What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly collection of things that serious movie lovers will find interesting, useful, or both.

We begin this evening with an image from the website of the LA Times, who are featuring great reader photos chronicling Southern California moments. This one, by a gentleman named Chris Jackson, is of a street performer dressed as Spock on Hollywood Boulevard. Awesome costume. No, I don’t want a photo. No, I will not tip you. No, stop touching my girlfriend’s thigh. Live long and prosper, now get away from me.

Peter Jackson has added one last famous face to the cast of The Hobbit. Billy Connolly will play Dain Ironfoot, a Dwarf warrior. He will undoubtedly be a total badass leather-wearing dwarf who has no less than 35 guns on his person at one time. He will also have two sons, one of which will grow up to be a chubby version of Sean Patrick Flannery.

Ridley Scott is all over the place about the Blade Runner revival: ”We’re still in discussions about whether it should be a prequel or sequel. It’s an interesting conversation. I’m meeting with writers and I’ve also gone back to [original Blade Runner screenwriter] Hampton Fancher and he still speaks the speak. He’s right there. I spoke with him this week. But we don’t even have a script yet.”

Users of Windows who have a great deal of movies on their harddrives — all of which were downloaded legally, I’m sure — can download this nifty free application called Movie Explorer, which allows you to put together all the details about the movies you’ve archived. It’s like entering all the information by hand, except that you can have a cookie and let this app do the work for you. And who doesn’t love cookie time?

Paste has published a list of The 100 Best Movie Posters of the Past 100 Years. Among the list is the following gem for Dr. Strangelove, a personal favorite of yours truly:

Flavorwire presents an odd grouping of Movies Banned in Foreign Countries for Weird Reasons. In fairness, the Chinese have a point about time travel movies and Sex and the City 2 should have been banned everywhere, not just the UAE.

You guys have heard of ActionFest, right? It’s the annual celebration of the action genre held in Asheville, N.C. every year. If you’re not intimately familiar just yet, ActionFest.com Editor-in-Chief Ed Travis has taken to Movies.com to explain what the heck ActionFest is and why you should buy your plane ticket right now.

Another fine interview with Gary Oldman, another reason why I’ll be sad if he doesn’t walk away with gold on Oscar night. That man is a living legend, people.

Jon Favreau has signed on to direct the pilot for Revolution, a project set up at NBC by J.J. Abrams and Supernatural creator Eric Kripke. That’s basically a talent stew, there. Hopefully the adventure drama turns out to be a winner.

We close tonight with claymation animationator Lee Hardcastle’s Robo with a Shotgun, which is exactly what you hope it is:

The day that Hollywood waits for all year is here. Also, the day that people who write about Hollywood wait for all year is here. Hollywood is probably paying attention to the Oscar winners, but for the rest of us it’s time to see who won The Razzies. After all of the paychecks have been cashed and all of the artistic compromises have been made, the moment to find out who crapped out the worst schlock comes here: The Golden Raspberry Award Foundation has poured over all of the nominees and named their winners for the worst work of the year. Watching bad work earn Razzies isn’t quite payback enough for having to suffer through all of the crap that Hollywood churns out every year, but for people who watch everything in hopes of steering the public towards the good, it does serve as a little peace of mind. If the ceremonial blowjob of the Oscars has to exist, then I’m glad the Zen of the world is maintained by the Nelson Muntz “ha-ha” of The Razzies; the snarky yin to the gushing yang.

And the “winners” are…

Worst Picture: The Last Airbender

Worst Actor: Ashton Kutcher for Killers and Valentines Day

Worst Actress: “The Four Gal Pals” Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon for Sex and the City 2

Worst Supporting Actor: Jackson Rathbone for The Last Airbender and Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Worst Supporting Actress: Jessica Alba for The Killer Inside Me, Little Fockers, Machete and Valentine’s Day

Worst Eye-Gouging Mis-Use of 3-D: The Last Airbender

Worst Screen Couple/Worst Screen Ensemble 2010: The entire cast of Sex and the City 2

Worst Director: M. Night Shyamalan for The Last Airbender.

Worst Screenplay: The Last Airbender

Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off, or Sequel: Sex and the City 2

For coverage of good movies that won things for being good, check out our complete list of Oscar winners.

The Razzies is a different kind of awards show, not one that heaps false praise on people that it doesn’t respect, but one that dishonors the worst work of the year. No, their nominees for Worst Picture aren’t quite as bad as the Golden Globe nominees for Best Picture – Comedy or Musical, but it’s still generally considered an insult to earn Razzie recognition, and God forbid you actually win.

Looking over this year’s nominees has left me in a confused emotional state. The only film I’ve seen that on here is The Expendables. Does that make me a bad film fan or a smart consumer?  Can one truly appreciate the good if he hasn’t waded through most of the bad? In 2011, I solemnly vow to see more bad movies.

WORST PICTURE

The Bounty Hunter

The Last Airbender

Sex and the City 2

Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Vampires Suck

WORST ACTOR

Jack Black / Gulliver’s Travels

Gerard Butler / The Bounty Hunter

Ashton Kutcher / Killers and Valentine’s Day

Taylor Lautner / Twilight Saga: Eclipse and Valentine’s Day

Robert Pattinson / Remember Me and Twilight Saga: Eclipse

WORST ACTRESS

Jennifer Aniston / The Bounty Hunter and The Switch

Mylie Cyrus / The Last Song

Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis & Cynthia Nixon / Sex & the City 2

Megan Fox / Jonah Hex

Kristen Stewart / Twilight Saga: Eclipse

WORST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Jessica Alba / The Killer Inside Me, Little Fockers, Machete and Valentine’s Day

Cher / Burlesque

Liza Minnelli / Sex & the City 2

Nicola Peltz / The Last Airbender

Barbra Streisand / Little Fockers

WORST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Billy Ray Cyrus / The Spy Next Door

George Lopez / Marmaduke, The Spy Next Door and Valentine’s Day

Dev Patel / The Last Airbender

Jackson Rathbone / The Last Airbender and Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Rob Schneider / Grown Ups

WORST EYE-GOUGING MIS-USE Of 3-D

Cats & Dogs 2: Revenge of Kitty Galore

Clash of the Titans

The Last Airbender

Nutcracker 3-D

Saw 3-D (aka Saw VII)

WORST SCREEN COUPLE / WORST SCREEN ENSEMBLE

Jennifer Aniston & Gerard Butler / The Bounty Hunter

Josh Brolin’s Face & Megan Fox’s Accent / Jonah Hex

The Entire Cast of The Last Airbender

The Entire Cast of Sex & The City 2

The Entire Cast of Twilight Saga: Eclipse

WORST DIRECTOR

Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer / Vampires Suck

Michael Patrick King / Sex & The City 2

M. Night Shyamalan / The Last Airbender

David Slade / Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Sylvester Stallone / The Expendables

WORST SCREENPLAY

The Last Airbender, Written by M. Night Shyamalan, based on the TV series created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Brian Konietzko

Little Fockers, Written by John Hamburg and Larry Stuckey, based on Characters Created by Greg Glenna & Mary Roth Clarke

Sex & the City 2, Written by Michael Patrick King, Based on the TV Series Created by Darren Star

Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Screenplay by Melissa Rosenberg, Based on the Novel by Stephenie Meyer

Vampires Suck, Written by Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer

WORST PREQUEL, REMAKE, RIP-OFF or SEQUEL

Clash Of The Titans

The Last Airbender

Sex & The City 2

Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Vampires Suck

It’s that time of the year again: that brief span of time in between Christmas and New Year’s when journalists, critics, and cultural commentators scramble to define an arbitrary block of time even before that block is over with. To speculate on what 2010 will be remembered for is purely that: speculation. But the lists, summaries, and editorials reflecting on the events, accomplishments, failures, and occurrences of 2010 no doubt shape future debate over what January 1-December 31, 2010 will be remembered for personally, nostalgically, and historically.

How we refer to the present frames how it is represented in the future, even when contradictions arise over what events should be valued from a given year.

In an effort to begin that framing process, what I offer here is not a critical list of great films, but one that points out dominant cultural conversations, shared trends, and intersecting topics (both implicit and explicit) that have occurred either between the films themselves or between films and other notable aspects of American social life in 2010. As this column attempts to establish week in and week out, movies never exist in a vacuum, but instead operate in active conversation with one another. Thus, a movie’s cultural context should never be ignored.

So, without further adieu, here is my overview of the Top 10 topics, trends, and events of the year that have nothing to do with the 3D debate.

The French Are Dying/Still Alive

Oddly enough, one of the most apparent topics amongst a certain brand of American cinephile had nothing to do with American cinema at all. This year, the French were part of the conversation in a big way – and not new movies, mind you, but the New Wave specifically. New Wave veterans Eric Rohmer (01/11) and Claude Chabrol (09/12) both died this year, prompting new reflections on their work. But it’s the living old guard of modern French cinema that really made an impression.

Alain Resnais, at 87, released Wild Grass (which showed that, despite his age, his work can be just as experimental and confounding as ever) in the States only weeks before the release of Inception prompted comparisons to his classic cinematic puzzle Last Year in Marienbad. But most significantly, however, was the renewed prominence of Jean-Luc Godard who received and refused an Oscar, challenged audiences on the festival circuit with his Film Socialisme, and celebrated the 50^th anniversary of his essential debut work, Breathless. The latter was accompanied with a rerelease that brought such renewed appreciation to the point that it overshadowed the 50-year anniversaries of Psycho, L’Avventura, and La Dolce Vita.

Crazy Moms and Self-Reliant Men

The second half of 2010 featured three supporting performances by women playing overbearing, manipulative, or simply insane mothers: Jacki Weaver in Animal Kingdom, Melissa Leo in The Fighter, and Barbara Hershey in Black Swan. All these films chronicled the struggles the sons or daughters of these moms incurred to define and separate themselves from family lineage. Meanwhile, as Cole Abaius pointed out, the men of Buried and 127 Hours had to rely on only theirselves to get out of tight spots. Meanwhile, the geek-men of The Social Network and The Other Guys struggled to define their individuality against traditional notions of masculinity.

I’m not sure what implications these gender representations – and the corresponding themes of maternal oppression (even Marisa Tomei’s overprotective mother in Cyrus falls into this category) alongside the narratives of the 21^st century male’s struggle for self-reliance and individuality – have or are reflecting, but something seems to be going on here.

Vince Vaughn’s Dilemma

One of the most culturally reflective (and divisive) cinematic conversations of 2010 surrounded a film that won’t be released until 2011. While the nation pondered its dense history of homophobic bullying after a string of gay youth suicides starting popping up on the front pages, the trailer for the Ron Howard “comedy” The Dilemma was released with a “gay = stupid” joke as its lead. What would otherwise pass by as an unexamined passive slam against an already-maligned group became no longer acceptable.

The line was unintelligibly defended by Howard, Vince Vaughn, and numerous web commentators who think that a joke too lazy and immature for anybody over 13 to find funny is the same thing as South Park-style take-no-prisoners satire. It’s lazy comedy, and the reaction to it is further evidence that we as a culture have shifted from our Eddie Murphy Delirious days: homophobes, not homosexuals, are now the subject of derisive humor. As The Kids Are All Right and Modern Family have shown, you can have great comedy about homosexuals without making fun of homosexuality.

The Modern Movie Geek is Alive and Well

The above was the title of one of Cole’s great contributions to this column, and here I’m going to focus on one small detail of his point: that movies themselves have begun catering to the vocal (via sites like this) geek crowd explicitly. This arguably first occurred in a pandering and superficial way in 2006 with the reshoots for Snakes on a Plane, and geekdom is often appropriated as advertising through complicity via the hyper-commercialization of events like Comic-Con. But at the same time, the most positive development is the undeniable fact that certain material has been brought to the screen that likely wouldn’t have had a geek audience not been so apparent.

