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Tag: Kim Cattrall

  • Charlotte York: Not Necessarily the OG Practitioner of Shrekking, But Definitely the Most Successful Example of the Intended Result

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    Like “delulu” or “skibidi,” there seems to be no shortage of unexpected and (brainrot-inspired) slang words cropping up in the mainstream (and hell, even being added to the dictionary) in 2025. So it is that yet another word no one expected to crop up as “a thing” this year is “Shrekking.” Because, after all, it’s not as though Shrek 5 is out until next year. In any case, it’s a term that provides yet another testament to just how dire, how desperate dating (if it can even still be called that) has become in the post-swiping era. Not solely in the “straight” world either. Though that’s most assuredly, as Sabrina Carpenter would attest, where the male pickins are slimmest. 

    For those who couldn’t guess, the meaning behind the newly popular term is meant to indicate when someone is “dating down” a.k.a. lowering their expectations in the looks and personality (and, of course, etiquette) department in the hope that, because of said person’s glaring deficiencies, they might at least deliver in terms of treating you nicely instead of like shit. Alas, as Miranda Hobbes in Sex and the City said in the pilot episode, “I’ve been out with some of those guys. The short, fat, poor ones. It makes absolutely no difference. They are just as self-centered and unappreciative as the good-looking ones.” In other words, just as dickish and horrifying on the behavior front. 

    And, talking of Sex and the City (which is probably less tiring than talking of And Just Like That… or its series finale), it isn’t Miranda who is most known for “dating down,” despite that infamous line in the pilot, but rather, Charlotte York (Kristin Davis). More specifically, it’s her beloved dynamic with Harry Goldenblatt (Evan Handler), the “Shrek” of the relationship, that serves as at least part of the reason why women remain convinced that going for a guy who is less attractive than them will result in their thus far elusive “happily ever after.” Because, yes, ultimately Harry does turn out to be “living proof” (even if only in fictional form) that Shrekking can work. 

    Granted, more concrete, real-life examples of women doing so have not proven nearly as successful, with perhaps the first “prototype” in the land of the famous being Marilyn Monroe. And although it’s Arthur Miller’s appearance in comparison to hers that are called out the most (see: “Egghead Weds Hourglass”), Joe DiMaggio wasn’t exactly a looker either. In any event, Marilyn seemed to set a precedent for future hot girls (both famous and “civilian” alike) to lower their standards in the “aesthetics department” as well, all in the hope that there was something to this idea that uglier men surely must be nicer. Often times, however, it seems the uglier the dude, the crueler he actually is. Not so with Harry though…

    But back to the real-life examples of women who “dated down” and, unlike Charlotte, did not have the same fairy-tale ending. There was Princess Diana with Prince Charles (married for fifteen years, though living separate lives for a large bulk of that time), Christie Brinkley with Billy Joel (married for nine years), Julia Roberts with Lyle Lovett (married for just under two years) and Drew Barrymore with Tom Green (married for all of nine months). Shockingly, it was the latter who filed for divorce from her, though both cited irreconcilable differences. Much the same that Charlotte would with Trey MacDougal (Kyle MacLachlan) thanks mostly to her inability to reconcile with his erectile dysfunction. Even though it’s his mother (as usual), Bunny (Frances Sternhagen), who is the one making things feel so irreconcilable most of the time. This ramps up in the season five episode, “Plus One Is the Loneliest Number,” when Bunny traipses into “Charlotte’s” apartment one morning after the latter had just finished, shall we say, vetting her next Prince Charming, Justin Anderson III (Peter Giles). But it doesn’t take long for Bunny to chase him away by announcing that Charlotte is still married to her son. Sure, technically. Even though they’ve been separated for ages by now. 

    Bunny’s “pop-up” appearance, however, is what ultimately sends Charlotte straight into the arms of her true Prince Charming, initially mistaken for mere “Shrek” in the season five episode, “Critical Condition.” This is the first time Charlotte encounters her ogre, so to speak, after realizing that 1) she needs a lawyer to get Bunny off her dick about the apartment belonging to the MacDougals and 2) the lawyer she’s currently consulting with on her would-be messy divorce from Trey is too hot to be herself around. Or, as Carrie phrases it in a voiceover, “Charlotte realized she could never be as ugly as she needed to be in front of a man she considered so handsome.” It’s at that very moment that “gross” Harry, the other partner at the firm, walks in to grab a bagel and starts eating with all the grace of, well, a beast (with Charlotte and Harry at another point being described by Carrie as “the bachelorette and the beast”). Suddenly, Charlotte sees the potential in being able to speak freely about Trey—to get as “ugly” as she wants—with Harry. Thus, “And just like that, Charlotte changed lawyers.” And, in the process, would end up finding her Prince Charming as a result of quote unquote lowering her standards. 

    Of course, Harry’s “style” (sartorially, hygienically and otherwise) still takes some getting used to for Charlotte. And if it weren’t for the “hot s-e-x,” as she spells it out to Anthony (Mario Cantone), she might not be so easily enticed to go for the Shrekking maneuver before it had this name. But, in the next episode after meeting Harry, “The Big Journey,” he manages to turn on all the charm long enough to seduce Charlotte into bed (it doesn’t hurt that the bed in question is inside a very cheesy—but “hot”—bachelor pad he’s conveniently offered to show Charlotte as a way to help her find a new apartment). Out of nowhere, and much to her dismay, she finds herself falling for Harry’s line about her “perfect pink lips” and how he can’t stop fantasizing about them.  

    In the wake of the tryst, Charlotte confesses to Anthony at a gay club, “He’s my divorce lawyer and I don’t even like him,” in addition to, “I don’t wanna date him. He’s not very attractive.” And, as Charlotte made clear from the outset of the series, her criteria for Mr. Right not only includes a certain kind of job and “pedigree,” but also a certain kind of look (read: Ken doll handsome). Probably not just because Charlotte is vain, but also because she’s genuinely thinking about the “right” biological combination that will make her kids look attractive as well. 

    With Harry, however, all that staunch “logic and reason” of Charlotte’s goes right out the window along with her panties. For, by the time the finale of season five, “I Love a Charade,” rolls around, she can’t deny that not only is it “the best sex of her life,” but that she really does like Harry. That still doesn’t make it easy for her to totally ignore his general uncouthness or hairy back, but, in the end, she can’t deny that Shrekking actually paid off in a big way for her. Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) certainly couldn’t say the same about The Turtle (Timothy Wheeler) in the season one episode of SATC titled “The Turtle and the Hare.” Because, while The Turtle was willing to go along with all of Samantha’s “fixer-upper” ideas for him, Harry—a true Shrek through and through—did well to never much bother trying to alter his “crass” ways or physical appearance for Charlotte. Except a botched attempt at trying to get his back waxed for her in “I Love a Charade” (something that evidently “took” in subsequent seasons, for his hairy back never makes a cameo again). 

    In fact, it would turn out to be Charlotte making all the personal changes in her life for Harry, going so far as to convert to Judaism so that he’ll ask her to marry him (this plot, too, hits its rough patch in the sixth season, but eventually resolves by episode six, “Hop, Skip and a Week”). And while every other relationship in SATC can never manage to stand the test of time, it’s Charlotte and Harry’s that keeps on going strong, even in And Just Like That… (“zany”—read: non sequitur—as their plots are in these “later years” of their marriage). 

    Alas, Charlotte is among the rare examples to have gotten such a great relationship out of her Shrekking endeavors (which is probably why it’s fictional). And while many (especially women) are willing to try Shrekking, most end up only getting “Shrekked.” In other words, deigning to let someone less attractive have the privilege of accessing their body only to still end up being disappointed and/or getting their heart broken by the Shrek of the hour.  

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Party of One: With the And Just Like That… Series Finale, Michael Patrick King Gives Carrie the Ending He Always Wanted To—Albeit Poorly Executed

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    As has been Michael Patrick King’s wont throughout the third and final season of And Just Like That…, there have been a lot of callbacks to previous scenarios in Sex and the City. Whether this is truly intentional or not—or just a matter of not “remembering” the similarities (like not remembering that Lisa Todd Wexley’s [Nicole Ari Parker] dad had already died in season one)—the fact remains that the overall effect makes it seem less “calculated” and more like King and co. were out of truly fresh ideas. 

    With the supposed final chapter on Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) closing (though, based on past occurrences, viewers know that Bradshaw always has a tendency to “reanimate”), her conclusion is not only somewhat forced—a means to repair the ending that she was given for the series finale of Sex and the City—but also a redux of SATC’s season five episode, “Anchors Away.” In it, the running motif is based on something Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) tells her friends, including Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) and Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall): “Everyone knows you only get two great loves in your life.” She then spells out, without thinking, that Big (Chris Noth) and Aidan (John Corbett) were Carrie’s, leaving her somewhat flummoxed about what that’s supposed to mean for her romantic future. However, another running theme, one that’s always been there in this particular show, is that the city of New York is her great love. Or, as she cheesily puts it to the others, “You’re never alone in New York, it’s the perfect place to be single. The city is your date.” 

    That doesn’t mean the city still won’t make you feel like shit for being “alone,” as it does when Carrie, in her bid to have a little date with herself, de facto New York, ends up caught in a rainstorm after realizing the Guggenheim is closed on the day she wants to visit it (so much for being a seasoned New Yorker). Even though, at present, the Guggenheim is open seven days a week. In any case, as a result of the closure and bad weather, she’s led to Café Edison (another now defunct NYC institution); never mind that, geographically speaking, it wouldn’t have been possible for her to just “stumble into it” a few blocks from the Guggenheim, seeing as how it was about a forty-five minute walk to do so (Carrie instead describes it as a mere “several wet blocks later”). But then, SATC has never prided itself on a sense of realism—so how could anyone have expected that And Just Like That… would? 

    However, one thing that both shows undeniably have in common is parading the question that King brought up on Kristin Davis’ Are You a Charlotte? podcast, the question that has been at the core of the narrative from its inception: “Am I enough? Am I enough alone?” In “Anchors Away,” it seems as though, for Carrie, the answer is still no. In fact, she’s disturbed from the outset by her experience at Café Edison, when the proprietor barks, “Singles at the counter!” Carrie tries to push back with, “Oh, I was hoping to get a table—” “Singles, counter!”

    At said seating arrangement, Carrie is further horrified by a glimpse into her future via the other woman at the “singles counter,” Joan (played by Sylvia Miles, a New York fixture until her death in 2019), who begins gabbing with her immediately. Taking a shine to Carrie because she sees something of herself in this person, Joan announces of the singles counter at the café, “We single gals gotta have a port in the storm, am I right?” Carrie doesn’t look so convinced of that being true as she observes Joan crushing some white powder on her plate. Joan explains, “Lithium. I like to sprinkle it on my ice cream. You ever try it?” Carrie says she hasn’t and, when further questioned by Joan about what “mood elevator” Carrie is on, the latter tells Joan she isn’t “on” anything. Joan smiles, saying she used to be like Carrie until she broke up with some guy named Morty in ‘82, adding, “Thought somebody better would come along. Never happened.” Obviously, Carrie feels the sting of that comment, having recently ended things with Aidan for what was then the second time. 

    What’s more, the question of the week for her column is whether or not, “when it comes to being carefree single girls, have we missed the boat?” For Carrie, the idea of losing her ability to be single without judgment a.k.a. being single while also being “of a certain age” is what scares her the most. More than being single itself. Which is why, later, at the Navy party (with Fleet Week also being a through-line of the episode), Carrie takes a look around at the goings-on—including Charlotte flashing a tit to one of the Navy officers—and realizes this kind of scene isn’t for her anymore, informing Samantha, “I was right. This ship has sailed. And, tragically, I’m still on it.” 

    In the so-called final episode of And Just Like That…, “Party of One,” Carrie is met with a similar feeling in the opening scene, which itself echoes the one when she’s at the “singles counter” with Joan. Only instead of having a live “seat mate” this time, And Just Like That… aims to show just how far Carrie has been thrust into the future—apart from the robot servers and digital menus—with a Tommy Tomato stuffed toy (sure to become a real thing after this…then again, maybe not). This is the “creature” she ends up sitting across from at the restaurant. Of which she tells the host, “I was walking by. It looked so interesting.” A comment that sounds borderline racist in that an Asian restaurant would be described as “interesting” to her at this juncture of her existence in NYC. Or the fact that, also at this juncture, she should be surprised by a menu presented to her on an iPad, where she selects the items she wants via the screen. Treating it as though she’s never seen one before at another restaurant, Carrie goes through a whole “I’m so naïve” bit before the host that seated her presents her with the abovementioned Tommy Tomato, beaming at Carrie as she explains, “You don’t have to eat alone.” 

