SBD Star Rating:
by LEW IRWIN
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 Given the fact that the overwhelming number of film critics are male, it may be predictable that the initial reviews for Sex and the City, which premiered in New York Tuesday night, are somewhat less than jubilant. "This movie provides no good reasons to revisit Sex and the City, except to fulfill fans' desires for one more for the road and add millions to Time Warner's coffers," grumbles Lou Lumenick in the New York Post. On the other hand Elizabeth Weitzman in the New York Daily News writes, "The best reunions begin with nostalgia and end with hope for the future, and SATC is bursting with both." But even the BBC's male reviewer, Mark Adams, not only has good things to say about the film but concludes, "The film is wonderful." Additional reviews are expected on Friday, when the film officially opens. |
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SBD Star Rating:
by LEW IRWIN
View Credits | See Other Reviews
|
 Los Angeles Times critic Carina Chocano observes in her review of Sex and the City that it's difficult to write about it in the face of charges of "gender bias" directed at some critics. Nevertheless she praises co-executive producer Michael Patrick King, who wrote and directed the movie, for doing "some brave, surprising things with it, mining territory that's been all but abandoned by Hollywood." She continues: "For a film that delights in indulging in frivolity at every possible turn, it examines subjects that most movies don't dare graze for their terrifying seriousness. And when it does, the movie handles them with surprising grace, wit and maturity. In other words, it's a movie for grown-ups of all ages." Claudia Puig in USA Today calls it "undeniably satisfying." Jessica Reeves in the Chicago Tribune describes it as "witty, effervescent and unexpectedly thoughtful." But Roger Ebert's review in the Chicago Sun-Times veers 180 degrees in the opposite direction. "I am not the person to review this movie," he begins. It ends this way: "This is probably the exact Sex and the City film that fans of the TV series are lusting for, and it may do $50 million on its opening weekend. I know some nurses who are going to smuggle flasks of Cosmopolitans into the theater on opening night, and have a Gal Party. 'Do you think that's a good idea?' one of them asked me. 'Two flasks,' I said." Not all the criticism is gender defined, however. While Peter Howell in the Toronto Star writes, "It's gratifying to report that ... there are some serious life issues being worked on, in between the heavy breathing and rampant consumerism," Manohla Dargis in the New York Times concludes: "There is something depressingly stunted about this movie; something desperate too." |
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