Sex and the City: The Movie Blu-ray delivers great video and solid audio in this excellent Blu-ray release
Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), successful author and everyone's favorite fashion icon-
next-door, is back, her famously sardonic wit intact and sharper than ever, as she continues to
narrate her own story about sex, love and the fashion-obsessed single woman in New York City.
Sex and the City finds Carrie, Samantha (Kim Cattrall), Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Miranda
(Cynthia Nixon) four years after the hit HBO series ended, as our favorite femmes fashionables
continue to juggle jobs, friendships and relationships while they start to navigate motherhood,
marriage and Manhattan real estate... some of them may even — brace yourself — brave other
boroughs outside Manhattan.
I know I should hate Sex in the City; it's a chick flick on haute steroids. However I did enjoy it,
almost as much as watching the series itself. While this movie is about shoes, clothes,
apartments and penthouses in New York City, it is also about friends, love, relationships,
disappointment, forgiveness, and redemption. This movie is not only witty and funny, but it's
dead serious at points, almost painfully emotional at others. I was very concerned that the series
would not translate well to film. But those fears were quickly allayed, as not only did the movie
have a nice pace, but the spirit of the series remained intact thanks to the talents of
writer/director Michael Patrick King. Those who have never seen the series will not have a hard
time related to what is happening on the screen. It however is nice to have a little back story on
these wonderful women; it helps understand the nuance of their interactions with one another.
My enthusiasm for this film is not shared. According to Rotten Tomatoes half of those that saw
the movie liked it, the other half did not. This is based on the fact that some said the movie lost
something in its translation to the big screen. In spite of the rather mediocre reviews, this movie
did big business at the box office. It made $26 million in its first day, recording $57 million in its
first three days, and $400 million overall worldwide. Not to shabby for an R rated comedy
featuring four women.
Four years after the series finale, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Big (Chris Noth) are
apartment hunting with the intentions on moving in together. After searching thirty three
apartments, they land on a penthouse of which Big agrees to buy. Carrie, worried about her
future, and trying to protect herself explains her fears to Big who suggests they get married.
Samantha (Kim Cattrall) is living in Los Angeles (Malibu more specifically from what I saw) with
her boyfriend Smith (Jason Lewis) who has a successful television show. Samantha spends all of
her time on her boyfriend's career, and has not time for herself, and feels she is not paying
enough attention to herself. She desires to have sex with other men, but wants to stay faithful
to Smith as well. It also does not help that her next door neighbor is a hot Italian guy who she
just lusts after. Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is totally happy with her marriage to Harry (Evan
Handler), and totally devoted to being a good mother to her adopted child Lily. Miranda is finding
it mighty difficult to balancing her life. Between her career, raising her young boy, and being
married to Steve her sex life is suffering.
All is not well with the girls as Carrie's wedding is getting bigger and bigger after a photo shoot
featuring wedding gowns for Vogue goes really well, and Vivienne Westwood offers her a special
wedding gown after seeing Carrie in the photos. Big being married three previous times, does not
like all of the attention the wedding is getting. . Miranda learns that her husband Steve has
cheated, and decides to leave him. During the wedding party for Carrie and Big, and after seeing
Steve, Miranda, in an emotional upheaval tells Big that he and Carrie are crazy to get married.
This plants the seeds of doubt in Big's mind about getting married. On the day of the wedding,
Big decides he cannot get married and does not show up to the ceremony. Carrie who is
humiliated and betrayed goes into a deep depression. In an effort to snap Carrie out of the
depression the girls decide to go to Mexico, a trip that was supposed to be Carries wedding
present to Big.
After returning back to New York after the trip, Carrie decides she needs an assistant to get her
life back in order. After seeing a few applicants, Carrie hires Louise (Jennifer Hudson) to help her
organize her apartment and basically her business and social life. Charlotte finds out she is
pregnant after an extended period of having trouble conceiving. She begins to worry that
something will happen to the baby, citing what happen to Carrie as a reason for this. Miranda
confesses to Carrie what she told Big at the wedding party. Carrie explodes and does not talk to
Miranda for three days. After making up, Miranda decides to go to marriage counseling to save
her marriage with Steve. Samantha begins to over eat as a result of her unhappiness with her
situation. One day Charlotte sees Big at a restaurant, and the meeting angers her to the point
that she goes into labor. This starts a chain of events that leads to redemption for everyone.
Sex and the City parades down the runway and on to Bluray with a nice 1080p/VC-1 encoding,
framed in a 1:78:1 aspect ratio that if nothing else is very clean (almost too much so), with
excellent image depth and vivid colors. The print master on this title is very clean, with no pops or
scratches to be found anywhere. Colors are bright, vivid, rich, well saturated and expose very rich
textures and vibrant deeply saturated hues. Blacks are very deep, stable, and have excellent detail
when clothing features highly detailed trimmings. This combination gives the images terrific
dynamic range and pop. Contrast can appear hot on occasion, but it does not detract from the
image quality. Flesh tones look fully natural, and the sharpness of the images shows every wrinkle
and skin defect on each actors faces. Overall the picture quality was very sharp, but on occasion
does not fully reveal fine detail. I also saw some signs of edge enhancement and halo's around
straight lines, but it only occurred in some scenes, and does not immediately pop out at you. I give
this a very good picture quality rating, but the edge enhancement does take it down a notch or two
even though not easily noticeable.
Sex in the City boasts two tracks offering two levels of resolution. Audio choices are a 5.1 24/48khz
Dolby TrueHD track, and a 640kbps 5.1 Dolby Digital track. Obviously the TrueHD track is the one
to listen to. While this is mostly a talkie, dialog is always clearly rendered. There is occasional
surround usage to support the different scenes and outdoor ambience, but it is subtle and sporadic,
but no less effective. LFE is used sparingly, but does support the overall mix when used. The mix
in my opinion is pretty conservative, but it is very effective and certainly on par with other romantic
comedies out there.
First up is the Audio Commentary with Director Michael Patrick King. While I would have
preferred hearing the cast make their comments as well, King does very well in articulating the
difficulty of adapting the television series to film form. He thoroughly goes over each character,
their interactions, and the controversial ending with Mr. Big. Following that is the Featurette:
"The Fabulous Fashion of Sex and the City" (16 minutes) was a much watch, as this movie is
as much about the fashion as it was about the people wearing it. This is followed by another
Featurette "Fergie in the studio" (2 minutes) which shows Fergie in the studio revamping the
movie theme song. It is however much too short to be anything more than a less than fluff piece.
Lastly is Alternate Scenes (4 minutes) which if included, would not have added a thing to
an already too long movie. . Next up is The City which features an interactive map that
shows various locales in New York City, and lastly Dish It! which is an interactive pop up
feature that provide facts, trivia, all of the juicy stuff about the film. All extra content is presented
in 1080i, and VC-1 encoded.
Like Dreamgirls, this movie was a pleasure to review. For me on a personal basis there was a lot
here I could relate to. I lived in New York City for most of my life, so I understand the
apartment/penthouse search. Being somewhat of a clothes horse myself, I understood the love of
fashion and clothes. Having two best friends from childhood, I understood the bonds of friendship.
Who does not understand disappointment of being let down by another person? As the old adage
goes, I laughed, I cried, and I had a good time doing both. For those into the television series, this
is a must have disc. Even those of you who have not seen the television series, and are not fans of
the series, it would be a good rental to sit down with the significant other and enjoy. It may not be
a movie that everyone will enjoy, but I say give it a shot, you are sure to at least laugh your head
off at the clever dialog, even if you are not totally into clothes, apartments, or shoes.
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