The Sex Just Isn't What It Used to Be

There is a moment somewhere in hour twenty-six of Sex and the City 2 when Carrie, accepting an invitation to Abu Dhabi, says something to the effect of, "Finally some glamour in my life." With this embarrassingly earnest statement, her transformation into a petulant, unrelatable asshole is complete.

Way back in 2008, Sex and the City: The Movie was the subject of this blog's inaugural post. (Read it if you must, but I warn you: It sucks.) In it, I explained my convoluted reasons for enjoying a franchise that seemingly has no interest in entertaining me, a hopelessly male human being. Sure, the girls are talky, superficial and, in Carrie's case, inclined to make puns, but I have always embraced its fierce commitment to providing a different perspective on womanhood. The characters were surprisingly likable and human (even the men); the plot lines were insightful and unpredictable; and the overall product was (and remains) unlike anything else on television. Even the first movie toed the line well enough to avoid being an embarrassment.

No such luck the second time around.

The first film suffered from the fact that the characters' stories had already been told; writer/director Michael Patrick King had no new ideas and it took him nearly two and a half hours to prove it. The second film has the exact, same problem, but it also represents the series' degradation into a parody of itself. Where the characters were once human, they are now repellant stereotypes. Where the plot lines were once engaging and honest, they are now tedious and forced. Where the show's overarching and vital wit once was, there is now nothing.

Surely, King had no choice in the matter; a sequel was coming whether he liked it or not. I can forgive him for making an unnecessary movie, but I cannot forgive him for making all of the wrong choices in creating that unnecessary movie. On paper, this movie seems to be about the girls adjusting to new chapters in their lives: Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is married, Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is a full-on mom, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is struggling to prioritize her family and Samantha (Kim Cattrall) is back to single life. Most of the characters, in other words, are hitting the doldrums of midlife. To me, this seems like a great opportunity to turn the page – to give the series a proper goodbye – by having the characters let go of their old lifestyle.

Instead, this movie glorifies denial. For the first hour, the girls' fairly obvious midlife crises are convoluted by Kings' horrible screenwriting and direction. One would expect Carrie, for example, to have trouble adjusting to married life. In this movie, good luck figuring out why. She rudely rejects a sweet, but misguided, gift from her husband, "Mr. Big" (Chris Noth), bemoans the mundanity of her life upon returning to her super-chic apartment, and moves out but panics when Big supports the choice. Big, along with the audience, can only stare in awe as Carrie mutates into a caricature of an irrational, moody woman – the very caricature that ignorant critics have always claimed the show glorified. What is the solution to her problems? What is the solution to the other girls' equally ill-defined problems? Naturally, it is escaping to a mysterious, foreign land full of palaces, servants, and strange moral codes.

Yes, our beloved girls travel to Connecticut. In what must be one of the most unnecessary and unfortunate digressions in film history, at least twenty minutes of the movie are devoted to the wedding of the series' two gay characters, Stanford (Willie Garson) and Anthony (Mario Cantone). During this time, every obvious gay joke and stereotype conceivable is mashed together to create one of the most disturbing monuments to ignorance since The Birth of a Nation. I have been told that Michael Patrick King is a gay man himself, but I really do not care; this is some of the most regressive crap I've seen since Michael Bay had his last cinematic bowel movement. The climax of this disaster? A cameo by Liza Minnelli, wherein she dances to her own rendition of Beyoncé's "Single Ladies." The last time I found it this hard to look at the screen, I was being shown Sacha Baron Cohen's anus.

That, however, was a digression of my own, as well. The girls' actual escape is to Abu Dhabi. What follows has best been described as "consumerist porn" – minutes upon minutes of the girls brainlessly running from one absurd show of opulence to the next. Personal limousines! Personal servants! Personal massagers! Next to nothing in the way of plot, theme or character advances during this stretch of time. It seems that King was given a blank check for this film and wanted to take full advantage of it, even if it meant clearing the theater.

Also, the film's representation of Abu Dhabi is suspect at best. I heartily doubt that anyone involved in Sex and the City 2 has ever been to the place. Granted, many UAE resorts are over-the-top in real life, but these scenes practically seemed torn from Aladdin. (Perhaps this is too narrow a criticism, though; the film's New York City rings false, as well. It seems to be a labyrinth of upscale boutiques, restaurants and high rises, devoid of connecting streets and sidewalks. This is just all-around production design diarrhea.)

