SEX AND THE CITY: The Complete Series + 2 Movies - Blu-ray (HBO, 1998-2010) Warner Home Video
In 1998, four frisky females from
Manhattan’s Upper East Side caught the vapors of our collective fascination
with Sex and The City (1998-2004), a frank and fun-loving, often horny
little romp through the steel and concrete jungles of New York, following the
exploits of newspaper sex-pert/columnist, Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica
Parker) and her ever diligent desire to find ‘Mr. Right’ – the proverbial
‘prince’ in this vast labyrinth populated by more than its fair share of ‘toads.’
After some consternation, and a lot of experiences of the wrong, but
wonderfully amusing kind, she finds ‘Mr. Big’ (Chris Noth) instead. The success
of Sex and The City is owed to the exuberant on-screen chemistry between
Parker and her female costars who, not unlike the geriatric ‘Golden Girls’
before them, frequently gather around the dinner and/or cocktail table to dish
the dirt on their prospective romances, hubbies and…well… ‘fuck buddies’
who enter their lives with seemingly intermittent and disruptive ambitions all
their own. Of the endless entourage of male beefcake paraded over the course of
the series – many would befall, and only some, briefly, to dazzle these gutsy gals.
Carrie, or so it would appear in
contemporary society, is the enigma – a girl who wants love above all else, but
frequently settles for sex – great/awful or indifferent - when the former is in
woefully short supply. In search of the
fairy-tale happy ending on which to conclude her popular column as Manhattan’s
premiere ‘sex therapist’, Carrie is coddled, cajoled and comforted by her
flighty gal-pals, including idealist, Park Avenue art gallery manager - ‘good
girl’ and ‘wannabe plaything’, Charlotte York (Kristin Davis), career and angst
driven attorney at law, Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon), and sultry public
relations’ vixen with a ravenous libido, Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall). Using
her friends as fodder, Carrie embarks on a never-ending quest to distill the
origins of true love amid these postmodern ruins of love torn asunder by fate,
freaks and frauds aplenty. During the series' 6 year/94 episode run, many an
amiable male swinger passed through these girls’ meat grinders (pun intended);
Chris Noth (Mr. Big), John Corbett (Aiden), Kyle MacLachlan (Trey MacDougall)
and David Eigenberg (Steve) to name but a few of the main stays. From the
outset, the premise for this half-hour HBO rom/com franchise seemed strained at
best – four babes of varying attractiveness and sexual prowess, locked in
heated debates on everything from toxic bachelors to homemade lubricants and
pseudo-lesbian affairs. But by Season Six, it was clear to all, Carrie
and company had done much more than wax openly about the morays and
peccadilloes of a basic biological function. They had, in fact, lost none of
their potency for making the rest of us blush in total agreement over all the preposterous
importance both women and men attach to this basic act of procreation.
Based on Candice Bushnell’s equally
frank novel, the series became far more engaging than most, and certainly,
naughtier than many in its attempt to tell-all, rather than show all. To be
sure, there is no shortage of ‘T’ and ‘A’ to be had here, and, even a bit of
totally taboo ‘full frontal’ male nudity. Much of the eye candy is provided by
Ms. Cattrall, the elder stateswoman of this troop, but with ‘oh such a
killer body’ as to steam up the glasses and raise both blood pressure and
heartbeat in tandem. If only for these
more salacious bits of business, Sex and The City might have faded into
obscurity as a commercially crass bit of ‘soft core’ masquerading as art house.
Instead, creator, Darren Star has covered his bases and hedged his bets on a
small army of great writers, including Bushnell herself, who supervised all 94
episodes, with Michael Patrick King the major contributor thereafter, followed
by Julie Rottenberg, Elisa Zuritsky, Liz Tuccillo, Amy Harris, Jenny Bicks and
Cindy Chupack (among others) filling out the lion’s share of hilarious
situations, brought into full focus and flourish. Sex and the City
remains a fairly buoyant comedy gem with equal portions of sadomasochist charm
and ‘no nonsense’ brevity for the ‘wham bam, thank you ma’am’ sexy good
fun, tongue planted firmly-in-cheek, while beckoning the viewer to indulge in a
box of Kleenex – and not just for the tears!
Throughout the series’ run, we came
– then, ‘came’ to truly care about what happened to Carrie and her crew. Hence,
Miranda’s ever-quest to be taken seriously as a woman, rather than a sex
object, to usually play nurse-made to men who otherwise found her forthright
nature a total turn-off, or occasionally, to be mistaken as a lesbian (aside,
Cynthia Nixon actually is one in real life), made for some heartfelt and
distressing times. Carrie’s on-going struggle to actually land the commitment-shy
and ever-elusive Mr. Big slowly began to erode her confidence, lending a more
mature outlook to her printed prognostications on male/female sex for sex’s
sake, while Charlotte’s toggle between prudish virtue and laissez faire sexual
exploration, eventually led her in and out of one unhappy marriage, and another
– less so, though not without its own follies and foibles. So too, did the
otherwise ‘fuck like a man’ Samantha break our hearts with her
revelation she had cancer in Season 4, mercifully to go into remission, but for
some time thereafter carry and evolve into its own narrative thread, giving us
pause to consider a possible cast change to otherwise write Kim Cattrall out of
the show. Behind the scenes, this was more likely than not as Cattrall and Sarah
Jessica Parker did not get on, chiefly, as Cattrall felt her contributions to
the show’s success were not being adequately met with an increase in salary.
