Oh, with so much bad news around it’s nice to get a little good news. Yes, after weeks of trashing by many a fanboy blog, and even a Manohla Dargis pan, Sex and the City has defied expectations, as Fantasy Mogul’s Steve Mason reports, and made a whopping $27 mil opening night and is headed for a $70 mil opening weekend. That makes it on track to become the highest grossing “chick flick” ever.
And who said women couldn’t open movies? As a sidenote, I watched Knocked Up for the first time last night and it was much like Juno in that it was an unbearable, agonizing first hour to sit through – I kept thinking silently to myself, “Judd Apatow is a talentless hack.” But right about the time to the two dudes headed to Vegas to shroom it started to turn around for me. Yes, I acknowledge that this is because the boys started acting like human beings but also, the movie just got better once the gay jokes stopped. Is Judd Apatow a closet case or what? Why are all of his movies about sucking balls, sucking dick, gay this, gay that – he can’t seem to put a bunch of manboys together in a room without the jokes be about being gay. What’s up with that? Anyway, the point is, a movie like that can make shitloads of money and no one (besides me, of course) passes judgment. But Sex and the City has garnered more shit from the manboy/fanboy faction on the web such as I’ve never seen. Do they hate women or what? Maybe they like women but only if those women fit into their idea of what’s sexy, like Natalie Portman in an indie movie, no offense, Natalie. To the manboy/fanboy faction, women seem to exist either to kick ass but have no brains or else function as their unattainable/attainable dream date.
I will see Sex and the City so I can’t really comment on the film itself. But the site Women and Hollywood has tackled the issue head-on, speaking to female bloggers, film execs, and critics on the potential for Sex and the City to make big box office bucks with their piece, Women’s Cultural Moment.