The movie doesn't merely bungle the physical landscape, though. Under the guise of feminism, Sex and the City 2 takes it upon itself to criticize Arab social mores. None of this struck me as offensive, per se, but it did feel beyond the abilities of this moronic script. Miranda occasionally nags Samantha about showing too much skin but, in reality, none of the girls' appearances would pass muster under Sharia law. Besides, they spend most of their time in a resort where, one assumes, such rules would not apply. With this film perpetuating more stereotypes about American women than it breaks down, perhaps the cultural condescension should be left to better movies.

Worst of all, King manages to give us fleeting reminders of better times with these characters. When Charlotte and Miranda finally settle down long enough to discuss their frustrations, the conversation is funny, endearing and honest. Unfortunately, King is utterly ignorant of his own strengths; simple conversations are rare in a film that prefers close-up shots of bouncing body parts (female and otherwise), blunt-as-hell musical cues, and other assorted histrionics.

And Carrie? Never redeemed. The film just rolls over and dies at some point near the three hour mark. None of the foggy plot lines are given interesting conclusions, and none of the characters seem to have grown. As the film announces "The End," Carrie narrates some meaningless metaphor about colors and relationships, and I am left hating a character I once respected.

This is a husk of what Sex and the City once was. If anyone involved has common sense, they will stop driving this series into the ground. If the mentalities of excess and delusion that fuel this movie are any indication, however, we're in for many more sequels.

Knowing Really Is Half the Battle

That is a bit more like it. By sheer odds, the evil alliance of Paramount and Hasbro had to land a summer spectacle somewhere in the ballpark this year. "G. I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" is a stupid movie, yes, but it gets the stupidity just right. The plot makes a shred of sense, the characters are not heinous stereotypes and the directing is coherent. (Michael Bay: Stop doodling boobies and pay attention.) Beyond that, it has all of the giddy fun most summer movies promise to provide, but rarely deliver. Best of all, you can take the kids and not have to worry about them learning what Megan Fox's cervix looks like!

"G. I. Joe" wastes no time telling you what kind of movie it is going to be. About five minutes in, a ridiculous shootout has our White Hero, played by a very lifelike mannequin called Channing Tatum, and his battalion getting attacked by high tech bad guys. He stops short amid the chaos and exclaims, "Ana!?" with all of the horror of a guy who has just run into his ex at a party. It makes sense, given that he has just run into his ex. (Sienna Miller. White Hero could have done worse.) From there, you know you can just sit back and enjoy this one. Secret military organization... Paris getting blown up... Arctic enemy base... threat of world destruction. It is all of the scraps left over from the James Bond franchise's recent reinvention, cobbled together into a script that knows better than to take it all seriously. Unlike "Transformers 2," it knows that you know better, too, and it wastes no time trying to lay on artificial complexity. There are good guys and there are bad guys. They fight. Done.

There are flashbacks. Thankfully, they are short and somewhat rare. They also play out like hilarious B-movies. They include a kung-fu master, a doomed army recruit and, of course, White Hero's lost love.

This movie has a pretty big cast, and most of it fares well. The role of Black Hero, for example, is handled quite charmingly by Marlon Wayans, transcending his archetypical role; he is the butt of jokes far more often than he should be, but far less often than one would expect. Rachel Nichols plays Wayans' love interest well, not bending over backwards to hide the fact that they are totally going to be together at the end of the film. Sienna Miller's Baroness, on the other hand, dances in circles around her love interest, but that is damning her with faint praise. I am still trying to wrap my head around the choice of Joseph Gordon-Levitt for Cobra Commander. This is, to say the least, not typecasting. Although it is hard to judge under all of the makeup, he seemed to be successful at making the character menacing, albeit in a campy way. He even hisses out one of his lines.

Props must go to director, Stephen Sommers. His "Mummy" remake franchise was silly fun in the same vein but, for whatever reason, directors often have trouble keeping their heads out of their asses when it it comes to military action-melodrama. Any number of Michael Bay-esque pitfalls are avoided here. The characterizations are thin, but Sommers seems to have made sure the actors were having a good bit of fun with this one (so, you know, we can). The American president figures into the plot but good luck finding any American flag-waving here. The Joes are an international organization, so the film is never dragged down by any palpable xenophobia or jingoism. (Most of the Joes are white, though. The women all look like they just came back from the hairdressers', too.) While an Iraq flashback plays things gritty, the director, for the most part, knows to keep things slick and simple.