Indeed, while Parker received roughly $300,000 and an executive producer’s title,
Cattrall remained at scale for her work. At the 2004 Emmys, Parker and her cohorts
were grouped together for a photo-op while Cattrall sat alone. Indeed, the two
would evolve their mutual disdain into a tabloid-celebrated rift that extended
directly to the decision to stop the lucrative ‘movie franchise’ based on these
characters after only two installments, and also, to reboot the original series
with the presumably soon-to-debut, but yet to be officially announced, ‘And
Just Like That…’ a 10-part series to feature all of the remaining cast,
except Cattrall.
At the dawn of the new millennium,
Hollywood really began to ramp up its cannibalization of the small screen for
its big screen movie franchises, a trend begun in the early 1990’s with a
string of cultish recreations of beloved television shows from the 1960’s and
70’s (The Addams Family - 1991, The Brady Bunch – 1995, Starsky
& Hutch – 2004, Bewitched – 2005 among them) then, continued
with the absorption of 80s pop-u-tainment (Charlie’s Angels, 2000, Miami
Vice, 2006, The Incredible Hulk, 2008), gradually mutating into
TV/movie ‘tie-in’ of then current television series (The X-Files: Fight the
Future, 1998). As a television-to-cinema hybrid, Michael Patrick King’s Sex
and The City: The Movie (2008) emerged as a rather disappointing footnote
to the memory of the original series, marking its departure four years prior
with an open-ended finale. Alas, the movie, instead of playing as a glossy hair
extension of that highly successful HBO series, merely ran on like five,
half-hour episodes pasted together. The series’ finale had rescued Carrie
Bradshaw from a possessive relationship on the banks of the Seine, her knight
in shining armor the ever-cold-footed matrimonial hunk, John James ‘Mr. Big’ Preston
whose philandering twice before had reduced the usually effervescent Carrie into
a puddle of sobbing blubber. In Sex and The City: The Movie, Big was at
it again.
After buying a lavish penthouse
apartment – and redoing its closet to conform to the needs of Carrie’s
ever-expanding obsessive/compulsive fashionista’s wet dream of a wardrobe – Big
proposed marriage, choked on his promise and bolted at the altar, his sudden
cold feet stemming from a comment made by Miranda at the pre-wedding banquet
after she has discovered her own mate, Steve (David Eigenberg) cheated on her
with another woman. Ironically, given the title and premise of this movie, the
first hour of King’s calamity is devoted to an endless and nauseating cavalcade
of bizarrely unhinged and often tasteless ‘fashion’ costume changes as the
brittle bride searches for the perfect wedding gown. So much for Carrie’s
dilemma. In another part of this city that never sleeps, the ever optimistic,
though obtusely frigid, Charlotte continued to live out a resplendently kosher
Cinderella fantasy with Harry Goldenblatt (Evan Handler) and their adopted
Oriental daughter, Lily (Alexandra Fong).
If these narrative threads in
King’s screenplay sound weak to begin with, they positively fell apart with Samantha
forsaking her perfect relationship with pin-up underwear model/turned famous
movie actor, Smith Jerrod (Jason Lewis) simply for a chance to pursue another
dead-end flagrante delicto with next door neighbor, Dante (Gilles Marini) in
Malibu, a guy who prefers to shower in the nude in broad daylight on a public
landing overlooking the beach where children frolic and scantily clad snow
bunnies cavort for everyone's amusement. What was rather transparently dull
about Sex and The City: The Movie as opposed to Sex and The City:
the series, is how utterly joyless the excursion fast became, borrowing
slavishly from the familiar stomping grounds and scenarios to have made the TV
show one hell of a fresh-lathered sweat with audiences. Now, instead of
contemplative, Carrie and Big’s break-up left the usually put-together sex-pert
depressed and sleeping alone at a posh resort in Mexico, with the girls’
conversations about bodily functions, various sexual positions, and, other
deliciously tawdry behavior tinged in more than a hint of bitterness and ennui.
Behind the scenes, Sarah Jessica
Parker and Kim Cattrall were barely speaking to one another, the tension spilling
over into the work environment, to generate a more toxic vibe, just to see the
whole damn affair through to completion. The movie also added Jennifer Hudson to
the clan, briefly, as Louise from St. Louis, the friend and personal assistant
Carrie could really have used elsewhere, if the others in her self-absorbed sect
were not so perpetually wrapped up in their own navel and crotch-gazing antics.
