May
30
Weekend Boxoffice: Sex and the City Takes Off
Won't it be amusing if after Warners cuts back New Line Cinema, the label scores a raft of hits? Sex and the City, which appeals largely to women, is expected to score off the charts this weekend for a movie with virtually no allure for men. UPDATE: It may gross $20 million on its opening day, reports Pamela McClintock.
Nora and I will be going to an early Saturday screening, as most prime-time evening slots are pre-sold-out, according to online ticket sites MovieTickets.com (which reports that Sex and the City is now ranked number 19 10 on its list of top pre-sale films of all time) and Fandango, which states that as of Thursday morning, "the movie represents 92% of Fandango’s daily ticket sales, the highest daily percentage for any film so far this summer."
In anticipation of a big-titted hit, DreamWorks has clinched a first-look deal for Sex and the City's writer-director-producer, Michael Patrick King, writes Variety.
Metacritic ranks the film at a mid-range 54%. The NYT's Manohla Dargis does not like the film at all:
A little Botox goes a long way in “Sex and the City,” but a little decent writing would have gone even further. A dumpy big-screen makeover of that much-adored small-screen delight, the movie was written and directed by Michael Patrick King, one of the guiding lights and bright wits of the original series, based on Candace Bushnell’s newspaper columns and subsequent book. Once again, Sarah Jessica Parker has stepped into the dizzyingly high heels of Carrie Bradshaw, that postmodern Lorelei Lee — a hardly working New York writer with a passion for men and Manolos — but this time she’s taken a terrible tumble.
While in New York Magazine, David Edelstein gives Sex and the City thumbs up:
Has there ever been a TV series more polarizing than Sex and the City? It polarized me: First it drove me crazy (like itching powder), now I’m madly in love with it. It’s hard to feel halfway about these women and their unabashed materialism, overprivilege, and self-indulgence, their overdependence on and objectification of men. But what a hoot it is to see babes, for once, doing the objectifying—and talking dirty and sleeping around and measuring their fantasies against the sobering truth of male emotional insufficiency. If the core friendship of Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte is the biggest fantasy of all—they complement one another perfectly; they’re never too competitive—it’s a moving design for living: existential haute couture.
And at The Huffington Post, Us Magazine critic Thelma Adams blogs that the movie is no longer in tune with the times: "Sex and the City jumps the shark."
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I'll probably see the movie at some point, but as a straight guy might have to do it like I did when I saw 'The Devil Loves Prada.' Watched 'Prada' with a friend then did a little theater jumping and saw 'Clerks 2.' Rather an excellent double feature.
Posted by: mitkid | May 30, 2008 at 03:25 PM
Thank god for summer fridays. Left the office at 3pm with all my colleagues and caught the 4pm at the Arclight Sherman Oaks. Theater was 75% full with women of all ages and some of our gay friends. After the movie, women piled out of the theater talking about how great Samantha looked and how Carrie looks fantastic with brown hair and I had to laugh. We talk about these characters like their dear old friends. The movie wasn't perfect yet it was still perfect because it was Carrie, Big, Charlotte, Miranda, Steve, Samantha and Louis... Vitton. The movie is a great romp and the first time I've been in an audience in A LONG TIME where there was cheering and clapping throughout. It's a GREAT time at the movies. Totally satisfying.
Posted by: Leone | May 30, 2008 at 09:25 PM
O.K. I get it, Sex/City is a fantasy movie for women as are most films are generally fanatsies geared towards men. I dig that. Nothing wrong with that at all. More power to ya'. We all have our film fantasies (Personally I wish I could be Lexington Steele for even just one day - some of you out there know who I'm talking about) But City is just a bad movie. Badly written, shot and directed with four, annoying, insipid characters whose entire lives revolve around the approval of men. Not exactly a feminist picture. And the women in the film who have men are hooked up with some of the biggest wusses on the planet. I thought women want a real man who's sure of himself not the namby pamby weaklings that are in the film. If a film aimed for guys was just as bad I would criticize it just as harshly too and have
Posted by: Sergio | May 31, 2008 at 07:43 AM
I thought I would awake to white smoke from the Vatican -- would she take most critics view or the contrarian one?, but got the fire at Universal instead, and now I find myself more interested in what I know about on-lot fire departments.
Posted by: T. Holly | June 01, 2008 at 09:45 AM
Sex and the City was a milestone in several ways and changed my life. While I have learned not to be as neurotic as some of the characters about relationships, I have to say that the show defined much of my twenties. After all, what fashionable, hip girl just entering into the real world after college could not resist a show that was about the bond of friendship, fun, living in the glitterati of NYC and trying to figure out yourself while trudging through relationships with dysfunctional men. These were so many episodes of sex and the city that hit home for me but the two biggest ones were when the four friends were at a wedding and got a bouquet thrown in their direction and turned away in total disinterest!!!! It was great!!!! Secondly when Carrie told Big that his girl was beautiful, and walked away from the love of her life in favor of staying true to herself and her ideals (incidentally while always knowing that she would find the right guy for her!!!!! The overall message of the show is that while weddings, marriages, babies, and baby showers are important in women's lives, they are not the end all to be all to define a woman. And in this post modern age, the woman that is truely happy is the woman who has lived a full life and thoroughly knows herself and never loses herself even after becoming a girlfriend, wife, mother, etc. Sex and the City stands for the free spirits in us all who wanto to run free and have it all and believe that they can do both.
Posted by: Reese | June 02, 2008 at 10:44 PM