Đỗ Huyền My
(Sagittarius)
Điều hành viên
Tặng những ai thích cái show này :mrgreen:
Adieu, Before Wrinkles Show
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
NYT, June 20, 03
The first glimpse of Sarah Jessica Parker is her shoe: a Miu Miu pump that is as preposterously high-heeled and costly as any of the Manolo Blahniks and Jimmy Choos that are to "Sex and the City" what the Colt .45 was to "The Lawman."
That her character, Carrie Bradshaw, is tripping over her Miu Mius racing to ring the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange only certifies that this HBO series intends to finish its sixth and final season the way it came in: with the kind of outré humor and cafe society insouciance that defy even drastic swings in the economy.
The city has changed, and the sex has grown a little stale, but the show continues to fascinate. Doctoral theses are still being written about its feminist and postfeminist underpinnings; each episode is dissected by preteenagers and social anthropologists alike. Heterosexual men like to watch. "Sex and the City" is certainly still daring in its depiction of lovemaking; even in Italy, where anchorwomen deliver the midday newscast in low-cut cocktail dresses and the housewife striptease game show was invented, the show was followed by a scholarly panel discussion to soothe agitated viewers.
Part of its allure is its duality. Its four heroines are both enviable and pitiable. They are bold, and as J. D. Salinger's Seymour Glass said of his indefatigably social, girdle-wearing mother-in-law, they are "unimaginably brave."
There is a melancholy, autumnal undertone beneath the bright couture clothes and breezy dialogue, but it is not the encroachment of a newly sobered post-Sept. 11 world. It is what it always was in this peculiar comedy: the approaching frost of age and loneliness. From the very beginning, the show's message was not simply that you were born alone and die alone. In the sunniest way possible, "Sex and the City" assured viewers that you also loved alone.
In only the second season, the writers signaled the wry, affecting self-awareness that gives '`Sex and the City" a more lasting value than the skimpy romance-novel plotlines of Mr. Big, the heartless dreamboat, versus Aidan, the sensitive New Age boyfriend. Carrie stays out all night dancing in salsa clubs and confidently sails right in, bleary and smoking, to pose for the cover of New York magazine, confident that she radiates the cover line, "Single and Fabulous."
She is late, the photographer is impatient, and the stylist is vengeful. When the issue comes out on the newsstand, Carrie looks like a mug shot of a convenience store robber, and the cover line has been amended to "Single and Fabulous?"
The humor of "Sex and the City" always lay in sabotaging the myth of sex, glamour and happiness in a lighthearted way.
Last season, the show managed to absorb the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the collapse of the economy without pricking its bubble of impish good cheer. A year later, the show's writers have even less compunction. The four heroines are still looking for love in all the most fashionable places.
That includes a hot new uncooked-food restaurant called Raw, where Samantha, the sexual predator played by Kim Cattrall, chokes down four courses of cold dishes that taste like "lawn in a bowl" so she can go home with the strapping young waiter.
Kristin Davis's Charlotte is determined to marry her Jewish lover, Harry Goldenblatt, even though he says he cannot marry a gentile. She reads Elizabeth Taylor's autobiography and is inspired by the actress's decision to convert for Eddie Fisher. Still, she hesitates. "There is more to being a Jew than jewelry," she confides pensively to Carrie.
Miranda, the sensible lawyer played by Cynthia Nixon, is still unable to connect with Steve, the father of her child. Instead, she pursues a relationship with the being that understands her best, TiVo.
Dating remains a giddy, girlish preoccupation, though Carrie and her friends are self-aware enough to recognize that at their age it is a bit ridiculous. When she tells her friends that she has a first date with a man she really likes, Jack Berger, Carrie says coquettishly, "I feel like a girl of 35 again."
Those campy asides — and the rakish sexual voracity of Samantha, who lives in the meatpacking district and is incensed to find a Pottery Barn defiling the neighborhood leather bars and sex shops — hint at the show's sexual inversion. Samantha has all the traits of a promiscuous gay man, very thinly disguised as a P.R. woman. And that duality also helps keep the show intriguing. At the very least, it doubles the audience potential.
Ms. Parker is a huge part of the show's enduring appeal. Through innate charm and sheer willpower, the actress infuses a cardboard character with enough dimensions to sustain viewer interest. But if the sixth and final season of "Sex and the City" is still fun, it is mainly because we know it is final.
The show was always irreverent, parochial, even shallow, but it was usually knowing and at times witty. At its very best, it was self-assured, self-aware and even wise. Like Balzac's Mme. de Beauséant, who fled society for a convent once her beauty and power began to fade, "Sex and the City" was wicked and worldly for as long as its charm could hold. This year, it is bowing out, with grace and no regrets.
SEX AND THE CITY
HBO, Sunday night at 9, Eastern and Pacific times; 8, Central time
Created by Darren Star, based on the book by Candace Bushnell; directed by Michael Patrick King; executive producers, Mr. King, John Melfi, Cindy Chupack and Sarah Jessica Parker; co-executive producer, Jenny Bicks.
WITH: Sarah Jessica Parker (Carrie), Kim Cattrall (Samantha), Kristin Davis (Charlotte), Cynthia Nixon (Miranda), David Eigenberg (Steve), Evan Handler (Harry), Ron Livingston (Jack), Jason Lewis (Jerry) and Lynn Cohen (Magda).