    This time, she’s even more horrified/affronted than she was when she got saddled with Joan at the singles counter. And also this time, the geography of where Carrie ends up eating totally doesn’t match the reality of where she would be. For the location it’s shot at, Haidilao Huoguo, is in Flushing. Oh sure, Queens might have come up in the world, but definitely not to the point where Carrie Bradshaw would fuck with it on a whim. Though that isn’t to say she wouldn’t shlep to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, which is where it looks like she, Charlotte, Lisa and Seema (Sarita Choudhury) are when they attend a bridal fashion show. Before entering said show, Carrie recounts what happened to her: “Ladies, they put a boy doll across from anyone eating alone.” Not exactly great publicity for Haidilao Huoguo, but oh well.

    What’s more, gone are the days when, as in the season two episode, “They Shoot Single People, Don’t They?,” the relative “lack of technology” didn’t make such an experience feel all the more sad and bleak. And yes, at the end of said episode, Carrie has the same epiphany about an “okayness” with potentially being alone forever, delivering the voiceover, “Instead of running away from the idea of a life alone, I’d better sit down and take that fear to lunch.” She does just that, and, since phones weren’t pervasive in 1999, when the episode aired, she didn’t even have that as a crutch for sitting alone at a restaurant either, proudly declaring, “So I sat there and had a glass of wine…alone. No books, no man, no friends, no armor, no faking.”

    This constant exploration of what it would mean to be truly alone, perennially single is the North Star of the SATC universe (in addition to the four friends being each other’s true soul mates). Coming up repeatedly every time Carrie found herself, yet again, in the position of being an “old maid” (another trope that arises in the season five episode, “Luck Be An Old Lady”). In AJLT, with the realization that both Big and Aidan, her “two great loves,” as Charlotte once put it, are no longer options—seeing as how Big is dead and Aidan is overused (which is really saying something considering how overused Big once seemed to be)—Carrie, for the first time, doesn’t appear as though she’s holding out hope for someone to be her “other half” in the future. 

    As she tells Charlotte during their “walk and talk” after the bridal fashion show, “Who will I be alone? Yes, I know I’ve lived alone a lot, but I’ve never lived alone without the thought that I wouldn’t be alone for long.” She then concludes, “I have to quit thinking: maybe a man. And start accepting: maybe just me.” Charlotte, of course, refuses to give credence to the idea that being single at Carrie’s age is acceptable (just as she refused to accept it back when they were all “spring chickens”). Or that it might be a genuine possibility, which is why she decides to invite Mark Kasabian (Victor Garber), the art gallery owner that employs her, to Thanksgiving at Miranda’s, hoping Carrie will see that there are, in fact, still plenty of non-jank fish in the sea. Even at “their age.”

    Carrie, of course, isn’t having it, mainly because she’s never been even remotely attracted to nice guys (this, too, was part of why Aidan never really “did it” for her—granted, he showed himself to be a true asshole later on, which was, funnily enough, when she was most committed to the relationship). But Carrie isn’t so quick to get on board with Charlotte’s plucky attitude about “male prospects” for the future, with even Duncan Reeves (Jonathan Cake), the British bloke she finally slept with after a season of flirtatious energy, not panning out as a viable suitor. 

    All of which leads Carrie—and the viewer—back to what she had said at the end of the SATC series finale, “An American Girl in Paris (Part Deux)”: “The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself.” As King reminded, “That was the sort of mission statement of Sex and the City. The interesting trick to it is Carrie then answered a phone call from a man who was coming to be with her [Mr. Big]. [But] it was always in my mind, ‘What happens if there’s no phone call?’ How strong of an individual do you have to be to make that same sentence when there’s no one on the horizon?” With Carrie adding to that sologamist line while answering Big’s phone call, “And if you find someone to love the ‘you’ you love, well, that’s just fabulous.”

    But in And Just Like That…, with Big dead, Aidan insufferable and Carrie being “too old” to have as many options on the dating scene as before, it appears King saw the opportunity to give his ultimate main character the ending he wasn’t bold enough to back then. The ending he didn’t think viewers would accept back then: “The woman realized she was not alone. She was on her own.” This being the “dazzling prose” Carrie chooses to conclude her 1800s-era manuscript with, despite the recommendation her agent gives her about how this would be a tragedy, especially for the time period. 

    And yes, viewers would have been ready to accept this conclusion—if only it hadn’t all been delivered so poorly…and so randomly, to boot. Complete with the much talked about clogged/overflowing toilet scene, which has absolutely no relevance or use to the episode. It can’t even be argued that it offers “comic relief” value. It’s just full-stop disgusting and basically mirrors the belief that this entire series was a turd that kept floating up. Until now. For that was it, the end. Finito. No more. And, by playing the SATC theme song during the credits, it just goes to show that King and co. were fundamentally trying to signal that all they wanted was to do their best to give the original Sex and the City the ending they thought it deserved. The more “courageous” ending for Carrie. For, as King also told Davis on her podcast, SATC was always about “the anarchy of saying single people are enough, being single is enough.”

    However, the way Carrie makes it look in these final scenes of AJLT, it doesn’t come across like that at all. Not even with the contrived musical selection of Barry White’s “You’re The First, The Last, My Everything” (which, by the way, is still much too easily associated with Ally McBeal—the eponymous character of said series, incidentally, ending up “alone” as well, perhaps proving it was more avant-garde in its day than SATC). 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Celebrity birthdays for the week of Aug. 17-23

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    Celebrity birthdays for the week of Aug. 17-23:

    Aug. 17: Actor Robert De Niro is 82. Guitarist Gary Talley of The Box Tops is 78. “Downton Abbey” creator Julian Fellowes is 76. Actor Robert Joy (“CSI: NY”) is 74. Singer Kevin Rowland of Dexy’s Midnight Runners is 72. Bassist Colin Moulding of XTC is 70. Country singer-songwriter Kevin Welch is 70. Singer Belinda Carlisle of The Go-Go’s is 67. Actor Sean Penn is 65. Jazz saxophonist Everette Harp is 64. Guitarist Gilby Clarke (Guns N’ Roses) is 63. Singer Maria McKee (Lone Justice) is 61. Drummer Steve Gorman (The Black Crowes) is 60. Singer-bassist Jill Cunniff (Luscious Jackson) is 59. Actor David Conrad (“Ghost Whisperer,” “Relativity”) is 58. Rapper Posdnuos of De La Soul is 56. Actor-singer Donnie Wahlberg (New Kids on the Block) is 56. TV personality Giuliana Rancic (“Fashion Police,” ″E! News”) is 51. Actor Bryton James (“Family Matters”) is 39. Actor Brady Corbet (“24,” “Thirteen”) is 37. Actor Austin Butler (“Dune: Part Two,” “Elvis”) is 34. Actor Taissa Farmiga (“American Horror Story”) is 31.

    Aug. 18: Actor Robert Redford is 89. Actor Henry G. Sanders (“Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman”) is 83. Drummer Dennis Elliott (Foreigner) is 75. Comedian Elayne Boosler is 73. Country singer Steve Wilkinson of The Wilkinsons is 70. Comedian-actor Denis Leary is 68. Actor Madeleine Stowe is 67. TV news anchor Bob Woodruff is 64. Actor Adam Storke (“Mystic Pizza”) is 63. Actor Craig Bierko (“Sex and the City,” ″The Long Kiss Goodnight”) is 61. Singer Zac Maloy of The Nixons is 57. Musician Everlast (House of Pain) is 56. Rapper Masta Killa of Wu-Tang Clan is 56. Actor Edward Norton is 56. Actor Christian Slater is 56. Actor Kaitlin Olson (“The Mick,” ″It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”) is 50. Comedian Andy Samberg (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” ″Saturday Night Live”) is 47. Guitarist Brad Tursi of Old Dominion is 46. Actor Maia Mitchell (“The Fosters”) is 32. Actor Madelaine Petsch (“Riverdale”) is 31. Actor Parker McKenna Posey (“My Wife and Kids”) is 30.

    Aug. 19: Actor Debra Paget (“The Ten Commandments,” “Love Me Tender”) is 92. Actor Diana Muldaur (“Star Trek: The Next Generation”) is 87. Actor Jill St. John is 85. Singer Billy J. Kramer is 82. Country singer-songwriter Eddy Raven is 81. Singer Ian Gillan of Deep Purple is 80. Actor Gerald McRaney is 78. Actor Jim Carter (“Downton Abbey”) is 77. Singer-guitarist Elliot Lurie of Looking Glass is 77. Bassist John Deacon of Queen is 74. Actor Jonathan Frakes (“Star Trek: The Next Generation”) is 73. Actor Peter Gallagher is 70. Actor Adam Arkin is 69. Singer-songwriter Gary Chapman is 68. Actor Martin Donovan is 68. Singer Ivan Neville is 66. Actor Eric Lutes (“Caroline in the City”) is 63. Actor John Stamos is 62. Actor Kyra Sedgwick is 60. Actor Kevin Dillon (“Entourage”) is 60. Country singer Lee Ann Womack is 59. Former MTV reporter Tabitha Soren is 58. Country singer Clay Walker is 56. Rapper Fat Joe is 55. Actor Tracie Thoms (“Cold Case”) is 50. Actor Erika Christensen (“Parenthood”) is 43. Actor Melissa Fumero (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine”) is 43. Actor Tammin Sursok (“Pretty Little Liars”) is 42. Singer Karli Osborn (SHeDaisy) is 41. Rapper Romeo (formerly Lil’ Romeo) is 36. Actor Ethan Cutkosky (TV’s “Shameless”) is 26.

    Aug. 20: News anchor Connie Chung is 79. Trombone player Jimmy Pankow of Chicago is 78. Actor Ray Wise (“Reaper,” ″Twin Peaks”) is 78. Actor John Noble (“Lord of the Rings” films) is 77. Singer Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin) is 77. Singer Rudy Gatlin of the Gatlin Brothers is 73. Singer-songwriter John Hiatt is 73. Actor-director Peter Horton (“thirtysomething”) is 72. “Today” show weatherman Al Roker is 71. Actor Jay Acovone (“Stargate SG-1”) is 70. Actor Joan Allen is 69. Director David O. Russell (“Silver Linings Playbook,” “American Hustle”) is 67. Actor James Marsters (“Angel,” ″Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) is 63. Rapper KRS-One is 60. Actor Colin Cunningham (“Falling Skies”) is 59. Actor Billy Gardell (“Mike and Molly”) is 56. Singer Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit is 55. Actor Ke Huy Quan (“Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”) is 55. Guitarist Brad Avery of Third Day is 54. Actor Misha Collins (“Supernatural”) is 51. Singer Monique Powell of Save Ferris is 50. Actor Ben Barnes (“Westworld,” ″Prince Caspian”) is 44. Actor Meghan Ory (“Once Upon a Time”) is 43. Actor Andrew Garfield (“The Amazing Spider-Man”) is 42. Actor Brant Daugherty (“Pretty Little Liars”) is 40. Singer-actor Demi Lovato is 33.

    Aug. 21: Guitarist James Burton (with Elvis Presley) is 86. Singer Jackie DeShannon is 84. Actor Patty McCormack (“Frost/Nixon,” “The Ropers”) is 80. Singer Carl Giammarese of The Buckinghams is 78. Actor Loretta Devine (“Boston Public”) is 76. Newsman Harry Smith is 74. Singer Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple, Black Sabbath) is 73. Guitarist Nick Kane (The Mavericks) is 71. Actor Kim Cattrall (“Sex and the City”) is 69. Actor Cleo King (“Mike and Molly”) is 63. Singer Serj Tankian of System of a Down is 58. Actor Carrie-Anne Moss (“The Matrix,” ″Chocolat”) is 55. Musician Liam Howlett of Prodigy is 54. Actor Alicia Witt (“Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” ″Cybill”) is 50. Singer-chef Kelis is 46. Actor Diego Klattenhoff (“The Blacklist”) is 46. TV personality Brody Jenner (“The Hills”) is 42. Singer Melissa Schuman of Dream is 41. Comedian Brooks Wheelan (“Saturday Night Live”) is 39. Actor Cody Kasch (“Desperate Housewives”) is 38. Musician Kacey Musgraves is 37. Actor Hayden Panettiere (“Nashville,” ″Heroes”) is 36. Actor RJ Mitte (“Breaking Bad”) is 33. Actor Maxim Knight (“Falling Skies”) is 26.

