No one attended the schmancy Sex and the City DVD release party

Horrors! Writes Sheila at Gawker: There's no satisfying way to explain the party, other than a PR clusterfuck/fuckup. However, maybe people are getting a little tired of the franchise after a six-year TV run, one of the most-hyped movies of the year, and a cultural reach that, on some days, seems to have infected the entire city with luxury brand names and bus tours. What does this say about the sequel? We're guessing nothing good. Sometimes you just have to get the shotgun and take the old mare out behind the barn.

Saturday morning bonus!

Here's a feature on the Sex and the City Tour from April 2004 by Norwegian journalist Henrik Pryser Libell:

The Times discovers Chinatown

Oh, boy. From today's Times. Titled: General Tso’s Shopping Spree.

In the film version of “Sex and the City,” Miranda, played by Cynthia Nixon, hunts for an apartment in Chinatown, eager to sink roots into this roiling neighborhood. Once a bit remote and gritty for Miranda and her acquisitive ilk, this Lower East Side enclave — home to Chinese, Burmese and Vietnamese, among others — is on the cusp of gentrification. Wine bars, art galleries, restaurants and boutiques have proliferated, turning the area into a magnet for real-life style seekers who can be seen on weekends casing out the string of shops scattered in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge.
Intent on exploring this two-mile-square area loosely bounded by Kenmare and Delancey Streets on the north, and East and Worth Streets on the south, they thread their way past old tenements, knickknack shops and vendors selling windup toys. And they shop.
“It’s crazy how things are blossoming here,” said Zia Ziprin, the owner of Girls Love Shoes on Ludlow Street, just south of Canal. “It’s definitely becoming a little mecca.”
Merchants are lured by affordable rents; shoppers by the promise of forward-looking, and sometimes budget-friendly, wares at boutiques popping up along Orchard, Ludlow and Division Streets — and, more recently, on Canal, where closet-size outposts of chic rub shoulders with electronics and hardware stores.
For retailers, “Chinatown is a last frontier,” said Faith Hope Consolo, the chairman of retail leasing and sales for Prudential Douglas Elliman. Merchants leap at the chance to lease stores for $100 to $150 a square foot, roughly one third to one half the rent for comparable space farther uptown. “Here they can be big fish in a little pond.”

Are you there God? It's me, Carrie

Candace Bushnell, whose mid-’90s New York Observer column was the basis for Sex and the City, has signed a deal with the children’s division at HarperCollins to write a young adult novel about Carrie Bradshaw’s high-school years. Hello! (New York Observer via Gawker)

Fair warning

Too many people got Carrie-d (groan, sorry) away on the stoop

According to this week's issue of The Villager (via Jeremiah):

Call it “Stoop and the Groupies.”

With the May film release of “Sex and the City,” flocks of female fans of the show once again are pouring into narrow Perry St. in Greenwich Village. But as waves of women visit the front steps of the imaginary home of Carrie Bradshaw, tempers in the community have begun to flare.

Visitors are lured to the area by the fictional lives of the characters created for the popular TV series. They sit for photos on “Carrie’s stoop” and shop in local boutiques. They wait on line for cupcakes at nearby Magnolia Bakery, then sit outdoors eating them on a nearby bench — just like Carrie and Miranda did.

For the show’s fans, at least, it seems a picture-perfect ritual. Yet, in the sweltering heat of summer, some neighbors are resenting all the ruckus and seeking an end to “Sex and the City” tours on their streets.

Last week, residents won a reprieve, when, on July 15, the largest of the tour operators, On Location Tours, announced it would take Perry St. off its route.

On this solemn occasion, I'd like to look back at this post from June 2:
These are a few of the photos you'll find when you search for "Carrie Bradshaw" on Flickr

People are discussing that Sex and the City sequel we all dreaded but figured was likely

Bad news to report, as Gawker puts it:

Sex And The City Sequel Threatened

Meanwhile, somewhere in the East Village, Jeremiah's head explodes...

[With apologies to the fine folks of The Golden Girls.]

