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Flick Wit - June 2010

The Carrie Diaries: Oh No!

June 30th 2010 03:13
This might seem a bit strange, but I’m going to give my thoughts on a movie that hasn’t been planned, that is based on a book I haven’t read. I was browsing a book store the other day and saw Candace Bushnell’s The Carrie Diaries, incongruously located on the edge of the literature section. I flicked through it.

The Carrie Diaries
Carrie arrives in the Big Smoke. Image courtesy of metro.co.uk


It is the first in a series of prequels Bushnell plans to release, and is aimed at a teen audience. According to the LA Times, it chronicles Carrie Bradshaw’s trials as she finishes high school in Connecticut.

From what I can gather, just like the recent film, it deviates a lot from the background we are given in the series, leading to large flaws in continuity.

The Father: In Season Five of the series, we discover that Carrie’s father left Carrie and her mother when Carrie was three years old. In The Carrie Diaries, it seems she has three younger sisters and “a tender-hearted scientist father” who raises the family after her mother’s untimely death.


The Boys: In Season Three, Carrie tells Charlotte she lost her virginity in the eleventh grade to Seth Bateman (on the ping-pong table), yet the prequel apparently describes Carrie as an unpopular virgin in her final year of high school, who develops an ill-fated relationship with a boy named Sebastian Kyd.

The Girls: Carrie’s three best friends in high school are Lali, Maggie and Mouse, and her nemesis is a girl who goes by the inconceivable name of Donna LaDonna. Reportedly, their characters are aligned in some ways with the people in Carrie’s life in later years. The book ends with Carrie going off to make her fortune in Manhattan, after her cousin gives her the phone number of her friend, Samantha Jones. Never mind that in Season Four we learn that Carrie had not yet met Samantha when Carrie was twenty-two.

I sincerely hope no teen movies are developed from the books, as ten minutes of flicking in the book store revealed little wit to be had from the text. This tale of teen angst is already inspiring more than enough angst for me.

Michaelie Clark
109
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Never has such a film been made. I am astonished that Michael Patrick King has managed to achieve something as extraordinary as this, which has undermined all of my expectations. I was anticipating a film of complete mediocrity, but that is not what I witnessed in the cinema on the weekend.

Sex and the City 2
And then they sang 'I Am Woman'... a definite low point. Image courtesy of chichestercinema.org

With a mere $95 million, MPK has managed to create an abject travesty and deliver it to thousands of packed theatres worldwide. An extra $30 million was spent on the sequel than on the first film and it seems this has been invested in an agenda to promote a sense of Western arrogance and cultural bigotry, to set feminism back thirty years, and to cast Liza Minnelli in a role that had me cringing with horror. The remaining dollars appear to have gone to the other causes that are now close to his heart, which include a hackneyed and senseless plot, and poor acting.

The audience laughed and sighed and cried, and I must admit I pretty much did the same. The simplified representation of Muslim women almost had me in tears, as did the depiction of women in the workforce, while I could only groan at the genuine absurdity of the storyline and laugh at the blatant unoriginality and contrived sentiment of the dialogue.

So did I actually enjoy any part of it? I did indeed: the booze and my chilli dog.

Michaelie Clark
250
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Unable to face seeing Sex and the City 2 without support, I made the decision some time ago that I would need to see it in Gold Class with a gaggle of gal pals. Why spend $30 on tickets to a film I know I shall hate instead of seeing it on a Tuesday night at a traditional cinema for $11 I hear you ask? The answer is simple: I will need a constant supply of alcohol.

Wine Waiter
Image courtesy of asset-cache.net

Pushing a little buzzer and having a waiter magicked to my side with Sauvignon Blanc at the ready is precisely what I want every time the sacrilegious travesty becomes too much and I start hyperventilating in my recliner.

So, why see it at all? Why add to the overflowing coffers of unethical movie makers, stained with the blood and tears of true fans? Because I am weak, I admit it freely. I cannot bear not to see it. I am the masochist to Michael Patrick King’s sadism.

Cinema with pain relief: Five Stars

Michaelie Clark
111
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