Like Falling in Hate, All Over Again

Yesterday afternoon I was indulging in a little channel-surfing when I alighted on the train wreck of Sex & the City 2 on HBO.

Thankfully for my sanity, we were past the cliché-gay-wedding-with-Liza-Minelli-performing part, which would have made me throw up in my mouth (again), but I was in time for the 'wacky' Samantha-going-through-menopause-therapy-by-rubbing-stuff-on-her-crotch-while-in-her-glass-office part. Hey, Michael Patrick King -- guess what? Drag queens don't go through menopause. You've turned Samantha into such a caricature of a gay man, if there's another installment [shudder], I expect her to run around and shower people with confetti.

Charlotte's big problems are that her bratty kids slap cake batter on the ass of her vintage whatever skirt and that her nanny doesn't wear a bra.

Carrie's two years into marriage with Mr. Big, the man of her dreams. She whinged and whined about him for the entirety of the series, yet she can't stop hen-pecking him for wanting to spend a night at their lavish home after watching the stock market crash at his high-pressure job all day. No, she'd rather turn up her nose at the $40 takeout food he's brought home in favor of hustling off the see the premiere of some shitty film that Samantha's ex will be beefcaking in. Carrie's really quite the sympathetic partner, isn't she? No mistaking her for a functional adult.

And Miranda, the only one of them that actually had a 'real,' time-consuming, non-glamorous job, as a partner of a NYC law firm, leaves her firm and is given no screen time to deal with the ramifications of that (like she's the primary breadwinner for her family...hello? anyone?). No, suddenly they're all off the Abu Dhabi on the world's least likely junket for a consumerist orgy for four of the world's least-deserving people. (Not that Abu Dhabi would allow them to film this licentious movie there -- they had to shoot in Morocco--and yet this film completely trivializes the inequality of women in the Middle East, cringe-worthy karaoke scene of the quartet singing "I Am Woman" included.)

So they fly super-first class (with each lavish detail verbalized in what passes for dialogue), each has their own Maybach to tool around in, each their own suite, each their own manservant. Who watches this shit and thinks that this lifestyle has any value or purpose? By the time we reach Samantha's inevitable "Lawrence of my labia" joke, I'm practically foaming at the mouth. (And T.E. Lawrence was famously not interested in labias.)

It's a tale of power run amok. The show on HBO was a frothy delight that did have moments of seriousness. The girls were all dating a variety of good-looking men, the fashion stuff was in the background, the dialogue was sharp and the friendship between the women is what made it a touchstone. And it had a writing staff. That's right, not one person, but a whole team to make sure that characters were intact and nothing was over-indulged.

The rot set in with the first movie, when it became the Michael Patrick King show, but at least that film's story was a continuance of the original series, and had some emotional stakes with all four of the women's relationships. But the film was a good 20 minutes too long, most of which was devoted to the pornographic worship of wealth, be it real estate or haute couture. At least in the series, some of that fashion nonsense had a price, like when Carrie finally realizes that she may be put out of her apartment because she doesn't have the money for a down payment, the $40,000 she's blown on shoes. (Lucky for Carrie, Charlotte could sell her engagement ring from Trey and help a sister out.) But man, women came in packs, in herds, in heels to see that first film. Our 21+ theaters were packed with the Cosmo-drinking sisterhood, and theater-checks involved inhaling toxic levels of booze-sweat and perfume.

The 'surprise' success of the first film (I just love it when Hollywood is surprised that the other 51% goes to the movies) greenlit this second monstrosity, which could not have come out at a worse time to celebrate conspicuous consumption. Hello, unemployment? Foreclosures? Entire 401(k) savings wiped out?

But worst of all, these characters are no longer recognizable as the Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha from the original series. Without a writer's room -- one with some actual women in it, I should add -- they have been allowed to devolve into shallow, unsympathetic, selfish and completely unlikeable hags, albeit hags with very expensive handbags. Like that shit matters.

A Shaggy Lizard Story

He's green, but he's not mean

I loved Rango. Like the old Bugs Bunny Looney Tunes, it's a perfect, layered mix of verbal and physical humor that makes it good for kids (I'd say 7 and up would work best, as there's a big snake in it), and with enough subtext that it won't make parents hate this two hours of their life, the way some piece of crap like Marmaduke did (and Hop will do). And the glorious 2D animation is thrilling to eyes of all ages. The images often echo classic westerns (spaghetti and otherwise) and a key storyline is lifted from Chinatown (I kid you not).

Our verdant hero, a chameleon named Lars (voiced by Johnny Depp, showing far more life than he did in The Tourist) lives in a terrarium, where he acts out elaborate dramas of imagination with the headless Barbie doll, dead cockroach, an orange wind-up fish and the plastic tree that bunk with him. At the start of the film, said theatricum terrarium is whizzing through the Mojave, but is tossed from the car during a spectacular near-miss accident (which includes a Gonzo cameo). The cause of the accident is an armadillo named Roadkill (Alfred Molina), who is crossing the road on his quest to meet the Spirit of the West. Directed by Roadkill toward the town of Dirt, where water can be found, Lars begins his own quest across the high desert.

After barely escaping the grasp of a hawk's talons, Lars meets Beans (Isla Fisher), a feisty girl lizard who's trying to keep hold of her daddy's land in the midst of a drought. She gives him a lift into Dirt, and  obeying the law of westerns, Lars makes an appearance at the town's saloon, where he is greeted with the classic antagonistic suspicion ag'inst strangers. 

To blend in ("it's an art, not a science" he pleads as he changes into a rainbow of garish colors to badly avoid the hawk), Lars reinvents himself, taking the name of Rango (derived from the "made in Durango" on a bottle of high-octane cactus juice), and intoxicated on the juice, creates an outlaw persona for his non-bad self. He gets to prove his character's mettle in a second run-in with the hawk, who suffers a demise at the inadvertant hands of Rango. Suitably impressed, the townspeople arrange for him to meet the Mayor.

Naturally, given the climate, water is the currency of Dirt, and the bank has nearly run dry (its vault is a big water dispenser jug). The Mayor of Dirt (Ned Beatty), however, is an ancient tortoise who offers Rango vintage rainwater. Also, he's Chinatown's Noah Cross (in vocal style, and with the hat to match), wheeling around in Mr. Potter's chair from It's a Wonderful Life.

Not worth it, Mr. Rango. Really not worth it.

I don't want to spoil the rest of the story, though it does track along traditional western lines, with some nice twists (Bill Nighy as Lee Van Cleef as a snake, anyone?). But look at the cinematography and the vistas throughout (gorgeous, with a consult credit given to multiple-Academy Award nominee Roger Deakins), enjoy the wry commentary from the owl mariachi band interspersed throughout, and revel in the inevitable reveal of The Spirit of the West (voiced by Timothy Olyphant, but looking like someone else). Of the dozen or so new releases I watched in March, Rango and Win Win were by far the best. Rango is a far-out tale for film lovers of all ages.