I was a huge fan of the Sex and the City Series on HBO for a long time.  Until their final two seasons, that is.  The show’s writing went down the toilet I think in the last two seasons, with characters story lines just getting absurd, and the premise of the show getting tired.  It was ready to die pretty much, and the icing on the cake was when Samantha got cancer and her young, hot boyfriend stuck with her through it.  It just seemed to unrealistic.  Then the fact that Big suddenly comes around and realizes that Carrie is the one was also absurd.  Suddenly this self absorbed idiot sees the light?

It seemed like a fair tale ending that wasn’t justified by the character’s action up until then, a gratuitous phony ending basically.  How did this show that I had once looked so forward to seeing for it’s witty banter and hilariously awkward, true to life scenes, become such a hoaky, sappy show?  I wasn’t sure.  But then I thought well, maybe the movie got a little of that gritty spark back to it, so I rented it, knowing that I didn’t want to waste the nine bucks in the theater if the last two seasons of the HBO show were any indication of how the movie would be.

And I was right.  Unfortunately, the first half hour of Sex and the City the movie is pretty dreadful.  There’s not one funny moment in it, and it seems that all the characters have lost their edge, with the one exception being Charlotte, who turned out exactly how we all thought she would.  We see in the beginning that Carrie and Big are madly in love after ten years (on and off), yet still unmarried. 

When Big makes an unromantic business-like proposal, they make the decision to get married.  And then, for reasons not totally explained or nearly justifiable for a man who is supposedly madly in love, Big deserts Carrie at the alter.  Carrie freaks out.  The girls take her on a Mexican vacation, where she and Big were supposed to go on their honeymoon, and Charlotte gets diarrhea from drinking the water (this is supposed to be one of the funny parts, but somehow ends up seeming conrived and very unfunny).

You can guess the ending.  Boy loses girls, boy gets girl back.  This also happens with Miranda.  Steve and Miranda got married and have a little boy, Brady, together.  Steve guiltily and sheepishly admits to Miranda that he had a one night stand with another woman because Miranda has been withholding sex for months at a time.

Miranda leaves him.  And guess what, boy gets girl back.  Dont’ get me wrong, there were some laugh out loud funny moments in this movie, but mostly the funny moments seemed very over the top and downright unrealistic. Funny movies have to have a bit of realism to be effectively funny, and that’s where this movie was lacking. 

I must say, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Judd Apatow’s latest comic romp, was much better than I expected.  It was filled with hints of vulgarity that were hilarious and made you get the chills at the same time for the main character, played by Jason Segel, a relative newbie to the movie scene, and fellow friend and appearance guy to Seth Rogen, who also seems to be an overnight sensation in making movies that make people laugh in a way that they haven’t in years. 

The movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall is about a guy who is a composer for TV shows, who meets his girlfriend through this job, who happens to be Kristen Bell.  Kristen’s character Sarah is a tv star on a show that’s a takeoff of the CSI franchise, and boy the scenes that show the ads for the show are funny, poking fun at the show’s cheesiness and contrived plots. 

When Sarah breaks up with him and breaks his heart, he spins out of control, crying in fits and withdrawing even more from society.  He decides at the beckoning of his stepbrother to go on a vacation.  He decides to go on vacation in Hawaii, where lo and behold he runs into his ex girlfriend who is with her new flame, who she happened to be hooking up with a year before they broke up. 

But, it ends up being a boy meets girl story when he meets the quirky Mila Kunis at the front desk of the hotel he’s staying at, and Sarah is also staying at with her new beau.  Everyone’s good in this movie, even Mila Kunis, whom I didn’t really like in That Seventies Show. She takes a turn as a warm, down to earth, if not a little crazy and quirky girl who takes him under her wing. They hang out and talk a lot and find that they have more in common than they thought.

This movie is not just about humiliation and the poor schlep getting dumped by the hot girlfriend, which is usually funny in itself.  It’s got a lot of references to current pop culture that warrant laught out loud moments, and Jason Segel is brave enough to parade around totally nude, which makes for more of a comedic punch. Rent it, and watch the extended version, you won’t regret it.