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Manolo Blahniks.
If you’re heterosexual and male, those two words are all you really need to know about the screen adaptation of Sex and the City.
Evidently, Manolo Blahniks is a brand of very stylish and very expensive women’s shoes which also turn out to be a key plot device toward the end of this 2 1/2-hour queen of all chick flicks.
If you are a fan of either that particular shoe brand or the now defunct HBO series, Sex and the City, then this film is probably for you.
If you don’t know Manolo from Mazola and never got into the Sex phenomenon during its four-year run, or if you have even remotely male tendencies — such as planning your weekend around a Charles Bronson movie marathon or keeping a stack of Maxim magazines in the bathroom — I would save my time and money and go see Iron Man again.
{mosimage}OK, full disclosure: Before I screened Sex and the City, I’d never seen a single episode of the — supposedly — groundbreaking series. Of course, through pop culture osmosis I knew that main character Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) has a shoe fetish on par with Imelda Marcos, that the girls like sex — hence the title — and they drink Cosmopolitans nonstop.
So, I guess you legion of Sex fans think not having seen the series should disqualify me from reviewing the movie, eh? To that, I say ... bad sexists! What would happen if a male film critic said female critics were not qualified to review movies, such as the aforementioned Iron Man or the Spider Man anthology, because most women did not grow up reading the comic books said films are based upon?
That’s right, they’d be strung up by the soles of their Kenneth Coles.
So, in a broadside for men’s right, here’s what I know about Sex and the City — the movie.
The plot seems to revolve around Carrie attempting to tie the knot with the rich, handsome Mr. Big (Chris Noth), who leaves her waiting at the altar because, you know, men are pigs.
By the way, I went to a Monday matinee, because, well, men are not only pigs, but we’re cheap pigs. And let me tell you, I have never, ever felt so out of place at a movie. I was the lone male in the audience and the estrogen was cascading down the aisles like some sort of mutated fog, redolent of Chanel No. 5 and contraband cocktails.
Anyway, Carrie is so depressed following her matrimonial meltdown that she and her three gal pals flee to Mexico for a vacation in which they drink margaritas instead of their trademark Cosmos and don’t have a lot of sex — the one thing that would possibly attract males to the film. I mean, it is called Sex in the City, not Babes Bonding South of the Border.
After that, it’s mostly a roller coaster of hormonal hijinks, including pregnancy, infidelity and a spayed dog that likes to make sweet, sweet love to pillows, chair legs and human legs.
Samantha (Kim Catrall) is, to me, the sexiest and funniest of Sex in the City’s four stars, even if she does spend too much of the movie holding on like grim death to her much younger soap star boyfriend Smith (Jason Lewis).
The character of Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) is the one involved in the aforementioned pregnancy. When she runs into Mr. Big on the street and starts to animatedly give him a piece of her mind over how he treated Carrie, everyone in the theater smarter than Dick Cheney immediately knew her water was going to break and Big would end up saving the day by driving her to the hospital. I mean, gee whiz ... I learned that plot device about the same time I figured out any time teenagers have sex in a slasher flick, they’ve got about three minutes left to live.
And in the end, predictability is what sinks the good ship Playtex. The writers should have taken a chance or two. Personally, I believe the real life lesbianism of Cynthia Nixon could have been alluded to, giving the film some much needed edge. For example, perhaps she could have fallen head-over-stilletos for a TV repairwoman or a hardened stripper with a heart of gold — played by either the hilarious Ellen DeGeneres, or DeGeneres’ girlfriend, the gorgeous Portia de Rossi (I’ll let you guess which one I would cast to drive the big brown truck and which one would do the pole dancing).
Or maybe, Nixon, DeGeneres and de Rossi could have been involved in some sort of sexy love triangle.
Yeah, that’s the ticket — nothing draws dudes to the bijou like a ménage à trois.
Because, well, you know ... men are pigs.
Sex in the City Gives Pain in the Neck
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