Idol Mio

By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 6:48 PM - 3 Comments

I am not proud to admit this, but I approach tonight’s finale of American Idol not knowing a whole lot about what happened this season, other than there was Beatles Night and Sinatra Night and, Canadian Content Shania Night.

I do find it interesting that not only are both the finalists from states that went blue in 2008, both are basically from Chicago: Crystal is from Ohio, but lived and auditioned in Chicago, and Lee is an Illinoisian who also auditioned in Chicago. This makes it depressingly hard to frame the results in terms of the Culture War or red vs. blue. I guess you could say that Ohio is a swing state and closer to the South, therefore if Crystal wins, it’s a red-state victory. But that would really be pushing it. Unlike last year, when we all got to pretend that Kris vs. Adam was a metaphor for all of America and possibly Canada as well.

Also, I was going to make a joke about what Idol always reminds me of, but I see someone has beaten me to it by titling this clip. It’s a well-chosen clip, though it omits the performance that precedes the judging; the point is, American Idol either needs to do a Wagner theme night or hire a singing shoemaker to replace Simon.

Update: So the winner of this rather dull final episode was Lee. I guess this can lead to lots of articles about how both the American President and the American Idol represent the Chicago Way. Or perhaps not, since these contestants aren’t interesting enough to become political footballs. It may be, seriously, that Idol isn’t as much fun when Southerners aren’t in the final running. I’m not talking about the fake politics of it, but the genuine culture clash — regional artistic culture — represented by that “A little bit country/Little bit rock n’ roll” type of showdown. It creates a certain tension that Chicago/Ohio vs. Chicago can never quite recapture. Especially since so much of Idol is based on regional, cultural, and national conflict; a lot of the success of the U.S. version derives from the sight of Simon, a British guy, a representative of the Old World, locking horns with the American contestants and panelists.

For more specific takes on what all this meant, and what Simon means to all of us, see James Poniewozik’s recap. My second post in a row linking to him, but both links are worth reading, so why not?

Update 2: Myles McNutt calls Leda Wise (as I have taken to calling him) “the worst winner in the series’ history.”

Update 3: Ken Levine, who will no longer be reviewing Idol now that Simon’s gone, has posted his final recap, along with a discussion of what’s been wrong with the show since Paula left.

The Commons: First, convince us you’ll do no harm

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 6:21 PM - 137 Comments

The Scene. As his second summer as Liberal leader dawns, Michael Ignatieff’s challenges are many and varied. They are myriad and they are daunting. They are traditional—common to every opposition leader who has ever been unlucky enough to hold the job—and they are unique to his particular circumstance.

It would be silly to rank them, to attempt to even prioritize such complex and interconnected problems. But if there is one question that lingers most persistently, most dangerously and most dispiritingly, it is this: Would Michael Ignatieff, if given the opportunity, destroy this country?

This is, of course, the question that is raised by the government side whenever Mr. Ignatieff so much as opens his mouth. His every proposal portends doom. His every thought indicates dark intentions. His very nature suggests a sinister agenda—most of it apparently having to do with some plan to tax every Canadian into poverty, for what monstrous purpose we can only speculate. Continue…

Apple overtakes Microsoft

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 5:47 PM - 14 Comments

It turns out that the future was in hardware after all. In what some are calling a symbol of one of the most remarkable corporate turnarounds in business history, the market valuation of Apple Inc. has surpassed that of longtime rival Microsoft for the first time ever. At the close of trading Wednesday, Apple’s market capitalization reached nearly US$223 billion compared to about US$219 billion for Microsoft, which has long been the reigning tech champ thanks largely to Windows’ stranglehold on the market for computer operating systems. The change in fortunes follows Apple’s decision several years ago to bring back co-founder Steve Jobs and transform the company from a troubled maker of computers into purveyor of sleek and sexy consumer electronics devices, including the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

New York Times

BP: Well, now that you mention it…

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 5:15 PM - 6 Comments

It took 36 days, but the truth is finally coming out. In a briefing for U.S congressional staff, oil behemoth BP admitted that it made a “fundamental mistake” in the hours leading up to last month’s fatal oil rig explosion. BP says that shortly before the explosion, which killed 11 workers, there were signs of a “very large abnormality” in its Gulf of Mexico well. But despite this, the company kept on drilling. BP also concedes that it was aware of possible contamination of the cement which closed the well off from natural gas, and there was an apparent failure to closely monitor signs of leaking, as well. (It was indeed erupting natural gas that destroyed the rig on April 20.) In the past, BP officials have dismissed what they now call “a very large abnormality” as a “not satisfactory” test result.