I’m speaking specifically of Kick-Ass and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Much attention was given to these (commercially speaking) risky adaptations, but in the same breath a great fuss was made about their supposed “failure” at the box office. It’s great to see people mobilize and organize over otherwise comparably marginal entertainment, but it’s depressing to see that same crowd’s enjoyment of a work of cinema muted by a preoccupation with box office numbers. This hyperbolic, apocalyptic reaction to films that, at worst, mildly underperformed not only ignores the fact that these movies still exist and (at least, in the case of Scott Pilgrim) are good, but it stands in direct opposition to what movie geekdom truly means: being part of a subculture whose objects of value have never been predicated on mainstream taste.

Social Networking

The Social Network wasn’t really about social networking as much as it was about Mark Zuckerberg and his efforts to seek status and power while attempting to control any public associations with his name. While the real-life Zuckerberg refutes much of what is portrayed in Fincher’s film, in the aftermath of its release he essentially became what he is portrayed to be. From an appearance on Oprah to being named Time magazine’s Person of the Year, Zuckerberg launched and was complicit in a massive (self-)promotional campaign timed with the release of the film in order to preserve his “image.” But he didn’t have much of an image to begin with. As a result, Zuckerberg ended up establishing his first real incarnation of a mass media persona.

Facebook wasn’t any more significant in 2010 than it was in 2009, but the difference is that Zuckerberg (despite an incredible lack of charisma) has become a figure of mass culture, and Facebook a greater part of the national conversation despite being more than half a decade old. With the limited release of Catfish (a film actually about social communication in the era of Web 2.0 networking) alongside the wide release of Fincher’s film, Facebook has become ubiquitous far outside the realm of the Internet. Yeah, it was ubiquitous last year too, but that’s hardly the point.

Faux Docs

2008 and 2009 saw a return to found footage horror filmmaking, but 2010 played with the non-fiction format in quite a different way. In the tradition of F for Fake and Close-Up, documentaries emerged which challenged and questioned the notion of what makes a viable “non-fiction” film…sort of. I find the actual debates over the divisions between veracity and authenticity surrounding these films uninteresting, as their real value lies instead in what playing with the inherently suspect and deceptive nature of cinema actually says about the subject being documented. Thankfully, it seems audiences also see the distinction between the potential fruit of meta-as-commentary and the superficial posing of meta-for-its-own-sake.

Exit Through the Gift Shop and Catfish were modest successes while the higher-profile I’m Still Here disappeared instantaneously into the ether. When Casey Affleck prematurely declared (to nobody’s surprise) that his film was faked, it added nothing to the film itself. With the other two films, however, the play-at-form, intentionally or not, enabled insightful commentary on authenticity and authorship in postmodern art and the formidability of identity in the digital era, respectively. And that, I think, is some very intriguing stuff.

An Ode to the Old

Auteurs from Scorsese to Tarantino have used the practice of referencing past films to create rich details within their own works, pay homage to their influences, or to simply provide a game of guess-that-movie. But a few significant works in 2010 have shown the rich possibilities of using cinema’s past to inform its present in the realms of both criticism and creation. Inception included unavoidable reverberations of Solaris and Last Year at Marienbad amongst other films, but it didn’t do so in a way that simply provided geek-insider visual referencing or in order to place itself presumptively as a contemporary extension of those films, but in effect actually builds upon past cinema in the construction of a new and original – albeit indebted – work of art.

All films in some way owe their existence to past works, but this practice is different as it represents a creation based on past substance rather than past style. (The fact that Christopher Nolan saw Marienbad after completing Inception only further evidences its presence in the cinematic cultural imagination.) The same goes for Black Swan, whose indebtedness to The Red Shoes and Suspiria doesn’t relegate itself to simple winking, but uses the force and influence of these past works (just as those older films no doubt possess their own influences) to create something that stands alone.

Movies Get Class-y

During the Great Depression, moviegoers wanted escapism and as a result turned to everything from musicals about golddiggers to creature features about giant apes to screwball romantic comedies about the very, very rich. During our economic recession, however, audiences still want escapism, but movies about the rich don’t quite fly like they used to. The unapologetic extravagance of Sex and the City 2 and the comparably innocent class-unconsciousness of How Do You Know showed an active disinterest from audiences in pursuing romantic comedies about rich white people like they did in the 30s. Of course, the romantic comedy itself has been suffering for quite some time, but as A.O. Scott details in his insightful article, movies of other genres have shown a class consciousness in a way rarely seen before.

While rhetoric surrounding the “middle-class” has been a political campaign staple for quite some time, in media representation class often remains invisible or isn’t discussed. But in indies and modest-scale Hollywood films like The Fighter, The Town, The Kids Are All Right, Tiny Furniture, Winter’s Bone, Wall Street 2 and, perhaps most insightfully, Please Give, class and the inescapable containment (either acknowledged or unacknowledged by its characters) of those within a given class has been front-and-center in the discourse within and surrounding these films. With the exception of Please Give, these films seek to represent class rather than actually comment on it, but movies in 2010 proved that, even through escapism, class is inescapable.

The Political Summer

“The Politics of Summer Movies 2010” was originally designed as a prototypical post that I would revisit each movie season to examine to implicit politics of the significant releases every few months, but 2010 was such a unique year that this proposed semiannual examination might just have to stand alone. Every film is implicitly political, even those works that are meant to be “purely entertainment” (like big summer blockbusters), but what was unique about the summer movies in 2010 is that politics surrounded these movies so explicitly, whether in the specifics of the plots themselves or in the conversations around them, to the point that these movies couldn’t be pure escapism even if they wanted to. Just ask Tony Stark.

The 80s Are (Even More) Back

In the worlds of music and hipster fashion, the 80s have been back for quite some time, and in 2009 I wrote a piece on a decidedly unironic representation of the 1980s in Watchmen, Adventureland, and The Informers. But that trend pronounced itself far more aggressively in 2010 where it seemed like nearly every other release was somehow indebted to the decade of Falco and ALF. While today’s conservatives nostalgically re-imagined the era of Reaganomics as an economic utopia despite the destruction it has wrought since, today’s movies nostalgically (and confoundingly) re-imagined the 80s as possessing a wealth of cinematic gold worth re-visitation.

Remakes (A Nightmare on Elm St., The Karate Kid, Clash of the Titans), sequels (Tron: Legacy, Wall Street 2), adaptation(s) (The A-Team), and comic reimaginations (Hot Tub Time Machine, MacGruber) have engaged with the decade in one way or another, mostly with sincerity; and with the release of a third Transformers film and crap like Take Me Home Tonight in 2011, this trend has definite implications for the direction of cinema’s immediate future. It’s done some funny things to cinema’s past as well, for the uninspired sequel/remakes have made critics and audiences reinterpret the worth of the original material: the original Tron and Clash of the Titans were never classics, but in revisiting the source for profit-by-association, they have often become rememorialized as such.

The plot of Hot Tub Time Machine manifests this intersection of nostalgia and sometimes-hip-mostly-lazy regurgitation literally, mixing elements of the past and present together in a way that ultimately changes them both.

Take your weekly walk on the wild side with more Culture Warrior

The Sound of Music

Wowza! Just when I thought this week would be dominated by last week’s titles (and talk of my inherent laziness), along comes Julie Andrews through the hillsides of Austria belting out the titular ballad in vibrant HD. And it looks beautiful. It took all of about three hillside twirls from Ms. Andrews for me to decide that it would get top billing in this week’s column. Sure, there’s a Pixar movie involved. And sure, I’ve got perhaps the two biggest Blu-ray collector’s sets of the year to talk about below. But Fox has done something very special with this classic tale – they’ve revived it and reinvigorated it. There’s nothing about the story of Maria and the Von Trapp children that feels flat anymore, as it has on other mediums (I’m looking at you, VHS). Those sweeping shots of the mountains of Austria? Even more impressive. The colorful palette used by Robert Wise to bring the world of the Von Trapps to life? Even more vibrant and beautiful. Not to mention the fact that the 3-disc set is loaded with extras, from the construction the musical stages to rare footage and screen tests – the stories behind the story are here in force. It’s one of those releases that remind us of the potential of Blu-ray. Not just for the inventive filmmaking is to come, but that which is 45 years old.

Toy Story 3

When given a second glance, Toy Story 3 feels very much apart of its trilogy. It displays, at minimum, the evolution of Pixar – both as a storytelling entity and an animation house. A wonderful road trip movie that is familiar and fresh at the same time. And while it’s impossible to say – as a member of the generation that discovered Toy Story at a very young age – if it has the same magic for today’s kids that the original had for us, but it is a more than worthwhile addition to any Pixar fan’s collection. And by “Pixar fan,” I’m of course referring to any of you who have ever seen a movie from the northern California-based house. Toy Story 3 feels every bit the perfect bookend to a great era of Pixar animation. One that makes us hopeful for the next era, but deeply connected to the past. That, and those evil bastards at Pixar once again open the flood gates of tears with some textbook emotional manipulation. The movie, a must-see. The Blu-ray doesn’t fall short of that either, as you might expect. Plenty of extras – many of which are exclusive to the Blu-ray – a copy of the DVD, a digital copy, and all of the wonderful stories that followed director Lee Unkrich around as he brought Woody, Buzz and the gang back to life for one more round. It’s all there, and all worth the price of admission.

Alien Anthology

Categorizing the Alien Anthology as an essential buy for sci-fi fanatics seems a bit easy, wouldn’t you say? It’s a series of films that, even at their lowest points, thrilled us with some of the most intense and horrific monster imagery of the modern era. If you like horror, you’re buying Alien on Blu-ray. If you like sci-fi, you’re buying Alien on Blu-ray. I’m going to take it a bit further after having some time to poke around this incredible set: if you like movies, you are going to buy Alien on Blu-ray. From the ability to watch Ridley Scott’s original theatrical cut with the original 4.1 Dolby audio track to the metric ton of extras (even on Alien 3) that adorn each of the films – it’s all top quality, all beautifully realized in a set that is as all-encompassing as we may ever see. At least until a better format comes along. Then again, probably not. So do yourself a favor and pick up what could very well be the Blu-ray buy of 2010.  For those who may balk at the set’s asking price (around $90, on the low end), just know that it’d be worth not eating for a few weeks in order to own this one.

Back to the Future: 25th Anniversary Anthology

As if a matter of kismet, the Back to the Future trilogy Blu-ray set is also out with Alien. I know this all happened last week, but it would be criminal of me not to sing the praises of this set, week off or not. For Marty McFly and company – akin to the treatment given to Ripley and that big ugly in the review above – this is the coming out party that the BTTF series has always deserved. The visuals are stunning even when you can see the green screen compositing (it’s there, deal with it), the audio is blazing and the extras are plentiful enough to make the anthology feel like a complete package. Universal spent time on this release, quelling together every ounce of extras that have been created since the first film hit theaters in 1985. My favorite feature? The clincher for the entire set? The trivia track available on each film. Sure, seeing the DeLorean explode through time in glorious HD is one thing. But little tidbits of trivia never fail to tickle me. Vote for Goldie Wilson! Buy Back to the Future en Blu! If you haven’t already, that is…

House (1977)

The culture of the weird is no casual topic around these parts. Between our obsession with Junkfood Cinema and Foreign Objects, we cover some territory that other movie blogs wouldn’t touch with a 35 ft. octopus tentacle. So a movie like Nobuhiko Obayashi’s House (Hausu) feels right at home in the archives of the Rejects. It is one of the wildest psychedelic rides you can take without the assistance of illegal substances. However, don’t let me stop you from taking illegal substances prior to the ride. There’s no telling how much more vibrant and hallucinatory the animation might be if you were actually hallucinating. No telling how much creepier that damned cat would be if you were seeing seven of him. The back of this Criterion Blu-ray release – one packaged with some very cool special features – aptly describes House as a film that could have been beamed to Earth from another planet. Even better is the description from Chuck Stephens, whose essay “The Housemaidens” appears in the full color booklet included in the Criterion packaging: “a predigital maelstrom of cinekinetic visual ingenuity… a modern masterpiece of le cinema du WTF?!” If that doesn’t arouse the curiosity of the uninitiated, I’m not sure what will.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

It’s the color that does it. I mentioned it above in my review of The Sound of Music. There’s something so wonderful about seeing movies – particularly from the 1960s – come back to life with the vibrant color delivered by the Blu-ray format. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is one such film, with all of the wondrous environment that surrounds star Dick Van Dyke delivered beyond what it was probably intended by its creators. I can only imagine what director Ken Hughes (who passed away in ’01) would say about the way his fun film has been transferred into a home video medium. It would be a stunning experience, I’m sure. An experience that can now be passed on to new generations of film fans. Even better is the fact that the Blu-ray offers a great deal of supplemental material for those who are already fond of the film. There’s a sing-a-long version of the film, an interactive Chitty Chitty Bang Bang game, a gallery of vintage advertising materials (which are rare and immersive) and a full featurette called “Remembering Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with Dick Van Dyke.” I’ll let you decide for yourself whether or not that would be interesting (spoiler: it is.)

