Arts 8( Entertainment

In Their 40s ••• And Still Fabulous!

The women of HBO's mega-hit Sex and the City head to the big screen.

Amy Longsdorf
Featurewell.com

0

f all the obstacles that Sarah
Jessica Parker and company had
to overcome to bring Sex and the
City to the screen, the "age issue;' as she
calls it, was the trickiest.
For starters, "to make a movie about four
women over 40 is really not the way that
Hollywood likes to spend its money:' says
the actress.
Beyond that, nobody associated with the
show, particularly Parker and writer-direc-
tor Michael Patrick King, was interested in
pretending that the gal pals were still the
same sprightly sexual adventurers they
were a decade ago when the show began its
six-season run on HBO.
Instead of picking up the action where
the series finale left off, Sex and the Ci ty:
The Movie, opening in area theaters Friday,
May 30, begins in 2008, with the women
four years older and definitely four years
wiser.
All the Botox in the world isn't going
to change time says Parker. "There is too
much documentation. The jig is up. To
run from it, to have four women running
around Manhattan, drinking liberally and

looking for casual sexual conquests — it's
just not the story we wanted to tell:'
That doesn't mean Sex and the City has
lost its edge. From the beginning, the show
was a celebration of being single, making
your friends your family and never having
to wear the same dress twice.
Thanks to Carrie (Parker), Miranda
(Cynthia Nixon), Samantha (Kim Cattrall)
and Charlotte (Kristin Davis), Cosmo-sip-
ping, shoe shopping and girl-talking would
never be the same again. The movie is still
steeped in fashion and friendship but, this
time around, "the happily ever after" por-
tion of the romantic equation gets a closer
inspection.
"We tried to investigate what it really
means to be part of a couple:' says Davis.
"The movie is about how the [dreams] you
have about [coupledom] might not always
come true, even if you find the right per-
son."
Since we last checked in with the gals,
Carrie (Parker) has authored four books
and is a contributing editor to Vogue. She's
still in a cozy relationship with Mr. Big
(Chris Noth), even though they've yet to tie
the knot.
Ambitious corporate attorney Miranda is
feeling marooned in Brooklyn with hubby

Steve (played by David Eigenberg, whose
rocky personal life than with money.
father was Jewish, though Eigenberg was
"I was going through a divorce (from
raised in his mother's Episcopalian reli-
Jewish jazz musician Mark Levinson, with
gion) and their young son; Park Avenue
whom she penned the manual Satisfaction:
socialite Charlotte (Kristin Davis), who
The Art Of Female Orgasm), and that
converted to Judaism in the series' last
became a headline;' says the 51-year-old
season, is raising an adopted daughter
Cattrall, who is now dating Canadian chef
with her Jewish husband Harry (played by
Alan Wyse, who is two decades her junior.
Jewish actor Evan Handler) when she dis-
"After playing this character, suddenly I was
covers she's expecting a child; and PR whiz
single and I wasn't really ready for that. My
Samantha (Kim Cattrall) has gone bicoastal dad was diagnosed with dementia. So it
in order to oversee the career of her movie- was a hell of a year. It was a bad, bad year."
star boyfriend Smith (Jason Lewis).
For his part, King is glad the movie took
For King and Parker, making Sex and
four years to reach the screen. Since 2004,
the City multiplex friendly required some
the show has picked up heaps of new fans
fancy footwork. The movie was originally
through its run in syndication and on DVD.
supposed to come out four years ago but,
"Good things come to those who wait," he
reportedly, Cattrall's salary demands kept
says. "It's a real reunion now, a real event. To
the project from moving forward.
see the four actresses together again on that
Parker insists she respected Cattrall's
first day of shooting, walking down Park
2004 decision to take a pass. "Were we dis-
Avenue — it felt like such a big deal. We
appointed? Yes. But would I have, as a pro-
had crowds lining both sides of the streets.
ducer, made this movie without her? No:'
The fans really missed their girlfriends:'
says Parker. "Would I have made it without
The actresses missed their characters as
Cynthia? No. Kristin? No. Big? No. I just
well. Cattrall, for instance, was happy to see
wanted Kim to be there and to be happy"
Samantha making a leap of faith on behalf
While none of the principals will discuss of the boyfriend who stood by her as she
exactly why the movie was scuttled in 2004, battled breast cancer.
Cattrall implies her reluctance to come
Sex and the City on page B12
onboard had more to do with her then-

WS

▪

Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News

vie Kosher Cheesecake
cif Maxim magazine (Playboy without

nudity) is out with its annual Hot 100
411 list of "the most beautiful girls in
the world."
The Hebrew "hot-
ties" on this year's
list (followed by
their rankings) all
are actresses and
include Mila Kunis
(81); Amanda Bynes
Sarah Michelle (46); Lake Bell (32);
Gellar
Rachel Bilson (28);
Ashley Tisdale
(10); Sarah Michelle Gellar (5); and
Scarlett Johansson (2).
Bell and Bilson have Jewish
fathers, while Bynes, Johansson and
Tisdale have Jewish mothers. Kunis
and Cellar each have two Jewish
parents.

B10

May 29 2008

Musical Notes

Speaking of Johansson, she is just
out with Anywhere I Lay My Head,
a CD of Tom Waits songs. A video
of the song "Falling Down" can be
found on many places on the Web,
including YouTube. Reviews mostly
have not been kind; I tend to agree
with critics who say her voice isn't
that great and is overwhelmed by
the CD's background musical produc-
tion.
On the other
hand, Neil Diamond,
the "Jewish Elvis,"
is topping the
charts with his new
CD, Home Before
Dark, which is a
moving album of
Neil Diamond
personal songs,
sans glitz, produced
by the mega-talented Rick Rubin.
In a recent interview with a Scottish
paper, Diamond, 66, recalled his bar
mitzvah, which he counts as his first

"[My bar mitzvah] counts [as a
gig]. But you don't do it as a singer;
it's really a recitation of a prayer. I
put my whole being into doing that
'song.' Physically I moved the way
I saw the elders of the synagogue
move. You bow every time you say
the word Adonai – which means God
in Hebrew – and I didn't know that.
I saw them bowing as they went
along, so I bowed up and down for
the whole song, the whole speech.
But I looked forward to it, and it was
fun and I wasn't nervous particularly.
I'd say it was my first public perfor-
mance."
Diamond performs at the Palace of
Auburn Hills on July 31.

Viewing Harmony

Film director and screenwriter
Harmony Korine, 35, is very well
respected by leading indie filmmak-
ers and even some mainstream crit-
ics, like Roger Ebert. But his body of
film work, which he began when he
was 22, is certainly nontraditional;

and his nonlinear
style leaves many,
including some
intelligent filmgo-
ers, scratching their
heads.
Korine has lived
a life of almost
Harmony
cliched bohemian
Korine
decline – a former
wunderkind who
almost killed himself with drugs and
alienated his oldest friends, until he
pulled himself out of his hole a few
years ago.
His new film, Mister Lonely, opens
Friday, May 30, at the Main Art
Theatre in Royal Oak. The movie,
a surreal comedy-drama, follows a
Michael Jackson impersonator who
is invited by a beautiful Marilyn
Monroe impersonator (Samantha
Morton) to live on a commune full
of other impersonators, including a
Sammy Davis Jr. and a James Dean.
There's a parallel story line about a
priest who teaches nuns to fly. ❑