Cosmo-Nots

My friend Amanda and I went to a late afternoon matinee of SEX AND THE CITY yesterday. The place was PACKED, almost wholly with groups of girlfriends, many in SatC t-shirts -- where in the hell did they even get those? -- taking pictures of themselves like they were at Disneyland or a birthday party. I overheard one woman say, "This is like the female STAR WARS."

Now, I take issue with that -- I know plenty of cool chicks for whom STAR WARS is the female STAR WARS -- which pretty much sets the stage for what followed.

While we've both seen and enjoyed SatC episodes from time to time, Amanda and I are not uberfans. Imagine sardonic, gothy Emily the Strange all grown up and her redheaded, bespectacled twin, and you've got a more or less accurate picture. We are not, shall we say, the target audience.

The movie was an acceptable enough diversion, a fairy tale in pretty much every way, complete with a 5-minute montage of couture wedding gown p0rn. I'm a big sentimental romantic at heart, so the movie pushed those buttons -- yes, I teared up a few times. Shut up . -- but I wanted it to be funnier. More emotionally authentic. Smarter. Basically, more like the choice moments from the series.

There's a horny little dog, who gets three separate shots of it humping something inappropriate. Jokes are funnier in threes! Lame jokes are more tiresome in threes!

(And really? A humping dog? Hackneyed and unfunny. What is this, a Rob Schneider movie? All I could imagine is that was put in there for the occasional straight guy, boyfriend, or husband who found themselves watching the movie.)

So we chuckled a few times, and I got my romantic's happy ending, but the rest of the audience was ECSTATIC. Applauding when each major character appeared. Squealing along with the characters when something momentous happened. Gasping when the bombshells fell. When we left, the theater's bar (yes, it's one of those LA movie theaters with a bar) was teeming with ladies downing cosmos. We went for sushi afterwards and found more of them making the best of it with some kind of pink sake concotions.

As I muttered to Amanda, amazed, as we waited in the line at the women's restroom (not a problem after IRON MAN), "What planet did we land on?"

SatC is going to do gonzo business, which I'm genuinely happy about. Sure, it's part of a hugely popular and lucrative franchise, but it shows that women can open a movie, and that women can drive serious bank at the box office. Maybe more movies in that voice and that speak to that audience will get greenlit.

Now that would be Big.