Sex and the City: The Movie

December 14, 2007

The people who keep an eye on everything outside of Bravo put together this exhaustive list of everything they could possibly find out about , compiled here for your convenience)

What’s the scoop with the new “Sex and the City” movie, you ask? How is the WGA strike affecting the production and release schedules? Is Charlotte really pregnant? Is Mr. Big cheating on Carrie? What are Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz doing in the movie?

Well, we did a little homework, and here’s what we’ve learned:

It’s been four years since Carrie Bradshaw and the rest of the ladies bid farewell to America, but they are far from forgotten. If anything, absence has made our hearts grow fonder. Reruns air at all hours and two new series--Cashmere Mafia (originally scheduled to air in November on ABC; the writers' strike has pushed the premier date back to January) and Lipstick Jungle (Premieres 2/7/07 at 10pm on NBC)--channel the free-wheeling spirit of Carrie and company. In the meantime, fans and paparazzi flock to shooting sites daily, and tabloids have devoted entire issues to speculate on the movie's plot and what the girls are wearing.

As for the film itself, here’s what we know: all of the principal actresses (Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, and Kristin Davis) are set to reprise their roles, and Michael Patrick King, who executive-produced the series, is slated to direct. The writers and production teams are taking extreme measures to ensure that the movie's plot doesn't get out. As many news outlets are reporting, fake scenes are being shot to throw off paparazzi photographers (and, of course, the SATC fanatic and Perez Hilton reader.) What we do know for sure is that Carrie is well and writing her third book, Samantha has moved to Los Angeles, Charlotte dotes on her new family (consisting mainly of her and Harry's adopted daughter from China), and Miranda still lives in, and hates, Brooklyn.

As for the strike, shooting has not been delayed, although most of the crew is still showing support for the scribes. Kristin Davis went to the Washington Square Park rally on 11/27, although the following day SJP was seen shooting at the NY Public Library.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The movie's May 30, 2008 release date shouldn't be affected by the strike, so mark your calendars and buy your tickets now. In terms of plot, you won't be hearing anything official from the production crew and actresses, so keep checking up on Perez Hilton and your favorite supermarket tabloid, but take what you see with a grain of salt!

Where We Left Off: Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) , the no-nonsense lawyer and mother, had reluctantly moved to Brooklyn. Samantha (Kim Cattrall), the sexually adventurous public relations queen, had survived cancer. Charlotte (Kristin Davis), the sweet-natured wife, had just received a picture of their adopted baby girl from China. Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), the relationship columnist and Manolo fetishist, had said yes to another go with Mr. Big, who's name is finally revealed to be John.

The Plot: According to Star, the film doesn't carry on from where the last episode left off. It's taken real time into account, so we have three years of action to catch up on. Jennifer Hudson plays Carrie's new assistant named Louise. She is described as a fashionable and sharp African-American woman in her early 20s, who moved from St. Louis to NYC in order to find love. The movie will also feature her ex-boyfriend Will. Other new characters include Karl - a sarcastic businessman who's friends with Big - and a sexy man named Dante, an anti-fur activist and gossip columnist.

In one scene where the girls head to Bryant Park for New York's Fashion Week, Samantha's white fur coat is ruined by animal rights activists (led by Dante?) who throw red paint all over her. Recent reports have Carrie galvanizing around the New York Public Library on 5th Avenue in a skating skirt and a long military influenced shirt with a belt.

E! Online reports that the now widely-distributed photos showing Charlotte's pregnancy, Mr. Big wining and dinning with another woman, and Carrie's wedding at St. Patrick's Cathedral (where she gets into a fight with a tuxedo-clad Mr. Big and hits him repeatedly with her bouquet) are indeed part of dream/fantasy sequences. According to photos in Star, Carrie has evidently dyed her hair brown - another dream sequence, we're hoping!

In a recent interview, Kristin Davis hinted that there will be a flashback scene of Miranda and Charlotte flying to China to pick up the adopted baby we saw a photo of in the last episode.

AOL is reporting that they are shooting fake scenes so that fans don't exactly know what will happen. The New York Times is reporting that the girls are wearing clothes for the spring and summer of 2008, which were provided exclusively for the film by the designers.