    Aug. 22: Newsman Morton Dean is 90. TV writer/producer David Chase (“The Sopranos”) is 80. Correspondent Steve Kroft (“60 Minutes”) is 80. Guitarist David Marks of The Beach Boys is 77. Guitarist Vernon Reid of Living Colour is 67. Country singer Collin Raye is 65. Actor Regina Taylor (“The Unit,” ″I’ll Fly Away”) is 65. Singer Roland Orzabal of Tears for Fears is 64. Drummer Debbi Peterson of The Bangles is 64. Guitarist Gary Lee Conner of Screaming Trees is 63. Singer Tori Amos is 62. Keyboardist James DeBarge of DeBarge is 62. Country singer Mila Mason is 62. Rapper GZA (Wu-Tang Clan) is 59. Actor Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (“Oz,” “Lost”) is 58. Actor Ty Burrell (“Modern Family”) is 58. Celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis is 55. Actor Melinda Page Hamilton (“Devious Maids,” ″Mad Men”) is 54. Actor Rick Yune (“Die Another Day,” “The Fast and the Furious”) is 54. Guitarist Paul Doucette of Matchbox Twenty is 53. Rapper Beenie Man is 52. Singer Howie Dorough of the Backstreet Boys is 52. Comedian Kristen Wiig (“Bridesmaids,” ″Saturday Night Live”) is 52. Actor Jenna Leigh Green (“Sabrina the Teenage Witch”) is 51. Keyboardist Bo Koster of My Morning Jacket is 51. Bassist Dean Back of Theory of a Deadman is 50. Actor and TV host James Corden is 47. Guitarist Jeff Stinco of Simple Plan is 47. Actor Brandon Adams (“The Mighty Ducks”) is 46. Actor Aya Sumika (“Numb3rs”) is 45. Actor Ari Stidham (TV’s “Scorpion”) is 33.

    Aug. 23: Actor Vera Miles is 95. Actor Barbara Eden is 94. Actor Richard Sanders (“WKRP In Cincinnati”) is 85. Country singer Rex Allen Jr. is 78. Actor David Robb (“Downton Abbey”) is 78. Singer Linda Thompson is 78. Actor Shelley Long is 76. Fiddler-singer Woody Paul of Riders in the Sky is 76. Singer-actor Rick Springfield is 76. Actor-producer Mark Hudson (The Hudson Brothers) is 74. Actor Skipp Sudduth (“The Good Wife”) is 69. Guitarist Dean DeLeo of Stone Temple Pilots is 64. Singer-bassist Ira Dean of Trick Pony is 56. Actor Jay Mohr is 55. Actor Ray Park (“X-Men,” ″The Phantom Menace”) is 51. Actor Scott Caan (“Hawaii Five-0”) is 49. Singer Julian Casablancas of The Strokes is 47. Actor Joanne Froggatt (“Downton Abbey”) is 45. Actor Jaime Lee Kirchner (“Bull”) is 44. Saxophonist Andy Wild of Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats is 44. Actor Annie Ilonzeh (“Chicago Fire”) is 42. Musician Sky Blu of LMFAO is 39. Actor Kimberly Matula (“The Bold and the Beautiful”) is 37.

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  • Every Subject That Nobody Wants This “Illuminates” Already Happened on Sex and the City

    Every Subject That Nobody Wants This “Illuminates” Already Happened on Sex and the City

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    As though to prove a point about Sex and the City’s long-lasting impact, Megan Thee Stallion recently appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to tell him, despite other things she had to promote, that she had only just started watching the show and couldn’t believe how long she had slept on it. It would seem that the creator of Nobody Wants This, Erin Foster, might have been banking on people (like Megan Thee Stallion) to continue sleeping on said show—otherwise why borrow so many tropes from it? Not least of which, of course, is that its female lead, Joanne (Kristen Bell), would have to convert to Judaism in order to be with Noah, a rabbi who she encounters at a dinner party hosted by her friend and “PR gal,” Ashely (Sherry Cola). Which is where the SATC comparisons already start to flicker in. Because while, sure, Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) didn’t have to convert to Judaism for Harry Goldenblatt (Evan Handler), it was an integral part of the storyline in terms of “making their relationship work” (in addition to Charlotte having to overcome how much less attractive Harry was than her).

    But, obviously, Joanne’s character is much more in line with Carrie Bradshaw’s (Sarah Jessica Parker) “breed.” For, like Carrie, Joanne is something of a “sexual anthropologist,” using her dates as fodder for her podcast, called, naturally, Nobody Wants This (on a related note: to “update” Carrie’s column shtick for the present, she does get a podcast on the SATC “sequel series,” …And Just Like That). The difference between her and Carrie (apart from sartorial bombast) is that Joanne “co-researches” the dating scene with her sister and best friend, Morgan (Justine Lupe). It is Morgan who serves as the three-in-one sounding board—embodying the Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte characters all at the same time—for all of Joanne’s dating woes/horror stories. And this is something we’re given insight into from the moment the show starts and Morgan comes to collect Joanne from a bad date that the latter ditches out on because the guy keeps talking way too much about his grandma and the tragedy of losing her when he was twelve.

    The shit-talking of the first scene segues into the podcasting (and continued shit-talking) of the second scene, wherein Morgan not only expositorily informs Joanne that they’ve recorded one hundred and nineteen episodes, but that, throughout each one, she has revealed the same thing over and over again: “When you find a nice, normal guy…you find fault with him.” Case in point: “Grandma Guy.” Morgan further proffers that maybe Joanne doesn’t even want to find a real relationship, a theory that of course has truth to it since, without “bad date inspiration,” she’ll end up like Carrie in the season five episode, “Unoriginal Sin,” lamenting, “I’m not getting laid. Therefore…I’m getting laid off” (though, ultimately, she wasn’t).

    This “deliberately self-sabotaging” epiphany comes for both women. That’s right, even blind-to-everything Carrie is forced to have this epiphany about herself after a bad breakup (the first one, anyway) with Mr. Big (Chris Noth). The “breakthrough” occurs when her friends make her see a therapist named Dr. G (Anne Lange), who has another patient named Seth (Jon Bon Jovi) that Carrie keeps flirting with in the waiting room. It’s only after the two finally have sex that they each understand why there were attracted to one another. For Seth, it’s because he immediately loses interest in a woman after sleeping with her. For Carrie, the according revelation is, “I pick the wrong men.”

    As for Joanne, she’s more open about the joy of picking the wrong men for the sake of “the story” a.k.a. her podcast, which has started to gain enough traction to become considered as worthy of being a corporate acquisition. This almost “willful” choosing of the wrong men is done in a similar vein as Carrie, who relies on not just her friends’ relationship horrors, but her own in order to come up with a weekly column called, what else, “Sex and the City.” It is in this headspace that Joanne gleefully accepts Ashley’s invite to a dinner party where all the male guests “sound terrible.” Including a rabbi named Noah Roklov (Adam Brody, perennially resurrected, if one will pardon the Christian allusion). Except that Noah turns out to be the man she’s instantly attracted to upon entering the space. Only she doesn’t know he’s the rabbi because he doesn’t come out and admit it, instead going along with her mistaken assumption that it’s another guy at the party with a beard.

    When she does get the big unveiling of his identity, the reaction is that there is no romantic future whatsoever. But, of course, that’s what makes the allure all the more prominent. Which is how she ends up walking into his temple soon after (such Carrie behavior) to exchange a “witty repartee” also in the style of “flirtatious” Carrie when Noah jokingly asks, “Are you a member of this temple?” She replies, “You guys do memberships? Is there a gym?” Ho-ho-ho-har-har-har.

    In “Either Aura,” the third episode, Joanne spends the majority of it dissecting a text and the lack of response it gets the way Carrie would spend entire brunches and lunches dissecting something Big or [insert name of some other asshole here] did and what it “means.” Then there is the kind of spiraling she does in the season three episode, “Drama Queens,” wherein it takes Aidan (John Corbett) ignoring her for her to suddenly comprehend that losing his interest would be the worst thing ever. That’s the same kind of spiral Joanne is on throughout “Either Aura,” waiting for Noah to respond to a text that her sister tells her was “weird” (the text being: “I think I’m pregnant” in regard to how good their first kiss was).

    At first, Noah’s availability is almost a detriment to his “desirability.” Because, as Carrie says in “Drama Queens,” “I’m used to the hunt and this is just…effortless. It’s freakin’ me out.” Charlotte eventually has to interject, “I don’t believe this! Now we’re dumping guys for being too available!” The prospect of Noah not being available (you know, for other reasons besides being a rabbi) is equally as terrifying to Joanne, prompting her to wonder (or being unable to “help but wonder”) if she’s a “good” person. As in, morally decent enough for a rabbi.

    All of this making “her stomach flip all on her own” (another Carrie quote from “Drama Queens”) plays into Carrie’s pondering for her column: “When things come too easy, we’re suspect. Do they have to get complicated before we believe they’re for real? We’re raised to believe that course of true love never runs smoothly. There always have to be obstacles in Act Two before you can live happily ever after in Act Three. But what happens when the obstacles aren’t there? Does that mean there’s something missing? Do we need drama to make a relationship work?”

    If that’s genuinely the caveat, then Joanne and Noah are destined to be together (and predictably do end up that way for the season finale). Their density of “obstacles” are further compounded by Noah essentially acting ashamed to be with her in the fifth episode, “My Friend Joanne.” Needless to say, this smacks of the “Secret Sex” episode of SATC in season one. The allusion to it, whether “intentional” or not, is already made in the first episode of Nobody Wants This, when Morgan mentions a guy named Greg who wouldn’t be seen with Joanne in public. But this thread picks up again when Noah takes her to a Jewish youth camp in Ojai and suddenly acts the opposite of a loving boyfriend when he realizes his boss is going to be there and, thus, introduces Joanne to a colleague as a “friend.” It takes some of the teen girls at the camp to spell it out for her: he introduced her as his friend. Hence, they’re definitely not together as solidly as she thinks.

    To be sure, as Noah tells his brother, Sasha (Timothy Simons), “I’m not ready to face the whole ‘I’m dating a shiksa’ thing” in public. In fact, he’s convinced he won’t have to because Rabbi Cohen (Stephen Tobolowsky) won’t be there…or so he thought. But when the big boss shows up, Noah fully fathoms just how much is at stake for him, career-wise, in dating someone as non-Jewish (read: totally white bread) as Joanne. Who also happens to be coming across as Carrie-level clingy in this episode, whining to Noah when he tells her they have to cancel their Carmel trip because of his unexpected work commitment, “What am I supposed to do? Just stay at home alone?” Yes, bitch, that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. In addition, apparently, to being unavoidably disgusted when a man is too “nice.”

    Or, in Noah’s instance, too “sniveling.” Specifically, to Joanne’s parents, who he meets in the sixth episode, titled “The Ick.” And, what do you know, it’s an episode that speaks exactly to what Sex and the City already did in season six with “The Ick Factor.” Centered on Carrie’s “steady” of the moment, Aleksandr Petrovsky (Mikhail Baryshnikov), being way too over the top—therefore, “icky”—with his romantic gestures, Carrie struggles vis-à-vis how to deal with someone so cringingly saccharine.

    Much the same as Carrie, Joanne can’t “digest” a man who brings flowers “for respect” and says obsequious things that end up involving him doing a bad Italian accent (specifically, so he can utter the word “Prego”—as in the nasty sauce brand—when Morgan says she found an old Prego jar to put the flowers in). Morgan, attuned to her sister in ways that no one else is, clocks the look on Joanne’s face when taking in all of the icky things going on with Noah in this scenario. When Morgan calls her out about having the ick, Joanne tries to deny it—to which Morgan warns, “You can’t fight the ick, it’s like a Chinese finger trap: the harder you pull, the stronger it gets.”

    But naturally, as it happened for Carrie and Aleksandr, Joanne is able to surmount her icky feelings thanks to being candid with the object of her ick about it so that said object can work to remedy being so “icky.” However, if Aleksandr’s eventual fate is something to go by, Noah isn’t totally out of the woods in terms of redeeming himself as Joanne’s “forever person” (besides, that wouldn’t make for “compelling television,” n’est-ce pas? Gotta leave viewers on their toes).

    The grand denouement of Nobody Wants This is the bat mitzvah of Noah’s niece, Miriam (Shiloh Bearman), who grudgingly goes along with the Noah’s mom/her grandma Bina’s (Tovah Feldshuh), desired theme: “Miriam Takes a Bite Out of the Big Apple.” A more than slightly traitorous choice in L.A., but perhaps Bina is aware that the Jewish population in NY is larger, with L.A. coming in second in the U.S. after it for having largest population of Jewish people.

    To the point of New York versus L.A., it must also be said that, as Sex and the City’s “fifth character” is New York, Los Angeles plays a key supporting character in Nobody Wants This (even if it additionally betrays L.A. by having what can be called a “Philip Roth book cover font” for its title card).

