Don't ask me how, but when the book came out years ago, I ended up reading it and I can tell you, this show is nothing like the novel. The Carrie character of the book is sad and tragic in a way as the years go by and her friends have settled down and she's alone. This Carrie in the show is far more appealing, I gotta tell you.
The male producer who made the show knew how to package and sell this concept. It's a brilliant turn of the book into show. It can be the basis while not be the final delivery. But I wonder, had the show been female driven behind the scenes from the beginning, what kind of show would it have been? Yes, a terrific director I like, Susan Seidelman did the initial episode and some others, but when it comes to t.v. shows, it's really a writer/producer driven medium.
I guess when you've watched thousands of movies over a course of a lifetime and attended film school to hone that craft, I guess I tend to be hyper critical about a show or a film, a bit more than the casual viewer. But to be honest, I had to get over myself to kick back with my MANLY Miller canned beer and enjoy the "girl" talk, so to speak.
I liked the way the women already knew each other. None of this, "Hey, this is Miranda, Charlotte, Samantha, blah, blah, blah." I did predict the meet cute on the street with Mr. Big but that's okay. This is show is about emotion, form not function. But you can tell the show was evolving from the git go. How? The first two episodes, there is a jazzy soundtrack background, dark recesses and shadows, to Carrie's narration of life and love in the big, bad city. It's as she is that lone, weary, cynical detective who has seen the worse of mankind on display as he hunts the unknown killer through false leads and switchbacks. They moved on from that scenario and made it more lighter, airy in the third episode. Even the sets opened up, not so claustrophobic. You'll also notice the camera really doesn't move that much. This is necessary to a female oriented show.
Also in these initial two episodes, Carrie is almost constantly narrating to the camera, breaking that fourth wall to the audience that I wrote about yesterday about Woody Allen's pioneering work. I am old enough to remember when SJP came out in her first t.v. show Square Pegs; I can almost swear she did the same thing in that show.
But by the sixth episode, Carrie is only speaking to the camera several times since the second episode, which is a good thing, as it takes you out of the show for being so self-conscious. The voice-over narration is a better device to move the story along. But I will give them an approving nod for trying this gimmick, as I've never known it to be done in a woman's show before.
By throwing in those first-person mockumentary style testimonials, I thought the producers were pitching in everything into one visual pot luck, trying to determine what would work and what wouldn't work in the long term. I had a feeling they used focus groups initially since the style did change up in the first season.
The best moments are those human moments that come across when Carrie makes those deft insightful observations, such as when the gay couple wanted to buy one of her eggs, and she felt she was now just an incubator, an egg farm so to speak. I was thinking the same thing; even better is when she reveals the female psyche that I have no clue about, giving me a bit of necessary illumination.
As the show expands, the female supporting characters are given their own room to breathe, which I like. It can't always be about Carrie, and the scenes cannot always be perfect, because life is imperfect.
Nitpicking details: Charlotte has sex with an Orthodox Jew? If he was a real Orthodox Jew, he would not even have been speaking with her. I think they threw this in because of visuals, the collision of religion and art.
After Carrie and Mr. Big meet on the street, when they meet again for the first time in a club and Samantha has her eyes on him, describing him as a young Donald Trump, it's as Carrie does not know him, never seen him before. This is a script continuity problem.
Is it me or is everyone white on this show? And in NYC, of all places! The only notable minorities I saw in these first six episodes were the Sikh taxi driver and African-American date of Mr. Big's; both scenes were fleeting. I hope this Caucasian-only world opens up in later episodes.
Technical kudos: The restaurant scene in which Carrie, after being paid money for sex with the French architect is at the nightclub and her Italian party girl friend insists she join her fellow Eurotrash for a trip to Venice. The slimy Italian guy puts his hand on her ass and there is a medium head shot of her as Carrie is realizing her possible future: the camera focus pulls in while the background pulls out simultaneously. This camera maneuver was made famous by famed New Yorker director Marty Scorsese in Goodfellas. This was the perfect camera movement for this moment.
Carrie is walking down the street and after kissing her French architect beau goodnight, she lifts up into the sky literally, so joyful is her heart. This is a crane dolly shot, which is Spike Lee's signature camera move. It worked for me. Carrie was feeling lighter than air and this physical manifestation captured it perfectly.