Adieu, Before Wrinkles Show
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
NYT, June 20, 03
The first glimpse of Sarah Jessica Parker is her shoe: a Miu Miu pump that is as preposterously high-heeled and costly as any of the Manolo Blahniks and Jimmy Choos that are to "Sex and the City" what the Colt .45 was to "The Lawman."
That her character, Carrie Bradshaw, is tripping over her Miu Mius racing to ring the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange only certifies that this HBO series intends to finish its sixth and final season the way it came in: with the kind of outré humor and cafe society insouciance that defy even drastic swings in the economy.
The city has changed, and the sex has grown a little stale, but the show continues to fascinate. Doctoral theses are still being written about its feminist and postfeminist underpinnings; each episode is dissected by preteenagers and social anthropologists alike. Heterosexual men like to watch. "Sex and the City" is certainly still daring in its depiction of lovemaking; even in Italy, where anchorwomen deliver the midday newscast in low-cut cocktail dresses and the housewife striptease game show was invented, the show was followed by a scholarly panel discussion to soothe agitated viewers.
Part of its allure is its duality. Its four heroines are both enviable and pitiable. They are bold, and as J. D. Salinger's Seymour Glass said of his indefatigably social, girdle-wearing mother-in-law, they are "unimaginably brave."
There is a melancholy, autumnal undertone beneath the bright couture clothes and breezy dialogue, but it is not the encroachment of a newly sobered post-Sept. 11 world. It is what it always was in this peculiar comedy: the approaching frost of age and loneliness. From the very beginning, the show's message was not simply that you were born alone and die alone. In the sunniest way possible, "Sex and the City" assured viewers that you also loved alone.
In only the second season, the writers signaled the wry, affecting self-awareness that gives '`Sex and the City" a more lasting value than the skimpy romance-novel plotlines of Mr. Big, the heartless dreamboat, versus Aidan, the sensitive New Age boyfriend. Carrie stays out all night dancing in salsa clubs and confidently sails right in, bleary and smoking, to pose for the cover of New York magazine, confident that she radiates the cover line, "Single and Fabulous."
She is late, the photographer is impatient, and the stylist is vengeful. When the issue comes out on the newsstand, Carrie looks like a mug shot of a convenience store robber, and the cover line has been amended to "Single and Fabulous?"
The humor of "Sex and the City" always lay in sabotaging the myth of sex, glamour and happiness in a lighthearted way.
Last season, the show managed to absorb the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the collapse of the economy without pricking its bubble of impish good cheer. A year later, the show's writers have even less compunction. The four heroines are still looking for love in all the most fashionable places.
That includes a hot new uncooked-food restaurant called Raw, where Samantha, the sexual predator played by Kim Cattrall, chokes down four courses of cold dishes that taste like "lawn in a bowl" so she can go home with the strapping young waiter.
Kristin Davis's Charlotte is determined to marry her Jewish lover, Harry Goldenblatt, even though he says he cannot marry a gentile. She reads Elizabeth Taylor's autobiography and is inspired by the actress's decision to convert for Eddie Fisher. Still, she hesitates. "There is more to being a Jew than jewelry," she confides pensively to Carrie.
Miranda, the sensible lawyer played by Cynthia Nixon, is still unable to connect with Steve, the father of her child. Instead, she pursues a relationship with the being that understands her best, TiVo.
Dating remains a giddy, girlish preoccupation, though Carrie and her friends are self-aware enough to recognize that at their age it is a bit ridiculous. When she tells her friends that she has a first date with a man she really likes, Jack Berger, Carrie says coquettishly, "I feel like a girl of 35 again."
Those campy asides — and the rakish sexual voracity of Samantha, who lives in the meatpacking district and is incensed to find a Pottery Barn defiling the neighborhood leather bars and sex shops — hint at the show's sexual inversion. Samantha has all the traits of a promiscuous gay man, very thinly disguised as a P.R. woman. And that duality also helps keep the show intriguing. At the very least, it doubles the audience potential.
Ms. Parker is a huge part of the show's enduring appeal. Through innate charm and sheer willpower, the actress infuses a cardboard character with enough dimensions to sustain viewer interest. But if the sixth and final season of "Sex and the City" is still fun, it is mainly because we know it is final.
The show was always irreverent, parochial, even shallow, but it was usually knowing and at times witty. At its very best, it was self-assured, self-aware and even wise. Like Balzac's Mme. de Beauséant, who fled society for a convent once her beauty and power began to fade, "Sex and the City" was wicked and worldly for as long as its charm could hold. This year, it is bowing out, with grace and no regrets.
SEX AND THE CITY
HBO, Sunday night at 9, Eastern and Pacific times; 8, Central time
Created by Darren Star, based on the book by Candace Bushnell; directed by Michael Patrick King; executive producers, Mr. King, John Melfi, Cindy Chupack and Sarah Jessica Parker; co-executive producer, Jenny Bicks.
WITH: Sarah Jessica Parker (Carrie), Kim Cattrall (Samantha), Kristin Davis (Charlotte), Cynthia Nixon (Miranda), David Eigenberg (Steve), Evan Handler (Harry), Ron Livingston (Jack), Jason Lewis (Jerry) and Lynn Cohen (Magda).
