Sex and the City (2008) - Parker & Co. return with delightful gusto in King's great debut

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In giant, glittering pink types, this simple poster for Michael Patrick King's Sex and the City promises more of the unabashed feminine escapism that was the TV-series' trademark

  
Carrie and Big, the New York society writer's long-time on/off handsome boyfriend, negotiates their way to a wedding, which is prepared by Carrie; but something goes wrong, and both of them and friend couple Miranda and Steve break up.

Sex and the City is written and directed by feature-debuting Michael Patrick King (Good Advice (1994, TV-series)) and is the movie continuation of the same-titled 1998-04 hit TV-series, which King also wrote for and executive produced.
Yes, this is fluff and totally ridiculous in many ways, but if you stick with the film past its first twenty minutes, I bet you won't want to leave it for its following two hours.
The four regular stars are all back in enthusiastic top shape in a fine, rousing, ultimately touching story, which seems to round off two of the most important relationships from the series perfectly.
Kim Cattrall (City Limits (1984)) is fabulous and delivers several of the film's funniest moments as Samantha, who also seems to move on somehow as a character, although whereto is unclear. Sarah Jessica Parker (Miami Rhapsody (1995)) is simply wonderful as Carrie and acts every moment real and to-the-bone.
The production is fittingly flamboyant and delicious to behold in terms of cinematography, design and locations. - But it is especially the costume department that deserves praise, headed by Patricia Field (He's My Girl (1987)), because the outfits contribute in making Sex and the City extra exciting, wild, funny and worth seeing.

Related posts:

Michael Patrick King: Sex and the City 2 (2010) - F the haters, love the fantasy 

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]  

Mr. Big proposes to Carrie in this clip from the movie

Cost: 65 mil. $
Box office: 415.2 mil. $
= Huge hit (returned 6.38 times its cost)
[Sex and the City premiered 12 May (London, UK) and runs 145 minutes (a 151 minute extended cut also exists.) Cattrall was critical of a film immediately after the series' conclusion. HBO co-financed the film with Time Warner sister company New Line Cinema. Shooting took place in California, including Los Angeles, and in New York from September 2007 - January 2008. More than 300 outfits were used in the film. It opened #1 to a 57 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another week in the top 5 (#4) and grossed 152.6 mil. $ (36.8 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 52.2 mil. $ (12.6 mil. $) and Germany with 27.1 mil. $ (6.5 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 2/4 star review, translating to 3 notches harder than this one. King returned with Sex and the City 2 (2010), the hit movie's sequel, which also featured the 4 stars. Parker returned first in Did You Hear about the Morgans? (2009); Cattrall in The Simpsons (2004-09) and theatrically in The Ghost Writer (2010); Cynthia Nixon (Little Manhattan (2005)) in Lymelife (2008); and Kristin Davis (Mann & Machine (1992, TV-series)) in Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends (2004-09)) and theatrically in Couples Retreat (2009). Sex and the City is rotten at 50 % with a 5.55/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Sex and the City?

Sex and the City 2 (2010) - F the haters, love the fantasy

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1 Film Excess win:

Best Costumes: Pat Field  

1 Film Excess nomination:

Best Costumes: Pat Field (won)

 

Financial crisis, what...? One of the delightfully escapist posters for Michael Patrick King's Sex and the City 2

 

Two years have passed since the events of Sex and the City (2008): Carrie and Big are married, but they are still getting used to the new situation, when Samantha gets an offer she can't refuse from a sheik from Abu Dhabi. 

Sex and the City 2 is the sequel to the 2008 film, both based on the successful Sex and the City TV-series (1998-04)), which was based on the same-titled 1996 novel by Candace Bushnell, written and directed by great Pennsylvanian writer-director Michael Patrick King (The Comeback (2005-14)).

It is in many ways a totally ridiculous film; it runs an astounding 146 minutes, and any of the crises of the real world are light-years away from the on-screen portrayal. Liza Minnelli (Cabaret (1972)) performs (and wed) at the film's big gay wedding. The costumes, headed by Pat Field (Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009)), are once again Oscar-worthy and delicious to behold. They are a major part of the film's spectacle but are also so over-the-top that they inhibit any attachment with reality. For a fan, however, this matters little, because the film is packed to the brim with frivolous (albeit extremely materialistically minded) fun and the four returning stars, who once again show their undeniable qualities and charm. Kim Cattrall (The Ghost Writer (2010)) has the film's best moment when she goes crazy in rebellion in an Arabian bazar. - It is a positive surprise that in spite of the film's swooning over the palaces of the desert city, (made possible, no doubt, through modern slavery which we never see), it ultimately hasn't got much positive to say of this proclaimed "New Middle East." Many ridiculous critics attacked the film vehemently and unfairly, calling it both racist, misogynistic and anti-Muslim, when it is in fact more accurately pro-Western, feministic pro-capitalism.

