In The Queue

Having listed the movies that are coming out this summer, I notice my own queue contains only one potential film on that list.

Son of Rambow, about some young outsider kids who make their own sequel to (presumably) "Rambo", including doing their own stunts, etc., and who have to deal with the popularity making the movie brings.

If I can, I'll see Refusenik, about the fate of Soviet Jews.

I may see The Fall, which was inappropriately previewed during Prince Caspian. I didn't care much for The Cell, though it was undoubtedly striking. I just think you can have striking visuals and a coherent, compelling plot.

And the last one? Sex in the City. My grandfather loved that show. He died in his '90s a few years ago, and went from the Depression and Hedy Lamarr to the raunchy antics of Sex in the City in his lifetime. I got him the first season on video, but I don't think he ever knew how to work the VCR.

As with most shows I watch, I'll watch the first season or two and then lose interest. SatC was no different, but I did enjoy the show when I did catch it. I didn't really think about what it "meant" because it wouldn't have occurred to me to relate to it beyond a very basic, human level. And the show was cleverly written and reasonably sound dramatically.

Did it encourage promiscuity? Is it a bad role model? Meh. Remember "The Love Boat"? That was pretty much a show that was nothing but an assortment of people getting around to having sex, most of it casual. And the sex solved all their problems.

The beauty of having women act like gay men (as The Simpson's described it) is that you have an excuse for nudity and titillating sex scenes that, let's face it, if they were gay men, would really turn off the straight male audience.

I guess the other side of this is that, week after week, there was a strong undercurrent of unhappiness among the four women. They were always vaguely--or not so vaguely--unsatisfied by their lives.

So I never could see why anyone would want to take them as a role model.

Still, funny show. Come to think of it, sort of like Seinfeld.