That woman in line at the Regal Battery Park 11

We're at the Regal Battery Park 11. Something seems to be amiss -- nearly 50 people are in line for the first screenings of the day. Still, things are moving well enough even though only one person is selling tickets. (And the Fandango machine things are down.) Anyway, we're all just fine. Except for one agitated woman in her early 40s. She seems to be dressing down the rather doofy fellow she's with. She moves from the middle of the line to the front and asks, not really politely, if she could cut -- her movie has already started! The first fellow she asks was having none of it. "It's not my fault you're late." She tries the next woman in line, who was sympathetic, but firm, "I'm cutting it close myself." The agitated woman sighs and returns to her place in line. Finally, she gets her turn at the window. And what is she there to see?

Sex and the City.

Of course. And why hasn't she already seen this?

In case you're wondering why some SATC fans are now into Richard Hell

Many excellent posts from yesterday at Ephemeral New York. The post on Tom Verlaine at the Peppermint Lounge was of particular interest to me. As the post notes, "The Peppermint Lounge is preserved forever in all of its grunginess on DVD in a scene from the great 1982 movie Smithereens."


Wow. This film fell off my radar. I like the director, Susan Seidelman. So I took a look at the movie online. Look at the new box for the film, which stars, among others, Richard Hell. From the director of Sex and the City! She directed three episodes of the show in 1998. (There were 94 episodes in all.) A bit of a stretch for the marketing folks to try to make that connection. Still, however cheesy, the thought of some SATC fans tuning into Smithereens -- thinking the two may possibly be related -- puts a smile on my face.








Here's what KultKlassics had to say about the film.

Post scribe thinks turmoil in Africa is so trendy in the news right now!

Page Six Magazine, which is FREE every Sunday in the New York Post -- you just have to pay $1 for the paper! -- has several doozies today. First, there's a "trends" piece titled "The Sex Effect." You see, there's a recent release called Sex and the City that seems to be very popular. More than that, "anything Carrie Bradshaw touches turns to gold." Indeed! For instance, the $885 Hangisi shoe that Big used to propose to Carrie has sold out from New York stores! (Sixty pairs were sold the day the film opened on May 30; there is now a 400-name waiting list for them!) Also, the New York Public Library, where Carrie planned her dream wedding, is apparently the new Perry Street townhouse. According to the article, "throngs of tourists have made a pilgramage to the steps where Carrie was" [EV Grieve edited out the last word so not to ruin the movie for anyone who may actually want to see it, but you really shouldn't].

Then there's the column called "The Socializer" by "woman-about-town" Kelly Killoren Bensimon. She wants to be a real-life Angelina Jolie (or something) and see Africa. You just have to read her column for yourself. (Click on the image for a better view.) Content from the magazine is not online.

No one is apparently approving the reader recommendations at visitnyc.com

How do I know this? Because I went to the site yesterday and started making stupid nightlife recommendations as part of the NYC & Company's "Just Ask The Locals" campaign. (According to the press release, "The site provides an expanded list of celebrity and local insider tips and top five recommendations, organized by Shopping, Dining, Arts & Entertainment and Nightlife. Visitors to the site also will be able to provide their own tips and ideas on how to navigate and experience the City.")

Why did I have such a mean-spirited high-school moment? Part of it was just wishful thinking. I wish that the Cedar Tavern didn't become a condo, for instance. Plus, I was actually curious if anyone was paying attention and patrolling the comments. More important, though, I'm tired of seeing these "Just Ask the Locals" ads everywhere. Seems as if I can't even walk to the bodega on my corner without seeing an ad with Mr. Mickey telling me about the lobby bar at the Bowery Hotel.