Alas, the antics became even more
overwrought in the movie sequel: Sex and the City 2 (2010), this time,
to focus on Samantha’s desperation, at age 52, to stave off menopause and
maintain her sexual libido. Subplots included Miranda quitting her job after
the new managing partner in her law firm proved a misogynistic pig, and
Charlotte being swamped by motherhood. As for Carrie and Big – they differed on
how to spend their time together; she, still wishing for the exotic lifestyle
of endless parties, premieres and the like, while he just wanted to stay at
home nights and watch their new TV.
Salvation materialized in the form of a new PR campaign, Samantha flying
out the girls on the company’s coin to an all-expenses-paid luxury vacation in
Abu Dhabi. Away from Big, Carrie was to run into Aidan, whom she kissed, but
then retreated from in embarrassment, only to confess her momentary indiscretion
to her hubby long-distance. As their western ways clash with Muslim tradition,
the girls eventually decided to come home, with Carrie discovering Big had
moved out of their apartment. This separation, however, was moot and brief with
a reconciliation in order.
It has now been roughly 11 years
since the last Sex and the City movie hit theater screens. And while the
world has, indeed, moved on, with some of these episodes in the original
franchise retrospectively playing like very naïve reflections on an America that
‘was’ but no longer is able to find the humor or joy in such feather-weight
offerings, the overall effect of Sex and the City, as a light and bubbly
excursion into that bygone Manhattan of yore endures. Were that we could go
back in time and just feel good about feeling good about ourselves again
– and artificially crafted race-wars, hammer-headed politics, 9-11, skyrocketing
inflation and derailed daydreams of ever getting back to basics without Marxist
rhetoric being peddled as the gospel, be damned! Sex and the City afforded
audiences of their day the opportunity to tune in, but tune out of the world at
large, and just enjoy the idiocies of the mating ritual for what they are – joyous
mishaps between men and women who otherwise, might someday, and in spite of themselves,
actually find mutual happiness galore. I’ll champion that, and – boy, do we
need it now!
Sex and the City has been absent
from hi-def for far too long – remedied by Warner Home Video’s debut of Sex
and The City: The Complete Series + 2 movies, released in a fairly
economical black and silver box with Paramount-styled bare-bones, multi-pack
plastic containers housed inside. When the original show premiered, its first 3
seasons were presented in traditional 1:33.1 aspect ratio – with remaining
seasons moving into the 16:9 ratio thereafter. For this new-to-Blu debut, all
of the seasons have been converted to 16:9 – similarly, as Warner Home Video
had done with the hi-def release of Friends. While some will poo-poo this lack of fidelity
to the original broadcast intent, the results here are satisfying and do not
draw untoward attention to the fact some cropping has occurred at the top and
bottom of the frame to accommodate this formatting shift. Best of all, Warner
Home Video has managed – mostly – to remedy the atrocities in video mastering
that occurred on HBO’s 720p DVD transfers. Given the show was shot digitally –
not on film stock – the image quality on the DVD’s was in very rough shape with
excessive, digitized grain, and tons of chroma bleeding to effectively render
much of the early seasons a muddy, distorted mess, and, by far, one of the
extreme WORST examples of DVD mastering for any major television series. Warner’s
Blu-ray reincarnation of Sex and The City: the series has done much to
stabilize the image. Is it perfection? Well…
There are still instances of chroma
bleeding here. And certain scenes appear very rough around the edges, with
highly digitized grain and even some pixelization. However, on the whole,
everything here has been greatly improved, starting with color fidelity. The
highly stylized palette with blown out contrast has been retained, but looks
more indigenous to its source, with minor caveats along the way. The image here
is harsher than expected, but edge effects to have plagued the entire DVD
release, have been eradicated. So, digital noise is less of an issue than before.
The movies are, of course, a different animal entirely – shot on film stock –
and sporting an infinitely more refined image throughout with richly saturated
colors, excellent contrast and a light smattering of film grain, with only
occasional black crush to mildly distract. The audio across the series and both
movies is 5.1 DTS and sounds solid. Extras are all ported over from the
previous home video releases of the series and the movies, and, includes the ‘En-sex-lopedia’
retrospective on the best and most crass moments in the franchise, a video
jukebox peppered with advice to the lovelorn, and making of featurettes for
both movies, plus featurettes to star the cast and crew, who only offer brief
commentary on the importance of their work herein. Bottom line: unlike too many
TV series of late, released to home video and marked as ‘complete’ – only to
leave certain integral parts on the cutting room floor – Sex and the City:
The Complete Series + 2 Movies is the real deal. It contains virtually
everything that was previously made available on home video, but in a quality
affair that considerably advances the video presentation. Well worth your coin,
folks. Just remember, it’s not perfect.
FILM RATING (out
of 5 - 5 being the best)
3.5 overall
VIDEO/AUDIO
4 overall
EXTRAS
2.5
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