Saturday, May 29, 2010

Movie Review: Sex and the City 2

Wow. Let me begin by saying this review has some intense spoilers. I need to provide specific examples from the film to illustrate some of my points and therefore I will reveal important plot elements. If you still want to have your SATC 2 experience preserved, then stop now. However, if you don't care about this rotting pile of dog shit that's masquerading as cinema, then carry on. You've been warned.

If you didn't gather from the first paragraph, this movie is horrific. Perhaps this is the result of a public high school education, but I cannot find the words to effectively describe how much this movie offends me. I'll try anyway: Insensitive. Meanderingly pointless. Overstuffed. Irrelevant. Dina Lohan. Brussel sprouts.

You get the idea. This film works overtime to stereotype and misrepresent many different demographics. I'll break things down to the three main groups that should be taken aback by the film. Also, the fashion in this film is grotesquely disappointing. I will point out various fashion faux pas as the film goes on.

The Gays

Yes, I'm starting with my people. I assume my blog has a fairly sizable gay audience, like SATC2, so therefore I assume it is fair for me to make overarching generalizations that perpetuate stereotypes, LIKE SATC 2.

1. GAYS LOVE LIZA!!!!!!!! In fact, Liza is such a gay icon, if there's a gay wedding she can sense it and just shows up.
2. Gays can only be successful in an open marriage. Fidelity is for heteros.
3. Since I'll never have kids, I will be able to save up enough money is a pretty well-paying job to have a wedding that would make Princess Diana's nuptials look like a fucking one-nighter in a Vegas chapel, overseen by a fat Elvis. I'll distract from this huge logical inconsistency by hiring a gay choir and OH LOOK DID I MENTION LIZA SHOWED UP?!?!? I'm sure her fee is reasonable...OH WAIT SHE DOESN'T HAVE ONE FOR THE GAYS!!!!!!
4. See my next category for the depiction of a gay muslim.
5. As long as there are only two major gay characters in the story of my life (me and one other), we'll eventually get together because trying to write a unique story line for me would require too much effort on the part of the writers. So even though this guy is my complete opposite and our union defies all reasonable explanation, it'll happen because without other gay options our intense need for sexual gratification will drive us together.
6. The bottom line is that the gays will serve as a vehicle for a lavish wedding that jumpstarts the plot. However in retrospect, this will have no relevant function except to allow our heroines to make some questionably tasteful and unfunny one-liners about gays.

I suppose there wasn't anything in the film that was overly offensive to the gays. Rather, there was a smugness in the film, as if the writers knew they could get away with gay humor because they knew there was a gay audience. I don't like that. So in order to achieve karmic retribution, I have a joke at the expense of a gay. Michael Patrick King, the show's creator, looks like a homo Keebler elf. I wonder what sort of fudge he's packing in that magical tree of his.


I CAN SAY THAT BECAUSE IM GAY AND SO IS HE!!! THOSE ARE THE RULESSSS!!!

Fashion Faux Pas: Maybe a gay wedding legitimizes Carrie's decision to wear a tuxedo and heels, but nothing on God's earth legitimizes her decision to wear a hat that makes me wonder when her alien people are coming to earth to kill us all.

Muslims

Omg you guys, the news totally has it wrong. The Middle East is a paradise, where everything is beautiful and perfect. If I didn't know anything, I'd say that Sex and the City 2 makes the Middle East, specifically Abu Dhabi, look like heaven. Just to show you how wrong the news is, I did a Google news search to see everything false that's happening there.

"Abu Dhabi Police delegation briefed on the latest crime scene training in the UK."
"Rape victims reluctant to go to the police"
"'Sex and the City' Sequel May Face Abu Dhabi Ban Amid Religion Fury."

Yes, the capitalization is inconsistent, but I just copied the headlines directly. None of these things were even hinted at in the movie, so clearly the news is full of shit and the movie is awesome. What sorts of things can you expect if you go to Abu Dhabi? Let me tell you!

1. Everyone in the Middle East is super kind, and even black market vendors have good hearts and will let you go if you don't like their goods. They might get indignant if they think you've stolen something, but that's a totally understandable source of confusion.
2. If a Muslim man makes a Paula Abdul reference, he's gay. But only if he's good looking.
3. Muslim women, although forced to wear burkas, are secretly super fashionable and wear designer clothes under their traditional garb. Yes, that's right. Muslim women spend thousands of dollars to import Dolce and Gabbana in order to secretly wear it under their burkas. Just in case you didn't hear me, Muslim women, according to Sex and the City 2, walk around in 113 degree desert temperature wearing all black burkas, which they've layered underneath with designer outfits. Somehow they manage to wear all of this fabric and not die of heat stroke. This is pretty magical, just like their magical ability to speak English out of nowhere.