Wall Street Journal

CBC News

Week in Pictures: May 20th – 26th 2010

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 5:08 PM - 0 Comments

Al n' Yetta, Fans of Art Linkletter

By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 4:26 PM - 0 Comments

Today saw the death of veteran host Art Linkletter, at the age of 97. He was originally from Saskatchewan, moved to California in his teens, and became a hugely successful radio and television host. His shows were famous for being about you, or at least people you felt like you knew; the formula was to take ordinary people and lives and make us enjoy laughing at them — sometimes affectionately, and sometimes contemptuously. The famous “Kids Say the Darndest Things” segment from House Party (the segment spun off into its own series) was just what it sounded like. “People Are Funny,” which he hosted on radio and TV (though he wasn’t the original choice; Art Baker hosted for the first season), was based on the premise that it can actually be funnier to see regular people get tricked than it is to watch (or hear about) actors pretending to be tricked.

James Poniewozik had some thoughts on how Linkletter’s shows helped to shape the culture and style of modern reality television (and not just reality TV; late-night segments where the host goes out and interacts with real people have obvious roots in shows like “People Are Funny”).

And here’s the Warner Brothers cartoon parody of “People Are Funny,” entitled “People Are Phoney,” and hosted by “Art Lamplighter” (voiced by Daws Butler).

Mark an X if you want a tax break

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 4:20 PM - 7 Comments

Jeff McIntosh / CP

For democracy to thrive, it perhaps must inspire. And if politicians fail to offer the necessary motivation, maybe money can.

After just 41 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot during the last provincial election, the Alberta Liberals are proposing that each citizen who votes in the next one receive a $50 tax credit. “It’s an attempt to push people to think maybe a little bit outside the box,” says Liberal Leader David Swann. “We’re headed for trouble if more and more people check out of this democracy.”

Continue…

That which is actually funny

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 4:09 PM - 29 Comments

Glen Pearson notes the laughter that accompanied Jean Chretien’s return to Parliament Hill yesterday.

Outside of Chretien, it’s really hard to think of our last really funny PM.  Oh sure, there was Pierre Trudeau, but his wit was so knife-sharp that it often left others with nothing to say.  His understudy Chretien, however, told the kind of jokes I used to hear all through the years at the various firehalls I worked in.  What was funny about him was that he was “funny” – that’s all.  At times his humour was brilliant; at other times it could be slightly cruel; and then there were those occasions when it actually became a pragmatic and useful tool for creating ease and bringing out some kind of consensus.

Music: Swing shift

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 3:38 PM - 5 Comments

Sometimes I think my ears take so much music out of the world that it’s only fair to put some back. That’s why I’m on the volunteer board of Ottawa’s Thirteen Strings Chamber Orchestra, a lively little ensemble — guess how many players, and what they play — that has quietly become one of the capital’s most venerable cultural groups.

Next year is our 35th season. It marks the beginning of a brand-new era for Thirteen Strings. To get ready and to help pay the bills, we’re having a spectacular gala fundraiser concert on Friday, June 4 at the auditorium of the National Gallery of Canada. I hope this blog’s Ottawa readers will consider attending.

Highlights:

• Oliver Jones, the legendary Montreal jazz pianist, will be our guest soloist. He’ll bring his trio and a trunkload of his own string arrangements, so the Thirteen Strings will accompany Oliver for several tunes.

