Rubbish in the City (2)

Well, I'm halfway through 'Touch of Evil' (which IS actually on the list), but alas I am going to write a quickie here about my recent viewing of 'Sex in the City 2'.

I finally got around to taking in a 'Babes in Arms' session at the wonderful Westgarth last week. Awesome concept, which I plan to take advantage of more often, especially while baby is still immobile and will sleep in me arms.
Anyway, they were playing Sex in the City 2, which as you can imagine was quite popular amongst the mums. :)
I knew this film got absolutely panned, and was expecting it to be bad. And bad it was.
That said, it was also quite fun. Albeit, in the incredibly shallow contrived way you might expect.

Let's back up...
much to my husband's horror, I actually enjoy the tv series SITC. Infact, most of the ladies I know do - somehow, it appeals to many "types" of women, myself included. It's a guilty pleasure. It's fun, it's girlie, it's fluffy. I am not one of the women who like it for the whole fashion aspect - I honestly couldn't give a hoot about a Prada bag or a pair of Manolo Blahnik. Sure, I do mildly enjoy the fun crazy Carrie Bradshaw outfits, but that's about it.

I also completely understand why SITC (the series) would anger people. It's shallow & sometimes vapid content is questionable. And then of course there's the main reason why my hubby despises the girlie franchise - he referenced an early episode whereby Charlotte encounters an uncircumcised man, and is utterly appalled by his genitals. I haven't seen this episode in question (there's huge gaps in my SITC viewing), but apparently Charlotte provides the gentleman with an ultimatum, in that she insists he gets circumcised before the relationship continues (and/or a sexual relationship ensues).
My husband's point - and a very good one - is that if the shoe were on the other foot, and a tv series had a man asking a woman to mutilate/change her genitals, rest be assured we Chicas would be outraged. And so should we all be at this particular episode in question.

Anyway, I digress.
I am WAYYYyyy off topic.

The first SITC movie was grouse. Loved it. Well, hated hated hated the plot factor of Carrie taking back Mr.Big. But it was a lovely little film.

And they should have stopped there.

This second film was devoid of many things...plot and integrity mostly.
There were some entertaining and fun bits ('Lawrence of my Labia'...Charlotte & Miranda's candid talk about motherhood...Liza Minelli's "All the Single Ladies" cameo -wow, what legs she has for an elderly lady!).
But there was a distinct lack of substance and a potent sense of desperation to this venture #2 in film. Seriously, ladies, why did you agree to this?

Ah yes, and the answer would be - $$$$$.
As the scathing reviews of the movie state, ANY SITC movie WILL bring in generous revenue, despite any bad criticism of the film. Loyal fans and ladies worldwide love the SITC franchise, and will pay the ticket price no matter "how awful" the film is reviewed to be. Hell, I did it meself.

My biggest issue with this film? (Well, besides having to endure Sarah Jessica's Parker's drag-queen-esque face in closeup from the 5th row of a large screen theatre).
Carrie Bradshaw's heightened sense of shallowness and selfishness.
The way she treats her husband is not grounds for role-model status nor protagonist behaviour.
Big buys her an anniversary present (a plasma screen tv, installed just near the bed), which Carrie instantly rejects as awful, and whines about how "a piece of jewelery would've been nice".
Um...ingrateful bitch?
Who would have the gumption to do that?
then, to make matters worse, she whines like a big baby the entire movie, kisses another man (her ex, Aidan) while overseas, and is REWARDED upon return to her husband, who produces a giant ring for her to wear as "punsihment" for her infidelity.
I kid thee not.
Awful. Just plain awful.
As were the terribly convenient plotline of Charlotte's fear of Harry cheating on her with the nanny, which was conveniently wrapped up by the nanny being revealed as a lesbian. And the out-of-nowhere gay marriage between "the two gay best friends", who've hated each other throughout the series, but somehow found love.
Not believin it.
I could go on and on, especially in regards to the horrible shallowness of the girls' trip to the middle east, the posh princesses amongst minimum wage servants, but I won't. Because I've taken up farrrrr too much time on this film.

Friend Nellie & I were chatting about my film blog project last week (Hi Nellie!) and she encouraged me to write a scathing blog of SITC 2, so I hope this was a bit feisty.
I shall return to life outside of Miranda, Carrie, Samantha and Charlotte.


P.S. This film received a whopping 16% of rotten tomatoes! SIXTEEN! that is lowwww folks, laughably bad. There were also some doozies of reviews on RTomatoes that cracked my shit uppp. Some great one liners:
"Sex and the City has turned into a bloated juggernaut of pointlessness. Its female characters are now beyond unbearable, none more so than Carrie."

and
"Whenever the light is just right and the angle is just plain wrong, each star gets an unflattering close-up that leaves them looking like drag-queen stand-ins."

and
With SATC2 we were supposed to get a peek at what's next. Instead we got a fanciful vacation and a lame and fluffy version of female power.

1.5 Monkeys / 5