Diarrhea from the Bowels of the Boob Tube

This celebration, nay commercial, for upper-class conspicuous consumption is contemptible--even contemptuous of most of the world populace that isn't rich. Samantha competing at an auction with her boyfriend to pay more for jewelry for her. When the quartet of designer-brand women travel to Mexico--to a five-star resort, of course--the movie sequel to a TV series (and not any TV, but the subscription-exclusive "it's not TV" HBO) even makes potty humor out of the reputed poor quality of the water and food of the impoverished country (along with the supposedly amusing uptightness of Charlotte in not exploiting the service by the poors), as Charlotte eats pudding from her Prada, whispering under her breath to her fellow rich gal pals that she can't eat or drink what the resort doesn't import in sealed containers because "it's Mexico." As I recall, the Arabian-bound sequel is even worse.

Alas, there was some potential here, too. Carrie's voiceover narration establishes from the start the duality of "labels and love," which could've become the central point of contention in her plans to marry financier "Mr. Big." He would have them just go to the courthouse for their marriage certificate, because it's only about the two of them (i.e. love), but, with the peer pressure of her obsessive friends and boss, the wedding soon escalates into a fashion-show circus (i.e. the labels part). But, no, instead the movie treats the whole will-they-won't-they tedium as a matter of thrice-married cold feet, a need for reassurance, or something Miranda said. How disappointing, especially after, for crying out loud, a montage where Carrie rattles off the designer names of wedding gowns she wears for a Vogue photo shoot and various other scenes fetishizing branded clothing, including the grotesque Fashion Week runway. You see, Carrie really made an effort to make it work between the two of them--she put a bird on her head an' everything--and it's only resolved like some perverse Cinderella tale by the retrieval of $525 (that's in 2008 dollars, no less) shoes.

There's also the reflexive device of Carrie being the author of the very story she's in. This had some prurient appeal when she was merely a diarist of her and her friends' sexcapades, but now she's an author on love and works for a Vogue where Murphy Brown (Candice Bergen) has even been reduced to the editor of the trashy mag.

The score is obnoxious, too, in its transition from the constant underscoring carried over from TV to being more loud about it in faux cinematic fashion. Vacuous musical accompaniment for vacuous characters. The expected flat lighting is more tolerable. At about two-and-half-hours runtime, this is also way too long and, indeed, feels like a compilation of several TV episodes. Samantha's eating away her sex troubles and Miranda's husband's infidelity are boring, too, but, I suppose, at least they're real--lying on a table naked under sushi aside.

Anyways, besides watching this because, like way too many generic rom-coms, it involves a New Year's scene (and Valentine's Day, too), and I watched it on New Year's Day, I also wanted to be reminded whether the newest installment in the series, "And Just Like That," was a decisive downfall for the show or whether it was always dreadful. Turns out, it's the latter. The new series' Woke self-parody made out of racial and sexual representation even fits in well with a series that commodifies everything--love, sex, clothes, New York, feminism, diversity--flushing it all out as so much diarrhea. As other movies, such as "Crazy Rich Asians" (2018), already prove, the makers of "Sex and the City" need not have worried about being inclusive, as others have already represented in the same sort of garbage other groups--well, except for poors or characters who aren't prostitutes for up-scale hyper-consumerism. Really, the only thing that's changed since is that phones and texting have become a matter of fashion. Even though this movie wears its gay friends and St. Louis secretary like accessories, as well, the real prejudice of the show has nothing to do with something such as the color of skin or sexual labels; it's the labels of what they wear over the skin.