Sex and the City (2008) and Sex and the City 2 (2010)

Candace Bushnell moved to New York City at the age of 19. She was an aspiring writer trying to make ends meet in the big city. She was a freelance journalist going from publication to publication, writing some articles for a quick paycheck. Eventually, in 1993, she would settle down with The New York Observer and write a column called Sex and the City. It was the beginning of a big multi-platform franchise that is still well loved to this day. For the most part.

Buhnell’s columns, which were collected into an anthology in 1997, were about the lifestyles of her and her friends. This collection was quickly optioned to become a television show. Candace Busnell became Carrie Bradshaw, and the rest was history. The show premiered on HBO in 1998 and went on to have six successful seasons. It was one of the turn of the century shows credited with helping build HBO’s success, alongside Oz and The Sopranos.

When Sex and the City wrapped up in 2004, many thought that would be the end. They were wrong. Four years later, in 2008, a film continuation was released into the theater. Many of the cast members, both starring and supporting, returned. The film ended up being successful enough to warrant a sequel, which came out in 2010. Both films were sequels to the series. They didn’t pick up directly where the series had left off, but they continued the story of the four women and their lifestyles. There was also a prequel, The Carrie Diaries, which aired on The CW in 2013 and 2014. The less said about that one, the better.

I had no history with the Sex and the City franchise before watching the two movies for this post. The column first started when I was four. The anthology book came out when I was seven. The series began when I was eight. I wasn’t in the demographic for it at any of those points. What eight-year-old would be watching an HBO adult comedy called Sex and the City? Not this one. I’ll tell you that much. I don’t think I’ve ever really been the demographic for it. That doesn’t mean I can’t like the franchise, but it also never interested me because it was made for such a different audience.

The first film, 2008’s Sex and the City, followed Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) as she prepared for her marriage. Her friend Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) was already married and wanted to share her love of marriage with Carrie. Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) was going through marriage troubles at the same time. Her husband had had sex with another woman. Meanwhile, Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) had moved to Los Angeles with her boyfriend and was experiencing what a relationship was like.

Sex and the City covered about a year in the life of the characters. It started with Carrie and John Preston (Chris Noth) moving into an apartment together. They soon got engaged. A wedding was planned. A magazine took pictures of Carrie in different dresses. The wedding happened, then didn’t. The honeymoon trip happened. Charlotte found out she was pregnant. New Year’s passed by, then Valentine’s Day. Eventually, Charlotte gave birth. There was a lot of time that flew by over the course of the two-and-a-half-hour movie length.

That two-and-a-half-hour length was a little troublesome, only because the characters were so unlikeable. Each of the four main women was obsessed with something to the point where it overpowered everything else. Carrie was obsessed with glamour. When it came to her wedding, she easily spiraled it into something spectacular when all that her husband wanted was her. Miranda was obsessed with work and pushed her husband away, which drove him to cheat on her. Samantha was obsessed with her sexual desires, which drove her away from the first big relationship she had ever been a part of. Charlotte was obsessed with weddings to the point where, because she was mad at John for ruining his wedding with Carrie, her water broke on a Manhattan street.

This obsession didn’t drive the story forward, as it should in order to be compelling. It held the story back. The characters struggled with what they were going through, but it was a struggle to break down their own walls. Their struggles didn’t drive them to do anything. Their struggles kept them from doing anything, which kept the storylines from moving forward in any sort of compelling way. Carrie spent the entire movie obsessed with glamour. Aside from the beginning and end of the movie, it didn’t move her any closer to or further from her relationship with John. Miranda’s obsession with work drove her away from her husband Steve (David Eigenberg), but she didn’t make up with him by realizing she was too work focused. She just realized she still loved him. The obsessive traits caused the stories to happen, but the stories never caused the characters to change from those ways.

Sex and the City 2, released in 2010, was more of the same. Carrie and John Preston were happily married. Samantha was living in New York again. Miranda and Steve were back together, and Charlotte was raising her two kids with her husband Harry (Evan Handler). After going to a wedding for some gay friends, Carrie realized that she was in a rut with John. She took a couple days to go to her old apartment to write. When she got back, John suggested that they do two days apart every week. She was torn over the suggestion. Then the women went to Abu Dhabi because Samantha somehow made a business relationship with someone from there.

The first Sex and the City movie was a bunch of good storylines told poorly. There was potential in the stories that were showcased. The movie just didn’t live up to that potential. The sequel didn’t have the potential. It didn’t have the potential at all. Every single storyline felt like the wrong choice. It felt like a studio trying to quickly capitalize on the success of the first film, using whatever storylines came to people’s heads during the premiere screening. Had more thought been put into the stories being told, the movie could have been better. Instead, it ended up being an insane mishmash of the most ludicrous story beats imaginable.

Carrie’s storyline was front and center once again. She was the main character of the entire franchise. Of course her story would be the main one. The basic story was that her marriage to John was growing a little stale. She wanted to go out on the town while he wanted to stay in and relax. This might seem like a fairly decent story. That might have been the case had the entire dispute not boiled down to television. The main reason that Carrie went to her old apartment to write was that she was mad that John put a television in their bedroom. Their relationship almost imploded because of a television in the bedroom. The two days a week apart thing stemmed from John wanting to watch television without Carrie asking him to leave the apartment.

The resolution to that storyline was just as bad. While in Abu Dhabi, Carrie ran into her ex-boyfriend Aidan (John Corbett). She went out with him. They kissed. Carrie felt guilty about it. She called John and told him about what happened. When she got home, she was worried that he left. The bedroom TV was gone. He hadn’t. They made up and lived happily ever after. Until the next movie, at least, whenever that one happens. Or the television revival, since those are popping up a lot now.

