We Hate You."  Fifteen minutes into this recruitment video I hit up twitter:

thelastpsych @alqaeda whats ur paypal? I want in  I also have drug pens and wicked sneaks

thelastpsych d alqaeda can u picku pick me up at the airport?  or can meet you at Tony's

thelastpsych d alqaeda on 2nd thought dont bother, in a generation we'll be extinct

alqaeda @thelastpsych @abiliquel @speidi @bananasplits @axlrose @bjclinton @chrisnoth  IF THIS IS IN RESPONSE TO THE MOVIE, THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST.  WE ARE CURRENTLY EXPERIENCING HIGH CALL VOLUMES.  PLEASE TRY AGAIN TOMORROW.

thelastpsych @alqaeda noobs get on teamspeak i'll be on after work 



This movie was prohibitively terrible, even though I paid for my ticket, I still had to sneak into the theatre.  Think about that.   "I'm really here for the A-Team," I told the usher.   "I bought the wrong ticket for my hot girlfriend, who's at the bar ordering Grasshoppers that are not for me at all."

He took a deep breath and puffed his cheeks out, exhausted.  "Keep your hands where we can see 'em, wildman,  this is a family joint.  And leave the London Fog in the car."


II.

You may be aware that the gals, courtesy of Samantha's recession-proof jobrecession-proof job as something vague go on an all expenses paid trip to Abu Dhabi, which is also recession proof, even though, of course, it's not.  There's no evidence of a recession anywhere in the movie because BORING.

Here's what's weird: the government of Abu Dhabi wouldn't let them film the movie there, so they instead filmed it in Morocco.  But they left it as Abu Dhabi in the story.  I'm pretty sure the average SATC viewer does not know the difference between Morocco and Abu Ghraib, let alone Abu Dhabi,  so why the pretense?  I'm not trying to be funny, I'm sure they can see that the letters spell different words, but if I asked anyone in that theatre if Abu Ghraib was the capital of Morocco, you don't thinkdon't think they'd have to call Facebook if it wasn't the other way around?   

Samantha: Doesn't Abu mean "penis" in Middle Eastern?
Carrie: I thought it meant "something gay."
Charlotte: I think I may be gay in real life.
Miranda: No, that's me, you're confusing your characters.  You're the girl that all straight guys say they'd do if Al Qaeda forced them to choose.  The dark haired innocent and naive one.   
Bin Laden:  You've also aged the best out of all of them.  There's probably a moral there, but it got lost in all the crotch shots.





III.

I'm pretty sure Matthew Broderick is not gay, because no woman married to a gay man would appear in a movie where gays are forced to play 8 year old school girls.  The movie features a gay wedding that is completely incomprehensible on any level.  Right off the bat: the two "brooms" (yeah) have always hated each other, but can still get married because they don't have complicated emotions like 40 year old white women.

Carrie: My life has become much less gay since I got married.
Brooms: If we overlook a decade of animosity and get married, would you come to the wedding to be the center of attention?
Carrie: It would be my pleasure.   

And why is Liza Minnelli in the wedding?  Why is she singing Beyonce's "All The Single Ladies?"    IT'S A GAY WEDDING BETWEEN TWO GAY MEN.  Why is Carrie in a man's tux?  That doesn't make any sense, they're gay, not transvestites.  But for an audience that concedes, "Abu Dhabi/Morocco, what's the diff?" such questions are clearly beyond the point, the point being that the gals lead fun, exciting lives, reality be damned.  Walk into any 20 something bar in America and the semi-drunk girls in the corner have at some point played "If we were in Sex and The City, I'd be______" and it never occurs to any of them that that game is the very reason they're on Cymbalta.

The movie isn't just an affront to homosexuals, it's an affront to stereotypes of homosexuals.  If you're looking to see a movie where two gay men with infinite leisure time lounge fully dressed on someone else's bed and ooh and ahh while an ex-Chud tries on different unflattering outfits, then I suggest inpatient. 

But the wedding isn't for the couple, of course, its sole purpose is to give Carrie the opportunity to reflect on her own married life.  She relates every second the wedding to what's going on in her head.  Not obtrusively or egotistically, but quietly, with a smile, so you get the false impression she's happy for the couple.  Is it impossible for Giappetto's first attempt to engage the world without making it completely about herself? 

Maybe the gay wedding was the director's little attempt at progressivism,  "we at SATC2 support the right of gays to get married!" but does no one think it a little weird that they support the right to do what Carrie et al obviously think is a bad idea for themselves?

Charlotte: My gay friend is marrying your gay friend!
Carrie: Just when you thought everyone you knew was too old to get married, here come the gays!

That's a real quote.  What does that even mean?

IV.

Still, you have to give them credit for taking the movie out of New York.  Got to find fresh meat, I guess.  I understand that part of the allure of travel is the opportunity to sleep with exotic people native to that land, believe me, I get it.   Have you ever slept with a Hungarian in Budapest?  A Botswanian in Gaborone?  An Egyptian in Alexandria? A Russian in Brighton Beach?  A Texan in Houston?  I've done all those things and more, and my evaluation of intercontinental travel is HELL YEAH.

But these four don't even notice the Moroccans around them, unless they are waiters.  Not because three are married, of course, HA! dummy, that just means you're not allowed to wear a condom.  No, they don't notice the natives because for these idiots, the Middle East is nothing but a backdrop, a set, it may as well just be a green screen.  What men do catch their eye?  An American ex-boyfriend, the Australian Rugby Team, and a Portugese explorer named Rikhart who for the purposes of the movie had to be from Scandinavia/The Netherlands/what's the diff?