• This concert will mark the début of Kevin Mallon as our new artistic director. Kevin’s from Ireland. He played violin in Europe’s finest orchestras before moving to Toronto, and to conducting. As a conductor specializing in Baroque repertoire, he has more than 30 CDs in international release. He’s funny, his enthusiasm is infectious, audiences love him. We’re so lucky to have this guy as our new principal conductor. Continue…

Maclean's Interview: Simon Brault

By Jordan Himelfarb - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 3:27 PM - 2 Comments

Simon Brault is both a member of Canada’s cultural establishment and an iconoclast dedicated to its reimagining. CEO of the National Theatre School and Vice-Chair of the Canada Council for the Arts, Brault is also chairman of Culture Montreal, a grassroots organization that over the last decade brought together governments, business, and Montreal’s arts community to design and pay for a cultural renaissance in the city. His new book, No Culture, No Future, originally published in Quebec as Le Facteur C, is a defence of culture in three parts: a survey of policies historical and ideal, a philosophical rumination on the centrality of culture to human life, and an account of Brault’s ongoing efforts to turn Montreal into an international cultural capital.

Q: What reaction has the original French version of your book received since its publication last Fall?
A: I was surprised to see that the book was primarily covered by journalists interested in public affairs, politics and urban activities, and only later by people reviewing books and culture, which actually confirms the book’s arguments that culture has implications for all aspects of society.

Everybody said if you write an essay on culture nobody would read it, but the book was a commercial success. And in Quebec I think it’s reframing the discussion about the importance of arts and culture at different levels of society. It’s a bit surprising since I’ve been making these arguments consistently for 15 years. I didn’t expect that in this age a book would have such an impact.

Q: I was living in Quebec City during the last federal election and watched the province-wide meltdown of the Conservative campaign after Myriam Taschereau, a Tory candidate, said that “artists are spoiled.” Why is arts funding so important to the people of Quebec?
A: It’s clear that in Quebec there was always and remains a direct link between culture and a sense of identity. There has always been a clear connection between having cultural policies and protecting the French language. For Quebecers, culture is a reflection of who they are, of their right to exist, to be different, to speak French and all of that. What was really important about the last federal election is that culture became an issue in a federal campaign for the first time ever in Canada. Even if it was for all the wrong reasons, it provoked a sense of awareness among politicians about the importance culture has right now, both inside and outside of Quebec.

But for me, as a member of the artistic community, I also realized that our community was not really able to foster a discussion beyond protesting. A lot of the arguments that were made against the arts cuts were quite self-serving or defensive, without regard for consequences for Quebeckers and Canadians outside of the community. That’s one reason I decided to write this book – to connect the various parts of the community and to work out some arguments that might start a discussion rather than just complaining or protesting or being cynical.

Q: Do you think the criticisms of the Conservatives’ culture policies were deserved?
A: What hurt the Conservatives most during the last federal campaign was not so much that they decided to cut culture spending, but more the discourse. The government said they were making the cuts because artists were giving Canada a bad image, that they had bad taste. Nobody can say that they slashed culture – like almost every government in the world, Harper is spending more on culture than any government in the country’s history – but it’s clear that after the last election, they had to fix things and establish a sense of trust between them and the artistic community. And [Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages] James Moore is obviously on a mission to build bridges, and I think in some instances, such as with the Canada Council – protecting its budget and even increasing it – he’s succeeded. It’s clearly not natural for them, they’ve clearly never considered it important, but after the election, they’re aware that it could be damaging if it’s not well managed. And I would call that progress.

Q: How does a country with a population roughly equivalent to Tokyo’s, spread across an enormous land mass, create a cultural community as vibrant as those in more densely populated areas?
A: Density is certainly a factor of building a vital cultural sector, and that’s why most of the major cities in Canada do have a vibrant arts scene. For years we had a vision of culture as top down, from government down to the people, but now we see that cities are really the hub of cultural creativity. And I think in Canada we have cities that can easily compete with the rest of the world, not only because of their size but because of their diversity.

It’s very interesting to see globally how cities are becoming cultural engines, because they concentrate a lot of the civilization’s challenges – the challenges of trying to live together.

Q: Given that cities are becoming increasingly important to the cultural vitality of countries, do Canada’s cities have sufficient independence and resources to meet this challenge?
A: It’s difficult in Canada. If you look at Canada compared to many European countries, you can see that local governments and municipalities don’t have large capacities in terms of making decisions and shaping the way they are organized and operated. Federal and provincial governments still have a lot to say, especially with regard to culture.