I don't mind real locals offering some advice to out-of-towners at the site, as we're invited to do. (Well, I mind a little bit...particularly when it's awful advice.) But! The site also features input from real celebrities! Say I'm from out of town looking for a place to go for a drink. Hmm, Sean "Diddy" Combs suggests a cocktail at the Mandarin Oriental. Perfect! Alan Cumming suggests the Box on the LES. Coltrane Curtis suggests the Beatrice Inn! Go the site and you'll see nuggests like this:

"If you are into clubs, I’d check out Butter, Marquee or 1 Oak." -- Sean "Diddy" Combs

All places that even tourists might know about, and likely couldn't get into unless they were really wealthy and dressed the right way. Here's the thing, the campaign (and site) only caters to an upper-class demographic. (For example, the site lists the most popular hotels, shops and restaurants based on user page views. The top three hotels? The Waldorf, the Bowery Hotel and the W.) This is the sanitized, condofied city our leaders apparently want us to be. All nice and glossy and...

Oh, and there's a whole Sex and the City section on the site:

This is the Life.
This is New York City.™ This is home to Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda. This is a city known for its cutting-edge dining, shopping, entertainment, nightlife and culture. It’s where lines wrap around the block for a cupcake; where cosmos are sipped over conversation and where energy, excitement and style are found on every street. It’s classic and modern all at once with iconic landmarks that never lose their allure and new hotspots are constantly emerging. So whether you want to try the places made famous by Sex and the City or discover you own favorite locales—this is where it’s done. This is New York City.

Related: Et Tu, Debbie? (Flaming Pablum)

By the way, I don't have an approval system for this site. Yet.

I SO hope my new fake ID works this weekend!

Stoop-id tourists

Jeremiah bravely ventured into the belly of the SATC beast yesterday to see what the real people who live in the fake Carrie Bradshaw house think of the constant stream of tourists who simply must get their photo taken on the stoop.

And?

Who could blame them.


Still, sign or not, the fans will not be denied!


(The caption with this photo on Flickr reads, "In front of Carrie Bradshaw's stoop. & yes, there is a sign that says "PRIVATE PROPERTY, TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED". Fuh real!)

Meanwhile, back to the kitchen for me. So much more baking to do!

[Updated! Jeremiah joined the SATC consumer orgy yesterday as well! With pictures!]

These are a few of the photos you'll find when you search for "Carrie Bradshaw" on Flickr

(Forgot to add this with the original post.) Part of the Sex and the City tours includes a stop at this Perry Street townhouse in the West Village. Yes, this is the stoop that the Carrie Bradshaw character sits on in the show. (Actually, five different stoops were used; this one most frequently, I'm told by someone who really likes and knows the show.) According to Forbes: The show, which made a fifth character out of New York City, attracts fans to the Big Apple in droves, and locals cash in. Location Tours offers a three-hour bus tour that stops at shops and bars that have appeared on the show. The tour costs $40 a head, and its owners say it attracts as many as 1,000 people a week. Destination on Location Travel offers "set-jetting" weekends in New York, where groups of up to twelve women are shuttled around town and given the fantasy that they're one of the four Sex characters. The price: a hefty $15,000 per person.

Andrea Peyser does not like the Sex and the City movie (or, apparently, men in pastel shirts)

So New York Post Columnist of the Year Andrea Peyser caught the first screening of Sex and the City yesterday. What did she think?

In a roomful of women who looked as if they hadn't digested in months - and scant few breathing men - I saw the big-screen version of "Sex and the City," an excruciating paean to Manhattan, Manolos and menopause that should have been sponsored by Depends.

When did the story of four aging broads - and these women are about as far from being "The Girls" as Phyllis Diller is from puberty - turn into a horror show?

Time and the tyranny of the camera close-up have not been kind to Sarah Jessica Parker, who at 43 looks positively ghoulish as the still-single Carrie Bradshaw.

Her litany of lifestyle impossibilities continues to mount like her facial blemishes - a rent-controlled apartment, dozens of $525 pairs of stilettos, and a noncommittal, mega-rich boyfriend, Mr. Big. Sadly, the only thing large about Chris Noth these days is his protruding gut.

Ouch.

I spied a gaggle of gals who looked as if they'd eaten recently. I asked, Did you like it?

"Loved it!"

You can't be from New York, can you? "No, Connecticut," she said.

"Better than Indiana Jones!" trilled only the second man I saw. But this guy wore a pastel shirt. Figures.

