Empire State of Mind

Sex and the City
Director: Michael Patrick King
Cast: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis
Released: 5/30/08

Sex and the City 2
Released: 5/27/10
Viewed in theaters: 5/28/10

Spoiler in the review!

The first SATC movie is better than its sequel, but I would recommend the HBO series over the movies. The first movie stays true to the TV show and feels like a two and a half hour special. New York serves as a strong background, there's plenty of sex scenes (although our main protagonist seems to be too busy with shopping, writing, redecorating her apartment, and attending fashion shows to get any action), and an abundance of designer clothes, shoes, and handbags. Also, the four characters get their own storylines: Carrie is going to be married to Big in a lavish ceremony at the New York Public Library (perfect place for a writer!) in an intricate Vivienne Westwood gown. Samantha has been flying back and forth between New York and L.A. where she's managing Smith Jerrod, her actor boyfriend of five years (a LONG time for Samantha Jones to be with one person!) and is having second thoughts about their relationship. Miranda and Steve separate after Steve tells her he cheated on her and Charlotte, with the weakest plot line, is pregnant and is afraid to run in fear of she'll hurt the baby. I guess they had to give her something to do.

Of course the main story revolves around Carrie and her dream wedding to Big (aka John Preston). Everything is set: they have the dress, the location, the invitations have been set out, they have a big rehearsal dinner, etc. Of course Big decides to bail on the big day - like right when the wedding is supposed to start! Unsurprisingly, this pisses off Carrie a great deal and she ends up smacking Big with her bouquet of flowers while wearing her princess wedding gown. Now I never saw this movie in the theaters so I have no idea what everyone else's reaction to it was and I'm not sure if it was supposed to be intentionally funny or not, but I laughed. I thought it was really funny, though I guess what had happened to Carrie wasn't. The cast of How I Met Your Mother re-created the scene for EW.

Now obviously we know Carrie and Big reconcile and do get married, but do you know how Big asks for forgiveness? By copying and pasting a bunch of love letters written by famous men from history and e-mailing them to her! Like that's romantic! I mean, he could have at least attempted to write (write, not type) his OWN letter to her and send it to her via post mail. That would at least have shown a little bit of an effort on his part, you know?

There's plenty of throw away scenes that should have stayed in the editing room like when they attend the fashion show or when they're modeling Carrie's clothes when she's cleaning out her closet, but they're part of the fun and fashion that is Sex and the City.

I saw the sequel with my friend Cameron (hi, Cameron, if you are reading this!) and it was a full audience and probably 99.9% of the audience was female. After the movie ended, I joked that they should have renamed the sequel Fashion and the Desert because Samantha is the only character in the movie who has sex (of course - it is Samantha after all) and the majority of the movie takes place in Abu Dhabi (New York is only featured in about the first half hour). The fashion in this one seems to be a hit miss: you either love it or hate it. The fashion was a lot better in the first movie; there were some pretty fugly clothes in the sequel.

Carrie is the only one who is given a story line and it involves her meeting Aidan (who I've always preferred to over Big) when she's in the U.A.E. and they...wait for it...kiss for, like, five seconds. Oh no! Ripped with guilt, she's not sure if she should tell Big, who she's been having marital problems with lately (he bought her a Plasm TV for their anniversary and she got pissed). The other characters are shoved aside for barely-there sides stories. Charlotte is worried that her husband might be eyeing their new younger and bra-less Irish nanny, Miranda is tired of her misogynist boss and quits her job, and Samantha is going through menopause and has to spend her vacation in the scalding heat without her pills and creams.

Thank goodness for Samantha; she is by far the best part of the movie. Without her the film wouldn't have a life. She has the best zingers and the funniest scenes involves her, although I'm sure if she had done and said those things in Abu Dhabi, she (along with her friends) would have been stoned in real life, but since SATC isn't exactly reality-based (and because that's not the tone they're known for), they manage to leave the country with barely a slap on their wrist.

There's still plenty of fun in the sequel ( Liza Minelli singing Single Ladies is an added bonus), but it doesn't measure up to the first movie, which doesn't measure up to the HBO series. However, if they do make a third movie, you can bet I'll be seeing it!