Even twenty years ago, you wouldn’t have imagined that people would say that a way to transform and rethink the city is culture. But it’s clear now that if we want to see a real cultural boom in Canada more power has to be given to cities. And I think it will happen not only because of culture but because of the economy and environment, too. The movement is slower in Canada than in the rest of the world, but it will happen. It’s the demographic and economic reality.

Q: You write at length about the economic benefits of cultural investment, but you warn policymakers not to limit their arguments in favour of culture spending to the economic. What do you see as the intrinsic value of culture?
A: Arts and culture bring to any society the capacity for self-expression, for citizens to say out loud their malaise, or their joy, or their difficulties. Self-expression is absolutely important because if it’s not expressed in artistic creation and in culture it will inevitably be expressed in violence and confrontation and wars and exclusionary beliefs. I think culture is the way to make sure that human beings can still share values. It seems abstract, but at the same time, it’s vital in order to maintain our capacity to live together in a world where people are more and more isolated and where situations are more and more complex.

Q: Despite the book’s alarming title, No Culture, No Future strikes me as more hopeful than despairing. You acknowledge in the book that we live in a time beset by crisis and complex problems without obvious solutions, and yet rather than disengage, you build a grassroots movement that successfully lobbies for hundreds of millions of dollars in arts and culture funding. How do you keep the faith?
A: Because I think that culture is one of the driving forces of society. Culture has the power to transform individuals and society, and I see in that fact a way to protect and advance civilization. With culture, you can have a grasp on the future of the world. And I think it’s important to remember that transformative power at a time when we feel so powerless.

$ex and the City 2

By Brian D. Johnson - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 3:22 PM - 13 Comments

The sisterhood (from left) Cynthia Nixon, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall and Kristin Davis

Offering my views on the latest adventures of Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte strikes me as a pointless task. There’s no doubt that Sex and the City 2, like its predecessor, will be critic-proof, and man-proof. As a male critic, I’m totally not the target audience for this film. And whatever I have to say about it will be automatically suspect. I could condemn it outright as a witless, shapeless and shameless confection that is more about money than sex. But what difference would it make? I’ve already spoken to a several women who admit they’re eager to see it no matter how bad it might be. These four Manhattan superwomen of shopping and romance are their guilty pleasure, the chick-flick answer to the action blockbusters that cater to immature male fantasy. But I think these women will feel disappointed and betrayed.

Personally, I was a fan of the Sex and the City TV series; I watched almost every episode. And even though the first movie significantly blunted its subversive edge, you could still find a glimmer of genuine romance, and some evidence of actual relationships, in among all the shoes and shopping and real-estate porn. But the sequel goes beyond the pale. It turns Carrie and the gang into a parody of their former selves, virtual drag queens in a bourgeois gay pride parade of female caricature. These are no longer working women who like to shop. They’re post-feminist Barbies trapped in a Disney World of absurd opulence. Any promise of an emotional narrative is stifled—along with love and sex—in an orgy of outrageous costumes, five-star decor and cheap one-liners. This is Sex and the City: Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Continue…

The questions that parenting books don't prepare you for

By Scott Feschuk - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 9 Comments

Lukas Creter/ GETTY IMAGES

Our two sons, 11 and 9 years old, aren’t sure what Cialis and Viagra are for—but dammit, they’re starting to ask questions. They’re maturing as young men. Clearly the time has come to sit each boy down, put an arm around his shoulder and continue to lie like hell. Viagra? Well, son, it’s uhhh . . . it’s basically a Flintstones vitamin for grown-ups. And Cialis? That one prevents older gentlemen from growing a third arm out of their backs. Now go to bed.

There was a commercial for one of the erectile dysfunction pills before the screening of Iron Man 2. The older boy turned to me and said: “I don’t get it—does that stuff make you happy?” I briefly considered an experiment in honesty: Well, that dude there couldn’t get it up to pleasure his wife. Now he can. So she’s singing and playing the lute or whatever. Instead I fell back on the time-tested response of pretending to choke to death on my popcorn. Terrifying for the kids, but a real conversation shifter.

Continue…

Greetings government readers

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 1:47 PM - 61 Comments

Worried about “misinformation,” the government is apparently training bureaucrats to monitor online discussions and interject wherever it is deemed necessary.

