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Me and my wife went to a press screening and didn't quite hate it. That's probably a function of having residual good will toward the four main characters. However, the movie has been blasted by the press in a way that has not been seen since "Heaven's Gate" or "Ishtar". A lot of it is hypocritical complaining about the lavish life-style celebrated in the movie, as if the NY Times was not celebrating exactly that life-style on nearly every page. Here's a perceptive take by Matt Zoller Seitz: "Sex and the City 2": Ladies and gentlemen, THIS is why they hate us. By Matt Zoller Seitz on 05/27/2010 A friend describes the "Sex and the City" films as "Ladies' 'Star Wars.'" The description isn't far off the mark -- not just because the TV series and the spinoff films are critic-proof revenue-generators, but also because Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) and her gal pals inhabit a universe so far removed from anything resembling reality that it might as well be science fiction. Picking up where the second film left off -- as if there were a story! -- "Sex 2" revolves around Carrie's two-year-old and suddenly troubled marriage to the twice-divorced older hunk, Big (Chris Noth). And of course it features perfunctory detours into the lives of Carrie's best friends, Samantha (Kim Cattrall), who's over 50, still sexed-up, and ingesting dozens of vitamins a day; Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), who's struggling with a sexist boss and the demands of the domestic life that her work life forces her to neglect; and Charlotte (Kristin Davis), who's feeling beaten up by her life as a mom and worrying that her husband is about to have an affair with their big-titted Irish nanny. But really -- surprise! -- the film is all about the clothes, the food, and the real estate. Aside from a couple of moments that briefly remind you of the character- and acting-based charm that redeemed the series -- for instance, Miranda and Charlotte's drunken admissions that a lot of the time, being a parent flat-out sucks -- this film, like its predecessor, buries the smoldering embers of its nearly extinguished humanity beneath a mountain of gaudy baubles. full: http://www.ifc.com/news/2010/05/satc-2.php ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com