Sex and The City

Remember that book we urged you to hurry up and write? The one retroactively endorsed and publicized by the Sex and the City movie?

Well, it seems that in a mere six weeks someone has already beat you to it. Entertainment Weekly is reporting that the fictitious titled called Love Letters of Great Men, from which Carrie read love letters from Napoleon and Beethoven to Mr. Big in one of the film's scenes, has been thrown together by UK publisher Pan MacMillan to be released August 15th.

In June, after seeing SATC, hordes of loyal fans stormed Amazon.com, but were not able to find the book that didn't exist.  read more »

It's just like a cat teetering in a state of anamnesis between lives four and five! One: Sex and the City, the newspaper column (right here in The New York Observer); Two: Sex and the City, the book by Candace Bushnell; Three: Sex and the City, the television series; Four: Sex and the City, the motion picture! But its next reincarnation may be a little less dramatic: Sex and the City, the Second Movie!

At the Television Critics Association press tour yesterday, HBO seemed to indicate that a sequel could be in the works, the Times reports.

According to Michael Lombardo, president of the HBO programming group, “there is enormous interest” from Warner Brothers.  read more »

Things went much as predicted this Fourth of July weekend. New Yorkers fell in love with a homeless wino with a penchant for busting road signs and throwing live whales into the ocean. Hancock landed on top of Manhattan's sales charts with an $850,956 box office showing. It was the same story nationally. Sony's film scored $66 million in ticket sales, putting it way ahead of Wall-E ($33.4 million) and Wanted ($20.6 million). Since first hitting theaters on July 2, Will Smith's jaded superhero has made a total of $107.3 million.

Much like his alky antihero, Smith is a force to be reckoned with.  read more »

Steven Dann, owner of a shoe boutique in Great Neck, thought that maybe he could improve sales by carrying a variety of items featured in the Sex and the City movie.

He stocked shoes (including the Giuseppe Zanotti Crystal Fishbone Shoe, pictured here), belts and bags seen in the film, some retailing for as much as $4,295. And to advertise this, Mr. Dann designed an elaborate window display featuring a Manhattan skyline and pink neon sign that read, "Who's having sex in this city? Either way you need the shoes."

Unfortunately, not many residents in Great Neck found it cute.  read more »

BEIJING—“Of course, nobody wants to be Samantha,” Eva Shen said. It was a warm Saturday night on Houhai, the lakeside bar strip, and Ms. Shen, 40, had stepped outside the club she co-owns. Over the door, in glowing characters, was the Chinese name of the club, Yuwang Chengshi; above that, in larger letters, was its other name: SEX AND DA CITY.

Ms. Shen spoke English and wore yoga pants, a white T-shirt and flip-flops. (“I do yoga a lot,” she said.) Her hair was reddish and pulled back. Around her, the night was full of women in short-shorts, teetering heels, sparkly things; among the women were all the men looking for women.

Sex and da City opened in 2003, Ms. Shen said. She and about a dozen friends had been out at the World of Suzy Wong Club, and everyone agreed they might as well open a bar of their own. When they convened to discuss the idea again in the daytime, the group had dwindled to five. When it came time to talk about investing money, Ms. Shen said, it was down to four women.  read more »

Instabook Alert! Start combing the public-domain letters of the world's greatest men now to be the next big hit at amazon.com.

The product-placement-savvy hordes that have been to see the Sex and the City movie are screaming their heads of for a copy of Love Letters of Great Men, from which Carrie reads love letters from Napoleon and Beethoven to Mr. Big in bed in one scene. But! The book hasn't been written yet!  read more »

Sex and the City has come full circle. Over the weekend, what began as a weekly column in The New York Observer in 1994 racked up $50 million on movie screens across the country, knocking Indiana Jones’ hat off his head.