White Christmas

Perhaps one of the toughest releases to categorize this week, White Christmas is a welcomed addition to my own collection. Who doesn’t love a little Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye? And with the feminine wiles of Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen, to boot. White Christmas is a wonderful film, fantastically full of life. It looks great on Blu-ray (inasmuch as a film from 1954 can look great in HD), comes complete with a series of extras that focus on the film’s incredible cast (including a commentary track from Clooney) and plenty of archival footage. It’s a month early for the intense relevance of Christmas to make it a more worthwhile watch, but all-in-all White Christmas is another in a great line of classics that have been given a proper Blu-ray treatment. As I mentioned above with The Sound of Music, it’s a smile-inducing reminder of the potential of the format. These movies can get new life, while maintaining all of the elements that made them great in the first place.

The Girl Who Played with Fire

Say what you may about remakes, rehashings and reinvisionings – there are always the originals to be watched. The Girl Who Played With Fire, the second in Stieg Larsson’s Dragon Tattoo trilogy, brings Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) back for another intense round as she goes on the run from authorities after becoming the prime suspect in the murder of two journalists who are about to expose the details of Sweden’s sex trade. Even though the series has been passed from director Niels Arden Oplev to Daniel Alfredson, the second film strikes a similar pace and tone with the first. The tension around Salander is still there. The suspense builds effortlessly and act three delivers an equally chilling climax. In short, it’s another fine installment in a series drawing on captivating source material. The only hold-back on the Blu-ray release is the lack of special features. A trailer to go along with an English dub track just won’t push this to a buy. It’s not hard to sniff out a trilogy collector’s set on the horizon, as soon as Music Box Films releases the final installment, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, into theaters and eventually sneaks it onto DVD. See this now, wait for the trilogy to make your big purchase.

Winter’s Bone

Here again, we find ourselves in the great Blu-ray buying conundrum. The release of a great movie – perhaps one of this year’s best. It’s been called by reviewers on this site (Robert Levin and Landon Palmer, to be exact) an immersive film, driven by a powerful performance from Jennifer Lawrence. Landon went as far as to put it into the category of a “cleverly executed, slow-burn rural twist on the urban detective noir.” They are both right, it’s a damn fine film. As intensely stomach-turning at times as Precious was last year, with an immersive and affecting environment built around Lawrences character by director Deborah Granik. With a moderate amount of extras – commentary, a making of featurette, some deleted scenes and an alternate opening – and some well crafted cinematography from DP Michael McDonough, it’s not hard to see why this is an easy rent. If all goes well, this is one film you’ll want to see prior to Oscar season, because it has a chance at some hardware.

Agatha Christie: Poirot – Murder On the Orient Express

Agatha Christie is the world’s bestselling author, and she may just be the most often adapted as well. (I could probably check Wikipedia for that stat. But I’m not going to.) This particular version of Murder On the Orient Express is the most recent episode of the UK’s long running Poirot television series that began way back in 1989. David Suchet plays the venerable detective who this time finds himself trapped on a train car with a murderer afoot. To make matters worse the train has come to an unscheduled stop in a snowy mountain pass due to giant drifts across the tracks. This tale is more than just a brilliantly complex mystery though with morality, ethics, and massive amounts of soul searching coming into play as Poirot inches ever closer to the murderer. Suchet is fantastic and fills his Poirot with more visible emotion and unspoken thought than many actors have managed before him, and the series’ production values are strong with impressive cinematography and a stellar cast of suspects. - Rob Hunter

Slings & Arrows: The Complete Collection

Who knew Canada made television shows? And absolutely brilliant shows at that… this set collects all three seasons of the funniest show you’ve ever seen about a Shakespearean theater troupe. I kid… it’s damn funny for any topic and reminds me of Armando Iannucci’s In the Loop with it’s sharply written dialogue delivered at a blistering pace. The show mixes black comedy with sincere heart, and while that alone is reason enough to watch there’s one more aspect that raises this series above many others. Each season sees the troupe producing one main play alongside several smaller ones (Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear), and that central production infiltrates the show with its themes and narrative in some creative and smart ways. Seriously, I took an entire semester on Shakespeare and I feel as if I’ve learned more from this show that that class ever taught me. Granted, my mind was elsewhere that semester. On country matters to be more precise… - Rob Hunter

Sex and the City 2

When does success turn into excess? This seems to be the quintessential question that comes to mind when we look at a movie like Sex and the City 2. A beloved series about four friends living sexily in The Big Apple turned into a long-gestating film that reengaged a fanbase and saw wild success, despite the film being a fairly mediocre (when compared to the quality storytelling executed through much of the series). That film has spawned an extravagant, commercially-minded sequel that will likely do gangbusters business on DVD and Blu-ray. With its built-in fanbase, that is. For the rest of us – those of us who’ve seen both movies and remain unmoved toward the cult of Carrie – this Blu-ray doesn’t present any new information that makes us any more likely to buy it than for us to go buy a fashionable pair of Prada pumps. They do make shoes, right?

V: The Complete First Season

If we would have placed this on a speculative list of TV on Blu-ray that you should buy prior to it airing on ABC, I’m sure that it would have been very high on the list. Perhaps even up on the list near Fringe. For all intents and purposes, V appeared to be an impressive show – despite its rehashing of the original mini-series from the 1980s. It is quite a bit flashier, plenty more Scott Wolfier and updated to include some half-hearted socio-political relevance. It’s a wonder why our own Brian Salisbury – a man dedicated to all things sci-fi and not of quality – gave up on it quickly during season one. He got further than I did when exploring the Blu-ray. I will give him that.

Also hitting Blu-ray shelves this week, but unavailable for review in today’s column (including The Pacific, which will likely be excellent):

• The Bridge on the River Kwai (Sony)
• Cars Toon: Mater’s Tall Tales (Disney/Buena Vista)
• Centurion (Magnolia)
• Dinosaurs Alive! – 3D (Image)
• Disney’s WOW World of Wonder (Disney/Buena Vista)
• ExTerminators (Image)
• The Goonies: 25th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition (Warner)
• Highlander (Lionsgate)
• Highlander 2 (Lionsgate)
• IMAX: Grand Canyon Adventure – River at Risk – 3D (Image)
• IMAX: Van Gogh – Brush with Genius (Image)
• Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax: The Big 4 – Live from Sofia, Bulgaria (Warner Music)
• Ocean Odyssey (PBS)
• The Pacific (HBO)
• Phil Collins: Going Back – Live at the Roseland Ballroom NYC (Eagle Rock)
• Thomas Kincade’s Christmas Cottage (Lionsgate)
• Wild Ocean – 3D (Image)

However, I’ve always contended that it is often the films that seemingly exist only for “entertainment’s sake” that have the most to say about culture, mainly because they operate in such a way that allows us to turn our minds off, passively consume them, and therefore go along unquestionably with the socio-political presumptions explicitly or implicitly embedded within their narratives.

Such films that purport to exist solely for entertainment value often end up telling us a lot about how and what we think about the present, and it just so happens that these types of films are most often relegated to the summer months. Summer movies in 2010 ranged from highbrow to lowbrow, blockbuster to indie to sleeper, with head-scratchers and brain-cell-killers alike, but many of these films, intentionally or not, had something to say or assume about the present cultural moment.

Iron Man 2 (May 7)

Picking up where Tony Stark left off in the first film, Iron Man 2 is an oddly comforting fantasy of American exceptionalism and its worship of the individual. But unlike the first film whose first act imagines an allegorical American victory in Afghanistan through Iron Man’s defeat of the Ten Rings, the sequel exercises its nationalism through resurrecting the remnants of America’s Cold War enemies through the threat embodied by Whiplash, whose aura of communist conformism is made literal through his manufacture of a mass identical army.

Thus, Whiplash’s ultimate defeat at the hands of Iron Man endorses a presumed superiority of individualism over the collective ideal for the common good (a point contradicted by the unacknowledged fact that Iron Man literally did not defeat Whiplash alone) to the extent that Stark even endorses privatized militarism in an echo of both Blackwater and the recent move by neo-libertarians to all but obliterate the public sector (“I have successfully privatized world piece.”) It’s interesting here that Iron Man 2 resurrects an enemy from the Reagan years to make its point rather than continue to engage, as the first film did, with Mideast politics.

See also: Salt (July 23)

Robin Hood (May 14)

Ridley Scott’s aggressively unnecessary epic replaces Kevin Costner’s accent-hopping with Russell Crowe’s alleged “charisma,” but instead of painting Robin Hood as the proverbial “Prince of Thieves” who scoffs at class distinction by taking money from those that don’t need it and giving it to those who do, Scott’s arbitrary “origin story” instead paints Robin Hood’s rebellion as a revolt against unfair taxes and a tyrannical government, thus transforming the legend into an unlikely narrative about a Tea Party long before there was a Boston or chalkboards and phony outrage.

What is essentially a story about humanitarian socialism and justice against inherent privilege (the classical Robin Hood would otherwise be rejected by today’s standards as a wealth-spreader and welfare-enabler) along with a damned compelling rivalry between the Prince of Nottingham and our hero, is instead stripped of its bearings and reduced to Gladiator for the Fox News crowd.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time & Sex & the City 2: The Sands of Time (May 28)

Two separate movie studios chose one weekend late in May to explore the subject of Americans in the Middle East. With Prince of Persia, Disney gave us a – to put it mildly – messy video game adaptation with a not-so-subtle allegorical subtext as its story is framed around a holy city invasion predicated on a false report of weapon production (take that, Green Zone!).

Meanwhile, Sex and the City 2 was all-over-the-place politically, oscillating between an appropriate feminist criticism of an oppressive patriarchal culture and an astoundingly insensitive exercise in neo-colonialism (the ladies unapologetically consume the culture of Abu Dhabi as they simultaneously condemn it), while containing probably the worst-ever attempt at pathos regarding the America’s financial crisis: Carrie and Big won’t sell their second Manhattan apartment because of the difficult housing situation.

Micmacs (May 28)

Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s criminally underseen film is probably the most whimsical and hilarious revenge film you’ll ever see, and it also features one of the summer’s most satisfying exercises in political criticism precisely because it does so through its visually compelling cartoon humor. Using social networking and Internet file-sharing as a democratic means for witnessing and exercising justice against the corporate evils of international weapons manufacturing, Micmacs takes out frustrations on global injustices ranging between Darfur and international terrorism in a way that is intentional without being didactic, funny without being cynical, and insightful while being light.

Splice (June 4)

While Splice is admittedly a rare example of a wide-released summer movie that took risks, it’s also a pretty socially conservative film, acting as a cautionary tale about the dangers of stem cell research. The manifestation of a right-wing nightmare hasn’t been this extreme in an independently-financed film since Precious, as scientists here are painted as 1) power-hungry narcissists acting in direct opposite of man’s best interest and 2) sexual deviants.

The Karate Kid & The A-Team (June 11)

The 80s are back and in a big way. As the Right continues to elevate the corpse of Ronald Reagan into the realm of near-sainthood while Iron Man 2 longs for the Cold War, studio movies revisited the decade of excess and ALF by resurrecting its properties and icons, showing a nostalgia for the period that is only a little bit ironic (we’re far from the days of The Wedding Singer). Yet none of these films revisit the decade literally, like the spring’s Hot Tub Time Machine. They instead concoct a historical amalgamation of past and present, mixing the elements of these corresponding eras into a single instantaneous postmodern moment.

