Sex and the City at the Multiplex Will You See It or Skip It?

As everyone knows by now, Sex and the City The Movie, will open on May 30th after four years of dicking around about how to get it made. Long story short: Kim Cattrall wanted to get the same money Sarah Jessica Parker was getting for the movie and held off until she came close. Presto: The Movie.

Now comes the major quandry: Can we still get it up for Sex and the City and at multiplex prices?

Heres a take from Deb Dragon, the ab fab Rolling Stone photo editor whose job it is to slap me around when I make too many outrageous demands like, Can I see a photo of that damn Crystal Skull that Indiana Jones is supposed to be chasing? Deb, who takes no shit from us writer-editor types, had this to say when I asked her about Sex and the City:

I will see it.

I will see it early.

And I fully expect it to suck.

There you have it. Ladies are going. Ditto metrosexuals. Macho posers will too, though they will insist that they had to be dragged. But why do Deb and half the other women I talk to expect the movie version to suck?

The first trailer didnt help. Talk about hardsell. It seemed to hammer all the plot points until your head ached. On TV, the show always took its time. Its charm came from letting the humor and the drama sneak up on you. The just-out second trailer is a big improvement. By going slower, easier, sexier, it seemed to be presenting characters we could recognize.

And the characters are all back: Parker as Carrie Bradshaw, the sex columnist who often speaks right to us through the camera. Cattrall as Samantha Jones, the near-nympho publicist (most pr flaks I know wouldnt have the time). Cynthia Nixon as Miranda Hobbes, the lawyer juggling career with single motherhood. And Kristin Davis as Charlotte York, the conservative at war with her hotter urges (hey, at Smith she majored in art history and minored in finance what do you expect?).

Lets start with the CONS regarding Sex and the City on screen

1. Its time has past. (Maybe)

2. The characters are too old. (Will you stop with this crap? Sex and the City has always been about women who are real, and like most real women they can look great one day and whupped the next.)

3. Maxim named SJP the unsexiest woman alive. (This is just crass, rude and wrong).

4. MADtv parodied the show as Sluts and the City, saying Its not TV, its porn with Emmys. (Funny, but when is there ever too much sex?).

5. On The Simspons, Marges sister described it as a show about four straight women who act like gay men. (OK, there could be some truth in that).

Now for the PROs

1. These are characters you still want to spend time with.

2. These are women you still want to spend time with. (How many summer 08 movies from major studios are about women? None, unless you count Angelina Jolie in Wanted and shes playing a hired killer).

3. Sex has pretty much dropped out of movies except as a joke (anything by Judd Apatow). This is a movie that takes sex seriously without losing the ability to laugh at it. Neat trick.

4. There are guys in the movie, too. (Chris Noth, Evan Handler, David Eigenberg, Jason Lewis, and Willie Garson are all back and ready to show that men arent all complete dickwads).

5. Michael Patrick King, who wrote all the shows season finales and premieres since the second season, serves as writer and director on the movie. (Thats good news given Kings opinion that the show and the movie are set on the battlefield of trying to be in love whether it be with another person or with yourself.

Nows your chance to weigh in: Sex and the City: The Movie See it or Skip it?