Sex and the City (2008)

“I am not the person to review this movie,” said Roger Ebert at the start of his review for this celluloid continuation of the popular HBO series. I feel the exact same way. I all but hate the Sex and the City TV show. I despise the characters and all the stereotypes, behaviors, philosophies and materialism they represent and broadcast to the masses. So you can understand the difficulty I’m experiencing as I sit here and try to write an objective review. I will do my best.

If you love or like the show, you will most likely feel the same about the movie. If you are just a casual fan of the show, you will probably find the movie somewhat or mostly enjoyable. If you have little or no interest in the show, you will not enjoy the movie. Women who have never seen the show before may find themselves able to relate to the female leads and some of the circumstances they are faced with, but it is unlikely that anyone but regular viewers of the show will fall in love with this film. Sex and the City was not made to draw new blood into the fan club. This one is for the girls (and guys, if any) who know and love these characters already.

For the uninitiated and those who have not had episodes in constant rotation on their DVR’s and DVD players, Sex and the City opens with a quick prologue that catches everyone up to speed. The back stories and current whereabouts of Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha are rattled off and we are clued in on the 10 years running on-again/off-again relationship between Carrie and her beau known as “Mr. Big.”

When career-focused Miranda manages to trigger a series of events that sinks her marriage, she takes it out on the bond between Carrie and Big. His head now filled with doubt, Big has second thoughts and initially skips out on their wedding. He comes to his senses and tries to get back to the church but the damage has already been done. Carrie fails to realize he is coming back to her after a moment of weakness and verbally rips him apart in the streets of New York. She writes him off and claims she should have known better all along.

Thus begins a story of redemption that spans nearly a year in the events of the characters and two and a half hours of screen time. That puts Sex and the City the movie at roughly five times the length of one of the TV episodes. While it almost makes sense for a film based on a TV show that holds excess as one of its virtues, the overlong run time is inexcusable. Fans of the show will eat it all up as one gigantic love fest, but for the uninitiated, Sex and the City is a sprawling and, at times, tiring melodrama to sit through. Several times I found myself sitting through minutes on end of empty dialogue and tangential antics that made me want to stand up and yell at the screen to advance the plot for crying out loud.

There were several parts of the film that even I, a detractor, found humor in. Some of the raunchy sex talk and jokes that aren’t suitable for network television were partnered up with sight gags and amusingly awkward scenarios. I also learned from this film that women, though they may fiercely deny it, can appreciate and find humor in poop and fart jokes. The crucial scene that pulls Carrie out of her post-wedding-day-meltdown funk involves her friend Charlotte accidentally drinking some tap water while the girls are in Mexico. Her bowels react in very unpleasant ways and she noisily soils herself in front of the girls before she can make it to the restroom. Needless to say, I will no longer accept any criticism of such humor from my wife, as she laughed her head off over Charlotte’s ordeal.

While the TV show was aired on the premium cable channel HBO, Sex and the City was considered edgy and groundbreaking. The women cursed, drank and slept around casually, challenging the conventional view of the “modern” woman. In the five years between the end of the series and the film, America seems to have embraced much of the materialism and loose sexuality thanks to shows like The Hills and countless indulgent reality programs, making the Sex and the City movie almost tame by comparison. Any edgy magic seems either lost or nonexistent, which added to the extended periods of boredom that affronted me.

All the men, including Mr. Big, are relegated to supporting characters who come across as either dull, dim-witted or boring. The only exception is Miranda’s husband, who does his darnedest to make up for his affair and fix their marriage. Even Mr. Big is a flat character. All he does is do wonderful things with his vast wealth and say the right thing at the right time to reassure Carrie when she’s acting neurotic. We never see the four gals spending time together with their respective men in tow. It’s almost always exclusively girl time or a girls' night out. It makes me wonder what kind of women these are who talk about their husbands and lovers with each other but never seem to actually interact with them en masse.

