Sex and the City 2 ***

Director: Michael Patrick King
Cast: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon
Chris Noth, David Eigenberg, Evan Handler, Willie Garson
Mario Cantone, Max Ryan, Lynn Cohen, Jason Lewis
Alice Eve, Noah Mills, Raza Jaffrey, John Corbett

"Beyond here there be fashion" should warn a sign at the beginning of Sex and the City 2; like the ancient maps warning sailors about the perils involving dragons, it seems that almost every "traditional" heterosexual man fears fashion with the same irrational angst of their ancestors.
Once they made it through the labyrinth of Dior, Vuitton and Manolos, they would be surprised to find a sensitive film that taps on the fears, anxieties and hopes of the women they love.
Because regardless of the excess, apparent frivolity and more slapstick infused nature of this installment, Sex is still about the magical friendship of its four leads.
This time around Carrie (Parker) is going into the terrible twos with her husband Mr. Big (Noth). He wants to sit on the couch and watch TV, she's desperate for nights out on the town and escaping the boring married couple curse.
Samantha (Cattrall) is trying to go through menopause with as much dignity as she can muster while trying to see if she's still got it (she seduces stud Noah Mills using her amazing one liners).
Miranda (Nixon) comes to realize that work might just not be all there is to life while Charlotte (Davis) begins to sink under the pressures of motherhood.
Just as the women are about to be trampled under the harshness of reality, an opportunity comes up for them to escape when Samantha invites them to come with her to Abu Dhabi, all expenses paid.
Once in the Middle East we follow their adventures which rage from enigmatic trips to little markets, camel rides, karaoke singing, running into old flames (Corbett's Aidan for Carrie this time) and also the realization that rules and traditions are practically impossible to understand looking from the outside in.
To enjoy this movie fully one must understand that it's not meant to be taken as a factual "this is how things are" deal. Sex and the City 2 is a delightful throwback to the films audiences flocked to during the Great Depression and WWII.
Escapist fare overflowing glamour, sparkle and the kind of excess people only could look up to. In the style of Greta Garbo, the women are dressed head to toe in exquisite clothes (courtesy of genius costume designer Patricia Field).
Like Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in Road to Morocco they take on the exotic locale with the selfish anxiety Americans tend to show in foreign places.
And just like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz they're also completely conscious that this is a land of dreams that soon will prove it has its dark sides as well. It's no coincidence that Carrie utters delighted "Toto I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore" the minute they walk into the luxurious Middle Eastern hotel.
Just like no one chided Dorothy for taking advantage of what she could in Oz, these women deal with the place in the only way they know how. In order to fulfill the roles they created in the original TV series and first movie, sometimes the filmmakers recur to efficient techniques that help encompass who these characters are using the smallest details.
Therefore we have Samantha regain her mojo through a Shisha, Charlotte give in to her insecurities by becoming attached to her iPhone and Miranda manifest her inner control freak through schedules and the strategic use of Arabic words.
Anyone who's followed these women for a long time will notice that they do change in vacation, "you're fun in Abu Dhabi" says one of them with gleeful surprise.
But at their core they remain the same women we've known for ages, in this case it's just the structure that changes.
Michael Patrick King cleverly turns his entire film into a 1930's spectacle, in a way Sex and the City 2 follows the course of the cinema made during those years.
The movie begins with the delightful excess of a Busby Berkeley musical. There's a wedding at the beginning with such campy charm and outlandish attention to detail that you can't help but fall for its innocent belief in romance a la Top Hat.
After this, the film enters into the shaky terrain of Leo McCarey and Frank Capra romantic comedies, you know films like It Happened One Night where romance actually dealt with emotions while being outrageously entertaining. It's no wonder that some of the women's further hijinx involve moments straight out of slapstick classics.
Then when the film explores the nature of fantastic travel (like in the mentioned Morocco and Oz) it does so with a selfconscious, almost forced sense of escapism. Without disregarding reality the women know that despite their privileged status they want to get away from "reality".
Therefore Samantha has no trouble expressing how because of the bad economy they "need to go somewhere rich".
To expect these women to ignore their wealth and the opportunity they have to indulge themselves in luxury would be to condemn reality, for isn't this exactly what the upper classes have done throughout history?
It's fortunate for the Sex girls that now they're less Marie Antoinette and fit more with the celebrity worship our generation has come to obsess with, if not this movie could be perceived by some as being a tacky exercise in excess.
Fortunately by movie's end, King concentrates a bit more on the melancholic feeling brought by more serious filmic works like those of Preston Sturges and William Wyler, which means that when the credits roll, the women, especially Carrie, have gone from Arabic princesses to bruised women learning what they really want out of life.
King's intentions don't always work and some of his most clever ideas are drowned in execution (the whole analogy of the women learning about tradition and rules by going to a different cultural landscape is fascinating, the execution lacks a bit more politics) yet for all its flaws in the end Sex and the City 2 can't help but take aim at our hearts by adequately reminding us that when all is said and done there is no place like home.

Crush of the Week.

I want my Chatter Phone back!

Quick Sunday Rundown.

Two quick things...

I finally saw Sex and the City 2 and the wait was so damn worth it.
Expect a review quite soon but if you must know I found it to be utterly fabulous!

