For six seasons Carrie Bradshaw and friends Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte offered us their hilarious, outspoken and outrageous look at dating, mating and relating in the big city. Celebrate the show that explores the day-to-day -- and night-to-night -- world of single women in this, the definitive collector's edition.
Readers of John Berendt's bestselling novel, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, were bound to be at least somewhat disappointed by this big-screen adaptation, but despite mixed reaction from critics and audiences, there's still plenty to admire about director Clint Eastwood's take on the material. Readers will surely miss the rich atmosphere and societal detail that Berendt brought to his "Savannah story," and the movie can only scratch the surface of Georgian history, tradition and wealthy decadence underlying Berendt's fact-based murder mystery. Still, Eastwood maintains an assured focus on the wonderful eccentrics of Savannah, most notably a gay Savannah antiques dealer (superbly played by Kevin Spacey), who may or may not have killed his friend and alleged lover (Jude Law). John Cusack plays the Town & Country journalist who arrives in Savannah to find much more than he bargained for--including the city's legendary drag queen Lady Chablis (playing "herself")--and John Lee Hancock's smoothly adapted screenplay succeeds in bringing Berendt's characters vividly to life with plenty of flavourful dialogue. --Jeff Shannon
Much like the novels of Fanny Burney or Jane Austen 200 years before, Sex and the City tackles that perennial female conundrum, how to maintain independence from men (intellectual, sexual, financial) while seeking the ideal life-partner for whom that much-cherished independence can safely be sacrificed. So it is that Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha prowl relentlessly the canyons of Manhattan in search of mates, all of whom fall woefully short of their needs in one crucial way or another. Yet, with biological clocks ticking and suppressed nesting instincts fighting back, the foursome occasionally find themselves dangerously close to despair. The dating game can be deadly serious sometimes. Which is why Sex and the City is not just good TV, it's great TV: for all its refreshingly cynical wit and superficial vivaciousness, the show has at its heart a streak of pathos and painful truth that resonates deeply with its audience. In the show's second season, the scrutiny falls more on the women than their succession of useless dates. Carrie has to learn the painful truth about Big all over again; Miranda has panic attacks about being alone for the rest of her life; Sam is humiliated by the ladies who lunch into confessing that she's a whore; and Charlotte is reduced to trading kinky foot massages for free shoes. Savage love, indeed. On the DVD: Sex and the City, Season 2 has all 18 episodes on three discs. Frustratingly, the menus have no "Play All" facility so you can't just sit back and enjoy--each episode requires navigation from the main menu to an episode list to a redundant preview screen before the play selection is offered. There are mini trailers for each episode and a short (eight-minute) promo featurette. The picture is a little fuzzy in places, doubtless the result of transfer from NTSC format, but is still an improvement over the first season. --Mark Walker
When world-renowned singer Dino (Martin in a hilarious self-parody) passes through Climax Nevada he doesn't count on meeting two would-be songwriters with a plan to trap him there and serenade him with their songs. But then again they weren't counting on Dino's insatiable appetite...for wine and women! And when one of the men learns that his own wife was once president of Dino's fan club he hires a replacement wife (Kim Novak) to help lure the carousing star into a song-buying moo
The fourth series of Sex and the City is just as smart and sexy as ever, mixing caustic adult wit and sharply observed situation comedy on the mean streets of Manhattan, though this time the quartet of singleton city girls must endure even tougher combat in the unending war of love, sex and shopping. Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) finally seems to have found her ideal life partner when she is reunited with handsome craftsman Aidan. But can their relationship survive trial by cohabitation? Meanwhile Charlotte (Kristin Davis) seems to have both her dream Park Avenue apartment and a solution to her marital problems with Trey (Kyle MacLachlan), as well as conquering his fearsome mother. But when the subject of babies comes up everything starts to unravel for her, too. It's not just Charlotte having baby issues either: after what seems like an eternity of enforced sexual abstinence, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is horrified to discover she's pregnant. And as for the sultry Samantha (Kim Cattrall), she's on a quest for monogamy, first with an exotic lesbian artist then with a philandering businessman, with whom to her utter dismay she just might have fallen in love. --Mark Walker
Sex And The City - Season 6 marks the end of the hit series. The witty and tenacious plot-lines crackle with the usual cutting humour and candour of the previous series' but the concluding episodes also highlight the show's ability to capture the mood and feelings of contemporary love and loss. As the four friends look to new horizons and begin to think about settling down their lives begin to follow new paths that will take them away from the familiar landscapes they have beco
When brash bad boy of basketball Jamal Jefferies (Miguel A Nunez Jr) is kicked off the squad for his inappropriate behaviour he is left homeless and penniless. Just like that Jamal's pro-basketball career is finished. Juwanna Bet? With sass hardcourt skills and the right shade of lipstick Jamal transforms himself into a superstar of the women's league instead as Juwanna Mann becoming a better man along the way! And he pulls it off. Well almost! Juwanna Mann is a cool fast paced comedy that will have you.