When Candace Bushnell started the column 14 years ago, there was no telling that her doppelgänger, Carrie, together with Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte, would end up recalibrating the lens through which the world viewed New York single life.  read more »

HBO is bringing back a kind of Samantha Jones doppleganger for their new comedy series Sensitive Skin. The Los Angeles Times' Dish Rag blog notes that Kim Cattrall herself will play, wait for it, "a middle-aged wife/mother who rediscovers her sexuality and begins to question her life choices."  read more »

Ron Galotti, the former Condé Nast exec who was the inspiration for Sex and the City's Mr. Big, has gotten a bit of press this past week. There's an item in WWD's Memo Pad today in which he surveys the red-carpet crowd at last week's movie Sex and the City premiere.  read more »

Despite negative reviews, Sex and the City dominated the box office this weekend, kicking the new Indiana Jones movie out of the no.1 spot and raking in roughly $55.7 million, The New York Times reports. And, surprise! 85 percent of ticket buyers were women, “many viewing in groups.” SJP is pleased: “I am so excited about the possibilities for movies about women,” she told the Times.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is sore that the scene he shot for Sex and the City: The Movie got cut from the feature film, which premiered in New York last night. And so this morning, during a speech at the World Science Summit at Columbia University, he aired his frustrations by quipping:

This science festival coincides with the opening of a certain movie set in New York about four independent and glamorous women. By the way, I was originally supposed to have a part in Sex and the City, but my scene wound up on the cutting-room floor. It turned out that they wanted more sex and less city. That’s fine. Their loss.  read more »

Before last night's big-screen Sex and the City premiere at Radio City Music Hall, a tented red carpet sheltered Katie Couric, Donna Karan, the Seinfelds, Donald and Melania Trump, Mary J. Blige, Gayle King, and original Sex writer Candace Bushnell from the muggy drizzle outside, which Carrie Bradshaw would have just run through in four-inch heels.

The celebrities posed for pictures with cardboard posters of Sarah Jessica Parker (despite the fact that the actress herself was giving interviews nearby in a floor-length gray gown). Inside, large groups of women in short cocktail dresses and heels did the same. The occasional man looked either shell-shocked or gay.

Anna Wintour and André Leon Talley arrived and took their seats. Then it was Jason Lewis, a.k.a. Smith Jerrod. By the time Chris Noth strolled down the aisle in a khaki suit, the audience could take it no longer: A loud cheer went up and the women leaped to their feet in a flurry of flashbulbs. Sarah Jessica Parker soon made her way down the aisle at Stage Left, eliciting even louder cheers. One could have been forgiven for thinking this was a very stylish, estrogen-infused rock concert.  read more »

Now that HBO has hired Tina Brown and Frank Rich for consulting gigs, Felix Gillette wonders, "So what’s next?" He also notes, "the truly free-range journalist-consultant—one with a broad editorial mandate to roam here and there gnawing lustfully on some projects while trampling others willy-nilly—remains a rare and exotic beast."

Speaking of television, Doree Shafrir meets Bravo's Flipping Out host Jeff Lewis, "a deeply neurotic man who treats his staff like a dysfunctional family and has managed to turn his obsessive-compulsive disorder to his advantage."

John Koblin looks at this past week's New York Times Magazine and writes, "Sex sells, of course—but this was not Maxim. And women writers in Manhattan could be forgiven for a slightly sickly feeling as they regarded the images. This again?" Plus: Slicing the SATC Pie.  read more »

Sex and the City
Running Time 145 minutes
Written and Directed by Michael Patrick King
Starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis

There’s nothing wrong with Sarah Jessica Parker that couldn’t be cured by wart-removal surgery. That growth on her face just gets bigger with every close-up, and in the full-length movie version of Sex and the City it’s so distracting you can’t concentrate on anything else. It’s not a beauty mark. I guess you can’t tell a co-producer anything, but listen up, girl. At this point, you would make a wonderful Halloween witch. Unfortunately, to fix all the things wrong with Sex and the City, you need more than a scalpel.  read more »

The media campaign for the Sex and the City movie, which arrives in theaters May 30, was executed with near-militaristic precision. You might call it “flooding the zone.”