They operate on both nostalgia and short-term memory, attempting to engage with audiences familiar to the original material and its references while also recruiting new audiences too young to know they’re missing out on something. There’s clearly still a lot of capital to be mined from this decade’s nostalgia bin, but it’s a mystery to me why we would want to revisit the decade of “Greed is Good” as the disparity between rich and poor approaches a comparability to Latin America.

See also: MacGruber (May 21), The Expendables (August 13), Predators (July 9)

Toy Story 3 (June 18)

Armond White may have dismissed Toy Story 3 as an exercise in fetishising materialism, but as is so often the case, Mr. White misses the boat completely. Toy Story may be about a fetishization of objects, yes, but it isn’t concerned with the unbridled consumption that is implied in the characterization of American materialism. Instead, Toy Story 3 is more a story about the responsibility we have in the objects we have, about learning how to give things up and pass them along to people who might need them more than we do.

It’s about renouncing individual possession in favor of acknowledging a greater collective good (e.g., the day care center vs. Andy’s attic). In a time where it’s considered evil and un-American to be willing to give what is expendable to possibly save the life of someone who is poor, Toy Story 3 reminded us one of childhood’s simple but essential lessons in molding adult character: sharing is good.

Find out what the rest of the Summer had to say:

For today, like a house dropping out of the clouds and onto a film franchise, Kristin Davis has announced that she believes there won’t be another Sex and the City movie.

“I could be wrong,” she admits. “Obviously there was a time when we thought there was no movie happening so you never know. But it is not looking great.”

It’s not looking great because the movie had box office trouble domestically and was not well-liked by critics or fans. It just goes to show – you can sneak by the critics, but you can’t piss off the ones who brought you to the dance.

For now, let’s soldier on with cautious optimism. A new day is dawning, and it tolls the bell signaling a future without another Sex and the City movie. The future looks bright. [E!]

I’m not quite sure why I decided to watch Sex and the City in its entirety. It could have been my curiosity about the show, or my desire to put Sex and the City 2 in some fair context in an Internet blogging landscape overwhelmingly composed of male writers and male readers, or maybe I was seeking out some sort of endurance test…or maybe all these are lame excuses to shamelessly justify watching a show that one would so easily encounter ridicule for watching (my girlfriend, conveniently, owns the entire series, making this experiment all the easier). Either way, the majority of the month of May was devoted to all Sex and the City, all the time – to the delight, dismay, and annoyance of anybody who’s been following me on twitter in the past month.

I had a few questions going into the series that I wanted answered, but these served more as curiosities rather than a way to explicitly frame the experience of watching this show – a show that I had only seen two or three episodes of before, but had dismissed entirely along with my male brethren as stupid and vapid. If I was going to learn anything from the show – whether or not it has appeal for straight men, what it says about women and feminism in modern society, or simply my attempt at understanding why the show plays such a dominant cultural role amongst its demographic – I had to go into it earnestly, letting go of any previous dismissiveness and snarkiness that previously characterized my response to the show. And what I found surprised me…

Season 1 – April 22-25

The pilot episode was, quite honestly, terrifying. From the outset Carrie categorizes the men she encounters into three easily identifiable, simplistic typologies: 1) the asshole who is great in bed, 2) the sensitive and smart but unexciting guy, and 3) the mysterious, very wealthy man of one’s dreams (Mr. Big). The assumption I have that the show relates in any way to how women actually view men in sex, dating, and relationships immediately makes me reluctant to delve any further, lest I infer that every woman I meet is quickly making an assessment in order to place me in one of these three categories.

It’s also interesting watching a show from 1998. One wouldn’t think it would seem so dated, but it is firmly entrenched in a cultural dialogue specific to the late days of that decade, as the characters make jokes regarding Y2K and the Clinton presidency, possess antiquated versions of modern technology (giant cell phones, portable CD players), and live in a society where nerd is (gasp!) antithetical to cool. Furthermore, the ideal man that these women seek out are the people who, ten years later, would become mostly responsible for our nations’ financial collapse, Carrie’s narration at one point brags about dating a man who works for Bear Sterns.

Also, issues of feminism are set out right from the outset. I always knew the show explored a great number of feminist issues, but I didn’t expect it to be so open about such subjects from the outset. But from the very first episode, the series divides its three supporting characters into archetypes of modern feminism and the inherent struggles within: Charlotte as the idealist of a previous era, searching for the “one,” man of her dreams to start a family with, who struggles with the idea of family and marriage being essential for happiness and is questioned by her friends as to whether or not wanting to be a wife and mother is her choice or that of society; Samantha as one who rejects all norms and expectations of male/female interaction in dating, never pursuing relationships beyond no-strings-attached sex to avoid the trappings women incur when falling for men – she’s completely independent emotionally, physically, and sexually, and it’s interesting that she refers to her own sexuality in masculine terms (she often says she has sex without emotion “like a man” and references to her “hard-on” whenever she gets turned on); Miranda, who eventually becomes my favorite character, seeks success as a single woman and speaks openly about the problems of the label “single woman” in the male dominated professional world of New York City – she’s also completely intolerant of bullshit, and frequently (with an endearing and often hilarious level of snark) calls her friends out on their contradictory act of being insecurely, obsessively preoccupied with men while calling themselves independent feminists. Carrie, however…

Season 2 – May 1-3

…Is much harder to figure out. Her romances serve as the show’s stakes-heavy plot thread, particularly her on-again, off-again romance with Mr. Big (Chris Noth), whom she has broken up with and with whom she eventually rekindles her relationship in this season. Mr. Big, as suggested by his non-name name, is more of a stand-in for an ideal than being an ideal man in and of himself.

From the first episode on, Mr. Big gives an aura of mystery, and from then on Carrie, and the audience, are permitted to project onto him what they are looking for in the ideal man – meanwhile, Mr. Big proves time and again to be emotionally vacant at best and manipulative at worst. I can’t say Carrie is much better, for while her three friends explore a variety of interesting and real problems, Carrie has a habit of creating or escalating problems from little details, often forcing her friends with their own lives to stop whatever it is that they are doing to assess Carrie’s problems.

This season at one point acknowledges how outright crazy Carrie can be (episode 3, “Freak Show”), but this doesn’t in any way lessen the fact that this series has quite the unheroic protagonist at its center. It’s almost laughable that, out of the four characters at the show’s center, Carrie is the one giving the rest of New York City sex advice. The only excuse I can come up with regarding how dysfunctional Carrie and Big are is that the series wants to explore all types of problems in relationships, thus gives its central couple all the problems one could have in a relationship.

From the outset it’s obvious that Carrie and Big are meant for each other, not because this is a television couple we can root for, but because they both possess an incredible degree of emotional instability that puts any presumptions or stereotypes regarding the relationship of rational emotional reaction and gender to rest. They are truly meant to be together in the sense that their shared insecurities, lack of maturity, and hangups complement each other well.

Season 3 – May 8-12

While I enjoyed seasons 1 & 2, I started to get worried about my desire to jump ship as the show seemed to get in a narrow pattern of exploring skin-deep relationship quirk through Carrie and Big’s tumultuous relationships and her friends’ one-night stands. But then the show decided to actually give the supposedly supporting characters (who are, if I haven’t emphasized it enough, frequently far more interesting than Carrie) developing, complex relationships (Miranda’s boyfriend Steve, Charlotte’s husband Trey (Kyle MacLachlan)) and gave Carrie another relationship with the character of Aiden (John Corbett). This is where Sex and the City revived itself for me, becoming a threaded narrative of relationships explored with the nuance that a television series can deliver. By this time, the show has exhausted issues of single womanhood in the metropolitan landscape of casual dating, and the issues therein become far more interesting and complicated as these characters try to reconcile issues of feminist independence with not being single.

This season also goes to some dark places, as Carrie gets into the habit of cheating on Aiden with the now-married Mr. Big – this plotline certainly didn’t do anything to alter my already low opinion of Carrie, but it was a bold direction that I commend the show for going in, especially in that it could have totally alienated its core audience because of the awful decisions its main character was making. This season came out around the time HBO was becoming known as the network for quality television, and the engrossing narrative and rich character development of this season makes Sex and the City fit right in with the famous early 00s dramas running concurrently on the network.

Season 4 – May 15-19

The momentum picked up by the show’s third season continues right on into season four, and by this point Sex and the City has built a pattern of manifesting interesting plot threads I’ve found myself deeply involved in while also using the single-episode medium to devote each episode to one issue serving as that episode’s theme. It’s a perfect synergy of the episodic nature of the first two seasons’ episode-as-issue sitcom format and the narrative threadlining HBO is known for, the type of which keeps viewers interested in what the subsequent episode will bring.

Carrie might not be the most interesting of the show’s central quartet, but her Big/Aiden drama serves rightfully as the series’ central, stratifying crux that allows one to be involved in the show (Carrie tries to get serious with Aiden without letting the ghost of her relationship and affair with Big die). That being said, the Miranda/Steve and Charlotte/Trey plotlines stand on their own much more than complement the supposedly “central” Carrie plots. Miranda and Charlotte no longer feel like supporting characters; rather the show comes across as a mosaic narrative of four people and all the people involved with those four. When a character breaks up with their significant other, the effect is really felt on the viewer, as they have spent a great deal of time over a great many episodes with the truly supporting male characters. For a half-hour show, Sex and the City balances all plotlines adeptly without feeling rushed.

Season 5 – May 20-21

There really isn’t much to say about this short, 8-episode season, which is rather appropriate as this season itself doesn’t have much to say at all. It becomes evident how central relationships are to a show that started off essentially being about womanhood as the only character who has a multi-episode developing relationship is, surprisingly enough, Samantha, and it turns out to be hardly as interesting as one would expect.

Other characters retain their own personal definitions of feminist independence in their relationships or marriages, but with Samantha it really feels that engaging in a relationship is a cop-out, as she so obviously encounters the type of heartbreak she set out her whole life to avoid. The other three characters experience differing degrees of singlehood, which in turn explore issues that reveal themselves to be disappointingly uninteresting compared to the more complex relationship issues discussed in seasons past. This is also the first season where the fashion, specifically Carrie’s wardrobe, became something other than oscillating between unnoticeable and utterly ridiculous (to me). The classy, thirtysomething New Yorker look embraced in this season is something I can get behind.

Season 6 – May 22

With my press screening of Sex and the City 2 scheduled for May 24, I had to watch the rest of the series rather quickly, so I watched season 6 (both parts, twenty episodes) all in one very long day. It was exhausting, yes, but it would have been more so if I hadn’t by this point developed such an affinity for these characters and their lives (despite the hiccup of season 5). There are flaws, frustrations, and redundancies of course, but one encounters such things when watching any series in a short span of time. If there’s one thing I’ve noticed by this point, it’s the tangible sleekness the series has developed, employing intricate art direction, calculated photography, and music cues particularly apropos to the Manhattan socialite vibe the series has tried to encapsulate by this point. This show has drastically matured in six years.

One interesting episode of season six is “Pick-A-Little, Talk-A-Little” (ep. 4), in which the concept of “He’s just not that into you” is introduced to Miranda by Carrie’s short-term boyfriend Berger (Ron Livingston). I find it hard to forgive the makers of Sex and the City for inspiring a phrase that became an awful book and an even worse movie, both of which gave specific, simplistic structures of meaning to all forms of male behavior in total spite of the particular, individual male acting at hand, but what’s ironic is that this episode contradicts the idea of “he’s just not that into you” by the end as Miranda completely misreads the signals sent by a date, thus showing that one episode of Sex and the City is far more complex in its view of human relationships than an entire book and film inspired by this overused phrase that should never have entered the lexicon.

That being said, Sex and the City has a great series of final episodes, putting each of its characters in a place that makes sense to conclude the series with while not making the conclusion come across like an all-too-neat and convenient rush towards closure and completion. It really does have one of the more satisfying final episodes in recent memory (calm down, Lost apologists).

