Screenwriter »

• One final whinge about Sex and the City 2

  June 10, 2010 @ 11:35 pm | by Donald Clarke

  This is it. I promise. I really do.

  Before going on to address the main theme, let’s pause to consider some interesting box-office results. As you may be aware, the bloody awful sequel to the already dreadful TV spin-off has underperformed in the United States. It only opened at number three in that country’s box-office charts and then fell off sharply in its second week. The film was, however, a roaring success in stupid Rest of the World. So, we non-Americans are, it seems, disproportionately disposed towards avarice, self-absorption and vulgarity. It gets worse. The per-capita UK and Irish takings are particularly enormous. It gets still worse. Around 15 percent of those combined takings were hoovered up in Ireland. That’s about five percent higher than the average ratio of Irish-to-UK takings. Yes, it seems quite possible that the Irish are fonder of Sex and the City 2 than any other nation in the world. How does that make you feel?

  

  A cheap gag that undermines my own argument.

  Anyway, my main beef is to do with rumours surrounding the third film in the horrible sequence. It seems that the studios have decided  the problem with SATC2 was that the characters were too old. The moguls are, thus, planning to adapt Candice Bushnell’s prequel, The Carrie Diaries, rather than develop a project with the four core actresses. No, no, no. Fans of the series, as I understand it, have no serious issues with the characters’ age. The disappointed Sexistas turned away because the film was poorly written, overly simplistic and impossibly underplotted. I now actually feel sorry for Kim, Kristen, Cynthia and Sarah. What a shoddy business.

• I Spit on Your Grave!

  May 26, 2010 @ 8:29 pm | by Donald Clarke

  That got your attention. Didn’t it? No, this is not a post about the makers of Sex and the City 2. It’s a warning about another horror remake that we almost certainly don’t need. Some of the recent disinterments of 1970s and 1980s  shockers have been perfectly serviceable — The Hills Have Eyes, in particular — but, even when they offer decent chills, the shift in context fatally impedes the retreads’ psychological traction. It’s hard to grasp the meaning of Last House on the Left without understanding the legacy of Vietnam and the killings at Kent State University. Virtually all the hyper-low budgeted films that have since been remade actually profited from their their blotched scruffiness. The suspicion that the Texas Chain Saw Massacre (sic) had been filmed by genuine amateurs with crappy equipment on one debauched weekend in the country made  it seem twice as horrid.

  However, no film so forcefully demands an understanding of the era than does 1978′s I Spit on Your Grave.

  

  Now, first things first, it is only decent to own up that the original I Spit on your Grave is a fairly awful film. “It is a movie so sick, reprehensible and contemptible that I can hardly believe it’s playing in respectable theaters,” Roger Ebert said at the time of its release. Whereas Wes Craven, director of Last House on the Left, went on to have a career in mainstream horror, Meir Zarchi, the man behind I Spit, never quite made the leap into respectable society. The picture was, however, at the centre of more than a few intellectual punch-ups. A rape-revenge story, in which an aspiring novelist chops up her abusers with bloody and savage determination, I Spit on Your Grave is — depending upon your view — either an exercise in practical misogyny or a key feminist text. It is said that brainy French novelist Bruce Vian, whose novel of the same name offered vague inspiration, was so shocked by the film version that he suffered a fatal heart attack. That’s right. I Spit on Your Grave actually killed a man. Ban this sick filth!

  At any rate, the film existed at the hub of a cultural vortex that took in feminism, socialism, the video-nasty sensation and the resurgence of the moral majority. The remake looks like just another horror film. Is there anything here you haven’t seen before?

  

• Sex and the City 2 won’t go away.

  April 25, 2010 @ 9:48 pm | by Donald Clarke

  

  The time has come when, much as we might wish things otherwise, we are forced to consider the looming sequel to that frightful Sex and the City movie. I must guiltily admit that, two years ago, when I reviewed the first picture, I expected a barrage of emails from female readers accusing me of being chromosomally unqualified to appreciated the blasted thing. For the record (the review now being behind the pay-wall), here’s how I opened my tirade.

  “In anticipation of the inevitable letters of complaint, let me first acknowledge that I am, in several senses, not The Right Sort of Person to review Sex and the City. I am not the sort of person who believes that feminists fought gender wars purely to enable their successors to wallow in guiltless, lobotomised materialism. Unlike Ms Carrie Bradshaw, Ms Ally McBeal and Ms Bridget Jones, I am not the sort of person who thinks that women must have a man – and a man they can marry, at that – in their lives to achieve proper fulfilment. I am, moreover, not the sort of person who can listen to Kim Cattrall’s bizarre impression of Leslie Phillips in a 1950s sex comedy without feeling faintly nauseous. Why on EARTH, does she TALK like that?”

  A bit defensive, you will agree. As things happened, I entirely misjudged the female readership and, perhaps — okay, okay, don’t be mean — the gender as a whole. Every single mail I received agreed with my position on the film. Every woman I know found the film to be as vile as I did. A glance at serious reviews confirmed, in fact, that the distaff critics were (understandably enough) more annoyed by the reactionary tone of the film than were their male colleagues.

  Now, it goes without saying that one inevitable conclusion from the above is that I live a very sheltered life. After all, not only did the film make a staggering amount of money, but a disproportionate amount of that loot was taken in this territory. Those pundits who feel that critics are all pompous elitists are welcome to use this post in any future argument of their case. However, I will not, just to seem like a man of the people, pretend to tolerate the racism, snobbery and sheer Philistinism of Sex and the City: The Movie.

  All of which unnecessary background mumbling finally brings us to the new trailer.

  

  For just about the first time in my life, I find it hard to think of anything to say. The trailer promises that things will happen that “you never thought would happen in a million years”, but contents itself with showing us the usual cretinous images of cupboards, kisses and synchronised sashays down adored and adoring boulevards.

  There is now a longer trailer, but it so depressed me the first time I saw it, I genuinely can’t bear to place it on this “blog”. For the record, some reference is made to Samantha going through “the change” and there is a hint that — despite the characters’ thinking of little else in the first film — marriage may not be all it is cracked up to be. The core of the film appears to be a jaunt to Abu Dhabi for more shopping and applied ignorance.

  Now, there is an interesting story here. You might, quite reasonably, wonder why Abu Dhabi, rather than the more vogueish Dubai, has been picked for the final celebration of materialistic indulgence. Well, that was the original plan, but it seems the authorities in that latter emirate didn’t fancy the idea of the film being made there. At first, I felt moved to immediately reconsider all my preconceptions about that millionaires’ playground and book a holiday instantly. Looking closer it seems, alas, that prudishness about the word “Sex”, rather than any objections to the stupidity of the material, was the driving force in the burghers’ decision. The movie then moved to Abu Dhabi, but, after pressure from their pals in Dubai, that locale’s city fathers eventually drove the shoot to Morocco.

  Here’s the thing. Isn’t it ironic that a franchise with such a conservative, retrograde attitude towards women has, for reasons of propriety, been driven from a country like the UAE (if you get my drift)? Of course, the new film (which I will approach with an open mind) may prove to be a progressive, intelligent, witty improvement on its monstrous predecessor. After all, things will happen that “you never thought would happen in a million years”. We’ll find out on May 28th.