The male producer who made the show knew how to package and sell this concept. It's a brilliant turn of the book into show. It can be the basis while not be the final delivery. But I wonder, had the show been female driven behind the scenes from the beginning, what kind of show would it have been? Yes, a terrific director I like, Susan Seidelman did the initial episode and some others, but when it comes to t.v. shows, it's really a writer/producer driven medium.
I guess when you've watched thousands of movies over a course of a lifetime and attended film school to hone that craft, I guess I tend to be hyper critical about a show or a film, a bit more than the casual viewer. But to be honest, I had to get over myself to kick back with my MANLY Miller canned beer and enjoy the "girl" talk, so to speak.
I liked the way the women already knew each other. None of this, "Hey, this is Miranda, Charlotte, Samantha, blah, blah, blah." I did predict the meet cute on the street with Mr. Big but that's okay. This is show is about emotion, form not function. But you can tell the show was evolving from the git go. How? The first two episodes, there is a jazzy soundtrack background, dark recesses and shadows, to Carrie's narration of life and love in the big, bad city. It's as she is that lone, weary, cynical detective who has seen the worse of mankind on display as he hunts the unknown killer through false leads and switchbacks. They moved on from that scenario and made it more lighter, airy in the third episode. Even the sets opened up, not so claustrophobic. You'll also notice the camera really doesn't move that much. This is necessary to a female oriented show.
Also in these initial two episodes, Carrie is almost constantly narrating to the camera, breaking that fourth wall to the audience that I wrote about yesterday about Woody Allen's pioneering work. I am old enough to remember when SJP came out in her first t.v. show Square Pegs; I can almost swear she did the same thing in that show.
But by the sixth episode, Carrie is only speaking to the camera several times since the second episode, which is a good thing, as it takes you out of the show for being so self-conscious. The voice-over narration is a better device to move the story along. But I will give them an approving nod for trying this gimmick, as I've never known it to be done in a woman's show before.
By throwing in those first-person mockumentary style testimonials, I thought the producers were pitching in everything into one visual pot luck, trying to determine what would work and what wouldn't work in the long term. I had a feeling they used focus groups initially since the style did change up in the first season.
The best moments are those human moments that come across when Carrie makes those deft insightful observations, such as when the gay couple wanted to buy one of her eggs, and she felt she was now just an incubator, an egg farm so to speak. I was thinking the same thing; even better is when she reveals the female psyche that I have no clue about, giving me a bit of necessary illumination.
As the show expands, the female supporting characters are given their own room to breathe, which I like. It can't always be about Carrie, and the scenes cannot always be perfect, because life is imperfect.
Nitpicking details: Charlotte has sex with an Orthodox Jew? If he was a real Orthodox Jew, he would not even have been speaking with her. I think they threw this in because of visuals, the collision of religion and art.
After Carrie and Mr. Big meet on the street, when they meet again for the first time in a club and Samantha has her eyes on him, describing him as a young Donald Trump, it's as Carrie does not know him, never seen him before. This is a script continuity problem.
Is it me or is everyone white on this show? And in NYC, of all places! The only notable minorities I saw in these first six episodes were the Sikh taxi driver and African-American date of Mr. Big's; both scenes were fleeting. I hope this Caucasian-only world opens up in later episodes.
Technical kudos: The restaurant scene in which Carrie, after being paid money for sex with the French architect is at the nightclub and her Italian party girl friend insists she join her fellow Eurotrash for a trip to Venice. The slimy Italian guy puts his hand on her ass and there is a medium head shot of her as Carrie is realizing her possible future: the camera focus pulls in while the background pulls out simultaneously. This camera maneuver was made famous by famed New Yorker director Marty Scorsese in Goodfellas. This was the perfect camera movement for this moment.
Carrie is walking down the street and after kissing her French architect beau goodnight, she lifts up into the sky literally, so joyful is her heart. This is a crane dolly shot, which is Spike Lee's signature camera move. It worked for me. Carrie was feeling lighter than air and this physical manifestation captured it perfectly.
