Strong and Invincible?

Check out my review of Sex and the City 2 over at the Ms. Blog. A teaser:

About halfway through Sex and the City 2, which opens today nationwide, the fabulous foursome of HBO’s hit-television-show-turned-feature-film-franchise perform a rousing karaoke rendition of the 1970s feminist anthem “I Am Woman” in a nightclub in the heart of Abu Dhabi. As Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte croon–“I am strong. I am invincible. I am woman”—belly dancers strut, pose and sway their hips on an elevated catwalk above them. An exercise in astounding campy discordance, this scene epitomizes both the unanticipated pleasures and the substantial foibles of director and writer Michael Patrick King’s sequel to the critically unacclaimed (yet commercially successful) first Sex and the City film in 2008.

You can read the rest here.

Coming Soon to a Theater Near You...

I just returned from a Sex and the City 2 preview screening and, boy, do I have a lot of think about while I write my official review of the film.

For now, I can't say much except that I was surprised by my reaction to Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte's second cinematic turn and that the film should prove a fertile ground for commentary and discussion.

Stay tuned...

Prepping for SATC2

Tomorrow night I'm going to a preview screening of Sex and the City 2 in Denver in order to write a review for Ms. Magazine's blog (which I will of course link to on this blog!). In order to prepare for being "Carried Away" (indeed), here are a few things of interest I came across on the interwebs this week that, for one reason or another, reminded me of the show.

First, I'm enjoying Alexandra Tweten's blog series on online dating as an "out" feminist over at the Ms. blog. Check out her most recent post as well as her previous posts.

Second, I just discovered Feminist Frequency's YouTube channel (via Sociological Images). Check out, for example, this great little video explaining the Bechdel Test for women in movies:



Lastly, I found Angela Bonavoglia's book review of Leora Tannenbaum’s new book, Bad Shoes and the Women Who Love Them compelling and incredibly apropos for a SATC-themed post. Bonaboglia writes,

At once fanciful (with illustrations by Vanessa Davis), disturbing, informative, understanding and preachy, [the book] is a captivating attempt to address the reality that many women—including feminists– insist on wearing “sexy” shoes but need some ground rules for how not to wreck their feet in the process.

What’s really interesting about Tannenbaum’s approach is the artful way that she pulls you in, empathizes, withholds judgment, then stuns you with her analysis.

She does this at the end of the book, after romps through chapters on what you should know about your feet, on “toetox” (cosmetic surgery of the foot), on the history of high heels and on the sex life of women’s shoes. Then, after gaining a reader’s trust, she asks, ever so gently, that the reader consider the “many parallels we can draw between Chinese footbinding and Western women wearing high heels.”

You can check out the rest of the article here.

Wish me luck at the preview tomorrow. I'm afraid it might be a mob scene!