Box Office Outlook: Let's Talk About Sex

By Katey Rich

After a May full of explosions and superheroes and battles of all kinds, it's finally-- finally!-- time again for a movie for women. And Sex and the City, if some predictions are correct, may turn out to be the biggest chick flick of them all. Based on purely anecdotal evidence, women who rarely go to the movies (my mom) and women who rarely go to chick flicks (me) are flocking to theatres this weekend, along with the show's existing die-hard fans (my sister). Male heroes will dominate the movie marketplace for the rest of the summer, but this weekend is the time for ladies to put on their fancy shoes and come to theatres in droves.

SEX AND THE CITY. Opening in 3,100 theatres. Three years after the show's series finale, the women of Sex and the City have made it to the big screen. Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is still with her soulmate Mr. Big (Chris Noth), but talk of commitment soon brings about trouble. Samantha (Kim Cattrall) has moved out to the West Coast to manage the career of her actor boyfriend Smith (Jason Lewis), while Charlotte (Kristin Davis) remains happily married with Harry (Evan Handler) and her adopted daughter Lily. And Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is settling into life in Brooklyn with Steve (David Eigenberg) until a crisis of faith threatens their marriage.

The fact is that the Sex and the City movie is a two-hour-plus version of the TV show; some critics fell for it, while others left the theatre screaming. "May well be the most effervescent film fantasy since Beauty and the Beast," writes Carrie Rickey of The Philadelphia Inquirer. And Claudia Puig at USA Today cheers, "As indulgences go, this one is easier on the waistline than downing a tub of Ben & Jerry's and won't deplete the wallet like a Louis Vuitton handbag." But the fun isn't just limited to the female critics. Owen Gleiberman at Entertainment Weekly calls the movie "a big sweet tasty layer cake stuffed with zingers and soul and dirty-down verve," and Peter Travers of Rolling Stone writes that "Parker is funny, touching and vital." On the other hand... Rex Reed calls it "nearly two and a half hours of tedium and gratuitous product placement," and Variety sighs, "Even a glossed-up version of Manhattan is a hard place to go home again."

THE STRANGERS. Opening in 2,400. It seems that no one can go to their remote vacation retreat any more without being viciously attacked, at least as the movies would have it. Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman play a couple doing just that, until three strangers wearing masks interrupt their idyll. I'd tell you more, but aren't the surprises part of the fun?

Some critics think this is a cut above typical horror fare, while others see it as the same-old nonsense. Our Ethan Alter is a little split: "Before it careens off the rails halfway through its slender 90-minute runtime, The Strangers treats moviegoers to what may be the creepiest opening act of any American-made horror film in recent memory." The Arizona Republic calls it "a straightforward white-knuckled shocker," and the Chicago Tribune credits director Bryan Bertino's skill: "Real suspense requires a real connection, and Bertino�with Tyler and Speedman�has created both." But The Charlotte Observer says the movie "drags itself forward like a gut-shot deer," and MSNBC complains that the movie's scares become "colossally repetitive."

THE FOOT FIST WAY. Opening in 4 theatres. This shot-on-digital comedy debuted at the Sundance Film Festival last year, and has since become something of a sensation with some of the most influential people in comedy right now, among them Will Ferrell and Adam McKay. Jody Hill wrote his directorial debut with Ben Best and Danny McBride, both of whom appear in the film as a kung fu teacher (McBride) and his celebrity idol (Best) who meet and square off after a series of mundane foibles. McBride's character, Fred Simmons, considers himself "king of the demo," and is the kind of small-brained, big-egoed doofus Ferrell has succeeded in playing in any number of movies.

Some critics are charmed by this low-budget, silly romp, while others are just worn out. "Far less interesting than the hoopla surrounding it," writes our Ethan Alter. The Associated Press complains, "The movie ultimately goes nowhere, and looks shoddy in a way that doesn't even have a kitschy appeal." But Peter Travers at Rolling Stone promises "you'll laugh helplessly," and Armond White at the New York Press, in his usual inimitable way, claims that the film "represents an alternative vision uncorrupted by the usual film-culture snobbery."