Sex and the City: The Movie – May 23, & Sex and the City 2 – May 24

The Sex and the City movies are pretty much everything that detractors who have criticized but never watched the show think the show is. The first film suffocates from self-seriousness, and the sequel is a problematic exploration of the problems of the very, very privileged.

Objects substitute for emotional progress between characters, and neither film has anything interesting to say about feminism or relationships. A movie is simply not the forum in which an intricate, nuanced exploration of the types of issues the show was known for can take place (shown by the big bunch of nothing each film accomplishes in their respective 2.5 hour running times), so it resorts to simple answers to complex questions.

It all comes across like cardboard. As far as I’m concerned, the story of Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha ended in 2004 with the satisfying final episode of the series.

Final Thoughts

Leading up to my marathon viewing of Sex and the City, my impression of the show was characterized by negative responses from two communities, both of which had, for the most part, not seen the entire series. Amongst my male friends, Sex and the City was dismissed as vapid and silly, an infuriating, unfunny narrative of women preoccupied with men. In regard to my academic friends, Sex and the City was seen as, amongst other proposed problems, regressive in its ideas about feminism, ultimately selling out the celebration of the independent single women to an affirmation of marriage. My response to the first complaint is evidenced above, that Sex and the City really is quality television, with intertwining and developing narratives, well fleshed-out characters, solid writing, and is technically well-made. It took some time for me to become really invested in the series, but I still recognize it as good television, and once I got hooked I was genuinely hooked. Sex and the City wouldn’t be something I’d recommend to everyone, but just because it wasn’t made for your demographic doesn’t mean one should fault it initially in terms of quality.

In regards to the second major qualm of the series, that it isn’t progressively feminist, I would initially agree that it isn’t progressively feminist in the sense that it expressively, explicitly advanced feminist ideas through the medium of television (this isn’t, for instance, Catherine Breillat or Jane Campion’s Sex and the City), but it does actively engage in dominant, mainstream feminist ideas in a way that no television show had before it. It was a totally unique work to see on screen, and this I think is a major reason why it had such an influential role within cultural discourse. Yes, it seemed that the show was preoccupied with women talking about men, but in the end it wasn’t a show about love or relationships between men and women, but between women. The show is about achieving happiness through female friendship, not romance, which made it stand out starkly from shows and films geared toward women at the time.

The last point I would like to make is in regard’s to the show’s preoccupation with material culture, for it’s often been dismissed as materialist in a way that always assumes materialism to be a negative, but it is in this aspect that I think the show is at its most aggressively feminist. Sex and the City presents a feminism that doesn’t seek to remove itself from patriarchal society, but compete with it. At the center of Sex and the City are women who look to compete with men at their own game, and achieve success as single, self-sustaining individuals (especially Miranda), so the acquisition and preoccupation with stuff throughout the show works as a signifier of individual success, of the acquisition of status. A pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes or a Birkin bag for these women operate the same way as a Rolex or high-end briefcase would for a man: as both a mode of individual self-expression and a public signifier of success achieved on one’s own terms. It is in this regard – awareness of fashion and materials, climbing up the competitive ladder towards success – that Sex and the City’s New York setting is absolutely pertinent. It is the city, after all, that makes the sex what it is.

Click here to read more For Science

The mighty ogre, Shrek, has fended off his foes.  So far, he has taken on and made haste of the Iron Man, the Sex and the City trolls women, and the Prince of Persia.  This week, however, he faces his greatest challenge yet, an onslaught of four new films that run the gamut in terms of genre and demographic.  Genetic monsters, talking dogs (which may or may not be caused by an attempt to create a genetic monster), Ashton Kutcher (who we know was caused by an attempt to create a genetic monster), and a drugged up rock star are all on tap in an attempt to tear and claw their way to the top of the box office heap.  Needless to say, it’s going to get ugly

BIG HITTERS

Let’s just be honest here.  There really is very little chance any of the new movies this weekend are going to come out on top.  Shrek Forever After, only in its third weekend, isn’t declining fast enough for any of the films on the new slate this weekend to pull ahead of it.  Two films, however, could come closest to Shrek’s numbers, two films that couldn’t be further apart in target audience if they tried.  Second place this weekend will fall to the feet of either Russell Brand, Jonah Hill, and Get Him to the Greek or a talking dog.  Let’s hold off on talking about Marmaduke for now.

When the film Get Him to the Greek spun off from, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, debuted in April of 2008, it pulled in $17 million in its opening weekend.  This after a massive campaign to let the world know it was part of the Judd Apatow camp.  I’m sure many thought Apatow, actually, directed the film when it came out.  It seems fairly certain Get Him to the Greek will be able to get the same type of numbers and, more than likely, a little better.  It will play on the same number of screens (a little over 2700), but it’s also playing during the Summer and has proven star power in Russell Brand and Jonah Hill.  Worst case scenario is Get Him to the Greek ends up being another Walk Hard, which pulled a MacGruber and only made $4 million its opening weekend.  This doesn’t seem likely, though.

To get yourself to the Greek, check out the film trailer right here:

If there is any aspect to a kids movie that is tried and truer than the talking animal, I sure have never seen it.  You can’t really go with an Owen Wilson comparison on Marmaduke, since he’s not the selling point on the movie.  The selling point is the talking dog wearing sunglasses.  For that, you have to look at the track record for such films as Cats and Dogs, Garfield, and G-Force.  All of these films had solid openings, and, for the most part, all of them opened with other, family offerings elsewhere in the market.  Garfield even opened to $21.7 million in the midst of Shrek 2 making its way to box office royalty.  On just over 3000 screens, Marmaduke has the highest screen count this coming weekend, but even people who enjoy talking animal movies are scratching their heads at this one.

To see more of the talking dog before heading out to the theater, check out the trailer for Marmaduke right here:

Which leads us to Ashton Kutcher.  I don’t know why that naturally progressed, but it kind of seemed to, didn’t it?  Some people are already referring to Killers as Knight and Day lite even before either of the two films have been released.  Nonetheless, Killers, while it doesn’t have the Tom Cruise-level potential of being a box office smash, will still likely have an admirable performance this weekend.  Even Katherine Heigl has been known to open films in the Summer.  Knocked Up aside (Apatow sold that movie), her starring role last year in The Ugly Truth pulled in $27.6 million and 27 Dresses in January of 2008 made $23 million its opening weekend.  She was, however, in 2006′s Zyzzyx Road which opened to an astonishing $20 (note, there’s no million attached to that.  The film made a twenty dollar bill from its one-theater opening weekend), but we won’t hold that against her all that much.  Surprisingly enough, Kutcher isn’t quite as successful when it comes to opening numbers with high and low numbers alike.  Director Robert Luketic brings in the low to mid $20-million openings, but you can’t really use him as a selling point here either.

If you want to see what Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz made with Splenda looks like, check out the Killers trailer right here:

The fourth and final, new film opening wide this weekend is Splice, a happy film about a cute, little, genetic creature who Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley come to love and who teaches these wayward doctors a valuable life lesson.  Of course, things get quite horrific during the course of the film, and the less like a cute, family movie with a cute creature this film becomes, the lower the numbers get for its opening weekend go.  How much Splice makes this weekend, though, depends solely on how well Warner Brothers has marketed it to its core demographic.  Neither Brody, Polley, nor director Vencenzo Natali are much of a selling point.  What it boils down to is how excited horror fans are.  Splice‘s opening weekend numbers could be as low as something like 2002′s Eight Legged Freaks and its $6.4-million take.  I don’t, though, see Splice getting much higher than the $17 million Species pulled in in 1995 if it can even get that high.

To see just how cute the creature in Splice gets, check out the trailer right here:

FAMILIARITIES

As mentioned previously, this coming weekend belongs to Shrek Forever After, but the remaining question is just how much the jolly, green box office giant is going to take in in its third weekend out of the gate.  In its second weekend (the three-day weekend, not the full, Memorial, four-day), Shrek had a drop at just under 40%, and there’s no indication this coming weekend will be any different.  Also, look for Shrek Forever After to surpass its budget of $165 million this weekend putting the film in the domestic black.

Elsewhere on the familiar front, after the disappointing opening weekends for both Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Sex and the City 2, don’t expect either of them to make much of a second weekend impact on the whole.  Sex and the City is likely to have a bigger drop than Prince of Persia, no thanks to the poor word of mouth both films have gotten so far.  When all is said and done, look for Sex and the City 2 to touch just on the other side of $100 million and Prince of Persia to hit just under it.

LITTLE OPENERS

Two, smaller films open into the New York and L.A. markets.  The first one is Ondine from Magnolia Pictures, which also debuts this week (Wednesday, 6/2, to be precise) on HD-Net.  It opens this Friday on two screens in L.A. and one in New York with a wider release coming closer to the end of the month.  Ondine is the latest film from director Neil Jordan, stars Colin Farrell, and made the rounds at a few film festivals in late 2009.

Check out Colin Farrell playing Prince Eric (yes, that’s a Little Mermaid reference.  Live with it.) in the Ondine trailer right here:

The other, notable but limited release is Cropsey, a documentary about an urban legend turned killer.  The film hit hard when it played Tribeca and Fantastic Fest last year.  It opens at the IFC Center in New York this weekend.

Get a very creepy glimpse at Cropsey right here:

Outside of these, two films, other limited releases this weekend include the very cult-sh Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead playing in New York, the comedy Finding Bliss in New York, and BoyBand in the booming market of Worcester.  Rajneeti, a Bollywood drama, opens on roughly 100 screens throughout the US.

Here’s how the top 10 is shaping up this weekend:

1. Shrek Forever After – $25.8m (-40.2%)
2. Get Him to the Greek – $17.8m NEW
3. Marmaduke – $16.4m NEW
4. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time – $16.1m (-46.1%)
5. Killers – $15.5m NEW
6. Sex and the City 2 – $14.7m (-52.3%)
7. Splice – $12m NEW
8. Iron Man 2 – $11.2m (-31.4%)
9. Robin Hood – $5.8m (-43.8%)
10. Letters to Juliet – $3.7m (-35.5%)

The way this weekend is shaping up, it’s going to be down both in comparison from last weekend and from the same weekend in 2009.  Even looking at the three-day take from last weekend, which pulled in $143.4 million, this weekend’s expected $139 million is a 3% drop on the overall box office.  That’s still relatively disappointing considering neither of the two, new films last weekend were able to make much of a splash.  This is also an indicator of the B-level offerings, plentiful though they may be, this weekend has to offer.

This would also account for an 11.7% drop from the same weekend in 2009 when The Hangover and Up both made around $44-45 million.  This wasn’t surprising for Up in its second weekend, but The Hangover was a huge shock to the box office.  It also had amazing longevity that took it through the rest of the Summer and into the Fall ending up at $277 million domestic and the highest grossing R-rated comedy in history.  Don’t expect the same from Get Him to the Greek, the only comparable film in current release.

We’ll be back on Sunday night to go over the weekend numbers.

Click here for more of The Reject Report

The Crisis of the Romantic Comedy

The romantic comedy, like the western, has a unique, Hollywood-specific tradition as a genre. Romantic comedies have conventionally operated under a strict set of generic expectations, typically starting with a protagonal pair of who can’t stand each other, start seeing one another, hit a snag, reconcile, fall in love, and (inferentially) live happily ever after. The romantic comedy is, in many ways, as “pure” a genre as there ever was one, as it requires the strict adherence to owning up on an audience’s specific set of expectations – you know going in that the two central characters are going to end up together, the slight variation (and appeal) of the genre takes place in the journey to that anticipated point. The separation of the couple presents itself as a threat to their unity, but this threat is never so threatening as an implicit contract exists between audiences and filmmakers that the couple will eventually reunite, this time for good.

