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And the studio behind it seems determined to exceed the publicity overload that greeted the finale of the HBO series four years ago — and in ways that are sure to produce polarized reactions from men and wo… er, foes and fans of Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte.
Recently I re-watched HBO’s two-part finale of “Sex and the City,” which went off the air in 2004.
In the finale, you may recall, Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) ran away from her three gal pals in New York to Paris to follow a Russian paramour, played by Mikhail Baryshnikov. She wound up, at the end, back in New York in the arms of Mr. Big, her on-again-off-again suitor, played by Chris Noth.
What bothered me then, as now, was the absurd level of luxury consumption on the show — Manolos, round diamonds, constant changes of wardrobe to match the drapes. I realize that Hollywood used to churn out aristocratic movies all the time, but people used to smoke all the time in movies too.
What also struck me, however, was how artfully assembled the episodes were.
Though the Paris episodes sort of broke the mold (they weren’t shot in New York, and Parker’s voiceovers were deliberately left out), even they had a precise, virtually color-coordinated arrangement of storylines, the likes of which few situation comedies have matched.
I’ve also grown in appreciation for the side players. The sixth season showed Samantha (Kim Cattrall) dealing seriously and comically with breast cancer, and I was struck by how this outsized, oversexed power gal was able to embody aspects of that disease in ways that absolutely rang true for me and Mrs. TV Barn. Likewise for the adoption hell that Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Harry (Evan Handler) were put through, as well as Anne Meara’s believeable take as Miranda’s dementia-suffering mother-in-law.
I think a lot of viewers were mistaken in their belief that “Sex and the City” was on HBO so that Samantha could talk about that stuff she talks about. (It involves men. A lot of men. One at a time.) The fact that the show did well in repeats on broadcast TV, with all the dirty talk washed out, suggests that wasn’t the real appeal of the show.
In reality, HBO was redefining comedy using techniques that networks wouldn’t have wanted to take a chance on in the late 1990s. We see them now in one-hour dramadies, in laugh-track-free sitcoms and in frank-talking women’s Web sites like WOW and Broadsheet.
Popular entertainment has a more sophisticated and, yes, adult feel to it these days, and “Sex and the City” rightly deserves some of the credit for that.
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But it looks as if I may be one of the few dudes venturing any such positive opinions this month. What is it about cultural events like the opening of “Sex and the City: The Movie” that compels some of our gender to aggressively assert our masculinity (read run in the opposite direction)?
When I went to the Ain’t It Cool Web site expecting to find something about the London premiere of the film last week, I was instead greeted with a barrage of stories about “Speed Racer,” Hollywood’s latest woefully misguided attempt to lure young men away from their Wiis. There was no “Sex and the City” coverage in sight.
In his column Wednesday, John Kass, the columnist for the ChicagoTribune, went so far as to print a “Get Out of Sex and the City” card that guys can give to their dates — or try, anyway.
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