The Sex and the City phenomenon continues in Series 3 of this outrageously addictive cult show. The four highly sexed thirtysomethings share their hopes, fears and even boyfriends (when Charlotte decides to throw a "used boyfriend party") in a New York where you can buy Manolo Blahniks on the proceeds of one article a week and eat mountains of junk food yet stay as thin as a pencil. But if the peripheral details remain somewhat fantastical, the searing honesty of the main storyline takes this third season to dramatic heights only suggested by the previous seasons. Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) falls head-over-heels for chunky furniture designer Aidan Joff (John Corbett) but still embarks on a disastrous affair with her newlywed ex, Mr Big (Chris Noth). The resulting triangle, set against the background of Charlotte's outwardly perfect marriage to Trey (Kyle MacLachlan), proves to be electrifying viewing. But the humour is as sharp as ever too: Samantha's run-in with her drag-queen prostitute neighbours, Miranda pretending to be an air stewardess so as not to frighten men away and one of Charlotte's boyfriends talking dirty to her in bed are all moments of great high comedy. It just gets better and better. --Warwick Thompson
Harmony Jones (Kim Basinger) saw Elvis in concert when she was a child and the event had such a profound impact on her that she now communicates regularly with the youthful spirit of the King Of Rock `n' Roll. However her desire to `stay in touch' has a downside for Elvis impersonators because they have a habit of suddenly dropping dead if she's around! After being involved in a bizarre accident which leaves a car load of Elvis tribute performers dead Harmony abandons her job as a d
A series that's as much about one as the other, the wonderfully funny, touching and utterly genuine Sex and the City dares to portray real adults in a thoroughly realistic environment. Filmed in and around the streets of Manhattan, the show brings New York life--and specifically singles life--alive as no other has done before. Like its HBO stablemate The Sopranos, this is TV for grown-ups: frank and non-patronising, dizzyingly well written and devastatingly accurate in its characterisations. Sarah Jessica Parker plays Carrie Bradshaw, Manhattan's "sexual anthropologist" whose weekly newspaper column gives the series its title. Kristen Davis, Kim Cattrall and Cynthia Nixon are her acerbic, cynical, thirtysomething singleton pals: gossip, sex, men, shoes, shopping, sex, designer clothes, fashion and sex dominate their affluent yet incomprehensibly empty lifestyles as they move from swanky restaurant opening to night club to art exhibition in the relentless pursuit of fulfilment and validation. Conspicuously, the men in their lives--from "toxic bachelors" to "modelisers" and beyond--fail to provide either, leaving the women to pick up the pieces after each shattered relationship. Adapted from Candace Bushnell's bestseller, in the first season Carrie embarks on her long and tortuous liaison with "Mr Big" and watches wryly as her pals seek solace with various members of the male sex, electric appliances and even, disastrously yet briefly, celibacy. On the DVD: Fortunately, 12 outstanding episodes are their own selling point here, since the presentation of these two discs leaves something to be desired. Although Region 2 encoded, inexcusably the broadcast format is American NTSC not PAL, so if you don't have a reasonably modern TV you'll have trouble playing the discs in the first place; there's a tiny promo feature and teaser trailers, plus cast biographies and synopses that pop up at the beginning of every episode. The interface lacks a "Play All" facility, forcing you to skip back and forth from the main menu after each episode. Add to that some pretty nasty packaging and this set won't win any prizes for presentation. But the shows themselves are a constant delight: anyone who's ever dated or been dumped should own this set. --Mark Walker
Los Angeles private eye Jack Ramsey is being set up to take the fall for a murder when his lover Kim (Moss) the wife of ambitious politician Martin Lewis (Bernsen) is found strangled. As the noose tightens around his neck Jack must race against time and the law to prove his innocence...
The world of insurance hasn't exactly inspired a wealth of memorable cinema, but Australian film Risk is a feisty, funny, clever and, yes, insurance-related movie. Drawing on a range of cinematic themes (good cop/bad cop, the young newcomer and his guiding light, a love triangle) the film offers a fresh insight by virtue of its unusual setting. Ben Madigen (Tom Long) finds himself working in the business by default and is soon taken under the wing of the charismatic John Kreisky (Brown). While trying to undertake his job without compromising his principles, Madigen is unwittingly lured into a scam by Kreisky and his girlfriend, lawyer Louise Roncaldi (Claudia Karvan). The burgeoning and later unravelling relationship between the three is the film's key story, as Long finds himself torn between the other two. Brown is excellent as the scheming Kreisky, once again proving that his failure to move into a more major acting league is little short of baffling--but then, this type of imaginative film offers him more scope than Cocktail or FX ever could and serves as a welcome advertisement for the growing Australian movie industry. This is a highly intelligent film that keeps its plot-cards closely to its chest, keeping the viewer guessing throughout. On the DVD: the usual scene selection is coupled with the trailer, which presents the film (slightly misleadingly) in pulsating, high-action tones. The "making of" featurette offers the viewer an insight into not very much happening (look, there's a man pushing something) and gives the cast an opportunity to take themselves a little too seriously. --Phil Udell
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