I also watched Babel recently. It's hard to tell which was more depressing.
I finally watched the Sex and the City movie. After I saw the "marriage! babies! strangling heteronormativity!" trailer months ago, I thought about giving it a miss. But I DID love the show, so I couldn't not. (Wow, double negatives.)
Btw, briefly, in defence of SATC-the-show:
I watched SATC as it aired and I loved it. Watching at at ages 14-20 (ie. when I was young and naive and much less gender-studies-literate ;) meant that I judged it far less harshly than I would if it began airing today. But I did rewatch the series in its entirety last year and you know what? I still loved it. It's GOOD TV. I will not defend it as feminist (it's not) or even a thoughtful portrayal of modern relationships (it's not that, either). But it is good TV. There are plenty of shows out there that are antifeminist and bad (or worse, just sorta crushingly mediocre). But if a show is genuinely awesome, I'll overlook a fair amount of sketchy gender/race/politics stuff. SATC was genuinely awesome. It was consistently funny in the beginning. In later seasons, it was poignant (Cynthia Nixon is s4 is nothing short of stunning). It was always cohesive, enjoyable TV. Except for the bisexuality episode with Alanis. I cannot find anything redeeming in that episode. It sucked.
But the thing is, SATC-the-show =/= SATC-the-movie.
Now, I could talk about the gender issues in the movie. However, an endless amount has already been written on that. (Most recently by my mildly-batshit-insane former professor.) For the record, what bugged me most about the movie was the fact that Samantha and Smith didn't even DISCUSS ethical nonmonogamy. I realize it's a touchy issue for some people, but seriously?!? It was fucking OOC for Samantha to just eat (?!?) her sexual feelings. Gahrgh. Have a threesome with the hot neighbour guy, at the very least.
The thing that made me hate the movie, though, was the fact that... it was a movie. As far as I'm aware, Michael Patrick King wrote the movie on his own. And boy, does it show. TV is such a wonderful, collaborative process. SATC-the-show really started to get good when MPK brought together a great team of writers (some of whom were even female! -- I'm not saying that men can't write women and vice versa, but a little estrogen in the writing process is probably a necessary thing for a movie that claims to be, so categorically, about women). In TV, things don't have to be tied up with ribbons. Not everyone needs an full stop at the end of their story. Not everyone needs to be happy.
It's probably not a surprise to hear that I love TV. I love to follow characters over a long period of time. I love organic character development. I love quiet moments where there's no punchline or big dramatic gesture. I love nuances of emotion. I love ambiguity. All of these things are rife in TV. They were rife in SATC-the-show. They were almost completely absent in SATC-the-movie.
Meh.
Btw, briefly, in defence of SATC-the-show:
I watched SATC as it aired and I loved it. Watching at at ages 14-20 (ie. when I was young and naive and much less gender-studies-literate ;) meant that I judged it far less harshly than I would if it began airing today. But I did rewatch the series in its entirety last year and you know what? I still loved it. It's GOOD TV. I will not defend it as feminist (it's not) or even a thoughtful portrayal of modern relationships (it's not that, either). But it is good TV. There are plenty of shows out there that are antifeminist and bad (or worse, just sorta crushingly mediocre). But if a show is genuinely awesome, I'll overlook a fair amount of sketchy gender/race/politics stuff. SATC was genuinely awesome. It was consistently funny in the beginning. In later seasons, it was poignant (Cynthia Nixon is s4 is nothing short of stunning). It was always cohesive, enjoyable TV. Except for the bisexuality episode with Alanis. I cannot find anything redeeming in that episode. It sucked.
But the thing is, SATC-the-show =/= SATC-the-movie.
Now, I could talk about the gender issues in the movie. However, an endless amount has already been written on that. (Most recently by my mildly-batshit-insane former professor.) For the record, what bugged me most about the movie was the fact that Samantha and Smith didn't even DISCUSS ethical nonmonogamy. I realize it's a touchy issue for some people, but seriously?!? It was fucking OOC for Samantha to just eat (?!?) her sexual feelings. Gahrgh. Have a threesome with the hot neighbour guy, at the very least.
The thing that made me hate the movie, though, was the fact that... it was a movie. As far as I'm aware, Michael Patrick King wrote the movie on his own. And boy, does it show. TV is such a wonderful, collaborative process. SATC-the-show really started to get good when MPK brought together a great team of writers (some of whom were even female! -- I'm not saying that men can't write women and vice versa, but a little estrogen in the writing process is probably a necessary thing for a movie that claims to be, so categorically, about women). In TV, things don't have to be tied up with ribbons. Not everyone needs an full stop at the end of their story. Not everyone needs to be happy.
It's probably not a surprise to hear that I love TV. I love to follow characters over a long period of time. I love organic character development. I love quiet moments where there's no punchline or big dramatic gesture. I love nuances of emotion. I love ambiguity. All of these things are rife in TV. They were rife in SATC-the-show. They were almost completely absent in SATC-the-movie.
Meh.