Sex and the City: A Review of An Article About It

I have to be the first one to say it: I am not a SATC fan. I had to double-check another article just to spell the name of the show correctly. Why am I one of those women who just didn't get into the show? There were many reasons. First off, I don't have HBO money. Hell, I don't have History channel money so there was no way I was going to see this in its first run. Secondly, I was a bit turned off by a group of women who sat around talking about sex the way that they think men carry on about it. I've always hung out with guys; the guys who were willing to talk about sex in front of me (back in high school when just about everyone wants to "get some", even when 95% aren't getting any) were the unattached ones who were not exactly experienced. We exemplified the adage of "The more you talk about it, the less you've done," so I don't buy this need to talk about it with others...I've outgrown that. And it did get annoying when the few girlfriends I do have would talk about which character I was, because I had no idea what the hell they were talking about! I mean, I called Kim Cattrall "The Old One" because I couldn't remember her name for the life of me.

Well, to get to my point, I read an article written by a guy who was forced to go see the movie for his job. It's an article about the men who actually wanted to see this movie, but were embarrassed to admit it. One guy made a laughable claim: "You understand women better watching `Sex and the City.'" Really? Seriously? You understand women better after watching a show about four women who epitomize various vain women stereotypes? Yeah, whatever. I'm a woman who hates shopping [Especially for clothes because I'm just at that plus-size where most stores still carry items in my size but they're ugly, and for shoes because I wear a size 12, and Payless is all I can afford. DSW can suck it.], and I've not had a Cosmopolitan in my life. I (used to) drink whatever anyone gave me, and I am wary of any "named" old drinks after my introduction to the Manhattan, which is turpentine with a cherry in it (I had four of them; it was in honor of my late Grandfather-in-law).

Anyway, I move on to the latter part of the article:

"Sex and the City" is one of the few summer blockbusters targeting women. Most of the comic-book adaptations and R-rated comedies are aimed squarely at male teenagers. To [a 22 year old woman in attendance], guys having to go see "Sex and the City" helps balance the gender scales.

"What are women gaining when they go to `Iron Man'?" she wondered. "A lot of my friends were dragged to that. There's a give-and-take in movies, right?"

Wrong. I liked Iron Man. I've seen it twice and would like to see it one more time before it leaves the theaters, and I liked it because it was a good movie. It wasn't just a good "superhero" film, but a good movie with a strong script that stayed away from the cheesiness that other films in its genre have succumbed to of late. What are women gaining from SATC? Seriously, I need a fan of this show to explain it to me because I don't get it at all. I caught an episode on Saturday and it was when Carrie was dumped by Mr. Big and her friends recommended therapy, and John Mellencamp was another patient (I think), but I got so tired of it that I changed the channel to some old movie on Turner Classic Movies instead just to get away from the chatter.

Maybe I don't get it because I don't have girlfriends that I hang out with like they do. All of my girlfriends live in Cleveland, and I don't get to see them when I'm visiting family...but I don't miss their companionship all that much. It's fun when we get together, but I'm just as happy to sit at home and do my own thing on Friday nights. I don't feel like I missed something by not watching the show (and my DVD money goes towards anime, so I'm not buying the show's DVDs), but I am curious to see why anybody likes it. Is it the fashion? The fact that Kim Cattrall is, once again, playing the sex pot (considering one of her first movie roles was as "Lassie" in Porky's)? Is it the chatter? Oh God please don't let it be the chatter, because I'll want to get a suspension on my "lady license" right now until my gender can get that crap under control. They're not as bad as the Gabmore Girls (I went to a private school of the same name as the show, but as the name was spelled differently, I'll go with the parody name instead), but sometimes I just want them to shut up. These women get on my nerves, and I love to talk, so they've got to be completely out of control.

So, for all the SATC fans out there who may read this blog, help a sister out! Explain the phenomenon so that I may at least understand the show, if not like it.

A Tale of Two Movies

I saw Speed Racer on Sunday and while it was fun film to watch, I sat there thinking "A person should not walk out of Speed Racer thinking "Wow, I really want to see Iron Man again." So I shouldn't have been surprised when this article about Speed Racer's poor opening appeared online. Speed Racer was not a bad movie; John Goodman was the quintessential Pops, and Christina Ricci did give Trixie some justice (that girl could not get any love in the cartoon), but some of the things wrong with it were that there was a little too much emphasis on how the Wachowski brothers were going to revolutionize movie-making, and I think they could've tamed down the Technicolor world a bit. The races were spectacular, and I'm not one to enjoy a film just for its visual candy, but it is not re-watchable. Once you know how everything is going to turn out, it loses a little something. The world they lived in was more Technicolor than the cartoon ever was [and it may seem like blasphemy that I'm not calling the show an anime, but what we got here in the U.S. was nothing like its original Japanese counterpart which, ironically enough, wasn't that popular in its native country (Wacky Races is more fondly remembered) and so I'm calling it what it was for us] and I found that a little distracting. That, and the fact that Inspector Detective looked like a white Malcolm X and Sparky was a redneck with a British accent was a bit silly. There were more cuts than on a suicidal teenager (tacky, but apt) with probably 60+ cut scenes using people's faces as the different "wipes" (like that star wipe Homer Simpson was fond of) and it took too long to build up to the point of the film. I didn't want to give the Wachowski brothers my money because I don't like their films, but it wasn't as bad as the media is making it out to be. Funny enough, though, it felt more like a superhero movie than Iron Man did.

Iron Man, even with Gweneth Paltrow as the Marvel Moneypenny (I don't remember the name of her character but it was something similar), was a good film. Not a good superhero movie, but a good movie in general. I rarely want to pay full price to see something twice, but I do want to see it again. We saw it the Friday it opened and I really liked it. I think the industry is being stupid in assuming that people like troubled superheroes because they are more empathetic because they are missing the point; the film has to be good to draw an audience. It doesn't matter if the character is likable or not; if the movie sucks, people are not going to throw away their hard-earned cash on it. What they did right on this film was hire a man who could play (for lack of better word) an asshole. Tony Stark is, essentially, 007 and Q combined. I didn't know anything about the comic before seeing the film (I didn't read anything other than Archie comics when I was a kid), but I really enjoyed it and look forward to more sequels as long as they are well-done. What sucked the life out of Spiderman was that the second sequel wasn't as good as the others and, much more damagingly, the principle actors in the film bitched about having to make it (yeah, like Kirsten Dunst had so many work offers poring in). I hope the Marvel people pay attention to that lesson and make good on Iron Man II.

I almost feel bad for the Wachowski brothers. I say "almost" because I didn't really like the Matrix, the first sequel was terrible and the second sequel was so bad one of my girlfriends told my husband and I the entire plot from start to finish to keep us from wasting our money on it. Speed Racer is a fun film that might be worth waiting to see at a dollar theater, but it's not bad bad. [Fans of the series should at least give it a chance and ignore the commercials for it.] It just wasn't as stellar as Iron Man (but it did make me want to race around town for awhile; high gas prices kept me from probably landing in jail).

And on an unrelated note, will someone please tell George Lucas to stop making these damnedable Star Wars films? He's releasing a CGI movie to sell a series which will focus on the Clone Wars, and he must be stopped. Just let it go, man!