Now going across to the extreme opposite, in terms of gender, not fabulosity, Luke, Andrew and I got together once again to discuss the Best Actor Oscar race. This time it was a jolly trip back in time all the way to 1985.
Pretty interesting stuff happened if I may say so, now run down over to Luke's and read all about it.

That's all for now.

Style Sunday.

Salma Hayek is the epitome of summer fashion perfection in a simple white dress from Yves Saint Laurent's cruise collection.
Her simple accessories and that red lipstick are superb, plus any dress that can make those boobs look nice and not vulgar gets a ten in my book.


When did Kate Beckinsale become such a fashion icon?
This black ruffled Marchesa she wore to Elton John's White Tie and Tiara Ball is perfect for the occasion and unlike most fashion choices nowadays, makes an actual statement.
She's saying "I'm going to an upper class picnic". Beckinsale's style seems to have been created by someone who advises the royalty and as such it's perfection.

Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.


Animal Kingdom

...or how to rob a movie from all its wicked style by making it seem like a run of the mill gangster or cop movie released over the spring.
See just how good the original posters are and tell me this one's absolutely cheap.
The second one created by the amazing Jeremy Saunders is nothing if not spectacular, it has a quasi religious mood to it that recalls some of the best things done in The Sopranos.



Despicable Me

I find this movie so unappealing.
Something about it honestly bugs me, its humor and story seem so forced (also that moment in the trailer with the whole boombox joke makes me roll my eyes every single time).
This teaser is nothing if not a ripoff of the supreme Toy Story 3 poster but while that one makes me go "awww", Despicable's makes me go "ugh.


Tron Legacy

Simple, effective yet lacking a little something.

Which of these would you hang in your room?

This is Perfect.

That's all I have to say for today.

Toy Story 3 ****

Director: Lee Unkrich

Ignoring the fact that toys coming to life is actually kind of creepy, Pixar Animation studios delivered two of the most wonderful films of the last twenty years in the shape of the first Toy Story movies.
Counting on much more than their stunning animation and visuals, the films were altogether more surprising because each installment actually had something to say.
What's certainly even more impressive is that in the third, and seemingly final, chapter of the series, the filmmakers have actually outdone themselves and deliver a film of such depth and humanity that it's hard to believe it deals with characters made out of plastic.
When the film begins, Andy is packing to go to college. His mom advises him to throw, donate or store his belongings which include his childhood toys. Woody, Buzz Lightyear and the rest of the gang become concerned for their future given how Andy hasn't played with them for years.
During the going away hassle they end up in a children's daycare where they try to accept the fact that Andy has forgotten all about them.
There they meet new toys and come to believe that the daycare will turn into an eternal utopia where children will play with them forever; but things soon change as they discover a corrupt system deep within the innocent facade.
Woody meanwhile is trying to get back to Andy by all means and like in the previous films embarks on a journey back home.
With a deceptively simple premise Toy Story 3 proves that hell perhaps might not be at the end of a conveyor belt carrying garbage, as the characters fear during one crucial moment, but in the idea of being forgotten.
While the previous movies dealt with growing old and accepting change, this one maturely embraces a subject that has mystified artists throughout history: their own mortality.
Therefore, the film beautifully unites themes it started examining fifteen years ago and recurring to an array of storytelling techniques ties the whole trilogy together (the aesthetic choice of closing the trilogy with a "real life" representation of the first image we saw back in Toy Story is not only a tear trigger but a moment of pure artistic genius).
If letting go wasn't difficult enough, throughout the movie we're reminded of why these characters came to matter so much. Despite being objects they represent our memories (in a way linking themselves, at least on the surface, to the Lacanian concept of what's real) things we may not even know are there but have such meanings that we can't give them up.
It's safe to say that for a generation that grew up watching these movies, Toy Story 3 will serve as a strange meta experiment: the final movie about characters wondering what will happen to them during their final days.
Perhaps like Denys Arcand's superb history trilogy, Pixar's three-parter would make a fascinating basis for an Existentialism 101 course.
Of course the film provides ample entertainment for younger audiences, who might not get all the references (just the movie ones include The Great Escape, Indiana Jones and at least a couple John Ford Westerns) but will still be wowed by the thrilling way in which the setpieces are executed (the opening sequence is more exciting than any so called adventure flick released during a regular blockbuster season).
This time Pixar slightly succumbs to the idea that animated movies must feature contemporary jokes to have an effect on young audiences but they do so with such class and selfconsciousness that it's obvious they're not trying to make business out of it but are giving us glimpses of how in times of desperation we recur to unexpected maneuvers.
Notice then how by film's end, all the characters have returned to being who they always were, the popular references and such, being but rushed midlife crises of sorts showcased to deal with endings.
Cynics might say that the Toy Story series made a name of itself manipulating universal human emotions and using toys to create empathy for materialism; but the truth of the matter is that while Woody Allen and Ingmar Bergman struggled throughout their filmographies to find a meaning in humanity's struggles with mortality, Toy Story looks at it straight in the eye, even playfully, and with unexpected maturity reminds us that maybe we should just stick to doing our best while we're still here.