I predict huge success in the multiplex. New Yorkers know better.

"Sex" sucks.

Hmm.

Well, it's really easy to make fun of a movie like this; it's even easier to make fun of the people who may enjoy this movie. Oh. And not to mention the looks of the actors in the movie. (Chris Noth fat? SJP ghoulish? C'mon.)

I wish Andrea would have written about the real problem with the movie -- how it ruined New York City. It's a subject worth repeating. Maybe she took a different route because the Post covered this a few weeks back. But is saying that Chris Noth has a beer gut do much to bring attention to the rampant commercialization, sterilization and development that the movie helped spawn here?

I invite anyone who may be new to this subject to read the following articles at Jeremiah's Vanishing New York:

How the cupcake crumbled

A plea to SJP

How SATC killed NYC

Related today:
Fashion review: 10 Years Later, Carrie Coordinated (New York Times)

"The Lying, the Bitch, and the Wardrobe"

A review of a review! From Gawker's Ryan Tate:

Save for the use of the lame adjective "anti-sophisticated," Anthony Lane's New Yorker evisceration of Sex And The City is a schadenfreudian delight. Among the movie's crimes: Carrie whores herself out for a custom closet (women in the audience actually applauded); Carrie is more concerned about losing her access to nice clothes than about the disintegration of her marriage; and, apartment-hunting in a predominately Chinese neighborhood, Miranda, in a charming bit of racism, cries out, "White guy with a baby! Let’s follow him." Lane says the film is often "pornographic—arouse the viewer with image upon image of what lies just beyond her reach" and suggests the subtitle "The Lying, the Bitch, and the Wardrobe."

Meanwhile, here's Lane's reaction to Miranda's "white guy with a baby" line: So that’s what drives these people: Aryan real estate.

Then it gets really beautiful:

At least, you could argue, Miranda has a job, as a lawyer. But the film pays it zero attention, and the other women expect her to drop it and fly to Mexico without demur. (And she does.) Worse still is the sneering cut as the scene shifts from Carrie, carefree and childless in the New York Public Library, to the face of Miranda’s young son, smeared with spaghetti sauce. In short, to anyone facing the quandaries of being a working mother, the movie sends a vicious memo: Don’t be a mother. And don’t work. Is this really where we have ended up—with this superannuated fantasy posing as a slice of modern life?

"...it's not some perfunctory cinematic appendix to a popular series, but the beginning of a whole new string of films"

That's part of Mick LaSalle's glowing review of Sex and the City in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Hoo-boy, did he like this movie. A lot!

Yet even viewers coming in cold will appreciate "Sex and the City" as the best American movie about women so far this year, and probably the best that will be made this year. Indeed, at the rate Hollywood has been going, it may stand as the best women's movie until "Sex and the City II," if that ever comes along.

Meanwhile, Mick wraps it up:

There's something alive here. There's a feeling about this movie, that it's not some perfunctory cinematic appendix to a popular series, but the beginning of a whole new string of films. There's certainly no artistic reason "Sex and the City" can't be the women's equivalent of "Star Trek," with human emotion being the final frontier. Like outer space, that frontier is infinite.

Is it true that in space, no one can hear you scream?

So, what's going on in the world today?

The Post gives the film 1.5 stars out of four. As Lou Lumenick writes:

New Yorkers put up with noise, lack of privacy, tiny expensive apartments and countless other daily insults. But will they shell out 12 bucks for what amounts to a 21/2-hour "very special" TV episode of "Sex and the City" that feels like it was written and directed by an audience focus group in Omaha?

If the ecstatic reaction at the screening I attended is any indication, they might - at least if they're not heterosexual males bored by the movie's endless fashion montages, shameless product placements, lethally slow pacing and utterly predictable plot.

And how was the glitzy premiere of the movie last night at Radio City?

Revisiting: "How many rich jerks that want to be in Sex and the City can there possibly be in America?"

I originally ran this post on April 9. But it seemed like a good thing to repeat, given what's facing us next Friday...



