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

Dreamgirls (2006)

Based loosely enough on the rise and fall of Diana Ross and the Supremes to avoid a lawsuit, this film tells the tale of a trio of young black women trying to break into the early 60s R&B music scene.

Dreamgirls was originally a Broadway musical and its film adaptation has been a long time coming. The stage show took Broadway by storm in 1981. Thanks to recent successful movie-musicals like Chicago and biopics like Ray and Walk the Line, Dreamgirls finally gets its day in the sun.

Through the first half of the film (the first Act of the show, really) we see the naïve and aspiring Dreamettes go from being not even a blip on anyone’s radar and playing local talent contests, to singing backup for a hit singer and eventually breaking through to the white radio markets on their own. During this process the writers treat us to little doses of history- payola, civil and racial unrest, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and the difficulty for black artists to succeed due to poor copyright protection that allowed white artists to snag a hit from black radio and convert it for a white-friendly audience.

The sizzle and pop of the songs and the excellent set and costume designs made me wonder how on Earth the Academy failed to nominate this film for Best Picture. Then came the second Act.

Actually, the momentum died at the end of the first Act, where Jennifer Hudson’s Effie is disgruntled about no longer being lead vocalist (making Beyonce Knowels the ‘face’ of the group) and her bad attitude has finally cost her a place in the group. She discovers that she is being replaced and throws a diva fit, to which her manager and friends interject by singing their dialogue. Up to this point, all the songs had been performance numbers by the group or other artists, so when they began to unfurl their exposition and dialogue via song, my affection for the film dropped a notch. Sure, this sort of style works in movie-musicals from the 60’s and earlier, but now it just seems cheesy. The Academy fruitballs and the Broadway fruitballs can defend sing-songy exposition all they want, but it just doesn’t jive with me. At least not for contemporary films.

The second Act seems to drag, as Effie manages to drop off the face of the Earth for much of the time, and we are instead tuned into the struggle of the group and of Beyonce’s character. Updates on what Effie’s life has been like since the split are shown, but they don’t add to the roundness of the character. Another major issue with the second Act is the jump in time from the close of Act one. We go from the 60s to the 70s and very little compensation is given for the 8-year leap. Characters look no older and it seems that the filmmakers didn’t even bother trying to do so.

A lot of noise was made about Beyonce’s role in the film and many were buzzing early on about potential Golden Globe and Academy Awards nominations for her. She got nothing, which I find hysterical, because she didn’t deserve any in the first place. Beyonce does a good job playing the innocent, pretty, sweet-sounding singer, because she is one. She’s not an actress, so why did people think she was so great at a part she could play because it was barely a stretch from how she really is? Frankly, she’s forgettable, as Effie is a much more interesting character, and Hudson was rightfully recognized for her astounding performance (take that, American Idol).

Dreamgirls starts off as a tour de force, appealing to the eyes and ears alike. They aim for the fence and come out swinging for the home run, but the story progresses away from the most interesting character, only to bring her back in the final scenes to provide a standard sappy happy ending. It is still a very excellent film, but I can understand why the Academy did not nominate it for Best Picture.

Look for some head-turning performances by Hudson and Eddie Murphy, and a keen eye will spot Steve Urkel himself (Jaleel White) amongst the who’s-who ensemble black cast.

RATING: 3.75 out of 5