Fashion Faux Pas: Just because you assume the Paula Abdul referencing Muslim is gay doesn't mean that he is. Therefore when you turn to him for some desert-sheik fashion advice, there are two possible explanations for why your outfits look like a clown's wardrobe exploded. One, he's not actually gay and therefore scientifically ineligible to give fashion advice. Two, he's gay and spiting you, because no matter who (or how oppressed), a gay will know good fashion.


This was the best I could do image wise, so hopefully you can see that they look like the dying visions of Bozo the Clown, if he had malaria.

EDIT: It has come to my attention that there have been some gripes about this portion of the review. I heard some grumblings a little while ago and let them go, but now that several people have complained to me I feel the need to say something. So I learned that Muslim women actually do wear designer clothes under their burkas. Well, I'm sorry for being so ignorant. I didn't know that. However, let me give a bit more context to help explain my incredulity.

1. It looked like the SATC girls were shopping in a really poor part of town. One vendor was missing teeth. Context clue.
2. They were saved by the Muslim women in that seemingly poor part of town. Therefore I made the assumption that the women in the poor part of town were also, themselves, poor. My b.
3. I then made the huge jump in logic to be surprised poor women spent assloads of money on nice clothes.

So, even though some rich Muslim women may wear nice things under those burkas, I still think SATC 2 is misrepresenting that part of their culture. Just a little. I mean, please leave comments to explain what else I might be missing. I would also make the logical assumption that everyone who felt the need to point out my logical fallacy actually watched SATC2, so they had the proper context to judge my comment and to make their own assertion. If someone commented without seeing the movie, well that's just silly.

Women

After some thought, no matter how horribly the gays and Muslims are treated, nobody really gets it worse than women. Approximately 85% of the audience members in my theater were ladies, a statistic I assume holds pretty well for screenings across the nation. I also observed that most of the women seemed sort of sad and single. My theory? Most of those women were huge fans of the show, since it presented single life as something that was fun, even if it went into your 30s. It legitimized waiting to get married, which gave single women hope if they weren't tied down at age 26. It also was a brilliant commentary on the single condition, starring four talented actresses.

So, I can only feel pity for the women in the theater as they watched their beloved characters turn into shrill, harpy ladies that were now sad caricatures of themselves. Let's go character by character.

Charlotte

Along with Miranda, she had perhaps one of the less offensive story lines. Charlotte was struggling with being a new mother, because her girls were quite difficult and she had a nanny that was super super hot and often went braless. Since Charlotte has always been intent on maintaing a fairy-book lifestyle, she didn't air her complaints about motherhood until well into the movie. I think having issues with motherhood is a legitimate plot. Sadly, both Charlotte and Miranda were relegated to sidekick status. Neither of their stories really had time to develop, since the movie was intent on other, inferior stories. The one thing that bothered me the most was the resolution of the nanny storyline. Oh, Charlotte! You had nothing to worry about because your nanny was a lez. No risk of your husband cheating! Heaven forbid she just be a straight lady with a conscience.

Because of the lack of plot development, I assume the lesbian reveal went something like this. (Harry is Charlotte's husband)

Harry: Oh hay baby, can I play with dem fine ole tittays? Imma smack them around all night long.

Nanny: Um, no. I'm a lesbian. Sorry.

Harry: Oh, awkward. Well hooray now I can still stay faithful to my wife! She doesn't have to worry about anything happening!!

Nanny: Wait, but you just came on to me. Like, clearly you have unfaithful thoughts that you're willing to act on. Shouldn't this be a concern for your wife? Me being a lesbian doesn't solve the problems that are within you.

Harry: MARRIAGE. SAVED. Shut up.

And scene. I mean obviously this is just a random theory, but when you drop the lez bomb out of nowhere, then I feel entitled to use my imagination to fill in the blanks. To fit with the rest of the film, I chose an explanation that eschewed story structure and logic.

Miranda

Poor Cynthia Nixon. Miranda really had no storyline. There were hints that she was being treated unfairly at her law firm, but there was absolutely no development or explanation. Naturally, Miranda used her lawyer logic to deduce that she was being mistreated because she was an outspoken WOMAN. I dunno, that seems awfully convenient. I wouldn't have minded a scene developing that, especially considering about 79% of the scenes in the ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MINUTE MOVIE were pointless. Just out of fairness, I'll list some other possible explanations for why her boss didn't like her:

1. She does sloppy work
2. She shows up late
3. She loses a majority of her cases
4. She's a bad negotiator
5. She frequently makes passive aggressive comments about being mistreated as a woman, when that's actually not the case
6. Even though her salary is probably $300,000, she gripes when her boss asks her to earn her pay by putting a few extra hours on evenings and weekends. I dunno about you, but if I were making that money and my boss asked me to write an email over the weekend (even if I were at a lavish gay wedding) I would write the fucking email. Like instantly. And then feel grateful as I drive home in my Mercedes to my Upper East Side townhouse.

You see my point. I'm willing to believe that Miranda was being mistreated due to her women-ness, but only if the movie shows it.