    What’s more, much of Sex and the City was rooted in a “Jewish undertone” (apart from just Carrie bandying “keywords” like “mazel tov” so annoyingly) precisely because it was set in New York (see also: Charlotte’s wedding episode in season six, “The Catch”). Indeed, that was pretty much the extent of the “ethnic diversity” that the show “allowed” for. With Nobody Wants This, there’s about that same amount of “diversity” despite the narrative taking place in a city as racially varied as L.A. And yet, the show appears to count on the glamoring distractions of familiar storylines from Sex and the City—whether it relates to overbearing mothers, awkward situations with vibrators, emotionally distant men or fundamental incompatibility. And maybe part of that reliance stems from Foster underestimating just how many viewers can still cite Sex and the City episodes like scripture.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Crossroads and Britney Spears As Unwilling Method Actor

    Crossroads and Britney Spears As Unwilling Method Actor

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    Of all the films Britney Spears could have “gone all Method” for, a “frothy” (but actually fundamentally deep) teen road movie called Crossroads probably wouldn’t have seemed worth it to most “serious” actors. Or even “serious” moviegoers. And Spears would likely tell you that her sudden “morphing” into Lucy Wagner on and off the set had nothing to do with acting, so much as “what acting did to [her] mind.” As Spears retells it in The Woman in Me, “I think I started Method acting—only I didn’t know how to break out of my character. I really became this other person. Some people do Method acting, but they’re usually aware of the fact that they’re doing it. But I didn’t have any separation at all.” 

    Spears’ unwitting (and unwilling) commitment to the “character” (not so far off from herself if the dancing to Madonna in her underwear scene is an indication), however, was not very appreciated by critics. Most of whom panned the project as shallow, insipid teen girl bullshit that served as a thinly-veiled puff piece for Spears. They even went so far as to deride her positive messaging about a girl finding her voice amid a world of oppressive patriarchal figures, with one female critic insisting, “…the film’s mealy-mouthed messages about feminine empowerment will almost certainly fall on deaf ears, since even eleven-year-olds know Spears’ power resides largely in her taut torso.” Indeed, Crossroads was lumped together with the badness of another film starring a pop star around the same time: Glitter. But at least Brit’s movie had the benefit of being released several months after 9/11, instead of just ten days later (with its soundtrack also being released on 9/11). And yes, both movies are, to this day, often shown as a campy double bill. But that’s not really fair to Crossroads. Because Spears’ performance does offer an emotional intelligence that Carey’s simply does not (despite her having “lived the tale” of a sob story childhood and subsequent breaking into the music business with the help of a possessive producer…in this case, Timothy Walker [Terrence Howard], before the plot becomes more A Star Is Born when another producer, Julian “Dice” Black [Max Beesley], enters the picture). And while, like Carey’s film project, there are similarities between Spears and the lead character (including an oppressive father steering the course of her life and keeping her from doing normal “teen girl things” or how Lucy spells “dryer” as “drier”), the difference is that one can see Spears isn’t relying on their similarities as her sole crutch for playing this part. 

    In fact, what she relied on for the role appears to be something far closer to the divine. Laugh as movie critics might at such an assessment. But when Spears writes, “This is embarrassing to say, but it’s like a cloud or something came over me and I just became this girl named Lucy,” there’s no arguing that something more mystical was involved. Even if that “mysticism” related to her mind’s power. Spears continued, “When the camera came on, I was her, and then I couldn’t tell the difference between when the camera was on and when it wasn’t. I know that seems stupid, but it’s the truth. I took it that seriously. I took it seriously to the point where Justin [Timberlake] said, ‘Why are you walking like that? Who are you?’” Yet another small anecdote that makes Justin come across like kind of an asshole for basically making fun of her uncontrollable commitment to the part in a movie that found room for her to show support for Justin’s goddamn boy band. All simply by placing “Bye Bye Bye” at the center of a light-heartedly contentious scene over what music her and her friends want to listen to while their driver/Lucy’s budding love interest, Ben Kimble (Anson Mount), keeps trying to change the station back to his “angsty rock” music (this, by the way, was the crux of warring musical identities in the late 90s and early 00s). 

    And though detractors would also argue that Spears does little to stretch her acting abilities in a role that finds her character auditioning for a record contract, the character biography Spears herself took pains to write in Britney Spears’ Crossroads Diary wouldn’t have been so thorough in spelling out the differences if she didn’t feel intrinsically separate from this person. Specifically, she states, “I play Lucy, an only child who lives with her dad, Pete, in a small town in Georgia. Lucy’s parents got divorced when she was much younger, and her mom lives out in Arizona. They don’t communicate. Lucy is the kind of girl who doesn’t make waves. She’s spent her whole life following the path her dad has laid out for her. She’s smart and gets good grades: she’s planning to be a doctor. But she really loves to sing and to write. She’s a poet and is kind of obsessive about her journal.” While it can be pointed out that, in many regards, Spears, too, was a girl who didn’t make waves, always listening to “the adults” and doing what she was told despite being the true agent of her success (Spears herself admits in The Woman in Me, “I was committed to not rocking the boat, and to not complaining even when something upset me”), Lucy is more overtly obedient and, yes, virginal. In fact, that’s the word one of her ex-friends, Kit (Zoe Saldana), hurls at her as an insult in the hallway of the school. In contrast to Spears, who played with that persona of being virginal via more sexually-tinged irony, Lucy is someone who wants her first time to be special, even though her high school lab partner, Henry (Justin Long), desperately wants her to keep her word that they’ll lose their virginity to one another so as not to go off to college all “naive.” 

    Lucy’s naïveté is also something that sets her apart from Spears, who, by age twenty in 2001 (the year the movie was being made and the Britney album was released), was already plenty worldly—and about to get even more so in the wake of Justin’s imminent portrayal of her as a “harlot” to his “golden boy” in the 2002 song (and video), “Cry Me A River.” The Diane Sawyer interview of 2003 would turn that worldliness into all-out jadedness. That all of this happened after Crossroads seemed cruelly poetic in that the film is about a teenage girl coming to terms with the terrifying responsibilities and potential landmines of womanhood. But what Spears endured was above and beyond the conventional horrors of becoming a woman. Lucy was lucky that, as a civilian (at least in the story we get to see before she potentially lands a record deal), she would never have to know what it was to be scrutinized not just over her body, but over every minute detail of her personal life. Besides, Lucy’s sartorial style isn’t exactly in keeping with Spears’, who also commented on that in Britney Spears’ Crossroads Diary by saying, “[My assistant,] Fe calls [Lucy’s clothes] ‘casual frumpy’—jeans, sneakers, cotton button-down shirt under a sweatshirt. Accessorized with a yellow canvas pocketbook and a bucket cap. They’re the opposite of what I usually wear.” To be sure, even when Spears’ was “off-duty,” she was always fond of low-rise, midriff-baring ensembles. 

    And then there was Lucy’s inherent knowledge of all things automotive thanks to her dad (Dan Aykroyd) being a mechanic. As Spears is sure to call out in her diary, “Me? Let’s just say that on a recent road escapade with Felicia, it took the two of us twenty minutes to figure out how to put gas in the car!” So yes, there are many nuanced differences between the two women, ones that ultimately overtook Spears’ own spirit for quite some time. 

    It was, apparently, CVS that cured her. Or rather, buying some makeup there with a friend. As Spears recalls, “After the movie wrapped, one of my girlfriends from a club in LA came to visit me. We went to CVS. I swear to God, I walked into the store, and as I talked to her while we shopped, I finally came back to myself. When I came outside again I was cured of the spell that movie had cast. It was so strange. My little spirit showed back up in my body. That trip to buy makeup with my friend was like waving some magic wand.” Undeniably, this is what would be called a symptom of psychosis. Schizophrenia even. And yes, Spears’ tendency to bisect her personality as a defense mechanism came into play early on here. With her portrayal of Lucy, Spears tapped into that precarious split between thinking, memory, personality and perception. As such, Spears put it best when she said, “All I can say is it’s a good thing Lucy was a sweet girl writing poems about how she was ‘not a girl, not yet a woman,’ and not a serial killer. I ended up walking differently, carrying myself differently, talking differently. I was someone else for months while I filmed Crossroads.”

    This was something she seemed to notice and give voice to even at the time of filming, with one entry in her diary noting, “I’m doing another one of those really hard scenes. I’m crying and talking to Anson (Ben). It’s very emotional. I couldn’t pick my spirits up afterward.” The scene in question happens after Lucy’s mother (played by Kim Cattrall, though, at the time, there were rumors Madonna would do it—as if!) tells her that she never wanted her in the first place—that her father “made her” have a baby. Meanwhile she appears perfectly happy with her new set of children in Tucson. Spears describes getting into character for the emotionalism of that scene, explaining, “How did I do it? I remembered things that made me sad, but mostly I just put myself in Lucy’s place. I thought about how I’d feel if my mom didn’t love me, and I just hurt for her. Feeling the way Lucy would feel brought on the tears.” Tragically enough, it can presently be argued that maybe Lynne Spears really didn’t love Britney all that much to allow what happened to her with the conservatorship. Not just allow it, but help conspire to make it happen. 

    While Lynne made plenty of appearances on the set, it was, as usual, Spears’ assistant, Felicia, who was the most ever-present. It was she who prompted Spears to write, “She told me that she can see me getting more confident about acting. It’s true, I’m less worried about all this movie stuff—sometimes I even feel like an old pro!” That seemed to be true enough when, soon after Crossroads, she auditioned for the role of Allie in The Notebook. It came down to her and Rachel McAdams, with the latter obviously winning out. A result Spears was pleased with, commenting, “…I’m glad I didn’t do it. If I had, instead of working on my album In the Zone I’d have been acting like a 1940s heiress night and day. “Although Spears was briefly hoping to make a “proper go” of becoming a singer/actress, in The Woman in Me, she concludes of that profession, “I hope I never get close to that occupational hazard again. Living that way, being half yourself and half a fictional character, is messed up. After a while you don’t know what’s real anymore.”

    Funnily enough, Spears could just as easily be describing the bifurcation between her stage persona and her real self or, during her early Instagram days when the conservatorship was still not being questioned, her social media self and her real self. Thus, the great search for “the real Britney” has been a decades-long one.

    As for Crossroads and what she sacrificed emotionally for it, it obviously still means something to Spears. Not only because she goes into such detail about it in her memoir, but because it was the only attempt at promoting the book Spears offered up: rereleasing Crossroads in theaters (in addition to a special edition of the soundtrack…with NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye” still noticeably missing). Once again, however, it went unappreciated. Audiences just can’t seem to appropriately embrace or honor Spears’ uncontrollable Method acting abilities. 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • “Single Soon” Is In Direct Contrast to “Used to Be Young”

    “Single Soon” Is In Direct Contrast to “Used to Be Young”

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    With Miley Cyrus releasing her “admitting to aging” anthem, “Used to Be Young,” at a time when admitting to aging as a woman somehow seems less acceptable than ever, Selena Gomez has opted to veer in an entirely different direction with her own ditty (released the same day as Miley’s on August 25th): the far more upbeat “Single Soon.” In contrast, to the lament of “Used to Be Young,” which focuses on letting go of “frivolous things” and overall folly, “Single Soon” seems to be Gomez’s bid to ignore the idea of any sense of aging whatsoever. For, at almost exactly the same age as Cyrus, Gomez is ready to hit the bars drinking and the clubs dancing. Something that belies Cyrus telling British Vogue back in May, “[This songwriter had brought me] like, you know, the standard fucked up in the club track. And I was like, ‘I’m two years sober. That’s not where I spend my time, you know. You’re more likely to catch me and my friends literally walking through rose gardens or going to a museum…’ It’s not about being self-serious. I’m just evolved.”

    Not to say that Gomez can’t be “evolved” either just because she’s still setting her videos in clubs and portraying puerile scenes of jumping in pools, running through alleyways and having “girlie” sleepovers. She just happens to be “evolving” in a slightly more “resistant-to-aging” way. Hence, lyrics like, “I know I’m a little high/Maintenance, but I’m worth a try/Might not give a reason why (oh well)/We both had a lot of fun/Time to find another one/Blame it all on feelin’ young.” The operative word being feelin’. And it seems appropriate that, as though to reflect the inability to “act one’s age” that most women in the public eye suffer from, Kim Kardashian would also post a video of herself jump roping on the eve of the “Single Soon” release with the caption, “I don’t know how to act my age; I’ve never been this old before…” Famous women, of course, have an especially challenging time dealing with this “issue.” Which should really be a non-issue if we actually lived in a non-judgmental, non-patriarchal society. Alas, we do not…and that’s why we’re met with this schizophrenic reaction among women vis-à-vis aging. The split persona that results in a pop star like Britney still playing the Lolita coquette or someone like MARINA saying “fuck it” and letting her hair go gray (for a while, anyway). The divergent reactions women can have merely to entering their thirties is telling of the weighty societal pressures placed upon them from an early age to “stay young” forever. Even though that ends up getting them condemned, too (see: Madonna).