SPOILER Of course, the women's lib sup-plot has its own laughable exaggerations, (the burka-dressed women reading the same book as their liberated New-Yorker peers would be one), but these are also part of the infectious, honest and optimistic blow the film strikes for Western liberalism. 

Sex and the City 2, while not being as affecting or similar to the show as the first film, is still great fun. So break open a bottle of wine with friends or alone, blow a raspberry to the grumpy critics and just enjoy this enormously happy fantasy.

 

Related posts:

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Watch a video about the fashion trends in the film here

Cost: Reportedly between 95-100 mil. $

Box office: 294.6 mil. $

= Box office success

[Sex and the City 2 was released May 27 and runs 146 minutes. The Abu Dhabi-centered plot was chosen due to the place's conceived high-fashion position and recession-free environment, however, the emirate withdrew its shooting permission, and shooting thus had to take place in Marrakech, Morocco instead. Filming took place in New York and Morocco from September - December 2009. The Moroccan shoot was supposed to take 13 days but ran for almost 6 weeks. Sarah Jessica Parker was paid an astounding 45 mil. $ (nearly half the total budget) for her work as producer and lead actress. The film opened #2, behind holdover hit Shrek Forever After, with a 31 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed in the top 5 for two more weeks and grossed 95.3 mil. $ (32.3 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 33.3 mil. $ (11.3 %) and Germany with 25.3 mil. $ (8.6 %). The film was nominated for 7 Raspberry Awards, 'winning' 3. The DVD/Blu-ray release of the film went #1 in North America and the UK with sales numbers not made public. Sex and the City 2 is rotten at 15 % with a 3.7 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Sex and the City 2?

Baby Geniuses (1999) - Hollywood-stars and Bob Clark violate the integrity of several babies in overly stupid atrocity

[ZERO]

+ 2nd Worst Movie of the Year

+ Most Undeserved Hit of the Year  

Kathleen Turner, Christopher Lloys and a smiling, unknowing baby on the poster for Bob Clark's Baby Geniuses

QUICK REVIEW:

A baby company/imperium is opening a new indoor amusement park, but also run an underground baby-nest for little baby geniuses, who, however, escape. 
The babies talk together, often without moving their lips (...), and tell each other lots of pop-cultural references and the likes, - which they obviously haven't learned yet or been born with, - and hit adult men in the nuts and laugh, - at one occasion two times right after another.
Humor-bereft, free of anything resembling soul or heart, ugly and wildly unlikely, idiotic, humanly offensive movie: Whatever in the world could possibly justify the use of actual babies in the leads in anything as crappy as Baby Geniuses? I watched the film and felt extremely sorry for these young individuals, while I knew that I will despise the adult (crackpot) stars of the movie for a considerable future: Kathleen Turner, Christopher Lloyd, Peter MacNicol, Ruby Dee, Dom DeLuise and Kim Cattrall.
Turner (Romancing the Stone (1984)) screams and snorts her way through the film, red as a balloon, and most every other actor also turn in wretched performances in this preposterous movie.
Baby Geniuses is a big Hollywood-ghastliness directed by Bob Clark (Black Christmas (1974)), which somehow became financially successful and spun an - also critically loathed - sequel. The film deservedly positions itself in # 80 in IMDb's Bottom 100 List.

Related reviews:

Bob Clark: 1999 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

Black Christmas (1974) - Dark Canadian slasher frontrunner

Watch this movie, if you're ready for something offensively bad, Bob Clark's Baby Geniuses

Watch the trailer here

Budget: 12 mil. $
Box office: 36.4 mil. $
= Big hit

What do you think of Baby Geniuses?
Have you seen the sequel?
If so, please, 'enlighten' us about it ...

