Michael Patrick King
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Filmography
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Connections, in both directions
The connection isn't kismet; "How to Be Single" is based on the 2008 novel by Liz Tuccillo, a former "Sex and the City" writer.
Esta se muda a Nueva York con la esperanza de seguirle los pasos a Carrie Bradshaw, el rol emblemático de Sarah Jessica Parker en “Sex and the City”, y rápidamente se da cuenta que la soltería no es para ella.
A host of suitors arise, fizzle out, and spring back up in this rom com adapted from Sex and the City writer Liz Tuccillo’s 2008 novel of the same name.
It remains a puny little amateur-night rip-off of Sex and the City, without the saucy wit or sharply-drawn personalities.
There's the film's de facto lead, Alice (Dakota Johnson), who has broken up with her good-guy college boyfriend, Josh (Nicholas Braun, the poor man's Justin Long) of four years so she can go act out scenes from "Sex and the City" until she decides that she wants him back.
The screenplay for How to Be Single — based on the novel by former Sex and the City writer Liz Tuccillo, who also co-wrote the book He’s Just Not That Into You — was co-written by Dana Fox (Couples Retreat) and Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein, the same duo who wrote Never Been Kissed and, yes, the movie version of He’s Just Not That Into You.
Like its spiritual cousin, the "Sex and the City" movie, the film version of "Entourage" is an almost perfect recreation of the HBO series upon which it is based.
I always looked at the TV series "Entourage" as HBO's testosterone-driven bizarro-world mirror of the network's "Sex and the City": Four sex-obsessed characters getting into relationship misadventures amid the glamour of their ridiculously opulent city — with the glitz of Hollywood replacing the chic of New York.
The stagnant characters have neither evolved nor changed, unlike the other HBO high-life series it is often compared to, Sex and the City, which ended its TV run the year Entourage launched.
That seems to be the biggest question surrounding the film, although if the success of “Sex and the City” (which had a similar hiatus between its series finale and the first movie) is any indication, the studio has absolutely nothing to worry about.
Entourage mimics the Sex And The City formula on the big screen just as it did on the small one, doing more or less the same thing, but on an amplified scale that makes everyone seem like cartoon versions of their former selves.
Hollywood has a long history of turning television series into movies, usually years later, often as a parody and without the original cast ("Star Trek" and HBO's own "Sex and the City" being obvious exceptions).
The Other Woman (2014)
Directed by Nick Cassavetes
influenced by Sex and the City (2008)
Themes Dialogue
It reminds me quite a bit of “Sex and the City.”
There are seeds of “Sex and the City” in the film, especially in light of the way the women talk about the opposite sex, but even that concept seems too outdated and overdone for it to serve a purpose.
But Melissa K. Stack’s script has snap and crackle to go with the pop, making this female wish-fulfillment fantasy an “Eat, Pray, Revenge” that delivers the punches that two “Sex and the City” movies never could.
(Veteran costume designer Patricia Field of " Sex and the City " and " The Devil Wears Prada " fame makes these characters’ wardrobes pop distinctively.)
The sheer accumulated anticipatory goodwill of the audience is almost enough to carry the first hour of the film, and King has sated appetites with come-hither shots of Manhattan at its creamiest, funny cameos by some of Broadway’s most employed thespians, and a plethora of fashion parades—the hundreds of outfits sported by the four leads make this the most couture-heavy movie since the great days of Norma Shearer in Riptide and The Women.
It’s reminiscent in this way of the 2008 film “Sex and the City,” which was strangely, lumpily paced and told a basically unnecessary story, but which was still true enough to its characters that it was embraced by fans.
It’s a totally satisfying movie that combines the felonious delights of Ocean's 11 with the girl-power wish fulfillment of Sex and the City (only better written, by the writer of Big and The Hunger Games).
Director Gary Ross’s choice of site follows a Sex and the City template; his attempted glamorization of avarice and theft displays the slackened principles of a particular social elite.
It's like a Sex and the City movie with thievery.