    While Cyrus seems to be running an offensive on being called “old” by branding herself with the euphemistic label “used to be young,” Gomez is on the defensive by embracing the idea that being single in one’s thirties is nothing to be ashamed of. Ergo, drawing on an homage to the premier single girl show, Sex and the City, for her music video. Except, rather than mirroring Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Gomez chose to lip sync some of Samantha’s (Kim Cattrall) dialogue (in a teaser for the single) from the season one episode, “Three’s A Crowd.” Even though she might have done the “Who is this?” line one better by quoting Samantha saying, “If you’re single, the world is your smorgasbord.” That’s what comes across, for the most part, in the video for “Single Soon,” although we never once see Gomez with any “variety of men” to prove that smorgasbord point. Rather, she plays up the kind of sologamist angle that shines through in Ariana Grande’s “thank u, next,” ultimately a clip show collection of tributes to Grande’s favorite “00s teen girl” movies, including Mean Girls, Bring It On, 13 Going on 30 and Legally Blonde, that involve no sign of her enjoying her singledom in ways that involve men. 

    As for Cyrus, the absence of anything whatsoever in her video apart from herself also speaks to the current landscape of self-obsession posing as “self-love.” Indeed “the self” appears to be the primary fixation of the twenty-first century (which certainly makes it easier to be single). A reality solidified as social media mutated into what it is today. Not only a powerful platform for narcissism, but also hatred and bullying. Something Gomez was reminded of when devoted Selenators came for Hailey Bieber earlier this year after Gomez posted a TikTok of herself saying she had accidentally over-laminated her eyebrows. Hours later, Kylie Jenner, “bestie” to Hailey, posted a photo of herself with a heavy filter that featured a caption placed directly over her eyebrows that read, “This was an accident?????”

    Immediately presumed to be shade at Gomez’s looks (because, unlike Stefano Gabbana, not everyone can just come right out and call Gomez “brutta”), Bieber was triangulated for being “@’d” in the story by Jenner with a picture of Bieber’s unkempt brows screenshotted from a FaceTime call. If it was, in fact, as calculated as everyone insisted, not only is it tragic how underhanded things have to be “nowadays” (as opposed to a good old-fashioned, on-blast feud like the one between Joan and Bette), but it also serves to both affirm and undercut Gomez’s message about being single. 

    Sure, on the one hand, you don’t become a petty, possessive little bitch like Bieber, but on the other, those petty, possessive bitches like Bieber view you as a threat because of your single status. As was the case for Carrie Bradshaw in “Bay of Married Pigs,” during which she’s exiled from her married friend Patience’s (Jennifer Guthrie) Hamptons house because her husband, Peter (David Healy), strategically chooses to walk around without any underwear on in the hallway so that Carrie will be able to see his “pepper mill-(sized) dick.” When Patience finds out, she sends Carrie packing, prompting the latter to continue her thesis for that week’s column: “Married people don’t hate singles. They just want us figured out.” And so long as they stay single, they never will be. Thus, the enduring divide.

    As for Miley, she seems on the Charlotte (Kristin Davis) track at the moment with all this talk of putting aside “silly (/slutty) youthful behavior” and perhaps focusing on a more stable life. Whatever that might actually mean for a Sagittarius. As for Gomez, a Cancer cusping Leo, it would seem her own security-craving sign betrays any genuine desire to be single. So maybe, in the end, they both mean the opposite of what they’re saying out loud…

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • SATC’s Most Titillating Character Gets the Limpest Cameo of All Time

    SATC’s Most Titillating Character Gets the Limpest Cameo of All Time

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    While many had foolishly expressed excitement over the prospect of seeing Kim Cattrall reprise her role as Samantha Jones (even if only for seventy-five seconds) on the second season of And Just Like That…, rightfully jaded types knew that no good could come of it. Only irritation (no STD pun intended). And sure, there have been some real shitty/disappointing cameos in television history (though none of them were ever on I Love Lucy), but this one really takes the cake (second only to another certain cameo on SATC by The Orange One). Indeed, the flimsy cameo by Cattrall as Samantha was matched only by Samantha’s even flimsier excuse to Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) for being unable to attend the final dinner in her “single girl” apartment. An apartment so “fabulous!” that Samantha was willing to ignore the tenuous relationship she’s had of late with Carrie, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte (Kristin Davis). This being established from the outset of And Just Like That… as a reason to explain away the fact that Cattrall didn’t want to sign on for this travesty. Until they must have made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. Complete with the promise that she wouldn’t even have to film in the same room as SJP. 

    Instead, the phone call method would suffice. And Samantha is no stranger to phone call scenes (one of which Selena Gomez recently lip synced to promote “Single Soon”). Nor is Carrie, for that matter, who would often get minutes of script written for her coast-to-coast calls to Big (Chris Noth) during his California stint. So it is that Carrie greets her with the cheeseball line, “Hello London.” Never mind that this was the woman who could barely be bothered to text Carrie back after she said things like, “I miss you” to Samantha without any shame. Samantha’s lack of response to that text didn’t stop Carrie from continuing to speak to her as though she were a silent god, informing her that she kissed someone for the first time in the wake of Big’s death (and yes, Samantha did have the decency [?] to send showboating flowers to Big’s funeral). This was, apparently, enough to coax Samantha out of her silence, assuring Carrie that they would talk “soon.” When no text or call arrived after that, Carrie again took the initiative while standing on the Pont des Arts bridge in Paris (after scattering Big’s ashes, even though that’s not exactly “legal”—but who’s going to stop a rich white lady from doing what she wants?) to text her ex-bestie. The message?: “I’m in Paris, want to meet for a cocktail?” (No, she does not). For whatever reason, Samantha gets back right away with the reply, “How’s tomorrow night?” Carrie confirms, “FABULOUS.” That goddamn word that reiterates, every time, what era of gay man wrote these characters.

    This exchange, needless to say, is a far cry from Miranda telling Carrie in the first episode of And Just Like That…, “Hello It’s Me,” “You know, it is kind of like she’s dead. Samantha. We never even talk about her.” Carrie shrugs, “Well, what is there to say?” before giving the phony/hyper-expository backstory about how Samantha “dropped her as a friend” when Carrie “dropped her a publicist,” then going on to victimize herself by noting, “I thought I was more to her than an ATM.” Miranda confirms that she and Charlotte are still being iced out as well, remarking, “We texted and called, but we never heard back.” Never mind that it’s not in Samantha’s nature to be passive aggressive over confrontational. If she had a problem with Carrie, not only would she be direct about it (as she was when Carrie judged her for blowing the Worldwide Express guy), but she wouldn’t punish Miranda and Charlotte by extending her anger to them as well. 

    Alas, what can the writers do when Cattrall has been so unaccommodating…until now. “At least” bothering to make a cameo that further reiterates she will never actually be appearing on the show. Delivering her lines to Razzie Award-level perfection when she declares, “My flight’s three hours delayed Carrie, I won’t be able to make it there in time.” Carrie acts like she has no idea what Samantha might be referring to when she asks, “In…in time for what?” Samantha exclaims, “The last supper. Miranda and Charlotte told me all about it. I was gonna surprise you.” Again, we’re supposed to believe Samantha suddenly shifted from “dark mode” to texting everyone freely. But, of course, because her presence, telephonic or otherwise, is still so rare, Carrie acts like a teen girl whose crush has finally given her the time of day when she replies, “Oh my gosh. Well you did, I’m very surprised.”

    Samantha keeps carrying on the “breezy” conversation by adding, “Well the fog finally lifted. But the crew? Maxed out. Oh I am fucking furious.” Carrie then asks us to suspend our disbelief further by assuming that Samantha would come for anything longer than a dinner by saying, “No, no, no. Don’t worry. We’ll just get together tomorrow.” Samantha reminds her ex-bestie who the fuck she is by explaining, “Honey, I just left Heathrow. I was flying back on the first flight in the morning.” With Carrie incredulous that she would fly “all the way to New York” (a mere five hours from London) just to come to her party, Samantha adds, “Well it is your apartment and I have to pay my respects.” This mimics her attachment to it in the Sex and the City movie from 2008, during which Samantha flies out from L.A. (instead of just pretending she was going to fly out from London) to help Carrie pay the so-called necessary respects to her “single girl” apartment that she’s not getting rid of, per se, so much as moving out of to be in a more spacious apartment that Big bought for them. Although no one is expecting Samantha to show up (just as no one is in “The Last Supper Part Two: Entrée”), her arrival is met with screaming delight as Samantha explains, “A lot of shit went down in this place. Attention must be paid.”

    And it is, as the four women (plus Charlotte’s daughter, Lily, who would have been roughly four years old at the time), proceed to put on a fashion show of Carrie’s clothes for one another. Because, in case even the person with the most casual knowledge of Sex and the City wasn’t aware, clothes are “a thing” with this show. Rivaled only by shoes and purses. Yes, it’s often superfluous in the city, but no one ever said New York wasn’t the world’s main hub for capitalism. Carrie’s friendships are proof of that, with the likelihood of these women remaining friends if one of them had strayed from the “correct” socioeconomic path being nil. Even “starving artist” Carrie manages to out-rich everyone in the group by marrying Big (then later inheriting his fortune). This being how she’s able to keep her “single girl” apartment as a “spare” even when she moves out of it in the Sex and the City movie. Which, of course, turns out to be handy when Big leaves her with her metaphorical dick in the wind by clamming up and not being able to come to the wedding venue (a.k.a. 42nd Street NYPL) to marry her. Making continuous unanswered calls to her saying that he can’t go in without her, like the scared little puto he is. 

    And so, even though “it took four friends three days to put twenty years into thirty-eight boxes,” Carrie hires an assistant to help her unbox all that shit and put it back in the “single girl” apartment she couldn’t give up until Aidan (John Corbett) came back along in the And Just Like That… era. As the years went on before this point, it appeared as though nothing would have ever convinced Carrie to give up that place, so intertwined as it is with her identity. Not just for Carrie, but for Samantha, too. Which is why we’re expected to believe she would break down all her barriers to materialize for “The Last Supper.”

    Instead, she makes Carrie hold the phone up on speaker so she say, “Thank you for everything. You fucking fabulous, fabulous flat.” Carrie interrupts with, “Uh, Samantha, do you have a British accent?”And yes, to add to the extremely forced aura of this cameo, the writers conjured the SATC “Easter egg” of Annabelle Bronstein, the woman whose Soho House card Samantha used in season six to gain entry into the exclusive pool. And the same episode where the non sequitur cameo of Geri Halliwell occurred. Now matched only by the non sequitur cameos from Sam Smith and Samantha in this season of And Just Like That… But wait, as Cattrall asks, “Who’s Samantha? This is Annabelle Bronstein. I’m from Injuh.”

    And just like that, in roughly one minute and fifteen seconds, Cattrall effectively ruined her character by bothering to do this cameo at all, choosing not to stick to her guns about refusing to be involved in this latest “chapter.” As Samantha would have said, “These bitches need to be put in their places.” By not kowtowing to their desire to “use” her again. Especially for such banal and mundane purposes.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Selena Gomez’s “Single Girl Anthem” Naturally Pays Homage to Sex and the City

    Selena Gomez’s “Single Girl Anthem” Naturally Pays Homage to Sex and the City

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    Considering Selena Gomez teased her latest single with a video of her lip syncing the dialogue of Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) from a season one episode of Sex and the City called “Three’s A Crowd,” it’s only natural that she should continue the homage to the perennial “single girl” show in her music video for “Single Soon.” And that arrives almost instantaneously by way of her “S” necklace and the leaving of a Post-It that directly quotes Jack Berger’s (Ron Livingston) infamous breakup note to Carrie: “I’m sorry. I can’t. Don’t hate me.”

    Turning the notion of being the abandoned woman on its ear by becoming the abandoner, this note is placed on the table as Gomez chirpily sings, “Maybe I’ll just disappear/I don’t wanna see a tear.” Because who wants to deal with such icky emotions? Not Gomez. And, though we never see her walk out the door of the place where she left the Post-It, in a seemingly different apartment (though probably not one inside the Arconia because that would be too meta) “across town” (as Carrie B., would say in a voiceover), Gomez is “pickin’ out this dress” and “tryin’ on these shoes” ‘cause she’ll be “single soon.” Already is, in fact…whether her erstwhile boyfriend knows it yet or not. And yes, this image of her in her apartment trying on outfits and shoes echoes the level of peak vacuity (call it “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” syndrome) that Carrie also possesses despite being a writer. Indeed, it speaks to a false perception to assume that just because one writes, it means they’re immune to the anti-intellectual trappings of materialism. An especial trap for women, who are conditioned to believe they need “all the things” in order to attract men (and, more often than not, they do). For that’s what being a (straight) woman is all about, right? No matter how many advertising campaigns try to repurpose that indoctrination to attempt reflecting the presently more “kosher” belief that a woman wanting to look good is “just for herself.” Yeah right. 