The only other thing about Sex and the City that irked me was the way Charlotte is portrayed. Here is a woman who has actually found love and maintains a happy, healthy and stable relationship with her husband, yet she is played up as a nitwit. She seems like the most logical character to offer relationship advice to her friends, yet they treat her as if she were some kind of an anomaly. For me, this sends the wrong message to women- “only stupid women believe they’ve found true love and happiness.” I’m sorry, but that agitates me.

Sex and the City is a very polarizing movie. You will either like it or you won’t. It’s clear that the filmmakers were not trying for broad appeal, which is good but bad. It’s good in that the movie probably maintains the integrity of the series for its fans, giving them plenty of what they want. It’s bad though because focusing on a niche market doesn’t lend itself to the kind of broad appeal that makes a film a lasting success. Sure, Sex and the City made $150 million in the US, but how much of that was repeat business by those who had never seen an episode before? It’s a bold move to sacrifice potential popularity in favor of product integrity, but then again it’s only Sex and the City that we’re talking about here.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5

The Blob (1988)

It’s almost universally accepted that remakes are not as good as the original. This remake of The Blob received generally better reviews upon its release than the 1958 flick and many still maintain that, despite the cult status of the original, this version is better. I, on the other hand, found this remake inferior. While some elements have been improved due to better technology, The Blob is still incredibly lacking in originality and features some of the worst clichés that films of the 1980s gave us.

The story is very much the same- a meteorite falls to earth, containing a small gelatinous creature that devours whatever living thing it comes in contact with and increases in size the more it eats. The creature finds its way into a small town and terrorizes the residents. It still has the same color and appearance and still has the same vulnerabilities (cold). Two teenagers (one a troublemaker, the other a good girl) alert their friends and neighbors to the presence of the creature and help stop it.

This new version of The Blob improves some of the weaker aspects from the original. For instance, instead of just looking like a glob of jelly on the ground, this Blob has a little more texture and color variation to it. It also moves more satisfyingly than in the original. This Blob doesn’t just roll or slide around; it twitches, writhes and crawls its way to its next victim. It still behaves a little too intelligently for something that doesn’t appear to have a brain and the speed at which it moves changes, creating some continuity issues, but the Blob itself is an improvement.

The visual effects are also improved to a degree. The original film was made for cheap and many effects were poorly done. Obviously the effects would be better, given technological improvements, but not 100% better. The film still shows its age through some lousy blue screen work. The improved effects serve to make the Blob a bit more fearsome, but there are plenty of faults that tear this movie apart.

The first pitfall of this new incarnation of The Blob is that it gives in to the bloodlust that scary movies of the 80s demanded. Given the success of the Halloween, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises, anyone suggesting that a remake of The Blob didn’t need to be gory was probably laughed at. I think less blood and gore would have helped the film, but any kids trying sneaking into a theater to see it would complain to their friends later that it was simply too tame. Seeing flesh dissolve off of a victims face is one thing, but I found myself drawing a line when the Blob attacks and successfully devours a child.

During an escape scene in the sewer, the female lead is trying to get her little brother and his friend to safety. Initially, I was surprised to see the Blob pull the boy’s friend under the water. I was almost impressed at the chance they took by having a child get killed by the monster. When the child came back up to the surface screaming and half-dissolved for added shock, however, I found myself appalled. In horror films, less is always more.

Ironically, The Blob is pulled in another direction at the same time. While bowing to campy teen bloodlust, the film also takes itself far too seriously (something that plagued many 80s flicks in general). The sternness exuded by Kevin Dillon’s bad boy character is laughable. The original film was meant to be a popcorn monster flick and nothing more. There’s really no weight or gravitas that can be injected into a film about a glob of interstellar goop binging on anything it can grip, so I don’t know why they tried.

The stay with Dillon for a moment, I’d like to point out how ludicrous the whole bad-boy-turned-hero arc that infected far too many 80s films looks now in retrospect. The glorification of rebel teens is one thing, but it was far too much for the filmmakers to try and idolize a supposed thug who appears to use more hair care products that my mother and sister combined.