Who’s Who in the Cast?

Besides the four main ladies, the cast includes: Chris Noth (Mr. Big), Jason Lewis (Smith), Evan Handler (Harry), David Eigenberg (Steve), Willie Garson (Stanford), Mario Cantone (Anthony), Michael Bloomberg (as himself), Lynn Cohen (Magda), Julie Haltson.

According to InTouch, Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz are making uncredited appearances. Evidently, SJP's Carrie stumbles onto a movie set and into Kutcher and Diaz. The New York Post is reporting that Project Runway 4 contestant Jack Mackenroth also has a cameo. In a scene filmed September 21st, he turns the girls' heads on the street, only to walk into the arms of his boyfriend.

ElleUK is reporting that Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham was offered a part in the film, but had to turn it down due to scheduling conflicts with the rehearsals for the Spice Girls Reunion Tour.

Star is reporting that there have been squabbles on set between the leading ladies; at a recent cast part, Kim Cattrall reportedly left in a huff after coming to blows with SJP, and Cynthia Nixon didn't even turn up.

According to the The Unofficial Sex and the City: The Movie Blog, the male stars have been told told to lose weight by film bosses. Producers feared their aging hunks were getting a little paunchy and so they were all told to trim down before shooting began last month. David Eigenberg, who plays Steve Brady, admits he was one of the actors told to shape up. He reveals, "It's harder to be a man on Sex and the City than a woman. "They (producers) can't tell the women to lose weight. They tell the guys to lose weight. They told me to lose a couple of pounds."

HERE'S THE LINK TO THE TRAILER
COMPILED BY JERRY LEO, DAVID BREWER, CRISTINA BARNWELL, ASHBY HARDESTY, AND JESSICA HELBLING.

Movies: "Enchanted" Pretty Much Sucks -- Except for Amy Adams

December 05, 2007

What with all the shopping tourists and the fact that we're all much fatter than we were on Wednesday, the idea of going anywhere in Manhattan this past weekend was pretty much out of the question. So, we at OUTzone fled to Brooklyn and hid out at the movies. Which was fine until we decided, on a delirious whim, to see "Enchanted."

Here's the thing, the first forty-five minutes are strangely compelling, and almost a little forward thinking. Challenging all those Princess notions, celebrating the idea that New York City is sometimes a magical movie-musical – those parts were great. And then there's a pointless gay joke, where the Prince is leered at by a large guy in biker garb in an Upper West Side apartment, and everyone in the audience goes, "ew…" and things sorta take a turn from there.

"Ya see that kids? That's a homosexual. They dress up like bikers in their lonely little homes, and like to do it to each other. I will laugh. And you can too."

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Books: 'Out of Sync' by Lance Bass

December 04, 2007

Halfway through Lance Bass' "Out of Sync" – some photos yanked from the Bass family albums show us a blond eight-year-old in a “SpaceCamp” t-shirt, wearing awkward sunglasses. These photos are standard memoir fare, and almost always a relief to find. By the time we reach them, Lance and the boys have just signed with a new label, leaving behind the evil empire of Lou Perlman.

Around the same time, Lance recounts his first bold move with a dude, in a way that is surprisingly mum.

Wait. Hold up. We're not going to read graphically about the blond kid from *NSYNC losing his manginity in a seedy hotel room? We're going to instead have to read about... What? Astronaut training? No way, man...

I had previously considered Lance to be flighty and a little plastic, but his memoir begs the question -- if your boyhood dream of being accepted and loved by millions of screaming fans had been realized – would it make you more interesting? Would it have helped any of us overcome the crippling terror that came with realizing we were gay teenagers in an age before even “Ellen?” Or would it have afforded us the opportunity to shoot for the thing we really wanted? Getting blasted into space, say…

Reviews of “Out of Sync” have taken Bass to task for writing a memoir before the age of thirty, for dwelling too much on the music industry, and for generally not telling us whether or not Reichen was, you know, stacked.

Make no mistake, the book is a little bit awkward, and there is the faint whiff of the same *NSYNC hype it was always hard to understand in the first place. One gets the feeling that Lance has not yet figured out how to break free of the world of pop music, other than the fact that he was outed last year, and then offered a book deal.

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