The special effects, in fact, may strike one as too simple. "Speed Racer" leapt to my mind at a few moments in this film. The special effects team made a clear choice not to pursue realism in this film. While it may seem incongruous at times, I think it ultimately suits the film. Making a submarine battle around an underwater fortress look real would have been a bit of a challenge, anyway.

That battle is part of a long climax sequence that features a number of decent action scenes. The film's best action sequence, however, is easily the street chase through Paris. Those CG mechanical suits that are so prominently featured in the trailers (and made me cringe every time I saw them) figure heavily into this sequence, making a good argument for their presence in the film. Cars are flung every which way (it is the thing to do these days) and the Heros of Both Shades have to dodge them, employing the suits' superhuman speed and agility. It is giddy fun to watch and the chaos never gets too heady. (They do, however, rack up a high civilian body count. Upon defeat, Baroness sneers, "You saved Paris... most of it, anyway." No kidding.) Sommers is not exactly at the cutting edge of action movie directing, but he does not step on himself. It is more than many directors can say.

Is this movie remotely ground-breaking? No, but when Michael Bay tries to brush off his critics by claiming that everything he does is in good fun, this is the sort of movie he believes he has made. It may not push the genre forward, but it does not do any harm, either. Even "Star Trek," an admittedly decent movie, felt like a sham, as it devoted most of its running time to setting up a sequel. There will be a "G. I. Joe" sequel, rest assured, but I will be seeing it because of the first movie, not despite it. This film knows its audience and seeks to do right by it, not exploit it. That is the least for which one can ask.

Go See "Transformers 2"

"Transformers 2" is a horrible movie... but you already know that.

So, why should you go see it?

If your idea of escapism is heavy-handed allusions to September 11th, go see it.

If you do not mind Blacks invariably being portrayed as bucktoothed illiterates, go see it.

If your idea of a punchline is two dogs repeatedly fucking, go see it.

If you believe that women should be nothing more than sweaty, cross-eyed porn stars, go see it.

If you think asking for a plot line that explains why one scene follows another is pretentious, go see it.

If you think knowing who is fighting whom in an action sequence is irrelevant, go see it.

If you do not care that a movie marketed to children is filled with words like "shit," "fuck" and "pussy," go see it.

If you enjoy a film that seemingly took less time to think up than it does for you to watch it, go see it.

If you want to stand up and proudly proclaim that "I have no problem with being sold a regressive, half-assed product that treats me like a mindless cash source who cannot be offended by even the most cynical, bold-faced marketing ploys," then what are you waiting for? Go see it!

Go do the United States of America proud and fork over your hard earned money so you can be violently rid of whatever brains you have left!

Congratulations on finding the perfect movie for yourself. All of your lowbrow, bigoted, money-wasting and generally lazy sensibilities will be satisfied. Most importantly of all, you will be setting a great precedent for America's children. Transformers, after all, is a toy franchise (the kids are where the real money is at), so the movie's success benefits them, too!

Step up and tell Paramount Pictures that we will not merely submit to their attempt to mug us and our children alone; we will do it by the millions!

Go see "Transformers 2!"

If You're Only Seeing Red, "Speed" is More than Meets the Eye

It's safe to assume that you missed "Speed Racer." Waiting for the DVD, are you? Right, and you probably already have the laserdisc on pre-order, too. It's okay; I get it. It had a monkey in it -- a perfectly justifiable gripe. I mean, it's not even a CG monkey and it's not voiced by Bruce Willis. Wake up, Wachowski brothers! Americans demand a certain level of integrity!

Sorry. False start. I'll try and control myself this time around...

"Speed Racer" got a bad rap. It's not that I don't understand why -- I do. But, unsurprisingly to those who know me, I think the fact that everyone seems to hate it only bolsters my argument. First, let's get the concessions out of the way. I freely admit that a monkey is part of the principle cast. The number of scenes featuring the monkey (its name is Chim-chim, but I'll stick with the improper noun) is indeed distressing, and an indicator of perhaps the movie's greatest flaw: someone thought this should be a kids' movie. I don't know if it was the Wachowski brothers' idea or the studio's, but either way, it was a big miscalculation. Nevertheless, it was largely a marketing miscalculation, because the scenes in the actual film that are meant to hook the kids in are mostly isolated and somewhat rare. The rest of the film's two-plus hours are filled with violence, language, tongue in cheek humor and action sequences that are so kinetic they'd probably send an eight year old into seizures. In other words, this isn't really a kids' movie, even if the cereal boxes tell you so.

