Sex in What City??

Okay--I've been quiet about this long enough and it is now time to finally speak about Sex & The City 2. I will attempt to do so now, without any spoilers, as I know many of you will not have seen the movie by the time you read this blog.

As a staff member of New York Women In Film & Television, I was invited to the New York premiere at Radio City Music Hall on Monday. Quite the star-studded event, it was as fabulous as the book, series and first movie claimed to be. The red carpet was crawling with New York-based celebrities, the principal actors and most of the other actors in the movie (Liza Minnelli, Chris Noth, Mario Cantone, Jason Lewis and John Corbett) which was streamed live into the theater, sending the audiences into a frenzied excitement each time one of their favorites appeared on the screen. It also caused the premiere to begin almost an hour late. So, needless to say, I needed to be "wowed" by this film (oh, did I mention that the free popcorn tasted like it had been popped on Sunday morning??!!).

The movie finally got underway after Michael Patrick King and the four ladies, Sarah, Kristin, Cynthia and Kim, came onto the grandest stage in New York and welcomed everyone to the show. So I settled in, hoping to be able to tell you that all of the early critiques about this movie were wrong--that it was worthy of your $12 at the box office, that it would leave you wanting a Sex & The City 3, that the story was somewhat compelling and that you should make it a holiday weekend must-do.

Sadly, I cannot report any of the above.

Sex & The City 2 was quite disappointing on several fronts. To begin with, there was vitrually no sex at all, in any city, at any time. As a matter of fact, the only one that has sex of any kind is Samantha (surprise, surprise) though you almost wish she didn't because it is portrayed in such a clownish manner that it's not like watching our enviable, free living friend, Samantha Jones. Rather, it's like seeing a dear old friend make a fool of herself, in a desperate attempt to fight Father Time, which is quite a departure from Samantha as we remember her.

Next, our guys (Aiden, Big, Steve, Harry) practically don't exist in this sequel. I should be happy about this, since I am in the daily trenches, advocating for equality for my ladies in the film business. But I realized that wallpaper roles are the same for both genders--it leaves you with an incomplete storyline. Not only do we not see or hear from our guys very much this time around, they are hardly even mentioned or, it seems, thought about with any real passion. I spent some time actually wondering if this movie is a sequel to Sex & The City: The Movie, or the prequel to Golden Girls: The Movie.

The storyline is limited at best. Honestly, Michael Patrick King and Candace Bushnell could have wrapped this story up in 30 minutes, tops! It had that feel of seeing an XS sized sweater, stretched to it's limits, in order to fit over a M-L body type. You know, where you look at the person and say to yourself "there's just not enough material there for your body" and it looks bad. Well, at this movie, I found myself thinking "there's just not enough material here for a feature length film" but it looks good. Kudos to John Thomas (Director of Photography) and Michael Berenbaun (film editor) for the lovely cinematography.

As for the rumblings of a Sex & The City 3--this installment leaves very little room for that. It actually sums up the entire past, present and future of all of the principal characters so there really isn't much to look forward to from them. Even if one of the characters decided to stray from the path that SATC2 has laid out for them, the detour would have to be so extreme that it would almost be unbelievable, way out of character and a total departure from the integrity of the story. Besides, these girls are all middle-aged now; they are who they are and few, if any, interesting changes are going to happen to them, cerainly not unpredictable changes, at least.

The brightest spot in this film, for me, was the absolutely amazing costume design by the legendary Patricia Fields. Beyond the fabulous everyday clothes that all of our girls continue to wear in this show, somehow Patricia makes the audience believe that, even in ultra-conservative, Muslim country Abu Dahbi, these clothes would be mostly acceptable. Of course, Samantha has to be repeatedly reminded about modesty, but that's to be expected. Overall, the clothing was as stylish and trendy as anything you might see on a French Carribbean resort, in the Canary Islands or in the South of France. The shoes were amazing and almost had me panting. And it was genius to have even more wonderful fashions underneath the traditional abayas of the Abu Dahbi women late in the film, a great moment for feminists all over the world, I'm sure. So huge kudos to Patricia Fields.

And that, my friends, is what kept my eyes glued to the screen, my interest alive and my mind working. To see a film entitled Sex & The City 2 with viturally no sex, no city, and no talk of either, left me feeling like I walked into the wrong theater. If I could have watched this film on mute, my rating may have possibly been higher than 5 out of 10. If I could rate the film just on her costume design alone, it would receive a 9.5 from me.

But I must subtract for storyline, creativity and authenticity so the 5 out of 10 stays as my rating.

In other words, Sex & The City 2 only got it half right.

But I went with my sister, my cousins and one of my BFFs so it was a good time anyway!

Did you see it? What are your thoughts?