    Self-love being a key part of Gomez’s brand, particularly as it pertains to mental health, she proceeds to “sit-dance” on the floor, looking endlessly comfortable with both her breakup decision and being alone. Relishing “me time,” as it were. Which gives a girl the chance to engage in what Carrie would deem all the “SSB” (secret single behavior) she wants, without fear of judgment from the gross boy she was once forced to share a space with. As Carrie phrases it in “The Good Fight,” “I miss walking into my apartment with no one there and it’s all quiet and I can do that stuff you do when you’re totally alone. Things you would never want your boyfriend to see you do.” Apparently, that’s what Gomez missed about being single too, as she stares at herself in the mirror and applies lipstick, tries on more “looQues” (including a very “Lavender Haze”-inspired jacket) and then heads out to meet her friends at a restaurant. 

    At first, the meeting feels like a nod to that season four episode, “The Agony and the ‘Ex’-tacy,” where Carrie is cajoled into having a thirty-fifth birthday party at Il Cantinori, despite not wanting to celebrate at all. Although Gomez is initially forced to wait at a giant empty table like the “ultimate” single girl she’s paying tribute to, she doesn’t appear as bummed as Carrie was while glancing around the restaurant to clock other couples/generally happy people as the lyrics, “I’ma date who I wanna/Stay out late if I wanna/I’ma do what I wanna do” play in the background. Plus, it’s easy to be blithe when considering that Gomez isn’t stood up (unlike Carrie) by the three friends who arrive soon after (because, obviously, a quartet of friends is necessary to really drive the SATC point home) to join her for drinks.

    Cheersing to the freedom of singledom, director Philip Andelman then cuts to Gomez and co. in the back of a pimped-out ride (in an image that briefly reminds one of Madonna being in the back of a limo with her own friend group in “Music”). It’s here that Gomez shrugs, “I know I’m a little high/Maintenance, but I’m worth a try/Might not give a reason why (oh well)/We both had a lot of fun/Time to find another one/Blame it all on feelin’ young.” It’s with that last line that Gomez not only negates how she recently said she was “too old” for social media (a sentiment that doesn’t quite jibe with “feelin’ young”), but also what Miley Cyrus ruminates on in “Used to Be Young.” Currently thirty to Gomez’s thirty-one, Cyrus clearly feels more wizened at this point in time to have come out with a track (on the same day, no less) so divergent in theme from Gomez’s, who encourages the notion of being single more than ever despite the fact that women are still told that being in their thirties is the “danger zone” era. Not just for “finding someone,” but for the proverbial biological clock. 

    It’s a clock Gomez, like Lana Del Rey, seems more content to ignore as she goes out to karaoke in the next scene (something Tove Lo also made the central focus of one of her most recent videos, “I Like U”). From there, it’s more scenes in the back of the car, interspersed between sweaty dancing in the club moments and running through alleyways like bats out of hell. At a certain moment, Gomez announces, “I know he’ll be a mess/When I break the news,” but it would be no shock if the guy she dumped cared as little as she did about the end of the “relationship.” Or, in this modern age, situationship. Something Carrie never had to deal with during her so-called more proper epoch of dating. 

    What’s more, Gomez overtly relishes her single girl status far more than Carrie ever did. This being part of why she probably chose Samantha to emulate in her teaser for the song (though some conspiracy theorists will say it was to shade Hailey and Justin Bieber because the dialogue is pulled from the scene of a married man telling Samantha he’s going to leave his wife for her). And as she jumps into an empty pool in the dead of night with her friends, then ends up having them over for a “sleepover” afterward, it’s clear she wants to emphasize Charlotte York’s (Kristin Davis) aphorism, “Maybe we could be each other’s soulmates. And then we could just let men be these great, nice guys to have fun with.”

    With this in mind, “Single Soon” is a logical evolution from “Lose You To Love Me,” and perhaps even more empowered than that because it treats the notion of “love” with far more sociopathy. What Carrie would call “having sex like a man.” Gomez wants to take advantage of that concept and so much more with her single (soon) status. And, although the tone and visuals of the track are decidedly more suited to the Girls narrative that was meant to mirror (emphasis on meant to) Gomez’s millennial generation far more closely than Sex and the City ever did, it’s a testament to the iconography and influence of the latter. No matter how retroactively problematic it keeps becoming as the years go on.

    That doesn’t stop enduring fangirls like Britney Spears from still loving it. And, speaking of Spears, one doesn’t imagine this song playing so well with her own fresh status as a “singleton.” One who has tried her best to shrug off another short-lived marriage with talk of buying a horse. Because that’s the freedom of being single, innit? And yet, if Gomez (incidentally, a guest at the wedding for Spears’ ultimately failed nuptials) were to release this song at Spears’ age, one doesn’t imagine it would come across as “jubilantly.” Reading instead more like the sight of Lexi Featherston trolling for fun at a party filled with “fuckin’ geriatrics.” Herself not admitting that she, too, is now considered one. For, no matter how much time goes by, society has yet to embrace women who are past a “certain age” staying single, yet acting like they’re still in the sowing oats days of their twenties. Even “single girl patron saint” Carrie Bradshaw, with her heinously priggish attitude, was the first to tell Samantha, “It’s time for ladies my age to start covering it up. We can’t get away with the same stuff we used to.” It remains to be seen if Gomez will tend to agree…should she be single ten years from now.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • ‘And Just Like That…’ Ends With Carrie and Aidan’s Five-Year Plan

    ‘And Just Like That…’ Ends With Carrie and Aidan’s Five-Year Plan

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    Carrie and Aidan are taking an extended break…. Or are they? On the season two finale of And Just Like That…, Miranda gets closure with both her exes, Samantha Jones returns for an all-too-brief phone call, and Aidan finally steps into Carrie’s old apartment and out of her life—at least for now. 

    On this week’s Still Watching, hosts Hillary Busis, Richard Lawson, and Chris Murphy discuss the 11th episode of And Just Like That… season two, “The Last Supper Part Two: Entree.” The season two finale, they all agreed, would have served as a fitting season finale or a series finale, closing the arcs for the major players in satisfying ways yet leaving things open-ended enough to keep the story going. But given the news earlier this week that And Just Like That… has been officially renewed by Max for a third season, it seems like there’s more in store for New York’s favorite girls. “I had already written my eulogy for And Just Like That… and was prepared to deliver it,” Murphy admits. “But we’re going to keep chugging along, and I wonder what’s in store.” 

    The first thing in store for the finale was a highly anticipated cameo from Kim Cattrall as Samantha Jones. Outfitted by original Sex and the City costume designer Patricia Field, Cattrall made the most of her approximately two-minute cameo, calling Carrie to apologize for not being able to travel across the pond for Carrie’s Michelin-star farewell dinner. “I had really missed her,” Lawson says. “That energy just completes the circle of the show even for that couple of minutes that she’s onscreen.” 

    While Samantha wasn’t able to make it to dinner, both of Miranda’s exes, Steve and Che, were in attendance. Miranda and Steve’s burying of the hatchet in Coney Island struck the hosts as a sweet moment for the former couple, while Miranda’s attempt to do so with Che Diaz in Carrie’s kitchen was less successful. This led the hosts to wonder whether Sara Ramirez, who earlier this week issued a scathing response to a profile about them in The Cut, would be returning for the third season. “I appreciate their service, but I think they can ride off into the sunset with Toby,” Murphy says.  Another character who might be better served elsewhere is Dr. Nya Wallace, who ended the season winning a prestigious award and finding love with Carrie’s Michelin-star chef, Toussaint (Gary Dourdan). 

    Elsewhere, Charlotte ends the season relatively unscathed, reiterating her need for Harry to step up in the parenting department and replacing the iPhone she threw in a margarita blender. Her friend, Lisa Todd Wexley, is still processing the fallout from her miscarriage, with husband Herbert by her side. Anthony also finally opens up to his boyfriend Giuseppe in multiple ways, letting him in emotionally and physically. “If I never have to hear the phrase ‘ass wall’ again, I would be happy,” Lawson quips. 

    But the most shocking reveal of the episode belongs to Carrie, who gets quite the surprise when Aidan finally crosses the threshold of her old apartment. Rather than bringing good news, Aidan has come to tell Carrie that his 14-year-old son, Wyatt, needs him too much for him to split time between Norfolk and New York, and proposes that he and Carrie take a five-year break until Wyatt is out of his teens to continue their relationship. The hosts noted that they may have called Carrie and Aidan’s semi-breakup last episode, as it allows Carrie to potentially be free for future seasons, but doesn’t have her ending the season heartbroken. “I guess they wanted to leave it open-ended in case they got another season, and that’s why they didn’t just have them end up together,” Busis notes. 

    While Aidan and Carrie are not meant to be (at least not right now), the break does free Carrie up for a girls trip to Greece with Seema, who is still going strong with her Marvel director boyfriend Ravi (Armin Amiri). Though it’s not quite the Hamptons, it works as a button to the season. “We’ll just leave it in limbo that someday in the distant, unseen future, she and Aidan will be together,” Lawson says. “They’re saving themselves for each other, but in the meantime, she’s gonna have cosmos on a Greek isle with Seema.”  

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    Chris Murphy

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  • Samantha Jones Has a One-Night Stand With ‘And Just Like That…’

    Samantha Jones Has a One-Night Stand With ‘And Just Like That…’

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    It’s been 85 sleeps since Kim Cattrall’s return as Samantha Jones on the second season of And Just Like That was announced—and the tortuous wait to see the scene in question finally ended on Thursday with a brief, but blissful long-distance call from across the pond. The blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment marked Cattrall’s first onscreen appearance in the Sex and the City sequel series, which was officially renewed for a third season earlier this week.

    Perhaps sensing this long-awaited reunion, the show wastes no time in revealing Samantha’s cameo. “Hello, London,” Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw says in the Season 2 finale’s opening moments. “What’s shakin’, lady?” She’s speaking to none other than Ms. Jones, calling from the back of a car to deliver the solemn news that she won’t be able to attend Carrie’s “Last Supper” dinner party. Blame a flight delay—or, in reality, the longstanding rumored feud between Cattrall and SJP. 

    But despite the brevity, within her few minutes of screen time, Samantha confirms a few things: she’s still in contact with Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte (Kristin Davis); she feels close enough with Carrie to show up unannounced at her dinner party; and she can joke about her former life as a Manhattanite. After paying her respects to Carrie’s “fabulous, fabulous flat,” which she will now officially never set foot in again, Samantha sports a faux British accent as “Annabelle Bronstein.” Fans of the show will remember that Samantha uses Annabelle’s misplaced member pass in season 6, episode 10 of Sex and the City to get into the Soho House pool. 

    A beat-by-beat transcript of their interaction can be found below:

    Carrie: Hello, London. What’s shakin’, lady?

    Samantha: My flight’s three hours delayed, Carrie. I won’t be able to make it there in time.

    Carrie: In time for what?

    Samantha: The last supper. Miranda and Charlotte told me all about it. I was gonna surprise you.

    Carrie: Oh, my gosh. Well, you did. I’m very surprised.

    Samantha: Well, the fog finally lifted, but the crew? Maxed out. Oh, I am fucking furious!

    Carrie: Well, no, no, no, don’t worry. We’ll just get together tomorrow.

    Samantha: Honey, I just left Heathrow. I was flying back on the first flight in the morning.

    Carrie: Wait a minute…you were flying all the way to New York for an overnight?

    Samantha: Well, it is your apartment and I have to pay my respects. So, uh, put me on speaker. Go ahead, put me on speaker, and hold up that phone.

    Carrie: All right, you’re on speaker.

    Samantha: Thank you for everything, you fucking fabulous, fabulous flat.

    Carrie: Uh, Samantha, do you have a British accent?

    Samantha: Who’s Samantha? This is Annabelle Bronstein. I’m from ‘Injah.’ Ta and cheerio. And have a great night.

    Cattrall, who has made it perfectly clear that she does not like to be in a situation for even an hour where she’s not enjoying herself, filmed her single scene in New York City on March 22 sans contact with Parker or showrunner Michael Patrick King, Variety reported in late May.

    Details about the appearance were sparse at the time, but in June Cattrall listed a few of her demands for reprising Samantha on The View. “It’s very interesting to get a call from the head of HBO saying, ‘What can we do?’” Cattrall said. “I went, Hmmmm…” In that phone call with Max CEO Casey Bloys, Cattrall said that one of her main stipulations was getting famed Sex and the City costume designer Patricia Field back in the fold for And Just Like That. “One of those things was to get Pat Field back,” she said. “I just thought, ‘If I’m gonna come back, I’ve gotta come back with that Samantha style. I’ve got to push it.’ And we did!”

    King, who wrote and directed Cattrall’s credited “special appearance,” told Forbes before the season began premiering: “The interesting thing about Samantha and And Just Like That is I feel she’s always been in the show. She’s living in London and she’s texting with Carrie, primarily because Kim Cattrall was like, ‘I’ve retired Samantha for awhile, or forever.’ So, that was the reality. Then this year, all of a sudden, something shifted emotionally in the universe. The fans have created some sort of multiverse swirl of enthusiasm of the [Sex and the City] 25th anniversary and wanting to see them all again.”