Those points aside, the film is still anything but perfect. In typical Wachowski style, characters seem to love the sound of their own voice. I would suggest that, in the future, studios bring in someone to edit these guys' screenplays, but it's hard to say if their signature meta-philosophical hokeyness would still come through. The brothers may be self-indulgent, but they're also pretty self conscious. An early scene where Trixie tries to coax a kiss from Speed illustrates this well. The scene becomes tedious rather quickly, but only by design, as you'll probably laughing at the couple's absurd level of chastity long before the obligatory interruption of Speed's little brother and his... monkey. Of course, there are other scenes where the only thing that's funny is the lack of self-consciousness. Who knew discussions of racing could be so plodding?

I have already said far too much about the script, however, because the true strength of the film is in its visuals. Critics complained about them, too, but here's where I think they couldn't be more wrong. They had a field day tearing down what they perceived as an incoherent blur of Warholian "car-fu." (Yeah, I just used that phrase.) Now, you would think with all the invocations of Warhol's name, critics would have some idea of the importance of thinking outside the box, but it's not evident in their closed-minded perception of the film. The Wachowski brothers, for all their flamboyant style, are very adept filmmakers. Where other directors ignore or undervalue the fundamentals (continuity, camerawork, cutting, composition, etc.) for the sake of style, the Wachowskis build upon them.

In some ways, the film may look very similar to other current (genuinely bad) action movies, with its extreme stylization and quick pace. Michael Bay's "Transformers," for example, is all about constant cutting. "Speed Racer" is just as quickly paced, but cuts less often. Ths is indicative of much more succinct direction. More importantly, though, when it does cut in "Speed," it is made blatantly obvious where we are cutting to. You may wonder why this matters, but anyone who has studied film knows that this is absolutely integral to the cohesiveness of a film. When you see someone walk out of a door on the right side of a shot, you expect them to walk into the next room on the left side. Otherwise, it looks like they've just entered the Twilight Zone. Granted, Michael Bay probably knows enough to handle that scenario, but when you have hyperkinetic battle sequences taking place, there is a lot more action to keep track of. When the director fails at maintaining such continuity, it goes from kinetic to chaotic. While the directors of "Speed Racer" may send their camera rocketing throughout the space of the scene, they always avoid such chaos. Thus, they have a very stylized look, but it's not at the expense of cohesiveness.

I could go on all day explaining similar details that speak to the fundamentally adept directing of the Wachowskis versus directors like Bay, but I'll resist. Your average critic is smart enough to notice these things, and accordingly, most recognize Bay as all sound and fury. Some of them may not see what I see in the Wachowskis, however, and this is magnified by one final feature of the style of "Speed Racer": a unique treatment of time. Those who have seen the Wachowskis' "Matrix" films know that they like their slow motion, and employ it not as a dramatic flourish, but as a basic weapon in their directing arsenal. It's simply part of their style -- something borne of the directors' roots in anime. In "Speed," we see a similar fluidity of time's treatment on a larger scale. There are seamless transitions from past to present, a technique that only becomes more prominent as the film progresses. The fluidity exists for a reason, though. Speed's brother, for example, is surely on his mind whenever he returns to the track where his brother died, so memories of a time they spent there together would creep in as Speed is racing in the present. The Wachowskis organize their scenes thematically, not chronologically.

With both time and space being treated in such unique ways, it is easy to see how many viewers will be put off by the film's style. With the brothers doing their basic duties as directors, however, it is clear that it is more a question of taste than it is one of quality. The Wachowskis are delivering something very unique with "Speed Racer" and something, I believe, that is ahead of its time. Just as "The Matrix" is still being echoed throughout modern action films ("Wanted," anyone?), I believe the Wachowski brothers are once again at the bleeding edge with this film. It's hard to see behind the marketing misfires and monkey antics, but I wouldn't be surprised if this film has gained a bit more respect when we look back a few years from now. A few critics noted that "Speed" may indeed be the most expensive art house film ever made. They should have put that on the cereal boxes.

Oh, and it's never too late to order that laserdisc.