"Once you cross the Hudson River, you transcend reality, much like H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands."

May 29, 2010 12:29 PM

"Sex and the City 2: a science fiction flick replete with fictional cartographies, temporal recursion, and a wanton, metro-biological god-being that exists both within and without of time and space. Oh, and magic shoes."
posted by WCityMike (38 comments total)

Case in point — in Sex and the City 2, Carrie goes to the souk to purchase what appears to be genie shoes (I'm serious)

Edward Said remains as relevant as ever.
posted by Despondent_Monkey at 12:38 PM on May 29, 2010 [4 favorites]

"Some of you write Wolverine/Sabretooth slash fiction. Don't judge me."

lol.
posted by gen at 12:39 PM on May 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

This sure does contain a lot of references to Big Trouble in Little China. Always a good thing.
posted by Artw at 12:42 PM on May 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

So the science fiction perspective was the coping mechanism that the reviewer's brain adopted to survive the viewing of Sex in the City 2. Interesting!
posted by Atreides at 1:10 PM on May 29, 2010 [6 favorites]

It would still qualify as BAD science fiction.
posted by twidget at 1:48 PM on May 29, 2010

If this was actually the plot to the movie, I'd probably go see it.
posted by Panjandrum at 1:52 PM on May 29, 2010 [4 favorites]

Sarah Jessica Parker: I NEED SCISSORS 61!
posted by fuq at 1:57 PM on May 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

The movie doesn't care about its plot (and neither should you), but it does hope to distract you with its $10 million wardrobe, all of which was apparently raided from Sun Ra's closet.

+1 for citing Sun Ra as wardrobe inspiration.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:00 PM on May 29, 2010 [8 favorites]

5.) The four of them live in New York City and have sex (not with each other). They eat brunch.

sex=brunch. Same thing really.
posted by joni. at 2:01 PM on May 29, 2010

Forget SatC. I have to find the stuff on that Sun Ra reading list!
posted by blucevalo at 2:13 PM on May 29, 2010

Saks 5th Atavism

Oh, golf clap.

All in all, very entertaining bit of writing.
posted by WPW at 2:22 PM on May 29, 2010

The four of them live in New York City and have sex (not with each other). They eat brunch.

sex=brunch. Same thing really.

Apparently, I've been doing it all wrong. I'm not sure how I'll tell my parents.

Forget SatC. I have to find the stuff on that Sun Ra reading list!

A recording of the 3rd lecture from Sun Ra, though that audio link isn't working. Instead, here's a link to a 192kbps stream, and the 32kbps stream which sounds awful, but may be better for those with slow connections. Further derailing on Sun Ra's 1971 class at UC Berkley:

In early 1971 Sun Ra was artist-in-residence at University of California, Berkeley, teaching a course called "The Black Man In the Cosmos". Rather few students enrolled but the classes were often full of curious persons from the surrounding community. One half-hour of each class was devoted to a lecture (complete with handouts and homework assignments), the other half-hour to an Arkestra performance or Sun Ra keyboard solo.

posted by filthy light thief at 2:27 PM on May 29, 2010 [13 favorites]

Holy fuck, this is the best thread ever. Not only did I get to read a hilarious takedown of SatC2, but I learn about a class taught by Sun Ra! What I wouldn't give to enroll in that! Someone please find the syllabus and homework assignments.
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:42 PM on May 29, 2010

That's not a takedown. This is a takedown.
posted by fleetmouse at 2:54 PM on May 29, 2010 [8 favorites]

Agh! Fleetmouse beat me to it.

But yeah, so good we read it more than a couple of times at work to get the day started.
posted by Extopalopaketle at 3:08 PM on May 29, 2010

lumpenproletariat
posted by mullacc at 3:17 PM on May 29, 2010

I love this kind of gleeful misinterpretation as movie criticism. Along the same lines (and on the same site): Michael Bay Finally Made an Art Movie. (Discussed here.)
posted by Johnny Assay at 3:29 PM on May 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

i guess the movie isn't all evil, seeing that it's inspired some great crit
posted by angrycat at 3:49 PM on May 29, 2010

I would rather watch Michael Bay movies for the rest of my life than watch SaTC2.
posted by joni. at 3:51 PM on May 29, 2010