    King continued, “All of a sudden, it manifested that Kim was like, ‘I’ll play Samantha for you for this little, sweet treat.’ So, I don’t know whether it’s about the nostalgia for the 25th, which is great. For me, it’s a great treat for the fans. What you’ll see, I’m not going to tell you because I’m mad you even know that you’re going to see it because my goal was to keep it a secret as much as we did Big’s death, but didn’t happen. It kind of magically just appeared. It was fun to write Samantha again. It’s great to see her in the show.”

    Just as Carrie orders another round of Cosmopolitans at season’s end, it’s hard to resist hoping that another serving of Samantha is still on the menu.

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    Savannah Walsh

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  • No Sexual Pun Intended, But And Just Like That… Is Completely Overstuffed (With Characters)

    No Sexual Pun Intended, But And Just Like That… Is Completely Overstuffed (With Characters)

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    Perhaps because it takes a literal army to distract from the reality that Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) is no longer part of the narrative, And Just Like That… has packed the series full of additional characters. Characters who, to put it sexually, simply cannot be serviced. Not correctly, anyway. From the occasionally-referred-to Stanford (RIP Willie Garson) to the barely regarded Nya (Karen Pittman), the grab bag assembled here makes for plots that come across as half-cooked and decidedly “tacked on” at the last minute. 

    That has never been more overt than in the first part of season two’s deux-part finale, “The Last Supper Part One: Appetizer,” which even has to remember that Steve (David Eigenberg) is still technically a part of the narrative as well. Ergo, opening the episode with Carrie and Aidan visiting him at his new hot dog and clam outpost in Coney Island, where Carrie has, rather unsurprisingly, never ventured out to before.

    Doing its “best” to give everyone a dramatic, “sea change afoot” sort of cliffhanger, the central focus, of course, is still Carrie and Aidan. More to the point, the inevitability of how their relationship will flop this time around. Because obviously it will. That’s the nature of any series. The endless ups and downs until a final up can be offered to audiences when the show is actually over. Though the SATC women (even Cattrall, in her own cameo way) have made it apparent they never want it to be with this “new chapter.” And with the constant addition of characters, God or whoever knows there’s endless room for multiple spinoffs. Even though no one is really that interested in these “externals.” Not just because the writers do little to imbue them with much dimensionality, but because the audience knows full well they’re only there to overcompensate for 1) Samantha rightfully throwing up a peace sign to her friendship with a narcissist like Carrie and 2) provide “reparations” for the original series displaying no diversity despite New York laying claim to being among the most diverse cities in the world (though it comes across as fairly homogenous on the socioeconomic status front, largely due to what television is willing to portray and how much it really does cost to live in “the greatest” city in the world—ha!). 

    That said, we’re forced to pretend we really care about/are invested in the plotlines of Lisa Todd Wexley (Nicole Ari Parker) or Che Diaz (Sara Ramirez) or Seema Patel (Sarita Choudhury) or Nya Wallace. Their mini melodramas occasionally peppered in between the scenes of the usual cringe conversations and plotlines of the original trio. This includes Miranda’s (Cynthia Nixon) catastrophic dabblings with queerdom, Carrie’s self-imposed challenges with Aidan and Charlotte’s (Kristin Davis) realization that her life is essentially being a slave to her husband and children. Which brings us to the fact that, of late, Charlotte, of all people, has become the most interesting and divergent from her original character. Branded as everything from a “cum slut” (after getting depressed that Harry [Evan Handler] suddenly has retrograde ejaculation issues) to a deadbeat mother in her bid to return to being a full-time career woman, Charlotte has turned out to have the most engaging and entertaining journey compared to her “peers.” Not to mention one that has forced her character to at least somewhat challenge herself. A self, she would like to remind her family, that existed (even if presently dormant) long before they ever entered the picture and expected her to be “a certain way.” And then forever stay that way despite also mocking her for having no life outside of them. When she actually decides to go and get one, it’s suddenly too much. They can’t make dinner! They can’t order takeout decorously! They can’t wipe their own asses! They can’t live without her! Never mind the fact that they hated how over-involved she was before. Now it’s all they crave. 

    But because And Just Like That…’s new focus seems to be on the perennial 80s career girl question of whether or not a woman can “have it all” (and according to Samantha in the “All or Nothing” episode of Sex and the City, they can), Charlotte is getting the stereotypical family that “can’t deal” treatment. So, too, is Lisa, slapped with a pregnancy plot “twist” that makes zero sense amid her contempt for her positively filled-with-retro-viewpoints husband, Herbert (Chris Jackson). A man we keep wondering about in terms of how Lisa—a supposedly self-empowered artistic woman—would possibly be able to continue tolerating him. He’s honestly the worst. Apart from Nya’s shitty erstwhile husband, Andre (LeRoy McClain), who ends up impregnating another woman real quick after they agree to separate. In fact, that’s really about all we know of Nya’s “personality,” other than her inherent pastry chef skills after making a chocolate soufflé for herself on Valentine’s Day. And, oh yeah, she’s a professor who we haven’t seen do much teaching since Miranda took her class in season one. Which, again, makes it all very clear that these characters are straight-up filler. Yet they wouldn’t have to be if the series creators/writers didn’t feel obliged to pack the show to the gills with a slew of characters they can’t actually “tend to” (once more, no sexual innuendo intended). 

    Another one being Che, who, since their breakup with Miranda (a relationship that never computed in the first place), has intermittently been incorporated via scenes of them working at the veterinary office they’ve returned to after things in Hollywood didn’t pan out. The writers feel adding a few kernels of their flirtation with Toby (Alex Lugo), who comes into the office with a box of abandoned kittens, will not only suffice, but also give them a reason to want to go back to stand-up again. Even though, as we find out in the episode that follows, this plotline was really in service of Miranda. More to the point, shaming and humiliating Miranda. 

    Then, not to leave the “gay man box” unchecked, there’s still Anthony (Mario Cantone) and, presently, his younger Italian boo, Giuseppe (Sebastiano Pigazzi). For, without them, there wouldn’t be the “why should a man be limited to being a top or bottom when he can be both?” conversation. In truth, just when things feel like they might actually boil over to a moment of real tension, Michael Patrick King chooses to cut away to the next scene, remembering he has to get back to Seema, saddled with the “plot” of embarrassingly telling her “slapdash” man of the moment, Ravi (Armin Amiri), “I love you” in the midst of him chastely fucking her. The scene is given all of twenty seconds before King then moves to yet another minor character we had forgotten about because she pops up so randomly: Lisette Alee (Katerina Tannenbaum). Her presence being “necessary” in order for Carrie to “pass the baton” that is her “single girl apartment” to another single (white) girl. The only genre of human she would feel comfortable relinquishing her abode to. 

    Meanwhile, Miranda and Charlotte’s own lives are starting to become as filled with “subplot characters” as Carrie’s. Shit, even Che has to have a new subset of characters in their life because of their job (this being Judy [Patricia Black], her supervisor at the vet). And so, once again, jobs prove to be everyone’s bane (even in fictional worlds) thanks to creating way too many additional excess sub-sub-characters for the already excess amount of sub-characters. 

    On this note, while Charlotte has gone back to art dealing at the Kasabian Gallery (not a real place, in case you wanted to confirm), Miranda has been “gifted” with the opportunity to go from an intern to replacing her boss, Raina (Evelyn Howe), now on maternity leave. Making Raina, plus Miranda’s jealous coworkers (/enduring interns), “subplot characters” too. When Miranda goes to the UN for some work-related obligation, she also meets another lawyer type and has an exchange that seems completely superfluous unless they’re planning to make this woman Miranda’s next steady vag. This brings us to Charlotte and her new trio of gallery workers wanting to celebrate her big sale of an Alex Israel painting to Sam Smith (himself a new “character” briefly added into the mix, as though in the spirit of SATC cameos of yore, like Lucy Liu…or Geri Halliwell). 

    Lela (Bonnie Milligan), the coworker who made Charlotte feel better about her “fat” stomach (just another way And Just Like That… gets “inclusivity” wrong), manages to coax her into going out for after-work drinks (when Charlotte initially declines) by saying, “Big yikes, girl. You are the main character.” One can only say to themselves in response, “I wish.” Because someone being a main character on this show would require far fewer people to distract from such a concept. 

    Fittingly enough, in the poster for season two, the positioning of each character is so telling of where things stand with the series in terms of all “non-originals” being purely background. Which is exactly how they’re presented in the promo poster. What’s more, if characters keep cropping up at this rate, it’s safe to say the series writers really will need to take financial advantage of the unavoidable spinoff era of And Just Like That… Itself sort of a spinoff more than “a new chapter.” And, like most spinoffs, this one keeps jumping the shark. 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Sarah Jessica Parker Was Upset Kim Cattrall’s ‘And Just Like That’ Cameo Was Leaked

    Sarah Jessica Parker Was Upset Kim Cattrall’s ‘And Just Like That’ Cameo Was Leaked

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    Sarah Jessica Parker told Andy Cohen that she “couldn’t have been more upset” that Kim Cattrall’s cameo in the second season of “And Just Like That” was leaked.

    “It’s a big bummer because it would’ve been like fireworks in the middle,” Parker told Cohen during an episode of his Sirius XM show “Radio Andy.” “And also because we want to make sure that expectations are real. It’s a little exchange that is happy and it says everything about their relationship.”

    Parker told Howard Stern during his radio show that Cattrall’s cameo is a “chef’s kiss” and “happy.”

    Cattrall, who played Samantha Jones on “Sex and the City,” said on the “Today” show that the CEO of HBO called her and asked her to come back. She said shooting the cameo took only about four hours and it was a “wonderful afternoon.”

    “I don’t think I’ll ever say goodbye to Samantha,” Cattrall said. “She gave me so much and I’m so appreciative of her.”

    The cameo comes after Parker and Cattrall went back and forth publicly about Cattrall not participating in Season 1 of “And Just Like That,” the spinoff of “Sex and the City.”

    Parker said on a 2022 episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s “Awards Chatter” podcast that Cattrall was not asked to appear on Season 1 because “she made it clear that that wasn’t something she wanted to pursue, and it no longer felt comfortable for us, and so it didn’t occur to us.”

    Cattrall told Variety in May 2022 that she walked away from the “Sex and the City” franchise because “enough is enough.”

    “I also didn’t want to compromise what the show was to me,” she said. “The way forward seemed clear.”

    “I certainly heard about it,” she said of “And Just Like That.” “And I’ve come to the conclusion that really the greatest compliment I could have as an actor is to be missed.”

    During that interview, she also said that she would not appear on the spinoff, but it looks like things have turned around.

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  • Kim Cattrall Hints At Whether Fans Can Expect More Of Her On ‘And Just Like That’

    Kim Cattrall Hints At Whether Fans Can Expect More Of Her On ‘And Just Like That’

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    Kim Cattrall is in the midst of a publicity tour for Netflix’s “Glamorous,” but she’s also opening up for the first time about her forthcoming appearance on “And Just Like That,” Max’s “Sex and the City” revival series.

    In a teaser for a new interview with NBC’s “Today,” the actor gushed about how how she and famed “Sex and the City” costume designer Patricia Field prepared for her cameo as Samantha Jones with a trip to luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman.

    “We got a great fricking outfit, and this short scene,” Cattrall said in the interview, set to air in full Friday. “So it felt like dipping my toe back in time and having a wonderful afternoon, and then a great martini.”

    Though Cattrall went on to note that she doesn’t think she’ll “ever say goodbye to Samantha” entirely, she hinted that fans shouldn’t expect the character to appear on “And Just Like That” again following the August cameo.

    “That’s as far as I’m going to go,” she said.

    From left: “Sex and the City” stars Kristin Davis, Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kim Cattrall in 2000.

    Getty Images via Getty Images

    Cattrall played Samantha to great acclaim on all six seasons of “Sex and the City,” as well as the franchise’s two feature films.

    Still, news of her upcoming “And Just Like That” appearance shocked fans. The actor has repeatedly sworn off reprising the role in interviews and on social media, seemingly confirming rumors of a behind-the-scenes feud with co-star Sarah Jessica Parker along the way.

    Parker is not believed to have been on set when Cattrall filmed her “And Just Like That” scene. In an article published by The Hollywood Reporter last week, showrunner Michael Patrick King attributed Cattrall’s decision to return to the 25th anniversary of “Sex and the City,” which premiered in 1998.

    “[Cattrall] said that she’d hung up the Samantha wardrobe, and then some magic happened behind the scenes because all of a sudden there was a possibility of it happening,” he said. “The fans have always asked for Samantha and something happened where all of a sudden I was like, ‘Well, maybe if it’s a possibility, I can come up with a small, beautiful, little treat.’ And that’s what happened.”