Samantha

Well, women over 50, clearly you have nothing to live for because you're going to dry up and be lonely forever. Samantha Jones seems to have come to this conclusion, so she spends most of the film working her hardest to stay young and beautiful. Since she bangs the hottest guy ever at the beginning of the film, clearly her strategy of taking as many vitamins and hormones as possible is working. In fact, even when she wears the same dress as Miley Cyrus to a film premiere (that she fails to pull off), her youth is maintained because Cyrus compliments her dress. Hooray! Menopause can be defeated!

OR CAN IT?!? When Samantha loses access to her vitamins in Abu Dhabi, she turns into a sweating, shriveled woman who only complains about her hot flashes. Clearly failing to take vitamins for one day would cause these consequences. To evidence how bad things have gotten for Samantha, the movie shows a scene of sweaty young men in speedos, all of whom fail to arouse Ms. Jones. Thanks, old vagina. You're useless. Luckily, Samantha meets a hot old guy.
Although the movie fails to connect the dots, I think the implication is that Samantha learns that she doesn't need to work so hard to stay young since she's found an attractive older man. However, the way it plays on screen makes it seem like this old guy just sort of plowed the menopause out of her.

Yep.

Carrie

I've saved the worst for last. Here's a picture of her out on the town:


Ok, so I recognize that it's not a legitimate film critique to call Sarah Jessica Parker ugly, even though she looks like a mixture of a horse/skeleton/vampire. Seriously, there was one close-up where she was getting ready for a date where I thought she was going to Medusa me.

Anyway, the fact that she's a big ugg-o shouldn't matter in the context of film criticism...but somehow it makes this movie even more unbelievable than it already is. Let me explain.

OH HAY, IM CARRIE LOLZ! I HAVE TWO AMAZING APARTMENTS IN NYC, A BOOK DEAL, A SUPER RICH AND SUCCESSFUL HUSBAND, AMAZING CLOTHES, GREAT FRIENDS, AND THE PERFECT LIFE. HAHAHAHAH YAYAYAYAYAY WHAT UP!!! YET IMMA COMPLAIN ABOUT MY LIFE AND HOW IM UNHAPPY ROFLCOPTER!!!! MY LIFE SUCKZORS AND I NEED TO FIX IT BECAUSE IM UNHAPPY. I DON'T LIKE STAYING IN AND I DON'T LIKE OLD MOVIES AND I DON'T LIKE PLASMA TVS AS AN ANNIVERSARY GIFT AND THIS MARRIAGE IS ALL ABOUT ME BECAUSE IM A SELFISH, NEEDY, NEUROTIC BITCH.

Yep, that's Carrie's drama in the film. She's unhappy with her paradise. To tie my two points together, if Carrie were played by a pretty actress, I'd find her complaints slightly more believable. But since she's a big fugmeister, I just wanted her to sit down and shut the fuck up. Her life is approximately 458 times better than mine. Just deal with it.

Fashion Faus Pas: HER FACE.

So overall this movie was awful. As a gay man, I don't know a lot about how women work. If SATC 2 were my guide, this is what I would have learned

1. Confident women can inspire an entire karaoke audience with a rendition of "I Am Woman," even if it's grating and off key. Even an audience in Abu Dhabi.
2. Women everywhere are obsessed with fashion, even if they live in a back corner of the Middle East.
3. When you reach a certain age, you might as well just give up because your body is going to fall apart.
4. If you cheat on your perfect husband with a guy that makes Matthew McConaughey sound brilliant, then you will be rewarded with a diamond ring from your husband after you confess your infidelity. Yeah, that actually happened.
5. Being a mother sucks, but it has some momentary joys. Fortunately, only women are affected by the pangs of parenthood because men clearly are not.
6. If ladies have gay friends, they're allowed to make insensitive comments about gays. Being associated with a gay proves you're tolerant, so you have free range with your words. Apparently we won't mind.
7. If you see a guy in Abu Dhabi that you find attractive, the sun actually heats up your vagina to the point where it sends out radiowaves to your brain that make you act crazy. Then you'll do things like forget your passport in the marketplace and not remember for days and days.
8. Did I mentioned that infidelity has no negative consequence? Yeah, I can't really emphasize that enough.

Sex and the City 2 effectively set women back thousands of years. Here's a look at women throughout history that are more effective feminists than these biyatches.


Look! She's wearing a suit of armor. This lady is going to fight in an olden timey war, which women at the time couldn't do. Trailblazer.


WELL I'LL BE DAMNED! There's a woman reading a book! Something Sex and the City 2 almost convinced me ladies couldn't do.



Yeah. Even fucking Heidi Montag gives women a better name.

Well, I can't write anymore or I will have a rage stroke. For the love of God do not see this movie. And ladies, if you bring your boyfriend, you'd better let him take a dump on your chest, because he's earned it.

Rating: 0/5 stars.

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