Samantha’s storyline was that she was trying to push away her menopause as much as she could so that she could keep having sex and enjoying it. She was taking hormones and following the Suzanne Somers system. It was working, for the most part. When they went to Abu Dhabi, her hormones were confiscated at the airport. This led to her libido pretty much dying. She wasn’t happy about it. She also wasn’t happy that she couldn’t wear the revealing outfits that she usually wore. It wouldn’t fly in the Abu Dhabi culture. Everything about her normal way of life was gone for the time the women were abroad.

Charlotte was dealing with jealousy over her nanny. Erin (Alice Eve) was hired to help with Charlotte’s two kids. She was a good-looking Irish woman who all the men were ogling. When Samantha brought up the fact that the men might be sexually attracted to Erin, Charlotte’s jealousy flared up. There were some ridiculous moments in this storyline like all the husbands staring at Erin, or Erin getting her shirt soaked in a revealing comedic wet t-shirt scene. There was no real trouble, though, as it was revealed that Erin was a lesbian.

Sex and the City 2 took some very basic storylines and upped how ridiculous they were. Everything was so beyond believability in the movie that it became ludicrous. None of the stories resonated in terms of emotional connection. Even the one that attempted to have the highest stakes, the Carrie and John romance, fell flat because of how little thought was put into the movie. All in all, it was a step down from the first film, which wasn’t a great film itself.

The Sex and the City franchise had come a long way in just under twenty years. It went from a newspaper column to a book to a television series to two movies that were follow-ups to the television series. People had read and watched the adventures of a bunch of women as they lived and loved in the big city. As they lived and loved in multiple big cities. The book and series are still beloved to this day. The movies, maybe not so much. The Carrie Diaries, definitely not as much.

Could Candace Bushnell have expected a column that she began in 1993 to become such a phenomenon? Probably not. Few people do when they begin something. But everything begins somewhere. She began just like Carrie Bradshaw, the character based on her life. She was a young woman who moved to New York, dreaming of something bigger than the life she had. She wrote about her life. People connected to it. And then she got that something bigger. Dreams can come true.

Now let’s get a few notes in and get out of here:

• Michael Patrick King directed both Sex and the City and Sex and the City
• Sarah Jessica Parker was featured in the Sunday “Bad” Movies twice before the Sex and the City movies. She was in New Year’s Eve (week 57) and Dudley Do-Right (week 336).
• Sex and the City 2 saw the third appearance of Steven Weisz. He previously showed up in New Year’s Eve (week 57) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (week 310).
• Cynthia Nixon played Miranda in the two Sex and the City movies. She was also in Baby’s Day Out (week 5).
• Samantha was played by Kim Cattrall, who was also in Baby Geniuses (week 50).
• Another three-timer was Tom Stratford. He was in both Sex and the City movies, as well as Winter’s Tale (week 89).
• Thirteen actors made their first two Sunday “Bad” Movies appearances in the Sex and the City movies. They were Mario Cantone, Lynn Cohen, Kristin Davis, David Eigenberg, Alexandra Fong, Parker Fong, Willie Garson, Evan Handler, Van Hughes, Chandy Krapes, Jason Lewis, Chris Noth, and Joseph Pupo.
• Vladimir Troitsky returned to the Sunday “Bad” Movies this week after first appearing in New Year’s Eve (week 57).
• Candice Bergen was in charge of the magazine in Sex and the City. She was previously seen in View from the Top (week 83).
• Joshua Henry from Winter’s Tale (week 89) returned to the Sunday “Bad” Movies in Sex and the City.
• Bio-Dome (week 124) featured Rene L. Moreno. So did Sex and the City.
• Jennifer Hudson played Carrie’s assistant in Sex and the City. She played Sandy Wexler’s love interest in Sandy Wexler (week 231).
• Scott Burn returned to the Sunday “Bad” Movies in Sex and the City. He was previously in A Haunted House 2 (week 274).
• Finishing out Sex and the City was Paul Thornton, who was also in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (week 310).
• Two actors from New Year’s Eve (week 57) were in Sex and the City 2. They were Victoria Beltran and Rick Pantera.
• Sex and the City 2 also featured three actors from Winter’s Tale (week 89). They were Manuel Herrera, Norm Lewis, and John Mitchell.
• Robert Lenzi and Stosh Zona returned from The Happening (week 185) to be in Sex and the City 2.
• Max Ryan played a role in Sex and the City 2. He was in Death Race (week 9).
• Furry Vengeance (week 162) had an actor named Haytham Kandil, who was also in Sex and the City 2.
• Fumi Desalu-Vold was in Sex and the City 2 after popping up in Norbit (week 227).
• Laura Jane Jones from Sandy Wexler (week 231) was in Sex and the City 2.
• Anoush NeVart had roles in both Mother’s Day (week 233) and Sex and the City 2.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (week 310) featured Dolores Winn from Sex and the City 2.
• Finally, a big part of Sex and the City 2 was the return of Aidan, played by John Corbett. He was also returning to the Sunday “Bad” Movies this week. He was in God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness (week 319).
• Have you seen the Sex and the City movies? Have you seen the show? Did you read the columns or the book? What are your thoughts? Let me know on Twitter or in the comments.
• If there’s a movie that you would like me to check out for the Sunday “Bad” Movies, tell me about it. Hit me up on Twitter. Or you can post in the comments. Either way works. I’m always looking for movies to toss into the schedule that I might not otherwise know about.
• There’s an Instagram account devoted to the Sunday “Bad”Movies. Give it a look see. Tell me what you think.
• This post is coming out after the one that was scheduled after it, so this will seem like old news. The next post is for The Banana Splits Movie. It’s already up. Go check it out. Then check out the one that comes out next week. I’ll see you when I put up the next post, as I attempt to keep catching up.