The move started recently with a pilot project on the East Coast seal hunt. A Toronto-based company called Social Media Group has been hired to help counter some information put forward by the anti-sealing movement. The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade has paid the firm $75,000 “to monitor social activity and help identify … areas where misinformation is being presented and repeated as fact,” Simone MacAndrew, a department spokesperson, said in an email…

It appears to be just the beginning. The seal hunt pilot project was set up in part “to establish foundations and recommendations for future programs and campaigns to use social media as another way to listen to, inform and engage with Canadians,” MacAndrew added.

Afghanistan: "This is a bleeding ulcer right now"

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 1:33 PM - 23 Comments

Gen. Stanley McCrystal checks up on the progress in Marja and discovers, in extraordinarily frank language, that there hasn’t been enough. Marja is intended to be a prelude to the push in Kandahar that will be the last major Canadian operation before the bulk of our military engagement there ends. And Marja is not going well at all.

Dream on

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 1:19 PM - 24 Comments

In his interviews with CTV and the CBC yesterday, former prime minister Jean Chretien decidedly downplayed the significance of any discussions he and Ed Broadbent may have had about any future Liberal-NDP coalition. Mr. Chretien and Mr. Broadbent similarly shrugged to reporters after yesterday’s portrait unveiling. (For the record, their involvement in the events of December 2008 were documented by John Geddes and I at the time.)

When this speculation first surfaced last week, I asked an interested individual who would know what he knew. Though he did not answer the question directly, he did, by way of response, send along the following video clip. Continue…

Convent con job

By Tom Henheffer - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 1:00 PM - 1 Comment

Carabinieri

A small group of priests bustling through the streets and buildings surrounding the Madre Cabrini convent in the heart of Milan, Italy, weren’t on their way to give alms to the poor. They weren’t on their way to church. They were watching for drug smugglers, and—underneath the collars and vestments—were actually carabinieri, members of Italy’s national police force. Last week they swapped the cassocks for bulletproof vests, and, with guns drawn, kicked down the convent’s wooden doors. “The nuns were absolutely puzzled,” says Rocco Papaleo, captain of the carabinieri’s investigation unit and head of the team that made the bust. “They can’t get around it. They’re still wondering what happened.”

Continue…

The meaning of LOST

By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 12:58 PM - 22 Comments

I find this pretty funny: the networks’ habit of finding other images to show during the credits — instead of just showing the credits — has caught up with them. During the final credits of Lost, ABC didn’t want to show promos for other shows (and there were no upcoming episodes of Lost to plug), but they continued to put the credits in a rectangle at the bottom of the screen, and picked something to put at the top of the screen. What they chose was the footage of the destroyed plane that started it all. Except that, by showing this image, they were unwittingly making it part of the show, like those tags sitcoms sometimes have over the closing credits. Which means that many viewers decided that the footage meant something, argued over what it meant, and finally forced ABC to issue a denial that all the characters died in the plane crash.

ABC’s denial actually doesn’t mean a whole lot at this point; whether they wanted it to or not, let alone whether the creators wanted it (they didn’t), they made that footage part of the episode, and people who watched it are perfectly free to incorporate it into their viewing experience and their reading of the show. (What the creators intended is never as relevant as what was actually up there on the screen.) So while there’s an argument that the final footage doesn’t, in fact, mean that the characters were all dead all along, it’s hard to argue that it means nothing: it’s there, so it means something to us. People watching the show in other formats — for example, the DVD will just have the white credits on a black background — will not have that as part of their experience, so this is a case where watching a show “live” on the network can literally be a different experience than watching it anywhere else.

None of this would have happened if the network had just shown the credits as produced, but networks have always been leery of just showing the credits at the end of the night; the thinking is that the audience needs some sort of extra content to keep them at the television set until the news comes on. This used to be done in the form of voice-overs, which at least didn’t attempt to add new visual content to what we’d just seen. Maybe they should have taken a page from Jay Leno and had Jimmy Kimmel do a voice-over announcement over the original credits.

What kind of transparency?

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 12:52 PM - 5 Comments

As Parliament moves slowly, but probably surely, towards some kind of public audit of Parliamentary expenses, the London Free Press asks area MPs if they might turn over their books to the paper. (At least one offers an unequivocal yes.)