Vogue, which itself has a recurring role in the franchise, easily secured the big kahuna: 43-year-old Sarah Jessica Parker on the cover and an elaborate photo shoot featuring her posing with Chris Noth, 53 (Mr. Big): on top of a skyscraper, on a red carpet, in the bedroom making sex tapes!  read more »

We know everyone is going through Sex and the City overload, but we just wanted to point out that Square Pegs, the 1980s CBS comedy that features Sarah Jessica Parker in tortoise-shells instead of peep-toes, was released on DVD this week... just in time for the Sex premiere.

The show started out with the typical teenaged girl stereotypes (the "smart girl," the "fat girl," the "mean girls," etc.) only to deconstruct them during the 19-episode series. (Hmmm, sounds familiar).  read more »

(You have been forewarned ... ) Cynthia Nixon is sharing some details of the closely guarded Sex and The City movie plot. One of the characters is going to die! (dun dun dun!). "There's a loss that happens that's pretty tough," Ms. Nixon said, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. "Something significant happens to Carrie, and it really forces her to ask questions that you have to ask about yourself." We'll have to wait until May 30 to find out who gets killed off, but we're taking bets on Mr. Big dying and coming back to life in some kind of Bold and the Beautiful-type fashion.

After the release of the Sex and the City movie on May 30 this year, Cynthia Nixon will trade her role as the quick-tongued lawyer Miranda for a much more humble lady in Lisa Loomer's play Distracted, to be staged by the Roundabout Theater Company. According to Variety, Ms. Nixon will play a mother struggling to learn whether or not her son has attention deficit disorder. The play premiered last year in Los Angeles but will make its debut in New York next year.

Last Thursday, on a cold and blustery January afternoon, the cast and crew of Lipstick Jungle, the new NBC series premiering Feb. 7, scuttled about the Ukrainian Institute of America on 79th Street and Fifth Avenue.

Bright lights illuminated the high ceilings, ornate moldings and chandeliers within the 1898 mansion, which was standing in as a billionaire bachelor’s New York City apartment. Banks of additional lights outside the building created artificial sunlight streaming through the windows. The grand staircase was covered in plastic wrap.  read more »

Sex and the City’s Mr. Big just welcomed his own Mr. Little. Actor Chris Noth and longtime girlfriend Tara Wilson, who named their 7-pound, 10-counce son Orion Christopher, have already received well-wishes from S.A.T.C. co-star Sarah Jessica Parker.

“I'm thrilled for him because I think first of all he's going to make a wonderful, wonderful father,” the 42-year-old actress told an ET reporter at the Sundance Film Festival, where Ms. Parker is promoting her new film Smart People—a romantic comedy co-staring Dennis Quaid and Thomas Haden Church. “He found a lovely lady to have a child with. It's the perfect time for him and I think he's very ready,” she added.  read more »

When the Sex and the City movie is released in the spring, fans will be able to get closer to the fashion-forward foursome than ever before. As it happens, producers behind the HBO phenomenon have decided to sell the license for new SATC underwear to Miami-based intimates label Cosabella. The forthcoming lingerie line, which will go one sale nationwide in April, will be designed and placed in separate groups—one for each of the film's four leading ladies. Future buyers of the wares can probably expect to find plenty of pink lace for Carrie, conservative black braziers for Charlotte and sensible flesh-colored numbers for Miranda. For the ever-sultry Samantha? Options will probably range from the edible to the easy-to-remove.

Sex and the City addicts will want to grab an ice pack out of the freezer, because the ultimate cheap tease can now get into your home. Yup, that’s right. After taking the city hostage for months—clogging Midtown arteries and shuttering SoHo eateries—the SATC feature film is finally in post-production. And that means the hype is just getting started, beginning with what’s sure to be a barrage of playful ads on television, enticing spreads in fashion glossies and, at least in this town, the odd 50-foot-tall Sarah Jessica Parker on the side of a building.