Half the time it seems to be veering into grotesque “Sex and the City” worship of brands and celebrity.
With the influx of coverage for the twentieth anniversary of “Sex and the City” coinciding with our ongoing grifter season —recently extended by the release of “Ocean’s 8” and the news of an upcoming Netflix series based on Anna Delvey —I’ve found myself wondering not whether I’m a Miranda or a Carrie but rather which role I would play on a team planning a heist.
The Met Gala, an event so posh that it’s pronounced gah-la, is a star-studded cluster bash that sounds like it could have been the setting for a “Sex and the City” Cinderella fever dream.
You could think of its as something akin to “Sex and the City” by way of “Four Weddings and a Funeral” with a fuller body, greater nuance and a twist of zest.
Rom-com and culture-clash plot conventions are universal, so why not a PG-rated “Sex and the City” meets “The Devil Wears Prada,” but stocked with solid Asian and Asian-American actors.
On the surface, Crazy Rich Asians and Sex and the City couldn’t be more different but, if you dig deep enough into their respective DNA’s, there’s a common thread: the love of conspicuous consumption.
Like many of its genre mates, from Pretty Woman to Sex and the City to, yeah, even Fifty Shades, Crazy Rich Asians is lifestyle porn, and though it takes a few vague stabs at the nobility of self-enforced poverty, it’s really about Rachel proving herself worthy of joining this rarefied clique, where everyone is beautiful, bachelor parties in international waters are the norm, and glamorous shopping expeditions are but a private helicopter ride away.
So when I came across Kevin Kwan’s novel Crazy Rich Asians back in 2013, I knew it could become a dazzling, Asian Sex and the City type film, and began dreaming of its cinematic potential.
The Broken Hearts Gallery (2020)
Directed by Natalie Krinsky
influenced by Sex and the City (2008)
Themes
With echoes of everything from Bridget Jones’ Diary to Sex and the City with a dash of When Harry Met Sally and a sprinkle of Girls , The Broken Hearts Gallery is Krinsky’s charming ode to the romantic comedy headed by a complicated female protagonist looking for love in all the wrong places.
“Broken Hearts Gallery” doesn’t employ the conceit of a “Wizard of Oz”-like dream sequence a la “Isn’t It Romantic,” but it embraces just as many rom-com staples in equally self-aware fashion, inviting us to leave plausibility at the door and enjoy unabashedly sentimental, escapist comfort viewing from first-time writer-director Natalie Krinsky, who displays a fine ear for witty dialogue, with the characters often sounding as if they’re in a next-generation reboot of “Sex and the City.”
Watching the film, you know you’re seeing an unabashed spawn of “Girls” and “Sex and the City,” a kind of anthropological Williamsburg careerist rom-com set, in this case, in a woke wonderland of post-feminist awareness.
Defying assumptions that rom-coms can't compete against big-screen spectacles for getting ticket buyers out of lockdown and into the multiplex, the studio is counting on a largely-female audience, looking for a millennial "Sex and the City," to come out and support a small but sweetly personal film.
Girls Trip (2017)
Directed by Malcolm D. Lee
influenced by Sex and the City (2008)
Themes Characters Plot
While “ Bridesmaids ” and the “ Sex and the City ” franchise might have redefined such bosom-buddy bonding while trafficking in the usual raunchy, rude and rowdy behavior, “Girls Trip,” with its epic two-hour length, apparently aims to be the “Lord of the Rings” of sisters doing it for themselves, one that gets a whole lot right that the others too often get wrong.
Seven years ago, male and female critics alike got their claws out to destroy Sex and the City 2, a film which they suggested celebrated excess, debauchery, immorality, and all the qualities they had admired the Golden Globe-winning The Hangover for.
Like liberated “Sex and the City” types, these ladies represent different facets of the female experience, from divorced single mom Lisa (Jada Pinkett Smith) to the aggressively sexual Dina (scene-stealing newcomer Tiffany Haddish ).