V.

There is a positive lesson in Sex And The City 2, and it is this: spending thousands on shoes, beautiful designer clothes and accessories doesn't make you look better, sometimes it merely highlights your comparative ugliness.  The juxtaposition is too jarring for an unsuspecting and unmedicated person to handle.  Say you're looking at the ground of a busy sidewalk, and you say, "oh, look, those are a pair of really beautiful Christian Louboutin shoes and HOLY JESUS IT'S MR TUMNUS!"

For comparison, take a look at this man:





His tie, shirt, and haircut are each individually of better quality than my eyes, and cost more.   But you wouldn't have thought him any more attractive than if he was standing in a bathrobe on top of a toll booth peeing on convertibles as they passed below.   Here he is dressed for a battle of wits:




No difference.  Save your money.

"But I'm not dressing this way for men, I'm doing it for myself."  Yes.  That's the whole problem right there.


VI.

What I was going to do is talk about how SATC appeals to the heteronormative standards applied to American women in much the same way as the the A-Team movie appeals to men.  SATC reinforces the role of women as spendthrift, gossipy, superficial, entitled, playful, and non serious.  A-Team reinforces the notion that men should be capable, charming, rough and tough, funny, effective, etc.

But then I thought about how the plots of SATC and the A-Team actually converge into the same movie.  See, what happens is that the girls go to Abu Dhabi where their wacky vaginas get them into yet another jam with the religious police, so it falls to the A-Team to weld a hat on a duck and bust them out.  Murdoch disguised in a burqa hacks a/the computer and they crash their van into the Dome of the Rock to launch their surprise attack.  Faceman then sweet talks all the gay arab clerics, B.A. shoots evil mastermind Manolo Blahnik in the foot, the duck recovers the vaginas, and cars flip over and explode but the drivers crawl out.  Finally, at the culmination of a daring helicopter dogfight, Hannibal releases their girls from their prison cell in the Nordstrom Rack high atop the Burj Dubai.  "I love it when a plan comes together," says Hannibal, and kicks Samatha off the roof. Fin.

---

http://twitter.com/thelastpsych
 

[Ginyard]

The reviews are more entertaining than the film.

Your review particularly. My wife's a big fan and was laughing her arse off as I just read it out to her.

[SOTS]

Just posted this on another board. Not got anything on Ronnie's review though.

This thread has given me far more LOLs than the film itself. There was some fun and I did find myself guiltily laughing at the sight of Samantha franticly waving condoms in people's faces in the market. I enjoyed at snarky cheap laughs (even Samantha sitting in her office haphazardly rubbing cream on her vadge, or certain lines, like when Carrie asks whether Samantha accompanying Smith to his premiere was a date, with Samantha replying "No no, just friends. Though I may throw him a fuck if I enjoy the movie.") as opposed to the genuinely sub-Are You Being Served style jokes (a camp gay arabian butler, really?!) And yes, I did actually laugh at Liza. Because it was RIDIC.

My real problem is finding it hard to have any sympathy with the characters whatsoever. I had never had a jot of sympathy for Big until watching Carrie complain about a slightly dull but mostly lavish and ultimately contented life to the point of absolute WhatTheFuckery. I must admit that I have to agree with Mark Kermode that as a LEFTY, I was pretty much AGOG during the scenes where the butler tells Carrie that he only sees his wife every three months when he can afford a flight and then Carrie SOMEHOW sees this akin to her supposed "marriage crisis" as opposed to having her eyes opened as to how staggeringly unjust the disparity between the butler's wealth and her own actually is. This moment might quite not have been so bad if the parading of wealth in the film wasn't so unrelentingly vulgar. I mean, they were undoubtedly rich in the series but then again, watching that back, I did tend to be DISTRACTED BY ACTUAL PLOT. It's gone from being vaguely aspirational to gaudy and absurd. Opportunistic Socialist Worker volunteers have missed a bloody trick with this one, LADS. Unless they don't want to recruit swathes of cinema-goers as they leave feeling disheartened and vulnerable.

Miranda and Charlotte are still easily the most likeable characters, but ultimately shadows of their former selves. While I felt that the old Charlotte and Miranda shone through during the moments between just the two of them but the attempt to relate to the audience with regards child-rearing was patronising and depressing (and thank fuck Miranda actually went back to work in the end... I was shuffling uncomfortably in my seat throughout all of that BRIEF ARC with my head screaming "How will you afford all your stupid fucking crap on Steve the fucking bartender's wage, you daft fucking ginger fucking bitch?!) With regards Samantha, she's decent for a bit of comic value but it was really overdone. I don't know about you lot but I now officially feel like I don't need to see Kim Cattrall being FUCKED HARD again. I think i'm done. But Carrie is the only one I came away wanting to PHYSICALLY HARM. Big, well... I can only feel sorry for the poor sod. I'll happily lie with you and watch black and white films whilst wrapped in only-the-finest Egyptian cotton bedsheets whenever you fancy, dear. I'm not HER.

All the women's lib bollocks really got on my tits. Yes, the middle east is and continues to be OPPRESSIVE towards women but FUCK there is middle ground between Burkha-wearing and being a vapid goggle-eyed cunt. There's third wave feminism, and THEN there's looking like the angular exhumed corpse that turned up for dinner with Aidan. Though funnily enough, I was more annoyed by Carrie's reaction to her book and the defence of it by the women. "Oh, the reviewer is clearly just terrified by strong women!" Yeah, or maybe the book was SHITE.

I'm off to rub some houmous on my lady garden.