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  • Kristin Davis says she ‘won’t waste’ energy over feud with Kim Cattrall; Deets inside

    Kristin Davis says she ‘won’t waste’ energy over feud with Kim Cattrall; Deets inside

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    Kim Cattrall’s ongoing feud with the cast of Sex and the City has grabbed the fans’ attention over and over again. Everything the fans of the franchise knew came from sources and news outlets without the cast members ever commenting on it. Kristin Davis, who plays Charlotte in the series, has finally spoken out about the feud.

    Kristin Davis addresses ongoing feud with Kim Cattrall

    Sex and the City fans were extremely disappointed after Kim Cattrall, who plays Samantha Jones in the franchise, decided she wanted out. The actress even denied appearing in the reboot ‘And Just Like That.’ When rumors of a feud between Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim surfaced, none of the cast members cleared out the air or tried to deny them.

    Kristin Davis, who plays Charlotte, has finally decided to address the situation. The actress spoke to The Telegraph while revealing that she doesn’t want to “waste energy” getting involved in the drama. “You have to respect people’s wishes. I’m not gonna waste energy on it. I can’t change anybody,” Kristin told the outlet. She took fans’ feelings into consideration as she added, “I do understand fans’ feelings — that they’re upset … I wish I could fix it, but I can’t,it’s not in my power.”

    Kim Cattrall’s feud with Sarah Jessica Parker 

    Fans were delighted to hear that Kim would make an appearance in the second season of ‘And Just Like That’ even if it was just a cameo. A source told Page Six that teh actress had agreed to the cameo only if her conditions were met. One of the conditions included not having to see or work with Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, or showrunner Michael Patrick King. 

    After Kim’s brother died, Sarah reached out to her on social media, and things escalated quickly. “I don’t need your love or support at this tragic time @sarahjessicaparker,” Kim responded. She added, “Let me make this VERY clear. (If I haven’t already) You are not my family. You are not my friend. So I’m writing to tell you one last time to stop exploiting our tragedy in order to restore your ‘nice girl’ persona.” There were rumors that stated the reason the feud started was that Kim felt that she was not getting paid well enough, considering Sarah Jessica Parker got paid more than the rest of the leading ladies. 

    ALSO READ: Sarah Jessica Parker says she would ‘not be ok’ with Kim Cattrall joining And Just Like That; Here’s why

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  • ‘And Just Like That…’ More Details About Kim Cattrall’s Return as Samantha Emerge

    ‘And Just Like That…’ More Details About Kim Cattrall’s Return as Samantha Emerge

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    As the world awaits Kim Cattrall’s return as Samantha Jones in the upcoming And Just Like That… season two, the last of the fabulous foursome’s husbands (sorry, Steve) is sharing details on what to expect from the top secret cameo.

    The source of new info was none other than Evan Handler, who plays Charlotte York’s (Kristin Davis) beloved husband, Harry. Speaking to People at a recent event, the actor said he thinks Cattrall’s reprisal is “great” and that he learned of it “the same day you did”: when it was reported by Variety in late May. The outlet revealed that Cattrall will appear in a single scene in the season two finale, which she filmed in New York City on March 22 without seeing or speaking with series star Sarah Jessica Parker or showrunner Michael Patrick King. 

    Handler appeared to confirm the isolated nature of the scene while painting a picture of where Cattrall filmed it. “Apparently, [her cameo] was shot in the garage somewhere with no contact with anybody, so the only place I have to welcome her is into my living room when it airs on television,” he said of the appearance. The cameo was subsequently confirmed by Max and Cattrall herself, who shared Variety’s post on her own social media with the caption, “Happy Pride.”

    Cattrall, who has yet to be featured in any of the trailers for the Sex and the City revival’s sophomore season, was reportedly persuaded to return by Casey Bloys, the chairman and CEO of HBO and Max content. After being approached by Bloys, Cattrall was apparently able to lure back SATC costume designer Patricia Field, who has not been involved with And Just Like That…, to outfit her for the scene, according to Variety. 

    The absence of Samantha from the latest series is partially owed to a rumored long-standing feud between Cattrall and Parker. “It’s very hard to talk about the situation with Kim,” Parker told The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast last June, before saying that a third Sex and the City movie “fell apart” because of Cattrall’s contractual requirements. Further explaining Cattrall’s absence, Parker said: “We did not ask her to be part of this because she made it clear that that wasn’t something she wanted to pursue, and it no longer felt comfortable for us, and so it didn’t occur to us.” A month prior, Cattrall shared her side of the story, telling Variety, “I was never asked to be part of the reboot. I made my feelings clear after the possible third movie, so I found out about it like everyone else did—on social media.”

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    Savannah Walsh

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  • And Just Like That, Kim Cattrall Is Back For ‘Sex And The City’ Revival

    And Just Like That, Kim Cattrall Is Back For ‘Sex And The City’ Revival

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    In what can only be described as a fleeting moment of Hollywood détente, Kim Cattrall is set to join “And Just Like That,” Max’s revival of “Sex and the City.”

    The actor will reprise the role of sex-positive publicist Samantha Jones for the series’ Season 2 finale, Variety reported Wednesday. Her character will appear in just one scene in which she has a phone conversation with Carrie Bradshaw, played by Sarah Jessica Parker.

    According to the report, Cattrall filmed her cameo March 22 in New York and was not on the set at any point with Parker or the series showrunner, Michael Patrick King. She was dressed by costume designer Patricia Field, who worked on all six seasons of “Sex and the City” and its two feature films but, like Cattrall, had not been involved with “And Just Like That” until now.

    A second report in the New York Post claimed that the show’s crew was largely kept in the dark regarding the specifics of the scene ― and that Cattrall’s name never even appeared on a call sheet.

    “The fact that they’re keeping it very hush-hush says that there’s some implication that she might be coming back — not this season, but it’s definitely a cliffhanger that’s gonna get people to come back for Season 3,” a source told the publication.

    From left: Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis and Kim Cattrall on a 2002 episode of “Sex and the City.”

    Tom Kingston via Getty Images

    Though representatives for “And Just Like That” have not commented publicly on the reports, the show’s official Twitter account shared a link to the New York Post’s article with the note: “Secret’s out!!”

    Interestingly, Season 2 of “And Just Like That” premieres June 22 — the same day Cattrall is also slated to appear in a new Netflix series, “Glamorous.”

    Cattrall last played Samantha Jones in 2010’s poorly received “Sex and the City 2.” Since then, she’s kept active with a variety of acting projects, appearing in “Filthy Rich,” “Queer as Folk” and “How I Met Your Father” on television and, most recently, alongside Robert De Niro in the movie “About My Father.”

    She’s also been outspoken about her reluctance to return to the “Sex and the City” franchise after opting out of a third feature film amid reports of a feud with Parker.

    When “And Just Like That” debuted on Max ― the streaming service formerly known as HBO Max ― in 2021, fans were understandably curious as to how the series would address Samantha’s absence. The character was said to have relocated to London after falling out with Carrie and her gal pals but did make a number of brief “appearances” via text messages.

    Samantha is not the only beloved “Sex and the City” character who will return for the forthcoming season of “And Just Like That.” Also joining the cast is John Corbett, who is reprising his role as Carrie’s on-again, off-again love interest Aidan Shaw.

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  • Kim Cattrall Will Reportedly Appear in ‘And Just Like That…’ but Not Alongside Sarah Jessica Parker

    Kim Cattrall Will Reportedly Appear in ‘And Just Like That…’ but Not Alongside Sarah Jessica Parker

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    And just like that… Cattrall is joining And Just Like That… albeit very briefly and without filming alongside Parker.

    Variety published the bombshell report that Cattrall will be reprising her role as Samantha in the season two finale of the series. Cattrall will only be in one scene, the outlet reported, and per its sources, she “shot her dialogue on March 22 in New York City, without seeing or speaking with the stars of the series, including Sarah Jessica Parker, or with And Just Like That showrunner Michael Patrick King.”

    Cattrall will be dressed by Patricia Field, Sex and the City‘s original costume designer, who has not been working on the rebooted series. The outlet did caution fans that “Cattrall’s appearance as Samantha will not be a continuation of the character for now.”

    Cattrall didn’t immediately confirm the news herself, with her rep not responding to Variety‘s request for comment.

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  • And Just Like That… Kim Cattrall Will Play Samantha Again

    And Just Like That… Kim Cattrall Will Play Samantha Again

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    Did you feel that chill? Hell must have frozen over, because Kim Cattrall is reportedly stepping back into the Louboutins of PR maven Samantha Jones. As first reported by Variety, Cattrall—who played the feisty and fabulous Samantha Jones on Sex and the City for six seasons and two movies—will return for the season two finale of And Just Like That…, the Sex and the City revival series starring her former costars Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, and Sarah Jessica Parker. Max subsequently confirmed the news.

    Per Variety, Cattrall will appear in a single scene. The trade writes that Cattrall shot her dialogue in New York City on March 22, without having to see or speak to her former costars (or showrunner Michael Patrick King). Her reprisal is reportedly set for the season two finale. 

    Those familiar with behind-the-scenes drama of Sex and the City universe are well aware that Cattrall reportedly did not get along with her costars, particularly Parker. Cattrall refused to participate in a third Sex and the City film, reportedly killing the project. “I would have preferred for all of us to have some kind of event to warrant a third film. That didn’t happen,” Cattrall told Variety in 2022 of the proposed third film.

    More recently, Cattrall says she wasn’t even asked to participate in And Just Like That…, the series which follows the iconic foursome (minus one) more than 15 years after the end of Sex and the City. “It’s a great wisdom to know when enough is enough,” said Cattrall in the same Variety interview. “I also didn’t want to compromise what the show was to me. The way forward seemed clear.”

    Given this fraught history, it’s shocking to hear that Cattrall—who has made it very clear that she does not like to be in a situation for even an hour where she’s not enjoying herself—would deign to make an appearance on And Just Like That. According to Variety, it took Casey Bloys, the chairman and CEO of HBO and Max content, personally approaching Cattrall and asking her to reprise her role to get her to say yes. Along with Cattrall, iconic Sex and the City costume designer Patricia Field, who has not been involved with And Just Like That…, returned to dress Samantha for her scene. 

    Was it money that ultimately convinced Cattrall to make a cameo on And Just Like That…? Was it love (for the enduring and iconic woman that is Samantha Jones)? We may never know. (When asked for comment, Max only pointed VF to the New York Post story in which it confirmed that Cattrall will appear on the show.) In any case, it seems that Samantha Jones really will be making her grand return to the Sex and the City universe. And honey, that’s something to celebrate. 

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    Chris Murphy

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  • Robert De Niro’s ‘About My Father’ to get a theatrical release in India; Here’s everything you need to know

    Robert De Niro’s ‘About My Father’ to get a theatrical release in India; Here’s everything you need to know

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    The comedy movie starring Hollywood legend Robert De Niro and comic Sebastian Maniscalco, will be released in India on May 26.

    Lionsgate and PVR Pictures will release the film, which is directed by Laura Terruso and based on Maniscalco’s real life. Kim Cattrall, Leslie Bibb, Anders Holm, Brett Dier, and David Rasche will also be featured in this movie.

    About the movie:

    ‘About My Father ‘is a movie that follows Sebastian (Maniscalco) and his father Salvo (De Niro) as they spend the weekend with his fiancé’s affluent and quirky family. The gathering quickly turns into a cultural confrontation, allowing the father-son duo to learn the true meaning of family.

    The film promises to be a laugh riot because it is based on delivering an emotional yet comic touch by continuing the trend in which the father and son duo will bring their amazing comedic timing together on the big screen, which will be released in theatres on May 26, 2023.

    ‘About My Father’ to be released in India

    PVR Pictures CEO Kamal Gianchandani shared his thoughts -’ About My Father’ is one such picture that will undoubtedly make our fans joyful and hearty. In fact, it’s worth noting that Robert De Niro himself is quite picky about the projects he chooses to work on. So, we’re looking forward to seeing him lift the bar again with this flick.




    ALSO READ: Who is Jennifer McBride, the woman suing Lady Gaga?

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  • Lily Collins, Ashley Park and Kim Cattrall Looked Great at the ‘Emily in Paris’ Premiere

    Lily Collins, Ashley Park and Kim Cattrall Looked Great at the ‘Emily in Paris’ Premiere

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    Salut les filles! Whether you genuinely love the show, love to hate it or hate that you love it, “Emily in Paris” is coming back for season three on Dec. 21. (How many times have you watched the trailer? Be honest.) As we await Emily, Mindy, Sylvie, Camille, Gabriel and Alfie’s returns to our screens, the cast gathered in — where else? — the French capital on Tuesday to premiere la nouvelle saison, and did so in characteristically expressive fashion. 

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    Fashionista

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