The romantic comedy in its Classical Hollywood form offered some of the greatest films ever made. However, the genre in recent years has been sputtering out of inspiration, and never before has one of Hollywood’s most enjoyable formulas felt so formulaic. Not only are most of the industry’s recent romantic comedies the bottom-of-the-barrel in mainstream filmmaking, appealing to the lowest common denominator in the scope of filmic taste and expectation (i.e., these films insult their audiences by treating them like idiots who can’t tolerate anything cinematic outside the most conventional of structures – think of what’s been released so far this year alone: When in Rome, Valentine’s Day, Leap Year), these films are also backward in terms of their sex and gender politics, positioning their female protagonists as desperate codependents who long for a man to bring their life to completion and contentment (as the genre has also, problematically, geared itself primarily towards women (the cringe-worthy term chick-flick), rather than keeping consistent with the mass appeal of the genre of yesteryear). Thank you, Hollywood, for progressing us all the way to 1950.

The Case of Sex and the City

But amongst the nadir of romantic-comedic cinema geared towards women in recent years has been a notable bright spot on television, and that has been the Sex and the City television series. As I’ve argued in my articles from the past week focusing on the show, Sex and the City may not have offered a radically progressive, world-shaking view of feminism, but was definitely pro-feminist in a way unseen in mainstream media made for a female demographic at the time. Sex and the City can be safely defined as a romantic comedy of the television variety, and as such a genre, the show is constantly preoccupied with the opposite sex. What the show isn’t preoccupied with (or, at least, for the most part – for ¾ of its central characters), is the romantic comedy’s traditional trajectory towards marriage. Relationships in Sex and the City aren’t defined in terms of a predisposition towards seeking marriage, procreation, and all the other patriarchal life-narrative expectations, but simply exist for their own sake. And when characters do get married, it is by their own volition rather than the results of societal pressure, as marriage in the show is never posited to provide a direct route towards happiness in the way of the recent romantic comedy film.

What the ladies of Sex and the City take value in, what they seek to remain cohesive in order to achieve sustained happiness and contentment, is the one thing they can rely on much more so than happiness through romantic relationships: that is, happiness through female friendship. Throughout the series, and up through its very last episode, its happy ending was manifested not through a kiss that promises a life happy forever after, but through a group of four independent women laughing together over a meal. The message is hardly revolutionary or even profound, but it is distinctly and essentially different from what we have, for the most part, come to expect and value in our romantic comedy narratives.

Then came the movies. Both Sex and the City movies reference specific classical story structures diegetically – the Cinderella story referenced in the first film when Carrie reads to Charlotte’s adopted daughter, and Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night (1934) in the second when Big and Carrie watch the film together – in a way that aims to separate the function of Sex and the City from the mythos behind these classical, traditional narratives. The fairy tale, especially the Cinderella story, functions in a way similar to the romantic comedy in that it culminates with the union of a man and woman through marriage despite all conflicts that the potential couple incurred up to that point. The Cinderella story takes value in the same societal norms – the union of a man and a woman – that the romantic comedy does, and with their endorsement of a ‘happily ever after’ ending, both the fairy tale and the romantic comedy posit marriage as an answer to one’s individual troubles. The use of the Cinderella story and the Classic Hollywood romantic comedy is Sex and the City’s way of saying, “it doesn’t really happen that way” in a fashion consistent with the show’s exhibition of personal conflict amongst these four women regarding the institution of marriage.

Cavell and Narratives of Remarriage

But the film’s don’t have as antithetical a relationship to these traditional story structures as they would like to think. Carrie and Big’s nostalgic viewing of It Happened One Night suggests a juxtaposition with the traditional formula that Sex and the City (the show, at least) aimed to work against, but the classical romantic comedy, unlike the way we see the simplistic chick-flick today, was an incredibly complex site of meaning-negotiation. In his book Pursuits of Happiness, cultural theorist Stanley Cavell wrote about Hollywood romantic comedies of the late 30s and early 1940s (beloved classics like The Philadelphia Story, His Girl Friday, The Awful Truth, and, of course, It Happened One Night) as a genre of “remarriage” (rather than the initial bonding of a couple that characterizes so much of the romantic comedy) in which a central couple who incurs the possibility of their dissolution with the threat of divorce must learn to reconcile their differences and rediscover their love. As Cavell puts it, these films show that…

“satisfaction requires not the…satisfaction of our needs…but the examination and transformation of those needs.”

Cavell goes on to point out that the women portrayed in such films were unique in that they “demanded equality with men,” such films often featuring central female characters who showed aggressive independence and incredible personal achievement in worlds of business occupied by men, women who showed no interest in relegating themselves to the status of motherhood, and women possessing a unique brand of femininity in their emulation of male behavior (no doubt integral to their ability to compete with men). The subgenre is at once inspiring and disheartening, for while I love these films, the independent nature of the strong central women featured within are often used for (what come across today as) cheap jokes about androgyny, and these women often renounce their aggressive independent nature and fall into a more traditional female role as they reconcile with the man of their destiny by the end.

So while the gender politics of the remarriage subgenre were not progressively revolutionary, they were indeed positively feminist for their time. Take away the necessary affirmation of marriage at the end, and you can say the exact same thing about the Sex and the City television series. But while the Sex and the City films explicitly aim to continue in such a tradition by branching themselves off from the myths and structures of the fairy tale and the classical romantic comedy, they instead regress from the show, back into an embrace of the structures they originally wished to detach from.

Both Sex and the City films essentially operate as 21^st century updates of the remarriage subgenre, as both films require some sort of separation and reconciliation between Big and Carrie. So rather than affirming the need for friendship amongst women, these films instead privilege the accepted and repeated endorsement of the marriage institution (especially as the second film closes with Carrie and Big reunited rather than a meeting of the four women). And instead of possessing the charming one-upsmanship of the couple in trouble at the center of the classic remarriage subgenre, the ultimate reconciliation happens between Big and Carrie through a superficial interplay of vacant material objects (the exchange of anniversary gifts and conflict over how many apartments to own that operate as the crux of the film’s flimsy narrative) that substitutes for emotional, human character interaction.

There’s been a great deal of hyperbole in recent years decrying the “death” of the romantic comedy, and while I hesitate to endorse such language, part of me can’t help but agree. For every The Awful Truth and Annie Hall there are dozens of formulaic, uninteresting, interchangeable entries into the genre. But the Sex and the City films are significant in that, as a spinoff from the groundbreaking series, they come from a narrative of modern feminism, though by reducing themselves to these structures they weaken the necessary message that made the show so unique and take the romantic comedy genre several steps back.

The fact that each Sex and the City film, even in their bloated running times, still reduce themselves to the most clichéd of formulas may be a result of the limitations of the medium itself. Maybe its impossible to have a romantic comedy that respects the role of the independent female in contemporary society because of the constraints of the Hollywood movie storytelling structure, thus rendering it easy to fall back into the problematic gender roles of these worn formulas. Maybe this is why Sex and the City was so much more effective and unique as a television series.  But regardless of the reason, you know the state of the romantic comedy film is in trouble when you have to look back to the era of the previous major financial crisis to find a trend of progress within the genre.

Culture Warrior is our weekly walk on the wild side with actual film school graduate Landon Palmer. To read more from Landon, you can follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/landon_speak

Two, big, new movies.  One, giant ogre still holding down the fort at the top.  Neither Sex and the City 2 nor Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time could take the lead from  Shrek Forever After.  The shock isn’t so much that Shrek Forever After made so much, but that neither of the new films did all that well, yet another indicator of the economic backlash the movie industry is getting hit with week in and week out.  Film franchises across the board, those untested that are just getting started as well as those with their own, built-in audience, are just not guaranteed to have instant success.

Shrek had an impressive, four-day take, bumping its weekend total by $12 million on Memorial Day alone.  This is comparable to the Memorial Day weekend the first film had in 2001, when it pulled in $55.2 million from Friday to Monday.  All four, Shrek films had the Memorial Day weekend as their second weekend, and, while Shrek Forever After has had the weakest of them, it still succeeded in rising to decent numbers.  Shrek 2 made $95.5 million and Shrek the Third made $67 million in each of their, respective Memorial Day weekend runs.  Shrek Forever After has, thus far, made $145.4 million in domestic box office, and, unless Marmaduke is the surprise smash no one expects it to be, DreamWorks Animation is sure to have the family niche in their pocket at least until mid-June when The Karate Kid comes out.  This, too, resembles the market when Shrek came out.  The first film didn’t have any animated films to contend with until June 15th when Disney’s Atlantis went wide, and that film didn’t shave much off Shrek‘s eventual total.  What all of this adds up to is Shrek Forever After making much more coin than previously anticipated.  While the first film’s $267 million doesn’t seem likely for the new film, you can never say never in this situation.  It doesn’t appear to be completely out its grasp.

The number two and number three slot is filled by different movies depending on if you look at the weekend as a three-day or a four-day box office take.  As of Sunday, Sex and the City 2 was in second place, making $31.1 million.  This number doesn’t count the $14.2 million it made in Thursday night, midnight shows, and it consistently lost $2 million on daily box office throughout the rest of the weekend, making only $6 million on Memorial Day.  This brings the film’s four-day total to $37.1 million just behind Prince of Persia‘s $37.8 million, four-day take.  When the finalized numbers come out, though, there’s no telling who is going to be on top.  One thing is for certain.  Both films had disappointing openings.

For the Sex and the City crew, the $51.3 million it made since Thursday night is a 10% drop from the opening weekend the first film had.  This might not be considered all that big of a disappointment, but, when you look at the reported $35-million increase in this film’s budget from the first film as well as the notion that a sequel should always make more than its predecessor, you can see how it didn’t quite live up to expectations.  The bad word of mouth coming out on Sex and the City 2 won’t completely steamroll its longevity, and its chances of making the same $152.6 million the first film made in domestic box office seems likely.

Prince of Persia, on the other hand, is a Jerry Bruckheimer produced, Summer, tent pole film, and the $37.8 million it made this four-day weekend is a disappointment.  This is the worst opening for a Bruckheimer film in the Summer months since 2004′s King Arthur landed like a wet blanket.  The comparisons are reasonable since that film cost $120 million versus the reported $200 million Prince of Persia cost to make.  Looking at King Arthur‘s budget versus final, domestic take, we see that it made back only 41% of its money back.  If the same holds true for Prince of Persia in the coming weeks, expect it to not even break the $100-million barrier.  This is also pretty standard when it comes to video game adaptations, with Lara Croft: Tomb Raider the only film of its kind to top $100 in domestic box office.

Here is how the weekend box office (four-day) shaped up:

1. Shrek Forever After – $55.7m (-21.3%) $145.4m total
2. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time – $37.8m NEW
3. Sex and the City 2 – $37.1m NEW $51.3m total
4. Iron Man 2 – $20.6m (-21.9%) $279m total
5. Robin Hood – $13.6m (-27.5%) $86.3m total
6. Letters to Juliet – $7.2m (-19.5%) $37.8m total
7. Just Wright – $2.7m (-37.1%) $18.6m total
8. Date Night – $2.2m (-22.8%) $93.9m total
9. MacGruber – $1.9m (-53%) $7.5m total
10. How to Train Your Dragon – $1.4m (-22.9%) $213m total

The total, weekend take for the four-day is $179.8, but, to compare it to last weekend or the same weekend last year, you have to look at the three-day take.  The top 10 films made $143.2 million from Friday to Sunday, up 1.2% from last weekend’s $141.4-million take.  This is rather sad since two, potentially big movies came out this weekend, and neither of them were able to claim the top spot.  They were together, however, able to beat Shrek Forever After‘s first weekend take, and the three combined helped the weekend incline slightly.  The same cannot be said for the difference in weekends from 2009 to 2010, though.  PIXAR’s Up, in its first weekend, helped the last weekend in May of 2009 pull in $159.9 million.  This put the weekend box office at a 10.4% drop from year-to-year.

Next weekend bears four, wide releases, each covering different genres and sub-genres, but none that look to have massive openings.  From the R-rated horror (Splice) to the PG-rated talking animals (Marmaduke) to the Ashton Kutcher action comedy (Killers) all the way back to the R-rated comedy (Get Him to the Greek), next weekend is going to be very interesting in terms of where everyone is going to end up.  Shrek‘s chances of continuing its reign as king of the mountain are looking relatively safe, but there could be a few surprises in store.  We’ll be back on Thursday to run through our predictions.

PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME

Studio: Disney

Rated: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Ben Kingsley, Gemma Arterton and Alfred Molina

Directed by: Mike Newell

What it’s about: Jake Gyllenhaal plays a Persian prince who is helping his father and brothers lay siege to a city. There, he finds a magical dagger that can allow the user to reverse time for up to one minute. After being framed for the murder of his father, he goes on the run and tries to keep the dagger from falling into the wrong hands.

What I liked: Anyone who knows me knows that I get into the big summer blockbusters. And they don’t have to be the standard massive action films, either. They can be something as silly and needlessly effects-driven as The Core, and I’ll like them to a certain degree. It is this element of my tastes that made me look forward to Prince of Persia this summer.

As a big effects-driven summer action flick, Prince of Persia will do. It has some excellent action sequences, and the visual effects are pretty cool to watch. Plus, it has Gemma Arterton in a performance reminiscent of Clash of the Titans, which could have been more revealing but was still enjoyable to see on screen.

Not being a gamer myself, I can’t say whether this makes the grade as a video game adaptation, but I’ve been told by some folks who play the game that it does give that feel. At least that’s the only explanation I can think of for all the back-flips that Gyllenhaal’s character does.

What I didn’t: For the most part, Jake Gyllenhaal worked as the summer movie action hero. He’s not great, and I don’t think Will Smith needs to be threatened by his box office status, but Gyllenhaal will do. On the same token, he’s okay with Arterton on screen, but their chemistry isn’t great.

The story to Prince of Persia stumbles around a bit, and really the film could have been fifteen minutes shorter… and that’s with some pretty awkward editing moments, which made me wonder how many hours more the original cut of the film was. But murky storytelling and sometimes random action scenes just seem to be a way of life for video game adaptations.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time isn’t a great film, and it’s not nearly at the level of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie (which seems to be the lightning that Disney is trying to capture in a bottle again), but it’s okay for those who want to spend some time in an air conditioned theater this hot Memorial Day weekend.

Who is gonna like this movie: The Disney adventure crowd.

SEX AND THE CITY 2

Studio: New Line Cinema

Rated: R for some strong sexual content and language

Starring: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon and Chris Noth

Directed by: Michael Patrick King

What it’s about: Carrie and the girls get an all-expense-paid trip to Abu Dhabi, which they take as a vacation from their crazy lives, their problematic relationships and a chance to sip cosmos in the desert and make tired puns about vaginas.

What I liked: Two words… Alice Eve.

Seriously, guys. If you have to be dragged to this movie by your wife or girlfriend, the saving grace is when Eve literally bounds into the scene. She could have been wearing a Groucho Marx mustache and glasses, and I wouldn’t have noticed. Seriously.

Other than that, Sex and the City 2 was made for its fans. If you’re one of those folks who slipped into your slinky black dress, put on your Jimmy Choos and drank a cosmo with your girlfriends while watching the series in the 90s, this is for you. So our illustrious Executive Editor Neil Miller is gonna love love love it.

What I didn’t: I actually watched the show (sans slinky black dress, Jimmy Choos and cosmos) back in the day and enjoyed it to a certain degree. I also though the first film two years ago was a decent flick that took the characters to new places and capped off the overall storyline well. Unfortunately, this film is everything I was worried the first one would be.

Sex and the City 2 is nothing more than an excuse to extend the story. The characters are insipid and wretched. They represent caricatures of themselves are forced into moments where they can make crass comments over cosmos and coffee. In essence, Sex and the City 2 is a bloated, 2 1/2 hour episode with a bigger budget and a sweeping setting. And the fans are going to eat this shit up. So on one hand, I can’t really fault it for playing to its audience.

Sigh… it’s Twilight for the middle aged ladies.

Who is gonna like this movie: Women and gay men.

Want to see what Kevin had to say about these films on TV? Check out his interview on FOX…

On This Week’s Show: While Neil heads off to Dubai with his three BFFs to drink cosmos, shop in the marketplace and challenge Middle Eastern decency laws, Kevin invites fellow Fat Guys Fozzie Bare into the Magical Studio in the Sky to be a guest host. Together, Kevin and Fozzie take a look at Sex and the City 2 and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. They also talk about the Sex and the City phenomenon, whether Jake Gyllenhaal stands up to his CGI counterpart and lay down a Fat Guy push-up bet over which will win the weekend. Then, they offer up a this week’s Fat Guys Five: Five Awesome Desert Flicks before offering some DVD and Blu-ray recommendations.

Films Reviewed this Week: Sex and the City 2 and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

[audio:http://media.filmschoolrejects.com/audio/episode166.mp3]

Download this Episode

Episode Schedule:

Segment 1 [8:50] – Review of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Segment 2 [10:40] – Review of Sex and the City 2

Segment 3 [26:00] – More on Sex and the City 2, Box Office Recap and the Fat Guy Five

Segment 4 [6:35] – DVD Round-Up: Fozzie’s picks are Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog on Blu-ray and True Blood: Season Two; Kevin’s picks include David Cross: Bigger and Blackerer and Spartacus on Blu-ray; Review Recap and a look ahead to next week.

Next Week’s Show:

Neil returns to talk about more summer movies, including Get Him to the Greek, Killers, Marmaduke and Splice

Show Links:

FSR’s Weekly Report Card for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Sex and the City 2
Fozzie Bare’s “Podcast Podcast” podcast

Give the Fat Guys some love:

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Follow Kevin on Twitter (@kevincarr)
Follow Neil on Twitter (@rejects)

What do Sarah Jessica Parker, a high-flying Jake Gyllenhaal, and the honor of the men and women who fought and died for their country all have in common?  On any, other weekend, the answer to that questions would be “absolutely nothing.”  Luckily, in 2010, we have a valid answer to this age-old question.  Age-old as in I just came up with it about two minutes ago.  The answer, of course, is they’re all relevant to the weekend, as, this Memorial Day weekend unveils two, new, Summer blockbusters, Sex and the City 2 and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Who will come out victorious?  We all know the soldiers who fought the wars would surely trample over the fallen visages of Carrie, the girls, and even Gyllenhaal, even with his parkour skills at their fullest.  But that kind of victory isn’t what we’re, ultimately, concerned with here.  We want to know what is going to come out on top of the weekend’s box office.  Although, that former battle, if filmed, might make a nice bit of coin itself.

BIG HITTERS

Let’s start with the girls.  The two-year wait to see the next installment of the Sex and the City series has been very near unbearable.  For other people, I mean.  I mean, I could care less what misadventures Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte with her cute, scrunched up nose get themselves into.  Regardless, the first Sex and the City made an impact in May of 2008, pulling in $57 million in its opening weekend and going on to pull in $152 million domestically.

As for the sequel, there are a few elements that could keep it from having the same type of opening.  First of all, in 2008, Sex and the City only had to contend with The Strangers in terms of new films that weekend.  It was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull‘s second weekend, but poor word of mouth had already gotten out about that film.  Not to say Crystal Skull could have pulled much away from the Sex and the City crowd, and the same can be said for Prince of Persia.  However, Sex and the City 2 does open on Thursday, May 27th, instead of Friday this time around.  As we are only looking at the Friday to Monday numbers for this Memorial Day weekend, the numbers the Thursday opening pulls away from the weekend could keep Sex and the City 2 out of the top spot.  Monday’s numbers for Prince of Persia could also give it the ultimate edge over the R-rated Sex and the City 2, as kids will be out of school and parents, home from work for the day, will likely take them to the local theater.

If you, like me, just can’t wait to see more of the Sex and the City girls, kick back, sip a Cosmo, and check out the trailer right here:

What could come out on top, and what I think will garner the biggest numbers from Friday morning to Monday night will be the latest collaboration between Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney.  With Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, the Summer has its first, really big adventure movie, and the people who thought Iron Man 2 didn’t deliver enough Iron Man action or Robin Hood was as dull as a spoon (“It’s dull, you twit.  It’ll hurt more!”) will surely be clamoring for the excitement and adventure Bruckheimer and Mike Newell have to offer.

To sort out just how much Prince of Persia might make this weekend, you can’t really look at Newell’s history.  He’s had one blockbuster, and, though that blockbuster had a $102-million opening weekend, that came from the fact that it was a Harry Potter film, not a Mike Newell one.  The best indicator of how well Prince of Persia will do this weekend is by looking at Bruckheimer’s history with this type of Disney-based adventure.  Pirate of the Caribbean is a good starting point, and, while Prince of Persia is likely to do better than the first POTC‘s $46.6-million opening, don’t expect this first in a proposed franchise to make as much as the other films in the POTC franchise.  Ultimately, Prince of Persia will do better than Curse of the Black Pearl, it will do better than both Natural Treasure films, but it won’t be the body slam Bruckheimer pulled in with Dead Man’s Chest or At World’s End.  Even with the Monday take.  Look for numbers closer to Pearl Harbor this time around.

If you’re looking for some Gyllenhaal-leaping-between-buildings-adventure before heading out to the theater, check out the film’s trailer right here:

FAMILIARITIES

Everything that is already in theaters looks to have a pretty standard drop from last weekend.  Shrek Forever After won’t have quite the staying power of Shrek or Shrek 2, but its second weekend take won’t have as big a drop as Shrek the Third had.  That film was considered DOA by critics as soon as it hit theaters, and this fourth installment is actually getting some decent praise.  It won’t have the longevity to pull it into the $200-million range.  In fact, DreamWorks Animation, I’m sure, is probably sweating about whether its domestic take will even cover its cost of $165 million.

Iron Man 2 will continue its steady decline.  The belief that it wouldn’t be able to make it to $300 million is still teetering on the fence.  It surely will if Paramount and Marvel Studios decide to give it a late-summer re-release.  As it is, though, it’s anybody’s guess.  It’s still quickly becoming a massive, worldwide success, already pulling in $524 million worldwide, enough to pay for two, more Iron Man movies over.

An interesting note this week is that Alice in Wonderland has crossed the $1-billion mark worldwide, making it only the sixth film to do so and the second for Johnny Depp and Disney.  Hey, those two entities should collaborate more.  How about a fourth Pirates movie?

LITTLE OPENERS

There are some interesting, limited films hitting theaters this week.  One is the latest from a beloved, French auteur.  Another is the latest zombie-driven flick from the man who used to be the master of said sub-genre.  Micmacs, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s film about a man who is caught in a drive-by shooting and seeks revenge on those who put him in the hospital.  You can check out our very own Landon Palmer’s review from SXSW, then, if you’re in the New York area, you can check it out.

Check out the trailer for Micmacs right here:

Also in limited release this weekend is George Romero’s latest, zombie epic, Survival of the Dead.  Check out Brian Salisbury’s review.  It opens this weekend in 19 theaters across the country.  Check out the film’s official site to see if it’s anywhere in your neck of the woods.

Get your zombie on (I don’t know what that means) right here:

Also opening in New York and LA this weekend is Rialto Picture’s re-release of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless.

Here’s how the top 10 is shaping up this weekend:

1. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time – $59.3m NEW
2. Sex and the City 2 – $54.9m NEW
3. Shrek Forever After – $39.2m (-45.5%)
4. Iron Man 2 – $14m (-46.4%)
5. Robin Hood – $11.6m (-37.6%)
6. Letters to Juliet – $6.2m (-30.2%)
7. MacGruber – $2.5m (-37.5%)
8. Just Wright – $2.3m (-44%)
9. Date Night – $1.9m (-31.5%)
10. A Nightmare on Elm Street – $1m (-52.2%)

OVERALL GLANCE

This puts this weekend’s top 10 films at a cumulative $192.9 million, up 36.5% from last weekend’s $141.4-million take.  This isn’t all that surprising when you consider the two, new films last weekend (Shrek Forever After and MacGruber) didn’t live up to task.  Even without Memorial Day’s numbers included, this weekend is sure to beat last weekends.  Of course, if either of the two, new movies this weekend fall short of their projected numbers, the story could be completely different.