The guy who did movie reviews for The Nation at the time reviewed Jurassic Park as if it were Schindler's List 2, with the dinosaurs as the Jews. I can't do it justice (it's been many years since I saw it) but I was ROFL.
posted by localroger at 3:58 PM on May 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

On thinking about it a few more seconds, it was his review of Jurassic Park 2, the one where fierce Jewish warrior T. Rex strikes back at his Nazi LAPD oppressors.
posted by localroger at 4:00 PM on May 29, 2010

I'm a little disappointed they didn't call it "2 Sex 2 Cities".
posted by mhoye at 4:07 PM on May 29, 2010 [7 favorites]

I'm impressed by the sheer volume of obscure cultural references this article has.
posted by The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew at 4:07 PM on May 29, 2010

mhoye: Yeah, that would have set them up for the 3rd film where they travel to Japan: "Sex and the City: Tokyo Drift"
posted by Saxon Kane at 4:27 PM on May 29, 2010 [6 favorites]

SATC2: Electric Vagoogaloo
posted by fleetmouse at 4:31 PM on May 29, 2010 [6 favorites]

So maybe this is a dumb question, but to what does "Radix" on the Sun Ra reading list refer?

I'm going to go way out on a limb and guess that it's not the 1981 A. A. Attanasio novel. Is it some kind of esoteric math text, maybe?
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 4:44 PM on May 29, 2010

I'm going to go way out on a limb and guess that it's not the 1981 A. A. Attanasio novel

Indeed, for a 1971 course, that would be somewhat unusual, but then, we are talking about Sun Ra.
posted by kenko at 5:10 PM on May 29, 2010 [6 favorites]

great, great review.

here's my favorite quote (it's hard to pick just one)

The wardrobe department obviously used Jean Paul Gaultier's designs from The Fifth Element as a jumping-off point.
posted by Miles Long at 5:31 PM on May 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

A recording of the 3rd lecture from Sun Ra, though that audio link isn't working. Instead, here's a link to a 192kbps stream, and the 32kbps stream which sounds awful, but may be better for those with slow connections.

Download link
posted by Joe Beese at 6:16 PM on May 29, 2010

Well, that course doesn't seem to be so very rare. It's the second disc on this 2CD set, the first being a concert at a warehouse in San Francisco, the centerpiece of which is a very dramatic and intense 20 minute Declamation by Ra urging the black race to rise up into freedom and identity, punctuated by the horns of the Arkestra. This appears to be a review of that lecture, and it's the closest I've found to any further discussion about the course.

/derail
posted by filthy light thief at 6:20 PM on May 29, 2010

.
posted by zarq at 6:44 PM on May 29, 2010

"It is 146 minutes long, which means that I entered the theater in the bloom of youth and emerged with a family of field mice living in my long, white mustache. This is an entirely inappropriate length for what is essentially a home video of gay men playing with giant Barbie dolls."

Wow. Just, wow. 2 hours and 15 minutes. For SatC? Wasn't this like a half-hour long show whem it was on HBO?

How is this possible? Is there an extended Lawrence of Arabia tribute segment?

Is this Darren Star's revenge for "Miss Match"?
posted by vhsiv at 9:34 PM on May 29, 2010

^This will not stand. Samantha, being the prostitute sexual revolutionary that she is, rages against the machine by publicly grabbing the engorged penis of a man she dubs "Lawrence of My-Labia."

I stand corrected.
posted by vhsiv at 9:53 PM on May 29, 2010

Setting feminism back 3000 years.
posted by HTuttle at 10:18 PM on May 29, 2010

So this movie is a piece of alt.history sci.fi, like Star Wars? (A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.)
posted by filthy light thief at 8:06 AM on May 30, 2010

I'm really into how many takedowns this movie has inspired.

I think the best one, though, is really Lindy West's (cited above). Sample: "Samantha's vagina is doing fine. She rubs yams on it, okay? She takes 48 vagina vitamins a day. It accepts unlimited male penises with the greatest of ease. Now let us never speak of it again."
posted by en forme de poire at 10:06 PM on May 30, 2010

No worse than gadgets or guns
posted by lalochezia at 11:30 AM on May 31, 2010

Audience cosplay, too. I was at the cinema for something else as a few showings were starting on Saturday, and the crowds in heels and froufy dresses made me in my band t-shirt and jeans feel like Mark in Peep Show arriving at a houseparty with his groceries.
posted by carbide at 11:36 AM on May 31, 2010