Netflix: The Good, The Bad

Son of Rambow  was a fantastic, fantastic movie. If you miss the 80s, you gotta see this one. Everyone should see Son of Rambow anyway because it’s a wonderful story, but plenty of 1980s clothes, hair, hobbies, and little things (scented erasers!) give a nice warm gloss to the film. Really good movies about art and creation are hard to come by. Son of Rambow is about narrative, art, film-making, creation of all sorts, and also friendship and family. That may sound cheesy, but the plot has a enough adolescent-boy grit and edge to keep things interesting.

In completely unlike fashion, Sex and the City was completely terrible. Now, if what people like about your show is that it is half an hour of very punchy dialogue and quick scenes and raunchiness and cynicism and things actually taking place and happening to people, then how can you have nothing happen for the first hour of the movie? And notice I said first hour, because there were multiple hours, which made the movie all that much worse.

My theory for why there were not Special Features on the DVD is that they didn’t cut anything out. Samantha’s dog? That bitch wasn’t even really supposed to be in the movie. Some camera guys just filmed her doggy humping for fun, so then the “writers” worked it in, all proud of coming out ahead of such a challenge, proud to have worked in such a storyline just so they could lead up to the “Pooch” joke at the end of the movie after SAMANTHA GAINS 15 POUNDS, which is the only great fall from anything in this story. And it’s only 15 pounds, which is not that tragic. I mean, really.

And the plot didn’t even make any sense. So, was it first the little Chinese girl’s fault that Big ditched Carrie? And, then it was Miranda’s fault? You’re asking me to buy the premise that Carrie would do the whole don’t see the groom the night before the wedding thing? You’re asking me to buy the premise that Big wouldn’t have had the balls to get to Carrie around, oh, maybe five in the morning of the day, instead of trying to hunt her down a couple of hours before? It just doesn’t make sense.

And then why in the world did FIVE MONTHS have to pass after the fact?–I can’t figure that one out except to imagine someone had the sadistic goal to accomplish the great filmic feat of making one hour feel like the actual five months. I felt like I had done work, like I had unpacked all those boxes in Carrie’s apartment and done all Charlotte’s running and Miranda’s barking.

Sex and the Citywould make the perfect Choose Your Own Adventure book. Want to see the aftermath of Charlotte pooping her pants? Turn to page eighty-five. Want to skip all the not-so-hot, slightly disturbing sex scenes? Do skip ahead. What to skip five months of minutae? OR, do you want to see, scene by scene, Carrie unpack all her shit? It’s up to YOU: Choose Your Own Adventure.