The doubling up of new, big movies this weekend will also help it pass up the Memorial Day weekend take.  Last year, the release of Up and its subsequent cash flow of $68.1 million helped make that weekend $159.9.  If all goes according to plan, this weekend will have a 20.6% increase from last year’s Memorial Day weekend, a grand success going up against the best PIXAR had to offer.  And why shouldn’t things go according to plan? Who are any of us to fight the forces of fashion?

We’ll be back on Monday night to go over the weekend’s final numbers.

I don’t want to pussyfoot around the idea that Sex and the City 2 is marketed to a specific demographic of women because it is. Plain and simple. Even the advertising could tell you that.

I also won’t hedge around the fact that the movie has been getting generally awful reviews and is being called “unnecessary” by respected critics.

Thus, with that in mind I ask:

• What will you demand if someone you love demands you see it with him/her?

There are really several options that all fall into similar categories.

1. Being incredibly sweet and seeing it without expectation of recourse.
2. Being averagely sweet and demanding a foot rub.
3. Being unfeeling and demanding that your loved one built a statue of you in your honor.

I would go for the statue because I’m an egotist, but my fiance doesn’t want to drag me to it anyway. My job does.

What would you demand?

When one is knowingly speaking to an audience mostly composed of males, sometimes it seems that uttering anything remotely positive about the Sex and the City franchise (in whatever format) is starkly forbidden territory. But the truth is that Sex and the City was a good television series. By any standard definition of quality televisual storytelling, Sex and the City, when viewed successively and in its entirety, clearly achieved quality through well-constructed multidimensional characters, clever writing, and a threaded plotline that amplified stakes and maintained audience interest. Yes, the show was occasionally problematic in its sometimes simplistic definition of feminism and preoccupation with material excess, but in comparison to the landscape of female-centric television at the time, the show was positively and outspokenly feminist (though, with convincing argument, not necessarily progressively so, but more on this in a later article) in its thorough and consistently entertaining exploration of the tensions that a specific type of modern woman encounters when attempting to juggle societal expectations with her own desires.

Sex and the City was never intended for my demographic, but I refuse to fault it for that, for in critiquing those media objects not intended for us, we must be careful not to confuse preferences of taste with quality. That being said, Sex and the City was also a good show because of its satisfying final episode, and the franchise by all means should have ended there.

Sex and the City 2 opens with the marriage of Stanford and Anthony, the respective gay confidants of Carrie and Charlotte, an opening sequence that seems to only exist as one long Liza Minnelli joke as any semblance of a plot-motivating conflict doesn’t begin until at least twenty minutes into the movie when Big and Carrie’s marriage shows signs of descending into boredom as the excitement of Carrie’s (Sarah Jessica Parker) single life transitions into the all-too-comfortable stasis of marriage. The conflicts of single life explored in the show makes the full transition to conflicts of marriage as Carrie, Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) all battle the problems of life as a square. Samantha (Kim Cattrall) suddenly receives an opportunity to visit Abu Dhabi through a newly acquired client, thus creating the opportunity for the ladies to momentarily escape the respective problems. Drama and comedy ensue…or, at least, I assume that was the idea.

By comparison to the atrociously bad and suffocatingly self-serious first film, I can say that at least one virtue of the sequel is that, by having a sense of humor at all, it comes closer to the comedic-dramatic tonal balance of the series. Sex and the City 2, unlike its predecessor, should be noted for possessing something that actually resembles the structure of a feature film. There are three acts, a goal, a conflict, a narrative trajectory, closure, and stylistic formal decisions that actually resemble filmmaking rather than simply the act of projecting a television show on a bigger screen – all things that the haphazard and uninspired first feature were lacking in. But you know that when you have to list the bare minimum requirements for cogent filmmaking to find virtues, you have something far from an exceptional piece of cinema on your hands.

The Sex and the City films could easily be a case study on the differing potential utilities of television and film. In the series, conflict was able to play out throughout several episodes, thus possibly obtaining nuance and complexity. But the conflicts presented in Sex and the City 2 are trite, forced, skin-deep, motivated by the type of materialism that the series is so often criticized for possessing (the inception of Carrie and Big’s conflict, for instance, is manifested (or, at least, symbolized) by the fact that Big gives her a television rather than jewelry as an anniversary present, and their reunion at the film’s end is solidified by that exact type of adornment previously desired, giving a troubling weight to a correlation of things with happiness that not even the show embraced in total), and spurred by impossible coincidence that defies even movie logic (Carrie, by chance, running into Aiden in the Middle East).

For what seems like at least an hour of the film’s second act, the girls explore the Middle East without any basic narrative conflict whatsoever, reveling in the extravagance of their privilege while urging the audience to admire the spectacle of all the pretty-yet-insignificant goings on. And, in all honesty, if this was all the film wanted to be –superficial, meaningless, forgettable eye candy/wish-fulfillment – I was perfectly okay riding along with its own low standards and passively enjoying its stake-free alternate universe of a constructed black-and-white reality (my expectations, after all, were amongst the fossils after seeing the first film). This standard, of course, makes for something miles away from a good movie, but I won’t pretend it was excruciating. What was bothersome, however, was the film’s lazy injection of conflict, an injection that couldn’t manage to manifest any nuance or conviction within the film’s bloated running time.

But Sex and the City isn’t just a film whose poor storytelling is obscured by photogenic stimuli and the occasional endearing (though rarely earned) joke, it goes one thoroughly bizarre step further. Coming from a show that prided itself on exploring modern mainstream feminism, the scope of the franchise stretches beyond its grasp here as it chooses to explore issues of subjugation in conservative Muslim cultures. There’s certainly a lot to be said about this subject (though Sex and the City may not be the best forum for it), but the film seems to suggest that the imposition of one culture upon another to be the answer (Hollywood seems awfully preoccupied with white protagonists in the Middle East this summer, evidenced by the concurrence of this film’s release with that of Prince of Persia)

It irks me a great deal to see these characters criticize the politics of the UAE while their every wish is granted by that country’s servant class (they are literally being fanned in the desert at one point while they decry burkas – let’s call it Upper East Side neo-colonialism). Miranda, a character I’ve admired as she was typically the voice of reason on the show, continually counters Samantha’s brazen sexuality with “when in Rome…” negotiation. Her character has historically operated almost as a voice of the audience, commenting on the show’s occasional plunges into excess and absurdity, which suggests that show creator/film director Michael Patrick King is keenly aware of what he’s making all the way through (he really does seem like a bright guy). But Miranda’s voice is silenced in the final act and Sex and the City 2 suddenly delves into a strange, culturally insensitive Buster Keaton/Looney Tunes rampage through the streets of Abu Dhabi, and any overreaching attempt at feminist social commentary becomes muddled in the confounding mess of it all. I literally couldn’t believe what I was seeing in the final twenty minutes of this film.

In the end, Sex and the City 2 is simply unnecessary. It hardly warrants its own existence beyond being a curiosity piece for fans of the series – and fans who are this devoted to a series, quite frankly, deserve far better. As ¾ of these ladies are no longer having sex in the world of the single, and as they spend most of this movie out of the city, it becomes unavoidable that, even if you go halfway around the world searching for a story, there’s really nowhere else to go with these characters.

The Upside: Occasionally laugh-out-loud funny in the spirit of the show, provides some distracting photogenie.

The Downside: Superficial, forgettable, meaningless. It’s simply bad storytelling, and by the end quite offensive.

On the Side: The film was originally slated to shoot in Dubai until the city’s film commission found out what the subject matter was. The production was then slated to shoot in Abu Dhabi, but the same thing happened, so Sex and the City 2 ultimately shot in Morocco which posed as Abu Dhabi.

We here at Film School Rejects understand that you don’t always need juicy stories, meaty editorials or metaphors about food. Consider The B-Roll your daily recommended allowance of random movie stuff, stories that fell through the cracks, and news you can’t use.

Vampires + Secret Agents = Oath. [Latino review]

And then Mean Girls grew up to become Mean Moms. [Cinema Blend]

Get lessons on dealing with Zombies from the author of “Let the Right One In.” [Cinematical]

The recession’s over! Proof: Sex and the City 2 spent $10 million solely on the stylish rags the old ladies wear in the movie. [Cinema Blend]

In the not-at-all anticipated sequel to Valentine’s Day, Justin Bieber will be playing the Taylor Swift role. [Cinema Blend]

Cultural Trend: Blogs becoming a go-to source material for films. [Pajiba]

Hey look! It’s the audition tapes from “Lost.” [Us]

The producer of The Hurt Locker didn’t appreciate you stealing his film, moron. [Boing Boing]

For all of the years that it was on television and through the very long-awaited first film, Sex and the City has always been about just that — sex, meaning what two lonely people do after heavy doses of alcohol. And the city, meaning New York. And while Sex and the City 2 appears to begin in the city, where Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and her three best friends are dealing with the pitfalls of upper class urban life, it also clearly takes a turn toward the Middle East. To get away from all of the wild sex, Central Park penthouses and lush accommodations of their regular lives, the girls take a trip to Abu Dhabi. Because clearly that’s where you’d go if you just needed to get away from New York’s upper crust.

All sarcasm aside (and there was a bit of it in that first paragraph), I can’t see any failure in the future for Michael Patrick King’s sequel. The fan base is still there and is likely readying their little black dresses for opening night. And no matter the setting, the story of Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda will always draw a crowd. That, and the first film wasn’t unbearable — so it’s likely that this one will follow suit.

Sex and the City 2 is in theaters May 27, 2010. The theatrical trailer is below.

Trailer:

Brought to you by: 2010 – Didn’t like 2009? Upgrade to a new model today!

This week, on a very special episode of Reject Radio, someone whose film opinion you’ve admired for years. Will. Die.

Scott Weinberg of Cinematical gets patriotic, Brian Salisbury gets excited about Space Age DVDs, and Cole does zero illegal things during the broadcast.

We also manage to review Sherlock Holmes, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus and Nine.

Listen Here:

Download This Episode

On This Week’s Show:

Segment 1: Ripped From the Headlines [0:00 - 35:00ish]

• Take a shot every time Scott Weinberg plugs Fantastic Mr. Fox
• Horsethief Pictures wants you to be involved in the filmmaking process
• The Coens want you (if you look like a 14-year old girl) to star in True Grit
• The Neil’s Not Dead He’s In Ohio Trailer Round-up: Cop Out, Repo Men, Karate Kid, Sex and the City 2
• We’re not actually giving out a ton of Axe Body Spray
• Dance Break: Twist and Shout – as used in Back To School
• More senseless rambling

Segment 2: Reviews [35:00 - 67:0oish]

• Sherlock Holmes [Rob Hunter's Review]
• The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus [Brian's Review]
• Nine

Segment 3: The World Famous Third Segment [67:00 - Fin]

• We Look Back on the Year That Was…and Ahead to the Year That Will Be: What will 2010 bring? What are we most excited about? Does it rhyme with Schmiron Schman Schmoo?
• Dr. Abaius’s Totally Accurate Box Office Guesses: Who took the top spot this week?

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Get it, Carried away?

Warner Bros. has released the first trailer for the highly anticipated sequel to the 2008 estrogen smash, from director Michael Patrick King. Sex and the City 2 picks up two years after the illustrious wedding between Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Big (Chris Noth), and sees the four ladies setting off on some sort of journey to lands afar. And we’re all dying to see what happens next…

Enough kidding. We all know that there’s a huge market for this film, else the first one wouldn’t have dropped a $400 million dollar worldwide box office bomb on 2008. There are plenty of ladies out there — some of them young, attractive, sophisticated and single, gents — who love the glitz, the glamor and the sex talk. In my opinion, it can’t hurt to indulge them from time to time. I intend to indulge like crazy on this one, despite my lack of interest in the works of Sarah Jessica Parker. We’ll start with the trailer below.

Sex and the City 2 is in theaters on May 28, 2010.