The Ghost Writer/The Ghost (2010) - A master at work

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3 Film Excess nominations:

Best Screenplay: Robert Harris, Roman Polanski (lost to Christopher Nolan for Inception)
Best Music: Alexandre Desplat (lost to Treme S1)
Best Production Design: Albert Konrad (lost to Boardwalk Empire S1)

+ Best Thriller of the Year

A poster for Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer

The Ghost Writer is based on a novel by Robert Harris (Enigma (2001)), and its script was co-written by Harris and the writer-director, great Polish-French Roman Polanski (Chinatown (1974)).
The story revolves around the unnamed protagonist, who is a ghost writer, - a writer who pens memoirs for the rich and famous without being publicly acknowledged, - as he gets his biggest assignment yet: The memoir of the British ex-PM Adam Lang. Meeting with Lang, his subject, on a hostile little American island, the writer learns that his predecessor died, and that a foul secret lies behind the persona he is employed to portray with 'heart'.

Ewan McGregor in Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer

Ghost is a very smart film; it is inspired by British ex-PM Tony Blair and his relations to the American Bush administration, but it never becomes an angry political movie as such. More so, Ghost Writer is like a detective story, with the writer as the detective. 
Ewan McGregor (The Impossible (2012)) proves perfect in the role, (which had previously been cast with Nicholas Cage, who wouldn't have fit it nearly as well), and we never really question his primary decision to take on the job. In several other parts, Ghost flashes its impressive, perfect cast: In substantial supporting roles, Pierce Brosnan (Love's All You Need (2012)) is the perfect Lang; Olivia Williams (Rushmore (1998)) exudes intelligence and danger as Mrs. Lang, and Kim Cattrall (Big Trouble in Little China (1986)) is a believable assistant-mistress; I wish I saw her in more good parts like this one, which she can obviously pull off. In minor parts, Ghost also holds several gems; Eli Wallach (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)) has a delightful little scene; Timothy Hutton (Ordinary People (1980)) can be seen in a very small part; American comedian James Belushi (Red Heat (1988)) goes bald as an editorial executive, and is hilarious; and finally Tom Wilkinson (The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)) is grand as a viper-like distinguished professor.
The Ghost Writer is a marvelous thriller from master-director Polanski; with a perfect, dark, disillusioned Polanski-type ending and numerous turns and delicious ingredients along the way.

Roman Polanski directs Pierce Brosnan in The Ghost Writer

Ghost also holds a masterful thriller score by Alexandre Desplat (The King's Speech (2010)), brilliantly elegant photography and very intelligent set design with many very nice touches, by Albrecht Konrad (When Pigs Have Wings (2011)); the central house is a very unnatural, unpleasant, cold, modern environment, which subtly speaks volumes about its inhabitants.
Much can be read out of most of auteur-director Polanski's movies. In this case, the lesson might be that life is a struggle, and that truth gets lost along the way.
Polanski, for better or worse, seems to invite an autobiographical reading of his works, as parts of his extraordinary life seems to correlate with some of his movies: Losing his mother to Auschwitz in WWII, (and seeing his father and sister marched off to camps as well, (which they survived)), - witnessing the horrors of the war and being a child Jew in the Krakow ghetto, Polanski's first films, shorts like Two Men and a Wardrobe (1958) and his first feature Knife in the Water (1962) shows flair for and, a mind bend on, the absurd. Later in life, Polanski made a strong film about WWII, The Pianist (2002). Following Polanski's mainstream breakthrough in America with Rosemary's Baby (1968), a film about a woman who gets impregnated by the devil, Polanski's real-life pregnant wife Sharon Tate was murdered along with four other victims in Hollywood by members of the evil Manson family. Polanski was in London. In 1978, Polanski fled America after pleading guilty to having had sex with a 13 year-old girl. Post-production of Ghost was put on hold when Polanski was arrested by Swiss police in 2009 due to the 30 year-old case; Polanski finished Ghost, - which involved PM Lang, a fugitive from justice himself, - from house arrest in Switzerland.
Though much can be said and written of all the controversies in Polanski's life, often autobiographical readings don't hold up under scrutiny, as is also the case here; Polanski has made many other films that do not have overt connections to his own life, and even the ones that seem to have such are arguable. The myth is merely a man, in other words, but a very fascinating one at that.
His most recent film stars Emmanuelle Seigner and Matheiu Amalric, is about film-making and is entitled Venus in Fur.

Related posts: 

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Olivia Williams in Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer

Watch the trailer for the film here

Budget: 45 mil. $
Box office: 60.2 mil. $
= Lukewarm commercial reception

What do you think of The Ghost Writer?
Any comments about Roman Polanski are welcomed