Meanwhile, Liberal Rob Oliphant posts a breakdown of his expenses. His is even more detailed than that published by his fellow backbencher Michelle Simson, but it is also perhaps well short of what some are clamouring for.

Pakistan court upholds decision to release Hafiz Mohammad Saeed

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 12:38 PM - 1 Comment

The man India accuses of masterminding the 2008 massacre in Mumbai will remain free after Pakistan’s Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision to release him. Hafiz Mohammad Saeed founded the Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, thought to be behind the attack, but Saeed claims he had nothing to do with it. Saeed had not been charged but was placed under house arrest after the United Nations proscribed Lashkar-e-Taiba. He was released last June when a Lahore high court said there was no evidence to justify his continued detention. Pakistan’s federal and Punjabi provincial governments had asked for a review of the Lahore court’s decision.

BBC News

Reuters

Israel's secret and cozy relationship with apartheid South Africa

By Michael Petrou - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 12:32 PM - 7 Comments

This book will make a splash.

Glenn Frankel, former Southern Africa and Jerusalem bureau chief for the Washington Post, discusses it here.

Bottled water full of bacteria

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 12:28 PM - 14 Comments

In country blessed with some of the safest drinking water in the world, many people still prefer to pay for the bottled stuff. But according to researchers in Montreal, several popular brands actually contain more bacteria than the old-fashioned water that comes from a tap. The researchers won’t reveal which brands have “surprisingly high” levels of heterotrophic bacteria, but they did say that more than 70 per cent of the samples contained levels that failed to meet basic standards for medications and health-care products. “Despite having the cleanest tap water, a large number of urban Canadians are switching over to bottled water for their daily hydration requirements,” said Sonish Azam, one of the study’s authors. “The consumer assumes that since bottled water carries a price tag, it is purer and safer than most tap water.” Not true.

Vancouver Sun

Heart attack survivors avoid sex

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 12:22 PM - 3 Comments

Heart attack survivors tend to avoid sex out of the fear that it could kill them, according to U.S. researchers, who told an American Heart Association meeting that survivors were most likely to avoid it if their doctor didn’t talk to them about sex. In a study of 1,700 people, lead researcher Dr. Stacy Tessler Lindau found the chance of dying during sex was “really small,” the BBC reports. In the study of 1,184 men and 576 women who had survived heart attacks, they were assessed one month after the event and then again a year later. Patients who’d been instructed on resuming sexual activity after discharge from the hospital were more likely to have sex in the following year.

BBC News

Alcohol can help prevent diabetes: study

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 12:13 PM - 0 Comments

According to a 10-year study of 35,000 adults conducted by a Dutch research team, healthy adults who drink up to two glasses of alcohol per day have a smaller chance of developing Type 2 diabetes, which occurs mainly in people age 40 and over, the BBC reports. Those who consumed moderate amounts of alcohol and met at least three of four conditions for a healthy lifestyle had a 40 per cent less chance of developing it than those who didn’t drink. (Moderate consumption was defined as one glass per day for women, and two for men; conditions of a healthy lifestyle included obesity prevention, not smoking, exercise and a balanced diet.) Type 2 diabetes is the most common form and is often caused by obesity.

Reuters

'Sex and the City 2' receives scathing reviews

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 11:42 AM - 14 Comments

Fans have waited with bated breath for the Sex and the City sequel, which premiered in New York on Monday night, but critics are tearing it apart, the Belfast Telegraph reports in a round-up of reviews. The first online review, from Ed Gonzales of Slant Magazine, awarded it 1.5 stars out of four. On Rotten Tomatoes, he called it a “fascist, superficial assessment of the Sex And The City girls’ intelligence and insults them as the women we came to know them as on television [sic]” Variety’s Brian Lowry said the movie “overstay[ed] its welcome,” while the Hollywood Reporter called it a “two-hour fashion show.” It was also called “anti-Muslim” due to its portrayal of Abu Dhabi. In one scene, the main characters are rescued by Muslim women who strip off their burkas, revealing stylish Western outfits. They are also portrayed singing a karaoke version of “I am woman” in an Abu Dhabi nightclub, which the Hollywood Reporter called a “scathing portrayal of Muslim society.”

Belfast Telegraph