The story of four middle-aged female friends on a boozy, lecherous weekend in New Orleans, it pitches itself somewhere between Sex and the City and Bridesmaids, but provides neither the breezy insights of the former nor the ribald laughs of the latter.
To All the Boys I've Loved Before (2018)
Directed by Susan Johnson
influenced by Sex and the City (2008)
John Corbett as the father is idyllic, channeling the wholesome sexiness and sincerity of his character in “Sex and the City.”
The addition of Sex and the City ‘s John Corbett as Lara Jean’s widowed dad whose heart is always in the right place doesn’t hurt either.
There’s also something about seeing Aidan from Sex and the City being an OB-GYN and a father of three that is incredibly, ridiculously distracting.
At least Depression-era rich-girl comedies like "My Man Godfrey" remembered the forgotten man; this one can't even remember to ask for the check.
The newest iteration would be, indignant fans of the original scoffed , a straight reboot, not a sequel, and thus might pose a threat to the Ghostbusters canon; for another thing, they scoffed some more, the eponymous specter-slayers would this time around be ladies, which probably meant that the beloved franchise would be converted, come July of 2016, into Sex and the City with slime.
There are other issues — Charles' ex-wife and daughter are mentioned and then just as quickly forgotten, an awkward bit with a gifted vibrator plays like a "Sex and the City" scene left on the cutting room floor, a thread about a "viral e-mail" at the close of the film is introduced and never explained — that detract from the highs of the light, breezy vibe Washington creates between his two leads.
When Natalie decides to fly to Lake Placid and surprise her new crush for Christmas, her editor (Matty Finochio) licks his lips at the potential pageviews that a column about the trip might inspire; that hunger for content is the only semi-realistic aspect of a workplace that so hilariously glamorizes modern journalism it makes “Sex and the City” look like “All the President’s Men.”
No one wants "Sex and the City" to turn into "The Grapes of Wrath" -- and, admitted, "guy flicks" like the Bond movies indulge in their own product worship -- but times have painfully changed, and suddenly self-absorption and $18 cocktails don't seem so cute.
Despite getting high billing on the poster, Candice Bergen (2003's " The In-Laws ") has but a throwaway one-scene cameo as magazine editor Enid Frick.
Combined, the experience even neared the 195 minutes it took Steven Spielberg to give justice to the entire Holocaust in 1993’s “Schindler’s List”.
Kim Cattrall (2005's " Ice Princess ") is wonderfully entertaining as the forthright Samantha Jones, but the limited aspects of the screenplay hold her back from reaching the potential her character deserves.
Tina Harwood (Kim Cattrall, HBO's "Sex and the City") is a former rising skater with a cloudy history who is pushing her daughter Gen (Hayden Panettiere, "Raising Helen") to achieve the stardom she did not.
Kim Cattrall ("Sex and the City"), for example, plays a disgraced former champion skater who begrudgingly helps Casey while vicariously coaching her beautiful in-crowd daughter Gen (talented Hayden Panettiere) toward a career on the ice.
Oscar-winner Joan Cusack (In and Out) and TVs Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City) show their courage by portraying these two generally unsympathetic mothers.
Chris Noth (2005's " The Perfect Man ") is appropriately magnetic as Big, but the character's actions too frequently are dictated solely by the strained requirements of the script in order to add conflict.
There's an easy honesty in Bridesmaids that comes from a post- Sex and the City kind of feminism, one which allows Annie to be achingly self-aware.
It is the lowlife sister of "Sex and the City" without the fashion or the shopping.
Is "Bridesmaids" much more than " Sex and the City " with a higher quotient of upchuck?
Bridesmaids is a film about female friendship and the search for love, but don’t worry: it’s not Sex and the City.
They must have been on to something: “Bridesmaids” outperformed even “Sex and the City” at the box office, and has pretty much opened the floodgates for R-rated women-behaving-badly comedies — which we may still live to regret: See next month’s review of “Bad Teacher.”
Her crowd is also more mature than we're used to seeing onscreen (in age only!), but she avoids the self-important pseudo-philosophising of Sex And The City.