In a Q-and-A published at Gothamist today, singer-songwriter (and Brooklyn resident) Mike Doughty was asked: If you could change one thing about New York what would it be?

His answer (bravo!):

The forward march of the gentrification cold-front. But I keep in mind that gentrification hasn't been around forever, and is a trend, not a universal unstoppable force. How many rich jerks that want to be in Sex and the City can there possibly be in America? OK, a lot, but there's not a limitless supply. If the upcoming Sex and the City movie tanks, it will be for the societal good.

Meanwhile, back to the present...

Articles that I won't be reading today (unless I'm aiming to get my blood pressure around 210/140)

Page Six Magazine, which is FREE every Sunday in the New York Post (even though you pay $1 for the paper), devotes a good portion of the magazine to this under-the-rader independent film called Sex and the City. (Per usual, none of the content from the magazine is online.) The coverline! "Sex Symbols: How Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte defined a generation." Yessirree!

But that's not all! We get to meet the men of Sex and the City...and "Confessions of the Real Carrie." Ohh! Candace Bushnell! She offers her choices for her faves in NYC. Like: Best place to lounge: The pool on the Soho House roof. (Of course!) The ultimate cosmo: Balthazar. (Wow! Never heard of it! I must go!) Place that makes her smile: Washington Square Park. (Ahhh!) Why? Well! Her current home, a prewar Greenwich Village apartment, is two blocks away from where she lived in the late 1970s -- though the vibe is now very different, the Post notes. (NO!) "When I first walked through Washington Square Park, there was no grass and it was filled with musicians, jugglers and punks with blue hair," Candace recalls. (Ewww! Gross!) "Now it's filled with strollers and it has the best dog run."

Finally, the pièce de résistance! We meet four 21st century Carries! Women who live the Carrie Bradshaw lifestyle no matter what!





Like Erin, a 29-year-old magazine editor who moved here last year! She is "the kind of person who will eat lentils for four weeks to get a pair of Alexander McQueen gladiator boots." Live the dream, Erin! (And you're getting plenty of fiber!)

Articles that I won't be reading this week

From New York, a profile of Taavo Somer, proprietor of Freemans, etc. The sub-head alone is enough to scare anyone off:

Coolhunted
For those in search of the next groovy thing, Taavo Somer, proprietor of Freemans and the new Rusty Knot, is the prey of the moment. His downtown anti-style wants to have it all ways all the time—ironic and earnest, neurotic and carefree, cool and cheeseball

Actually, I did read the first three paragraphs, where there was a discussion on the old ice machine at Joe's:

To Somer, however, the ice machine was an object of mysterious beauty. He’d moved to New York to be an architect, and although he’d quit the profession almost immediately, he retained an architect’s compulsive tendency to deconstruct interiors, to take them apart in his head and figure out how they worked. “That ice machine was just kind of awesomely utilitarian,” he says. “The inner workings were right in front of you, not hidden away in some super-refined way.” Somer soon found himself filling drawing pads with studies of dive bars—detailed renderings of fictional haunts where he imagined his friends would hang out. The places he drew looked like Joe’s, with one crucial difference: Everything accidental was now orchestrated, the ice machine a piece of the design. “You don’t know it, but that’s what makes a place like that so comfortable,” says Somer. “That’s why you want to come back every night.”

Do you blame me for stopping after this?

Also, not to pick on New York, a magazine I generally like, there's the cover story on something called Sex and the City. The headline and sub-head here make the article seem sympathetic to the star.

Sarah Jessica Parker Would Like a Few Words With Carrie Bradshaw
The Sex and the City star likes Victorian morality tales, frets about artistic purity, and laments the passing of Old New York. So how did she become the poster girl for the New Manhattan

Let me know how it goes.



Meanwhile! The New York Daily News also thinks New Yorkers care about the Sex and the City movie. What else would explain the paper running an EXCLUSIVE review of the movie 25 days before it opens? Great scoop, thanks! Oh, and Features Editor Colin Bertram gives it a breathless four out of five stars.

Meanwhile, does anyone die in the movie? Does anyone here care?