The final insult came with probably the biggest deviation from the original film- the Blob, as it turns out, is not just a random creature that fell to earth on a meteorite. It’s actually the result of a government biological weapons experiment gone wrong! Cue they eye roll right now. It just seems lazy to me to have the Blob be the construct of a sinister government experiment. Leaving it as a random creature from outer space is actually scarier, because the audience is left to wonder how many more of these things could possibly fall to earth. We don’t really need an explanation about the monster’s origins. To make matters worse, the government agents that take over the town are bent on killing anyone who knows about and preserving the monstrosity rather than showing concern for the citizens under attack.

This remake is capped off with a potshot at religious fanaticism. A loopy preacher happens to save a piece of the Blob and travels the countryside preaching threats of an impending doomsday that he will unleash when God gives him a sign.

You get what you pay for in this remake of a cheesy 50s monster movie. I recommend you save your money, and if you can track down a copy for free, save yourself the time. The Blob becomes a monster in and of itself, as the filmmakers try to stuff far too much into a plot that was always thin to begin with.

RATING: 1.75 out of 5

The Blob (1958)

This slick and mostly harmless monster movie from the 1950s is one of those cult classics that live on in infamy (for good or bad). Despite falling victim to oversimplification, some corny dialogue, and effects that look horribly dated, The Blob ages surprisingly well.

Right off the bat, you should know that cinematic greatness should not be expected from this film. Designed for little more than cheap thrills and laughs, The Blob is a popcorn flick in the truest sense of the word. Yes, it has its fair share of shortcomings, but if you focus on them too much, you will miss out on half the fun. Leave your inhibitions at the door and just take The Blob at face value. It won’t be your greatest movie going experience ever, but it will be far from your worst.

Everyone knows the story of The Blob- a mysterious glob of goop falls to earth and begins oozing over and eating everything in its path, growing larger with each victim. The inhabitants of a small town struggle to find a way to stop it and, in the end, discover a simple yet effective way to dispatch the gelatinous foe. It’s pretty cut and dry and straight to the point. It’s an easy plot to follow and one that has been mimicked and replicated countless times over the years (instead of The Blob, insert any unexpected terrifying foe and add an equally simple solution to the problem and you have an instant popcorn monster flick with moderate success). Everything else that comes with The Blob is purely frosting on the cake, but it’s good frosting for sure.

For a movie made in 1958, I was impressed by some of the special effects. Some of the initial scenes with the Blob attaching itself to an old man’s hand and moving itself across the floor were actually pretty good. It’s hard to make a hunk of what looks like strawberry jelly look very menacing, but the Blob’s bland appearance actually does serve to spook you a few times quite well. Perhaps it’s the faceless killer aspect of the Blob’s nature, or perhaps it is because you never know how quickly the thing will strike and what its strike range truly is.

Truth be told, I always thought the Blob was green. Needless to say, I was quite surprised to learn that it is in fact red. I don’t know if they intentionally did this to mask any potential gore inside the Blob (as its red appearance would block out or blend in with any blood swirling inside from its last victim) or not, but it was a good choice. The red really helps the Blob stand out. The smaller the Blob is, the better it looks. Later on I the film we see rear projected, miniature scale or animated versions of the Blob. None of these look all that fantastic and show how some movie effects just haven’t aged well.

But for a 50 year old movie, The Blob gets the job done pretty well. Film fans will get a kick out of Steve McQueen unrealistically playing a teenager. His character has gotten himself in enough trouble in town that nobody believes him when he starts warning people about some kind of monster that’s going around eating people. Naturally, this rough around the edges guy pairs up with a sweet innocent girl, who is forced to go behind her parents’ back in order to help McQueen out.

The ending of the film is somewhat amusing as well. The words “The End” morph into a large question mark, implying that the Blob could very well return to ravage society. It’s a very 50s kind of thing to do- it was the era of growing fear as the Cold War between the US and the USSR began intensifying and the question mark serves to set the film up for a sequel if it did well enough.

While The Blob isn’t anything too remarkable, it is a fun and easy movie to watch. There’s a lot of history surrounding this movie (it did help re-popularize monster movies) so it’s more interesting to watch from a historical perspective than anything else. The Blob is a pretty good display of how movies changed at the time and serves to remind us how much they have changed since then.

RATING: 2.75 out of 5