Marc Spitz

i actually heard one positive review of the sex and the city movie this morning on npr.  the critic was a vassar professor, and i am not sure if this matters, but i suspect it does: a woman.  all the professional print critics and regular web film writers are taking it to the shed.   so much so that my friend and i are exchanging links, one after the other.  the post actually coined the phrase “bitchtar.”  i’m not sure i feel strongly about it one way or another.  i was considering going and giving my 12.50 pop culture writer fee like a tax or an ez pass because that’s what you do when there are big events in pop.  i did same with avatar which i hated.  i couldn’t possibly hate satc 2 more than i hated avatar.  i’ve always had affection for the whole franchise.  even living up the street from magnolia bakery as i do, and contending with the lines and tour buses doesn’t really vex me.  i guess if i feel anything it’s sadness because that show used to be so tangible.  i watched it every sunday before heading east to fast times at coney island high to dance to “kids in america” and “love plus one.”  i liked carrie bradshaw because she was a writer and she smoked and she spent too much money.  it was, until rescue me: one of the most accurate depictions of what it really felt  like living here and over the years, and like most,  i really did see parts of myself  and my friends in all of the characters male and female (i wished i could be as smooth as big but probably related most to berger the post it break up guy).   the first movie felt like a 00s bob dylan record, or the last stooges record, or ny dolls record, inferior because it only ever could be, but nothing done to fuck with the legacy.  i guess the second one, if the reviews are to be believed, fucked with the legacy, because of greed or that life in a bubble syndrome that happens to people here when they can no longer connect with the real NYC.   then again, we all become sort of baby jane versions of ourselves as we get older, so in a way, maybe the second sequel is the most honest sitc offering yet.   i am sure the film is critic proof and they will make a fortune and a third.  maybe they’ll try to redeem themselves, like batman after kilmer and clooney or bond after timothy dalton.  that kind of comeback thing, a restoration of quality, is a powerful thing.   i’m feeling it with regard to my own holy golightly professional existence this season. haven’t been blogging as much because i’ve been writing stuff that i’m being paid to write and stuff that i’m writing on spec that i’m not sharing just yet,,  but i am trying to get back into a rhythm.  writing about sarah jessica parker (who sort of speaks in blog post rants, re: her appearance on letterman) seems a good sort of conduit back into just posting.  daily.  or every other day.  i don’t know.  also, it was 95 degrees for the past two days and i just didn’t want to think about anything.  i just sat on a bench in abingdon square, sweating through my tongue like a basset hound.  it gave me the long, hot summer in the city fear.  nyc summers can be endlessly bleak: like soylent green.