The trailer offers few surprises. It starts with the first line of the classic, upbeat jingle Fever. And while we may never know how much S.J.P. loves us, HBO and New Line Cinema definitely do. After all, they really needn’t pour a bunch of money into fancy promotions. If they build it, we will come! A decent Web site, some late-night talk show appearances and movie listings would probably suffice. Still, they give us a rapturous, twirling Carrie Bradshaw in a wedding gown, a breathy voiceover (“They say nothing lasts forever; dreams change, trends come and go, but friendships never go out of style.”), a wide-angle shot of the ladies tromping down Fifth, shopping bags securely in-hand. Then, of course, they really stick it to us—the kicker: a lingering, fairytale smooch between Ms. Bradshaw and Mr. Big. Spring can’t come soon enough.

Semi-related shameless self-promotion: The Observer's Sex and the City archives

Sarah Jessica Parker, the actress who is frequently confused soap-opera-fan-style with Carrie Bradshaw, the character she portrayed on HBO hit series Sex and the City, who was a writer and not a fashion designer anyway (and based on former Observer scribe Candace Bushnell, btw), has been rewarded for being the beneficiary of a fantastic wardrobe: she has her own fashion line!  read more »

For the past few weeks, Winnie has been spending a lot of time reminding herself of everything she’s achieved. Something is wrong.  read more »

This is a story about two very important people, with two very important jobs, who are married to each other and have exactly one child.  read more »

“I’m Janey Wilcox, the model, and I’m spending the weekend with Zack Manners, the English billionaire record producer. So fuck you. All of you.”  read more »

"I've got to find a man for the summer," Janey had been complaining to her friend, Alison, when a voice from one of the stalls shouted out, “Harold Vane!”  read more »

Model seeks place, puts up with boob-squeezing enthusiast.  read more »

Suzannah was a 40-year-old sculptress who wore dramatic make-up and large pieces of jewelry. She had never seen herself in a traditional marriage. “Separate bedrooms?” she asked.  read more »

There are things worse than being 35, single and female in New York. Like: being 25, single and female in New York.  read more »

"But then you realize that you’d have to share a bed with him, watch him brush his teeth, that stuff ...”  read more »

Christmas season in New York. The parties. The star on 57th Street. The tree. Most of the time, it’s never the way it should be. But once in a while, something happens and it works.  read more »

There’s something rotten in New York society, and it’s the character formerly known as the “eligible” bachelor.  read more »

Infant rubdowns, nanny Cameras, and a little man you can depend on.  read more »

It is time. Time to stop complaining about no good men. Time to stop calling your machine every half-hour to see if a man has called. Yes, it is finally time to marry a man in Manhattan.  read more »

In the heat, you can’t trust anyone, especially yourself.  read more »

Four women met at an Upper East Side restaurant to discuss what it was like to be an extremely beautiful young woman in New York City.  read more »

Sex in the Hamptons is a lot like sex in Manhattan—except it’s not. Odd couplings and brief flings, which in the city might raise an eyebrow, are somehow forgiven out on the East End.  read more »

Bad things can happen to city women when they come back from visiting their newly-married-with-children friends in the suburbs.  read more »

The pilgrimage to the newly suburbanized friend is one that most Manhattan women have made, and few truly enjoyed. In fact, most come back to the city in an emotional state somewhere between giddy and destroyed.  read more »

A few weeks back, I had an encounter with a Bicycle Boy.

It happened at a book party that was held in a great marble hall on a tree-lined street. While I was surreptitiously stuffing my face with smoked salmon, a writer friend, a guy, rushed up and said, “I’ve just been talking to the most interesting man.”

“Oh yeah? Who?” I asked, glancing around the room with suspicion.  read more »

New York's last seduction.  read more »

The first time you meet Michael, at Bowery Bar with Clifford at his side, you want to hate him.  read more »

Seven Men Meet Two Women …  read more »

Love in Manhattan? I don’t think so …  read more »

Eventually, it always comes up. The Inevitable. “Errrrrr,” he begins.  read more »

When it comes to finding a marriage partner, New York has its own particularly cruel mating rituals, as complicated and sophisticated as an Edith Wharton novel.  read more »

Seven women gathered in Manhattan, over wine, cheese and cigarettes, to animatedly discuss the one thing they had in common: a man.  read more »